RP: Taking It Back [Time-out!] New Players, New Problems

Jack doubled back from the increasingly hot fire after dispatching the fire bomber to the afterlife, moving from one junk pile to another to avoid getting shot while keeping his pistol at the ready. It wasn't long until he saw the boat sliding down from the top of the junk pile that he was taking cover against, and quite frankly, the scene would've been hilarious in his opinion if the boat wasn't sliding down on his direction.

The former gang-member dived to the side to avoid the sliding boat, quickly getting up and pointing his gun to the top of the pile to see if someone hadn't done that on purpose, turning his attention back to the boat when he didn't find anyone and spotting Rennik inside the boat.

Jack smiled, the same unnerving smile he had shown before, and lowered his pistol while he extended his other hand towards the man. "Nice bathtub you got there." Was all he said.

Caffran moved quickly and surely away from the fire and towards the men with the spot lights. He used his cybernetic right eye’s magnification to zoom in on them and see how they were armed and situated. They were a little far for accurate pistol shooting, but being a weapon tester and knowing exactly how his revolver shot Caffran was confident in his ability to score a hit even at this range. He raised his revolver, sighted, adjusted for the wind, and fired.

"I wonder if it would looks 'sarcastic' if I would punch you in the face Stalker," Chrys remarked back at Alex, but looking away clearly showing that she was not interested in any further talks about this. She enjoyed a firm squeeze of her buttocks and smiled at Lucas.

"Lucas we have a problem," Chrys whispered to her hulkish boyfriend while Alexander bragged about how clever he was. "Minnie is to nice and innocent. I did not get any sex-toys. I could not even ask. But we do need that lube luv!" She said sounding a little tense.

Rennik saw the extended hand and didn't hesitate to grab hold, leaping out of the boat in the same motion. He landed hard on the hill, but was able to turn enough to see the boat continue careening downward towards the base.
He looked to his rescuer to discover that it was one of the new guys.
"Oui" he replied to Jack "but it did not come with water"

Jack watched the boat slide down the junk pile and stop with a loud crash. "It doesn't seems to be serviceable anymore." He said, not quite getting Rennik's joke and checking his pistol again before continuing, pulling the weapon's slide to see if there was still ammo inside, "We better wrap this up fast, I still wanna blow something up today. You lead the way." He said.

Raven moved further into the junkyard hunting for any of the thugs that were alone or isolated so that he could start taking them out before they managed to get to the others. He had his SGAR up and at the ready, trusting in his armor to take the first blast of any hostile weaponry and give him the time to turn and react and turn them into a corpse as quickly as possible. If he didn't find any obvious targets he'd make his way up to the highest point he could reach to start operating as a sharpshooter and start plinking away at some of the targets that would be visible from his location.

Just as quickly as the junkyard seemed to heat up, it had calmed down again. Rennik's ride had drawn the attention needed for the others to fire upon the spotlights. Between Archie's carefully placed riflery and Caffran's revolving potshots, the lights were soon abandoned again in favor of cover. Once again, though they could be heard, the remaining junkyard dogs movements were as phantoms.

In the back, where Raven had forded the metallic corridors, rushed footsteps greeted four men running past the end of the corridor Raven had most recently rounded the corner of. The four men didn't seem to notice him, continuing their hasty sprint towards the back of the yard.

The front area of the junkyard was now completely empty. Silent, even for the closed up security box where the foreman had locked himself tight. Sammy had calmed down markedly, seeming to be in better spirits as he'd found his beloved red pills.

"I found them, I can't believe it!" He held them up to Archie and Alexis, ignoring the tense situation beyond the building, "The red ones! These'll make everything better. They make me good at everything!"

As the battered car salesman swallowed the pills, the deep rumbling of thunder cried from the city, not far away. After it faded, there was a new sound. Raven would be able to hear it first, amidst faint hurried voices and stiff footsteps. Then it would come to Caffran's ears, further ahead. Eventually, Jack and Rennik would come to recognize it and very soon afterwords, it would fill the entire yard.

It was a farmiliar sound to most Nepleslians. It was a musical chord often associated with caution stripes and hard-hats. The typical work-a-day construction crew's hallmark machine, the bulldozer.

-----

The clouds above the portion of the team that had moved into the city threatened rain even harder than before. The rumble of distant thunder barked a command to them to hurry along and return to the submarine. Even as they came upon Nika's fenced up booth, droplets of water began to salt the ground. Lucas put his hand over his brow and squinted up at the sky.

"I hope it's not rainin' tomorrow when we have to attack that island in boats." He hoped aloud, a single drop landing on his shoulder.

"It may." Alex provided, "But if it does, the rain will only stand to provide us assistance by making our approach less obvious. What you should be worried about is how we will get our hands on the explosives necessary to blow the defensive emplacements."

Minerva hopped to a stop next to them, having fallen behind a moment ago to pluck a flowery-weed from an overgrown planter on the corner of one of the roads. With the yellow flower dangling over her ear, she grabbed onto Alex again, causing him to shudder visibly.

