From: Wolfgang Visarett | Posted: 2/18/2005 9:37:37 PM
It was a monolith, standing tall, reflective, shining brightly in the azure stained sky. A vast vista of glass spread across kilometers of surface. It was gargantuan, massive in scale, a giant office building that stood tall and proud in the evening sun. This office building was flanked on all sides by similar buildings, each rising kilometer's high into the troposphere. There was a sound, not unlike the whistling of the wind between these great constructs. It was a kind of roar that shook and echoed off the glass bluffs.
The roar was distinct, clear. The sound of hundreds of thousands of hovering vehicles flashing past at speeds approximately in the range of three hundred kilometers an hour. The sound was their engines, a continuous thrum that rose in octave as the vehicles flashed past. The craft were of every shape and description, some small pleasure craft, others large transport vehicles, all moving toward some destination on the planet through the smog filled streets.
The streets were down below, kilometers down, covered in acrid smoke and smog. These streets were lined with the monolithic buildings of immense proportions, Towering high into a cloud blackened skyscape. The city extended out in every direction, giant buildings with bridges spanning between them, like artificial canyons. Some buildings were so massive that they had outdoor plazas ringed with statues placed about the exterior of the gargantuan constructs.
The alien, a native named Kujak Vau, led the two marines through the city, and later to a particular office building much like all the rest. Word had come down the grapevine that the rogue scientist, a Dimitri Theron, was willing to sell the weapons plans to the highest bidder. Ilari and Gunther had managed by way of several contacts and pulling in a dozen favors to get in on the auction. And so, that is where the two marines currently pretending to be people wanting a weapon to take vengeance on some place or other were headed.
Kujak led them up stairs, down hallways and through doors. He came to a last door and knocked a specific rhythm on the metal threshold. A flash of green light later Kujak's identity had been confirmed, as well as the false identities Ilari and Gunther currently personified. The door slid open and the three men walked in. The room was full of different beings and species of varying sizes and descriptions. Ilari and Gunther began to note their surroundings and everyone there. They found themselves in a spacious room overlooking the great glass canyons beyond and below. The room was carpeted, high-ceilinged and filled with buffet tables along the back wall. A small case was set up on one wall where the merchandise was being viewed in all its holographic glory by the many patrons hoping to get their hands on the designs. Ilari leaned close to Gunther.
"Where's the traitor? Once he's spotted, we can leave this show," Ilari said, speaking low and close to Gunther. Gunther just nodded, his brown eyes scanning the crowd.
"Found the Vadas. Back wall, near the window, chatting with someone. Too many guns. You take the case, I'll take the traitor."
Ilari nodded, breaking off from Gunther and heading toward the small case where the designs were being displayed. Gunther on the other hand, was meandering his way through the masses toward Dr. Theron. Gunther reached the group that surrounded Dr. Theron and listened intently to a few things he had to say. He was telling jokes, attempting to appear humorous, even coy in the group that was amassed around him.
"So tell me, Doctor Theron," Gunther piped up after the laughed had died down, "Do you ever think that the Gre'kuquen Confederation might come after you for stealing their technology?"
The group looked at him, then to Dr. Theron, who was laughing. A wave of titillation swept through the surrounding group in response to Theron's laughter.
"Those Vadasian
freaks? Not a chance! They wouldn't even know where to begin, let alone that a single design among many had been taken. They're too incompetent!"
The group laughed. Gunther smiled, but it wasn't a happy or even humorous smile; it was carnivorous, predatory and it was aimed directly at Theron who watched Gunther with a profound sense of unease.
"Well then," Gunther said at length, "I guess today those Vadasian...freaks...got lucky."
With that, he shot the person nearest to him, killing with a weapon he had seemingly produced from vapor. Ilari, on the other hand, had been waiting for Gunther to begin the chaos so that he could steal the device. The guards attempted to pack it up and move it to a safer location but hadn't counted on Ilari now resplendent in full Echo armor regalia. A black bodysuit with navy accentuation's, armored shins, upper thighs, forearms, shoulders, upper chest and upper back. What was more was the guards found themselves staring down the length of a cannon on the left forearm which erupted in coherent red light. Their lives ended thus, and Ilari grabbed the case and using the Jorgani stone on his person, stowed it away for the time being.
