The four of them, well, five, if you counted Ellen and Rose as two separate entities, made their way out of the large viewing chamber, this time, with a much greater sense of urgency. While they had never figured that their task here had remained secret, it now weighed heavily upon them that they had been here quite a while, and had made a good bit noise. Boots and foots clomped, stomped, and smacked on the ground as they made their way, but a sudden noise from the end of the hallway brought them to a sudden halt.
Just a few meters away from the T-junction that would bring them down the main hallways toward the elevator, and therefore freedom, they found that their prospective retreat was now covered by the eyes of several threatening defenders. Two Nightmare-type Mishhu stood there, flanking what appeared to be a customized Reaper armor, although it lacked a helmet and the large thruster backpack. The head sticking out of the reaper's neck-hole, however, was disturbingly familiar.
It was Luca Pavone's head. It bore a huge, shit-eating grin that spoke volumes of gloating and superiority, and the armor beneath it held itself with a certain air of cockiness and swagger that was not unlike that of someone who thought he'd already won.
"Ah, So it's you." Aerin called out to the Man, the Luca-man. "I had hoped to retrieve myself while you weren't here, but, I guess my plans weren't to be." Grinning herself, Aerin raised the model Sixteen Gauss rifle in her hands defiantly, getting ready to fight.
Danny was looking at the man before Aerin. He knew him and had seen his face a long time ago, but something wasn't right. He looked to Aerin for a lead and got it, raising the 10mm pistol shakily and gritting his teeth. The gun was pointed at the man's chest, and shaking only a little. He didn't care if it was armored head to toe.
The man spoke up. Immediately, Danny could tell that he wasn't actually Luca, even if the power armor and body language hadn't tipped him off. "Ohh, so sorry of me to ruin your party, haha! But now I'll get the pleasure of having both your body and mind contained in my Private collection~" the man cooed evilly, grinning more, unphased by Aerin and Danny's shows of defiance.
"Hey, hey, question," Danny asked, not giving much credence to the feather puffing. He waited for him to respond as he lined up his question.
The Luca-looka-like turned his head suddenly at Danny, looking less than pleased. 'What do you want you sniveling little piece of shit?" he asked, a distorted version of Luca's voice accompanied with a harsh tone of hatred, anger, and impatience spat forth from the man's lips.
"What is it I gave you that made you go from just another mercenary to what I'm seeing standing in front of me?" Something in the normally meek man's tone was growing severe as he remembered Luca's conduct when they had met, "You-uh, remember faces, right? Or do you see stepping stones?" His eyes momentarily darted between Aerin, Samir and Rose.
"It isn't him." Aerin interrupted Danny. "I've dealt with him before. An NMX Clone, known as 'Mr Boss." Aerin didn't seem too pleased as she said this, gripping her weapon tighter.
"In the flesh!" Mr. Boss responded, grinning like a bandit. "Now, If you'll excuse me, I'm going to have to kill all of your, except, of course, my trophy, here. it's a shame that I'll be forced to torture her until I can find a new doctor to put her in stasis."
Danny pulled the trigger as the thing that was standing before him. And then he kept on firing at the person whose image he'd propelled to stardom. "If you're going to kill, kill! Don't fucking talk!" he snarled, eyes wide with violence.
Danny's bullet simply bounced away, not a ping or a clang, no satisfying sound of it impacting on metal. No, the armor's Shield systems simply did away with it, flinging it aside like a plaything.
The Luca-like laughed at Danny's vain attempt at harming him, and then did the least amount of work he could- he lifted a finger, pointing at those before him. The two Nightmares pounced, Jumping forth with inhuman speed to attack the group in close quarters.
Aerin's rifle opened up, Gauss-propelled rounds pounding their way through the air to impact on the stomachs of the Nightmare-types, but their skin was blasted away to reveal hard carapace armor just under the surface- Aerin would need different ammunition to defeat these creatures!
"Rose, did we bring any more AP?" she asked.
"Only what's left in the other magazine..." the Ai responded, unhappily.
"Danny, Samir, could you cover me? I have to reload. Rose! Get Ellen out of here, and bring us some bigger guns!" Aerin shouted, laying down a barrage of fire that had the Nightmares pause, holding up their armored hands to hide their faces from the flying metal.