"We can just buy some at a gun store, can't we?" She asked, bubbly as ever. Alex shook his head.

"It is not that simple, Minerva. We don't want to attract attention. This is a surprise attack. The very fact that we emerged for boats and a welder might look suspicious to the enemy. They have sympathizers in the city, according to what we took from a police station last month."

"Yea-heah." Lucas put his arm around Chrys. "The police station where romance rose from the ashes of burnt Mishu punks!"

Alex sighed and rubbed at his forehead.

"Mister Dalton, now is not the time to intoxicate yourself considering that food will need operating." Archie chided evenly as he peered around the armored office with his rifle held low.

As the sound of the bulldozer grew louder he sighed loudly "Lets see what sort of crudely armored monstrosity of a vehicle they have saved up, shall we." he said as plain bullets were extracted out of his rifle for a full magazine of red tipped bullets, the chamber closed with that distinctive finalizing snap of his weapon as he turned the handle.

"If you have any desire to cause explosions, mon ami, then perhaps your target arrives, yes?" Rennik said to Jack as he scrambled back up the junk hill. He headed for the top, hoping to get a good view for the bulldozer. And, of course, hoping the bulldozer didn't get a good look at him...

"Aww" went Chrys and pressed herself against Lucas tighter, trying to catch some of his body-heat. She noticed he did not responded to her earlier, but it was okay. Not much he could do about it anyway. There was also need of obtaining explosives.

"Didn't one of the new guys said he knows how to make bombs?" Chrys then asked. If she remembered right, that guy in the hood mentioned something about explosives.

Caffran walked through the junkyard. He was still pissed off about his beloved hat but had calmed down enough to start using his head again. He moved back towards the front of the junkyard, at least he thought it was that way. When he got out of this he was going to punch that Fething Alex in the nose. Why? Because he wanted to that’s why! Caff heard the noise and had gone another couple of steps before it hit him what he was hearing. The sound seemed to bounce off the heaps of junk and eco all around him. “Oh Sacred-Feth.”

Only half paying attention to the conversing going on around her, Nika stared up into the rain closing her eyes momentarily to let the sounds of the falling water soak in. "Explosives?" she asked inquisitively. Her thoughts drifted to her budgie imagining its excitement at the rain fall, and she smiled.

"Yes. Explosives, Galina." Alex sighed again, knowing now that any chance of maintaining discretion was void. "We are building a simple, large incendiary bomb just in case we have to leave in a hurry our target location tommorow. Are you aware of how we can get some?"

Minerva seemed to take interest in the idea as well. She whirled around Alex's frame to face him. "But won't that be dangerous?"

Alex narrowed his eyes at her and pushed her gently away from him. "Everything about what we are doing is dangerous."

Lucas meanwhile, had slipped one hand down the back of Chrys' pants, and the other up to his chin in contemplation. He let Alex finish with Minerva before he replied to Chrys, slowly. "I think he said he did. That, uh, Jack guy. That doesn't mean he has materials, though."

-----

The growing growling of the approaching mechanical behemoth that filled the ears and soon minds of the junkyard was like a klaxon heralding death to any would-be intruders. Even the noisy loudspeaker had ceased its panning at this point, instead leaving the noise-making to the dreaded Killdozer.

As Rennik peered over the stack of crushed up cars, he could see for just a few moments the flash of gun-metal grey armor and belching smoke. It was a large, boxy monstrosity with 'ironic' yellow and black caution markers for trim. The cockpit was fully surrounded with thick, ship-grade transparent durandium, and the long engine case was decorated with spikes and pictures of various Titfiesta starlets. The massive plow which adorned the front was the most impressive part of all-- It had been switched from a dozer-plow to a snow-plow and adorned with spiky brushguards salvaged from police cars and retired riot vehicles as well as spools of razor wire. A small smokestack poked up from behind it, spewing a cloud of black miasma into the sky.

The whine of treads stopped for a moment as the pilot, a large overly-tattoed ID-sol, caught sight of Rennik perched on top of the cars. Something turned above the cockpit with the pilot, a small hard to make out object. It became apparent however, what the object was; when it spewed a burst of three armfuls of buckshot, nearly destroying the stack of cars the young delivery-boy had climbed and leaving him to topple backwards onto the dirt below.

Finally, just as everyone thought its only objective had been to dismount Rennik Cage, the beast burst from a wall of metal junk, tossing car chassis and refrigerator frames this way and that to emerge in the wide open front of the yard. Its stocky Deviance turret panned the yard, searching for more targets in the clearing dust.

Jack glimpsed at the bulldozer when Rennik climbed on top of the pile, peeking his head out of the junk pile. He cursed at the other man's stupidity for sky-lining himself and coiled back as the buckshots impacted against the scrap metal, using his arm to shield his face against the small pieces that were sent flying his way. The former ganger started moving back to the ground and jumped the rest of the way when he was close enough not to break anything, landing on the tip of his feet and then rolling forwards.