With the eruption of weapons fire by Gunther, however, everyone began ripping weapons out of secret holding places and firing in any direction. Gunther had deployed his own Echo armor, the suit spreading across his person like a black liquid before solidifying. Some knew exactly what they were up against and began to run. One of those people was Dr. Theron. His speed wasn't enough. He soon found himself bodily flung by Gunther into the window. The window didn't shatter, but the shot from Gunther's left arm laser cannon did.
With the window gone, air began to rush into the room. Gunther grabbed Dr. Theron and threw him through the now ruptured window and jumped after him. Ilari shot through another window, the windowpane shattering and sending shards flying out to fall. From a distance, an explosion erupted on the floor in the room Ilari and Gunther had just vacated. Ilari had dropped a grenade before he'd left, and now several of the galaxy's greatest terrorists and criminals had been killed in a single swoop. There was also the problem of the explosion catching the eye of a great many people, those people including and not limited to law enforcement personal. Ilari and Gunther had no idea how much trouble they had just caused for themselves, but they weren't worried. Dr. Theron wasn't needed alive...
The world was the fourth in the line of seven planets arranged around a burning orange proto sun. It was called Na Chu Yom, and this city, the capital, was Hu Zan Chak. The world was neutral, a place where all species could meet and exchange ideas; well, that is what the tourist brochures claimed. In reality, Na Chu Yom was a world where crime was everyday, where honesty was nonexistent, and weapons and drug deals were such a commonplace occurance that no one ever noticed them going down.
There was one weapons deal going down, however, that had gained the notice of the Gre'kuquen Confederation; it had sent two of its best men, Gunther Geist-Visarett and Ilari Nyrock. They were in Hu Zan Chak because they were looking for that particular weapon. The weapon was one stolen by a rogue human scientist in the Gre'kuquen Confederation, and both Gunther and Ilari were here to take back the designs and terminate the scientists' life, as well as anyone who got in the way.
Both men were Naval Intelligence Division Marines, or Intdiv Navmar--a slang used throughout the Gre'kuquen Confederation. They were wearing the fashion currently popular on the world, a kind of chaotic combination of bright colors such as lime green and bright yellows and oranges. Slacks, sleeveless shirts, leather belt-like fixtures over the chest and black gloves on the hands. Both marines wore the outfits, although beneath they had their Echo armor waiting to be deployed at any instance.
Ilari and Gunther were to meet up with a contact, and had on the street, a being with bright blue skin and warped eyes that seemed to swirl in a counterclockwise manner. The aliens' body was lanky, with a second set of legs situated just behind it, like a grasshopper. But the creature couldn't even be classed as an insect; it lacked anything that would put it away into such a stereotypical role. It did, however, have two thumbs on each hand but only two fingers. Truly strange, but Ilari and Gunther had been trained to handle strange.
From: lachesis77 | Posted: 2/19/2005 12:13:47 AM
Ugh... What kind of horse crap is this stuff?
At an outdoor patio on a busy street in Hu Zan Chak, a tall glass mug full of a dark amber coloured liquid was slammed down on a rickety square wooden table. The noise was just loud enough to attract the attention of a blue-skinned indigenous waiter, who turned and stared at the displeased bar patron with his strange vortex eyes. The waiter tutted in annoyance and made his way towards the sour-faced woman who'd made the commotion.
"May I help you... madam?" he asked, hesitating for a while on the word 'madam'. It was quite obvious to him that the woman was no lady. After all, ladies did not rest their filthy boots on the table right next to their food and drink.
"Ya damn straight," the woman replied brashly. "Ya got any real beer?
The four-legged waiter just stared at her with a blank expression. "Madam, isn't this beer?"
The woman stared right back at the waiter with her smoky grey eyes and, removing her feet from the table, sat up straight in her uncomfortable wooden chair. "Beer... This isn't real beer! This is ****ing root beer! I want some damn alcohol!"
"Madam, please," the waiter began, trying to calm her down before she chased away more customers than she already had since she arrived. "This is all the 'beer' we have. Our next shipment should arrive in a few days. I'm afraid this drink will have to do."