How Danny was to cover Aerin and buy time was a strange suggestion. Unarmored, only having a baton, a stunning gun, and two armored opponents plus ONE guy happy to sit back and watch it happen as though he'd already won.
At the very least, he could keep one of them distracted. He just had to figure out how. He looked at Samir for an answer as he focused on trying to avoid the Nightmare's claws, backstepping and bobbing.
Samir's response was to drop the borrowed jacket and transform into a shape much like that of the Nightmare-types, growing large claws and hardening parts of her body to keep herself from getting bisected. Not that the Nightmares could kill her that easily, but it was better for her to be safe than sorry. The NH-18 locked claws with one of the Nightmares, blocking its forward movement and keeping it very occupied- but it wasn't like Danny could do the same.
Still, he would have noticed that the nightmares had been covering their faces before- perhaps there was some weakness there. Danny was still moving backwards until he hit the back of a wall. He sidestepped as a claw came down over his head and ended up getting his left shoulder cut through his suit and blood staining the back wall - the fact that he was able to avoid a solid blow from landing and tearing his face off seemed to enrage the Nightmare, who yowled at him.
He drew his stun gun, realizing that he was now holding two guns in either hand, and fired the stungun at her mouth while backing away in abject terror.
The Nightmare didn't stop, although it wasn't too happy about being stunned in the face. Its clawed hands recoiled back and away from Danny, but it instead rose up into the air, hovering threateningly, and began to blindly kick at Danny. And then Danny heard a click from where Aerin had been standing, and a few rounds from the Model Sixteen. There was a sickening cracking crunch and Danny watched the Nightmare's sides erupt into fountains of blood and gore as Aerin emptied the last of her Armor piercing rounds into the Mishhu creature.
Somewhere in the midst of it all, Rose had disappeared, following Aerin's orders, but so had the Luca impersonator, having left the three combatants to his guards. Samir was still locked in a struggle with the second Nightmare as the first fell to the floor, not quite dead but definitely quite mortally wounded. It could probably heal itself, though, so Danny would have to move quickly to kill it.
One gun in each hand was an impractical and scary idea for a real battle. This, however was unfolding to become an unreal battle so the self-said rules of the battlefield were out of effect, and since Danny had the 10mm pistol in his other hand, he looked at the Nightmare that Aerin had filled with holes lying in a heap before him, crouched down and placed the barrel against its head, firing three times.
On the last shot he was out of ammunition. Slide pushed back open, action empty and brass on the floor. He needed a magazine from Aerin. "Uh, mag please!" he cried out as he watched the Nightmare in front of him convulse in its death throes.
Aerin looked up from what she was doing- switching back to the magazine filled with standard HE rounds, and nodded to Danny "Gimme a sec-" she confirmed, clicking the magazine back where it went.
Meanwhile, Samir and the Nightmare had moved away from the others. Despite the Nightmare's sharp claws and armor plating, it was clear that the NH-18 was stronger than it. And by the sounds of the mishhu creature, Samir was doing more than just pushing it along.
Aerin, on the other hand, had by now retrieved a new magazine and tossed it to Danny, holding out her hand for the empty one in return. Apparently she didn't want to leave anything other than bullets here.
He ejected the spent magazine and stuffed the new one in, tossing the empty magazine back to his benefactor. Danny then moved towards Samir and once he was within arm's length of the Nightmare and standing near Samir, he started peppering the Nightmare's face with lead.
The Nightmare continued screeching, now louder as its face was being pelted with 10mm rounds from Danny's gun. Suddenly, and without warning, the Mishhu creatures hands simply fell off, having been eaten away by Samir's Femtomachines. Quickly, Samir took advantage of the floundering Nightmare and grabbed it by the torso, slamming it, hard, against the wall repeatedly until the wall broke, crumbling through to reveal a stockroom full of foodstuffs.