He opened up his satchel, looking through his small -but deadly- assortment explosives. From the small glimpse that he had taken of the bulldozer, Jack could make out that it was a simple civilian vehicle, albeit heavily reinforced. He also figured out that a simple shaped-charge could take out it's engine, turning the vehicle into a easy target to be overrun by infantry. Most importantly, he figured out he didn't have any shaped-charges, all he had were simple, easy to make pipe bombs.

Picking up a rusted metal rod from the ground near him, Jack attached the four pipe bombs he had to the rod with some insulating tape, uniting all the four fuses into a single one. Once satisfied with his new deadly toy, he moved around the junk pile until he found the bulldozer again, doing his best to stay out of the vehicle's sights, pressing himself against the junk nearby to remove his outline.

All he needed was for someone to distract its crew so he wouldn't be riddled with bullets when he approached it.

Nika kept here gait steady as she leveled her head. "I have never made a particularly large explosive before... but I am often making smaller explosives in spare time, so I will have some supplies... so long as I am getting paid for items, I am not caring if you are using them... I will even sell them at discount."

CHrys looked at Lucas and sighed slightly as he misunderstood what she meant. His attention on her backside was welcomed though. "Well honey, what I meant is the fact that this guy will most likely know how to make a bomb from regular stuff. I heard that even a lots of wheat can be turned into bomb. Imagine what he could do with some chemicals or something." She said and her own hand, went under his shirt, exploring his strong muscular back.

Caffran heard the Deviance turret firing and cringed. Now that is going to complicate things. He carefully picked his way up the junk piles and through what was once a tractor trailer. When he reached the end, Caffran got his first look at the monstrosity. He was about 75 meters away and could clearly see it. “Well this has turned into a first class Feth-up.” Caff muttered to himself. “Defiantly going to punch Alex in the nose.”

The former weapon’s tester took a moment to study the situation. He was hidden inside the tractor trailer so unless the thing had a good sensor it shouldn’t see him. That bloody Deviance turret was going to be a pain. With his cybernetic right eye he magnified to X10 and studied the things ammo feeders and the ejection ports. Caff took out his HHG and ejected the shells as a plan began to form in his head. He didn’t have a rifle or any of those explosive rounds like Archie had fired earlier. He only had regular rounds and about 6 FMJ rounds, which he began to feed into his revolver.

Though he was not a sniper or a trained marksman, Caff had spent enough time shooting and testing guns to be considered an above average shot. Now there was little chance of him doing serious damage to that big gun with his revolver and 6 FMJ rounds. But he believed he could do a little damage and a little damage in the right spot can be just as effective. Like, say, the power supply line? Caff had done maintenance one of these things before and knew that if he took out the power like then the gun couldn’t shoot until it was fixed. He steadied his HHG on an edge and sighted in using his cybernetic eye. He slowed his breathing down, adjusted for wind and distance, then fired, adjusted, fire, adjust, fire. Three shots in quick succession.

Alex crossed his arms and pondered Nika for a moment.

Lucas just squeezed Chrys harder.

"Maybe." Alex said, "Maybe this can work out for our benefit. You gather your things; and then you can work with Greiss to make the bombs this afternoon."

Lucas nodded sagely, "Sounds like an opportunity for some teamwork. My and Chrys will work on preparing our bodies for combat! Don't bother knocking on our door, tonight!"

Alex narrowed his eyes at this.

Minerva didn't seem to get it, bouncing up to them to offer, "Hey, I can help! You guys will want some protein shakes and a big, hearty meal! I can cook really well!"

"They shall not require your services, Minerva, unless you intend to preform them without clothes." Alex suggested, still glaring in Lucas' direction.

"Wh-what?" Minerva blushed and threw her hands over her chest as if it had been exposed, "Wh-why would I need to be naked?"

-----

For as much as it would've been nice; Caffran's shots had little effect on the Deviance cannon. The metal bands around the thick power cable were buffeted by the blasts, causing the weapon to jerk this way and that. Once it had regained its bearings, however; the weapon was mostly unharmed, now turning slowly to Caffran. The driver smiled at him from behind his thick durandium armor; and focused his attention on turning the vehicle towards him as well.

Nika smiled as she listened, "Must take very large amount of wheat for useful explosion. I will assist your friend if he requires help... but if I am to be useful, I would prefer placing bombs to making them", Nika paused for a minute pondering the idea of creating a demolition charge and it's traditional components, "especially if the ingredients taste better than they explode."

Rennik tried his best to roll once he hit the ground. But the fall was long, and he only ended up, however, severely hurting (and possibly dislocating) his left shoulder. Without thinking, he scrambled up as fast as he could and bolted for the nearest not-destroyed cover he could find, which happened to be a large pile of armored vehicles across the road...and in the path of the Killdozer. Cursing his own negligence, he ran for it anyway.