The irritable woman grumbled loudly and waved a hand at the waiter nonchalantly, as if to shoo him away. The waiter took his cue and left to check on another table, not wanting to waste another moment of his paid time with that insufferable wretch. Meanwhile, the woman had slouched in her chair again and propped her feet back on the rough table. Her tanned face was still screwed in an annoyed expression as she reached into a hip pocket and produced a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. She tapped the pack at one end and selected a neatly rolled smoke wrapped in muddy brown paper, which she raised to her chapped lips and lit it. She took a long drag of her cigarette, her lungs filling with sweet-tasting smoke and her neurons buzzing with her nicotine fix. Ah, damn, she thought. Just what I needed.
Puff. The woman held her cigarette between her right index and middle fingers while her left hand tapped out a sort of inpatient Morse code on the table. Mackenzie Jansen, or Mac as she preferred to be called, hated this part of her job -- that is, the part where she was unemployed. Who would've thought a bounty hunter could find leisure time in this hellhole, of all places? It wasn't that she missed the thrill of death-defying gun battles; actually, she rather liked being 100% certain she'd live to see another stinking day. The part she really missed about her job was the pay. Right now, Mac was nearly broke: in fact, she couldn't even pay for her stinking root beer. But that uppity waiter didn't need to know that. Besides, she didn't get what she ordered, so why should she pay for a lesser-quality beverage? That'll teach 'em. What kind of bar doesn't have any goddamn beer?
With nothing better to do, Mac kept smoking her cigarette, sending the occasional white wisp to join its industrial-sized cousin, smog, up in the polluted air. Once in a while, some of the other patrons would glance at her curiously for a moment. Mac was indeed a striking figure, if only because she wasn't your typical woman. Her hair was tied in a high ponytail, but wasn't what most humans would consider a 'normal' colour. Her hair, which was normally dyed peacock blue, only retained that azure hue on its tips; the rest of her hair was a sort of faded putrid green, save for some honey brown, her natural colour, at the roots. She was wearing a sweat-stained grey tank top and a pair of dusty black pants that looked like they hadn't seen the inside of a laundromat in weeks. Her brown boots, which were still propped up rudely on the table, could've used a good shine, too. The only womanly item on her person was what looked like a gaudy silver bangle adorned with red oval rhinestones around her left wrist, but even that looked cheap. Everything about Mac was rough and tumble, and spoke volumes of her current financial situation. But there wasn't much she could do. As a bounty hunter, she had to wait for the job to come to her.
Bang. A miracle exploded out into the busy street. Well, to be sure, most people would have called the fiery blast a disaster, but that was just a matter of semantics to Mac. While most people in the bar were clamouring about how many must've died in the explosion and probably soiling their pants in fear of whoever caused it, Mac simply jumped out of her seat and headed towards the blast, leaving her cigarette to smoulder in an ashtray and without paying for her root beer. No one stopped her, of course, so the bounty hunter was free to dash off toward what she hoped was some good employment. After all, whoever was responsible for the explosion just might be wanted by the local police later on, and Mac wanted to be the first to get her hands on them and make some fast cash for her 'heroic' deeds.
In a matter of seconds, Mac was on the scene, in front of a tall building that was still spewing out black smoke and fire. It was easy enough for her to locate it: after all, the building was just a few blocks away from the bar she'd come from. Among the crowd, the bounty hunter picked out what she thought were two suspicious-looking characters that weren't screaming in terror and running in the street. Too easy, she thought as her right hand reached down to the holstered metallic pistol hanging from her brown utility belt. Meanwhile, the fingers of her left hand curled to hover above the red stones on her bangle, ready to activate one of the many forcefields included in her deceptive armour. Then, without warning, Mac grabbed her weapon and opened fire on the closest of the two targets. If all went well, that character would find himself suddenly spasming uncontrollably if her electricity-charged shot found its mark.
From: c0mbatw0mbat | Posted: 2/19/2005 1:12:10 PM
|StarstepThroughtheSkyandDon’tForgettoShine|
Electric Valor
The knight swept Kiss the Ocean Farewell upward at the closest man in black armor as he stepped around the last person in the way.