Aerin came by and, as Samir held the dazed and battered Nightmare aloft, shelled its face in with a barrage of HE rounds, which, once the magazine emptied and smoke cleared, was revealed to be nothing more than fleshy, dripping pulp, as the Nightmare went completely limp. Samir threw it down on the ground and morphed back into her original shape, retrieving the jacket and putting it on. she looked at the two nekovalkyrja-like carcasses and hrmph'ed
"I guess they don't make them like they used to. Glad I'm an older model." she quipped.
"I think we should probably head down the hallway, hopefully we can catch Mr. Boss before he catches Rose." Aerin spoke up, rummaging through her backpack and procuring another magazine of HE rounds for the rifle.
Danny nodded in reply and made tracks with the others. Though, the sight of foodstuffs had made him wonder if he could grab one and snack on it on the way but he had to perish the thought - time was of the essence and if this 'Mr. Boss' didn't turn out to be all fur coat and no knickers. "This Mr. Boss guy is an asshole!" Danny concluded as he ran down the corridor with the others.
When they got to the end of the hallway, they were met with a broken elevator which had had some large holes punched through it. The shaft leading up toward the entrance on the surface seemed to be open, however, and they could hear the win whipping its way in through the hole Danny had made earlier, as well as the occasional crack of thunder and lightning from outside. They had no choice but the climb for now.
Aerin slung the rifle over her shoulder, and began to scale the piping that went along the wall, but she seemed to be having a little bit of trouble. despite being a Yamataian, it didn't seem she could use her antigravity ability at the moment.
Danny sighed and rubbed his injured shoulder, looking at it and wondering if he'd get an infection. He started climbing up the pipes, not having the inherent advantages of Aerin or Samir but still able to keep pace by using his scampering and uncanny ability to move across any terrain. He looked down at Samir and wondered how she'd approach it.
Samir seemed to observe the wall before her, with the intent of one contemplating somethign serious. Perhaps, she had simply been here so long that the idea of actually leaving was difficult to her, as much as she may want it. Or, perhaps, she was just waiting for the others. Before long, Samir raised an arm, and suddenly it stretched out like a rubber band being tugged, grabbing onto a handhold one story up. She then drew herself up, the arm which had been stretched thin returning to its original size as she did so.
Aerin simply continued shuffling her way up the pipe, using the advantages of strength and lightness, although she would have preferred to simply hover up, as she normally would have done. However, something wasn't quite right about her body. She simply shrugged it off of aftereffects of the long hibernation and sudden awakening. Her body would likely regain its proper functions before long.
"So, Aerin," Danny asked as he continued climbing alongside her, trying to get some conversation in now that the adrenaline had run dry. "Have you seen the real Luca recently?"
Aerin grunted a little in exertion as she pulled herself up the pipe a bit more, nearing the top. "I have. He and I had a conversation, which ended up in him changing his mind about the way he had been acting, and now, he's all good again..." Aerin grimaced, pulling herself up and over the final ledge, to tumble in a pile ontop the cold, hard floor, exhausted from the climb. "I feel old... that's weird..."
"Can, can you tell him I say hi?" he said as though he were professing admiration for another in some slice-of-life Yamataian high school drama. He pulled himself over the ledge and laid on his back for a little and exhaled before looking up at Samir with a look of jealousy. She just leapt up the huge thing that Aerin and Danny had to climb like chumps!
After a few moments, Aerin stood up again, taking a few deep breaths. She looked around for Danny's power armor, and found it- rather destroyed, laying in a pile of busted metal and electronics next to an indentation on the wall, as apparently it had been thrown. There were no other signs of anyone around here, though there did appear to be two sets of footprints leading away from the bunker-like entrance when Aerin looked outside.
"Well, this isn't good..." Aerin muttered.
Danny contemplated the crater where he'd left his armor, looked outside and frowned. "What are we supposed to do? Walk back to the shuttle in the thunderstorm?" he remembered what happened to him last time vividly.
Danny's question was answered as suddenly the Roc appeared before them, dropping suddenly out of the sky and bouncing on its thrusters, mere centimeters off the ground. The side door was opened, but nobody seemed to be inside it.
"Get in!" Rose's voice yelled over the ship's loudspeaker. "We've only got a few moments!" Aerin didn't waste any time and hopped through the hatch; Samir however hesitated for a moment before taking a breath and jumping through the hatch herself. Danny leapt across the air and into the hatch as well. He didn't want to spend another moment here.