Previously --
His boots clicked on the steel sidewalk. An archaic contrast to the other inhabitants of the city, he dressed gallantly: an ice-white cape flowed behind him; a blue-feathered hat complemented it. Long black hair ran down his back.
He heard a window shatter; he saw two figures skydive into the sidewalk; his eyes were on the two beings in black armor and therefore he felt the explosion rather than saw it.
Glass and shards of cement clicked on the steel sidewalk.
The knight quickened his pace, hand gripping his sword hilt. One crime lord against another was all this was, he knew -- or something like that, at least. In Hu Zan Chak, everyone except the innocents (they usually died) fought.
Bigger chunks of debris rained down and down and down and everyone was running away and away and away. Somewhere close by a woman’s scream was abruptly cut off. The crowd flowed against the knight; his [white-suede-] gloved hands kept a firm grip on the broadsword.
It was like fighting a river upstream, but the knight kept on stolidly. As he fought against the current of flesh he caught a glimpse here and there of black armor, guiding him inexorably forward as surely as raining destruction and a plume of smoke above guided everyone else away.
The broadsword leapt into his hands as he approached. He dipped the platinum-alloy-plated blade low, tip an inch off the ground.
The knight swept
Kiss the Ocean Farewell upward at the closest man in black armor as he stepped around the last person in the way.
From: Wolfgang Visarett | Posted: 2/20/2005 11:54:09 PM
From seventy-five stories up Ilari and Gunther plummeted. Wind rushed past them, shards of glass accompanied them as they weaved between the oncoming traffic, and the final death scream of one Doctor Dimitri Theron, a weapons specialist whom had worked for the Gre'kuquen Confederation Navy weapons R&D division, echoed through the air. Ilari and Gunther both deployed their anti-grav coils long before their fall would become fatal, a slight aquamarine glow emanating from their shoulder blades. Dr. Theron, however, was not as fortunate.
He fell, and fell, and fell; and when he hit the pavement far below, his body crumpled in a combination explosion/implosion of gore. In fact, it looked as though someone had thrown a bag of bloody-red paste onto the concrete boulevard that splattered out in all directions. Of course, Dr. Theron was dead long before he ever hit the pavement; a collision with a hover vehicle twenty-five stories up had caved in a side of his head thus ending his life and silencing his insipid howl.
Dr. Theron's blood oozed and congealed in rivulets and pools, women screamed, and a man stood on the shoulder of the sidewalk puking his guts out. He wretched and wretched until his stomach was empty and all he was doing was a bunch of wracking dry heaves. Ilari and Gunther paid all this little attention. They had the plans and Dr. Theron was dead; things were progressing well. Now all they had to do was head to the spaceport, rendezvous with their transport and take a flight back to Gre'kuquen for reassignment.
What the two Vadasian hadn't counted on was that when they had begun moving away from the scene of Dr. Theron's death that they would encounter a form of hostility direction in their general direction. Gunther was the first to come under fire, the source being a woman. The round sped toward him, and Gunther had enough time to activate the shields of his unit. Echo armor may be versatile, but what kept the unit, and individual alive, was the shields, not the armor itself. Gunther's left arm morphed, elongating has he formed a fist until the whole of his left forearm was a medium class laser cannon. He pointed it at the woman who had instigated the attack and let loose with a blast of red coherent light.
Ilari, on the other hand, had been moving away from Gunther, down the street and as far away from the scene as possible. The plan had been to split up and get to the spaceport by their own means. Ilari had seen Gunther come under attack, and while he would have gone to aid his colleague, the sudden burst of weapons fire in his own direction stopped his motions.
Ilari knew that the Planetary Security Force, or PSF, was largely corrupt--a corruption that led all the way to the highest of bureaucrats. So, when he came under fire he was somewhat miffed. The PSF would not react in such a way; they were more concerned with guarding their own ass than throwing it on the line for "justice." This made Ilari cross out PSF as his aggressor rather quickly. Another thing that cinched that assumption was that the PSF carried plasma rifles and not broadswords. That and anyone with any kind of sense recognition would understand that these two men were Gre'kuquen Confederation naval personal, and it was always in the best interest of ones own species to not mess with the Gre'kuquen Confederation. This was especially true when the GC was engaged in a war already--a war against the far-flung Hagasian Hegemony--and tensions were high.
The morphable metallic polymer that was Echo armor responded to the attack--an upsweep of the blade. The response was and extension of a blade along the right arm to intercept the upward plying blade. The second response was the left forearm morphing into a laser cannon and erupting with a flash of blazing red light. Ilari didn't think this upstart figure would last long, and if he did, he would think twice before being antagonistic toward GC naval personal.
From: lachesis77 | Posted: 2/21/2005 10:15:40 PM
All things considered, this day wasn't among the best Mac had ever lived to see. For one, she had no alcohol in her system, a rare thing in itself. Though she blamed the incompetent waiter and that pathetic pansy excuse for a bar for her sobriety, the truth was she wouldn't have been able to actually afford her fix. Still, beer was roughly the equivalent of coffee for the irascible bounty hunter. Some people just can't start their day without caffeine; Mac could never start her day right without a tall overflowing mug of cool, heady, smooth beer. Another thing she usually enjoyed was a nice cigarette. When no alcohol was to be had, nicotine was often a passable substitute. She liked the way unlit cigarettes smelled, the way they felt between her fingers, the way their smoke smelled and tasted, the way the plumes blew out from between her puckered lips. Though beer would always be the handsomer sight, cigarettes weren't too shabby, either. So it was a double whammy for Mac when she had to leave her cigarette to smoulder and waste away in that ashtray back at the bar. This job better be damn quick and damn well worth it, she thought to herself irritably as soon as she'd pulled the trigger on one of the two men who'd leapt from the exploded building.
Her day was already off to a shaky start without her morning mug of lager and an unfinished cigarette, but it was about to get progressively worse. Unfortunately, she didn't know the job she'd stumbled on was part of an elite group from the Gre'kuquen Federation. Not that Mac would necessarily know anything about them other than their name and reputation. She didn't really follow intergalactic (or even local, for that matter) affairs, to her general detriment. As a rule, the more informed bounty hunters were about the world they were presently in and other hubs of activity in the more immediate universe, the better prepared and more successful they were at doing their jobs. So while other bounty hunters were living the high life in Hu Zan Chak, Mac struggled to survive, always envying the others while hoping that her own lucky break would come knocking on her proverbial doorstep. But never once did she make the connection between information and success, which was why Mac Jansen would probably always remain a two-bit, third-rate bounty hunter.
Perhaps if she'd known more about the Gre'kuquen Federation she might've seen how utterly futile her opening shot would've been beforehand. Instead, Mac could only watch in annoyance and disbelief as her target not only survived, but also started to morph his own left arm into a weapon.
"Holy ****in' ****!" she unconsciously (and likely unwisely) spat out loud enough for pretty much everyone left in the street to hear. "What the ****in' hell are you?"
All she got for an answer from her opponent was a shot from his newly-formed laser cannon. Mac was many things, including brutish and slow, but she wasn't a complete moron when it came to her own survival. After the initial shock of seeing someone turn one of his own appendages into a high-grade, military-class weapon, the bounty hunter snapped back to her more immediate reality and, with her right hand, reached over to press one of the red jewels on her silver bangle and drag her finger down towards her wrist. As soon as her finger touched her left wrist, her entire body was wrapped in a flickering light for just a second as the wave jammer field booted up. Well, truth be told, only most of her body was shielded: the only unprotected part was her left hand. At any rate, Mac was now mostly protected from the powerful laser beam headed straight for her. The wave jammer, as she called it, was only part of the shielding her bangle provided. The way it worked was amazingly simple: it could neutralize all but the most powerful and energetic coherent beams simply by adapting the wavelength of the radiation it emitted so that the phase difference between the incoming ray and the jamming field was approximately pi. The result was that Mac would be hit by radiation so flat (and thereby so low in energy) that she might as well have been hit by nothing at all; after all, radio waves were pretty harmless. Of course, Mac didn't understand the physics behind the jammer and other features of her bangle, but what she did know was that she'd have bitten the dust long ago without it.