With Danny safely inside, the hatch snapped closed, and suddenly the shuttle lurched upward, blasting into the sky. There were, of course, numerous bolts of lightning that caused the shuttle to zig and zag, even though they couldn't do much to it, but, suddenly, a warning light and buzzer came on, and a screen in the cockpit told them all that Mr. Boss was approaching from behind, flying in his power armor.
A thud informed them of his sudden grasping onto the shuttle's wing, and they could hear, through the hull and insulation and systems and engine noise and everything, The man yelling profanities at them. However, the shuttle continued to climb, and before long the man was forced to drop as his face started to freeze. As a final 'eff you', Rose swished the tail of the shuttle, blowing thruster wash across the power armor as it fell from the sky.
"Good riddance..." Aerin muttered, as they breached the atmosphere, finding themselves safely out in space, away from the planet's hazards. Communications were restored, and navigation became possible. They were free.
Danny breathed a sigh of relief and put the gun Aerin had given him down on a table and unclipping the straps that held his backpack and his carrying mesh together, letting them fall to the floor. He then grabbed his collar and found an invisible seam and started peeling his skintight suit away from his body and peeled it down to his chest and looked at the wound he'd received. He was still exactly as wiry as Aerin remembered him, but there was just a little more flesh on those bones as time went on.
"Samir, could you p-patch me up, please?" he asked, voice askitter as he realized that he could finally relax, sitting down on the bed.
Samir made her way over to Danny with his request. when he looked in her eyes, he could see some confusion, or conflict, or perhaps disbelief. She nodded, wordlessly beginning to work on his wound, one of her hands turning into small medical instruments, with a sort of metallic thread being produced from it as well. Her other hand she simply layed on his shoulder, and he could feel a bit of tingling as the femtomachines worked at cleaning out his wound.
"Sorry I don't have any anesthetic," She apologized, as she began to sew up the gash. "I'll try to be gentle," she cooed, suddenly seeming calm as she had something to focus on, something normal to do. Danny meanwhile was curling his toes in his suit's feet and tensing his legs as the doctor got to work on him.
"What will you do- anh-" he tensed, "after this? Maybe work for ungh- Origin?"
Aerin piped up from her place in the cockpit. "I'm sure I can find a spot for you, I am the CEO, and all." she seemed, however, to be mostly intent on setting their return course. "Oh, when you're done with him, could you check on Ellen? Rose says her vitals are stable but she is having erratic brainwaves." There was some concern evident in Aerin's voice, though that was drowned out by the Shuttle slipping into FTL suddenly.
Samir had, luckily for Danny, already finished sewing him up. "Perhaps..." She mused, looking over her handiwork and moving next to observe the unconscious girl whom the Power armor had deposited on one of the folding beds. "Though I think I want to settle somewhere out of the way, and open up a practice." Samir began to check over Ellen, noting that the girl's brow was furrowed and covered in sweat, and she was moving a little bit- classic signs of a nightmare.
Danny didn't want to intervene in what was going on. The doctor was a doctor after all. He started peeling more of his suit off and let it hang behind him. He kept his belt on to make sure it didn't slip any further than it hand to, and tied the arms together in a loose knot and sat down at the chair to watch Samir tend to Ellen. He looked at Aerin and asked. "Anything to eat?"
Now that the shuttle was in FTL, Aerin was free to talk to Danny about that. She came over, and pointed to one of the sets of drawers that was embedded into one of the walls. "That one should have a bunch of snacks in it. The one below, some drinks. Mostly it's junk food, especially since a Yamataian body won't be effected by it." Having said that, Aerin decided that she, too, was hungry, and opened up the draw herself, procuring a pack of spicy crisps, which she wrenched open and began to munch on.
Danny grabbed an Origin Breakfast Bears Breakfast bar in double chocolate flavour, unwrapped it and started munching it down. "So how'd you, um, end up with Ellen?" he asked, first question being obvious.
"Well," Aerin began, sighing, and stuffing a few more potato crisps in her mouth, "It's a long story..." Danny looked at the snacks in the drawer. He was prepared for a long story.
~Fin~