Mac had activated the jammer just in time, too. All she really felt was the initial hard jolt of the ray hitting her chest: because the wave jammer needed some frequency to adapt to, a small portion of any radiation would always hit its mark. But from the rest of the laser beam, Mac never felt an electron volt. When the brief attack had ended, she again touched the same red stone she had used to activate the jamming field, thereby cancelling it with another momentary flicker. The jammer and other fields included in her strange armour was useful for protection, but they also had the unfortunate drawback of nullifying any blasts Mac shot from her own pistol when they were activated. With her protective field down, the bounty hunter was free to retaliate.
"I dunno who or whatcha are, ya damn freak," she muttered to herself, "but I bet you're gonna fetch me a hefty paycheck once I'm through with ya!"
And with that, she slipped her right thumb down the handle of her weapon to flip to a different setting. The next shot she fired was a compressed proton bullet, far more massive than her previous shot and with far superior momentum.
From: c0mbatw0mbat | Posted: 2/22/2005 6:34:03 PM
~I~
The Swordsman
The counterattack was the key.
The knight ran a huge assumption here: that his opponent was human - or humanoid - and possessed of roughly the same reflexes and fighting mindset as humans.
When the man in black armor deflected the knight’s broadsword with a sword morphed from his own arm, the knight took only a brief note of his: he concentrated on something else entirely.
The counterattack was the key.
When the man in black armor raised his other appendage and produced a beam weapon of some sort, the knight knew he was correct.
The counterattack was the key.
He had no chance to dodge a beam of pure light, and therefore did not attempt to do so. The red ray slammed sizzling into his chest.
Pain. He felt pain. But the knight knew by now to ignore what his nerves said must be true: that his chest was hurt and needed immediate attention.
Before the man had even fired the laser at the knight, he had begun swinging his sword. He brought it fast to strike the man’s left flank, his arm and sword a blur, (and the beam struck him in the chest at this precise moment) then with superhuman speed and control reversed the blow and spun a pirouette ending half a second later with the broadsword slashing at the shapeshifter’s right flank.
Reaction time. The counterattack was the key. If he hit fast and hard in the middle of his opponent’s attack, his opponent’s reaction time would be dulled considerably. The first upswing had been a false. Then a feint to the left: Kiss the Ocean Farewell would need more momentum than that to penetrate that armor. Now he had an over one-eighty-degree swinging radius to get the blade as fast as he could get it going.
The knight hoped it was enough.
A hint of burned flesh already lingered in the air from the explosion -- now it was strong and pungent as thin ribbons of smoke curled from the inch-deep black hole in the center of his chest.
From: Wolfgang Visarett | Posted: 2/28/2005 12:19:00 AM
Gre'kuquen Confederation Naval Marines are expected to be deadly, ruthless and efficient. Those few selected for the Intelligence Division are not only expected to have those qualities, but the ability to plan ahead, to see into the future, or at least be able to feel out what the future might bring. Mistakes are not tolerated, and unfortunately for Ilari and Gunther, they had already gotten the ball rolling on the making of mistakes. Their first mistake, and probably their largest one, was that they hadn't actually bothered to cloak themselves on their descent from seventy-five stories up. Instead they left themselves in plain view thus instigating the fight they were now preoccupied with. The second mistake was actually sticking around to fight; Ilari and Gunther were on a tight timetable, and with their current predicament, were very much pressing themselves for time.
It wasn't just that the two Gre'kuquen Confederate soldiers were strapped for time, it was that they weren't thinking at all, either. They were letting their racist thoughts guide them. Truth be told, the Vadasian are largely a xenophobic race with a deeply rooted hatred of anything not Vadasian, and would have set out upon some form of holy genocide had it not been for the fact that they shared their Homeworld with another species that had at least taught the Vadasian some sort of tolerance of others. Unfortunately for those involved with the fight with Ilari and Gunther, that tolerance only extended toward the Krykor and Galandrians.
And despite this innate hatred, the Vadasian were somewhat cautious, or at least Ilari was generally a cautious individual, unlike his Navmar associate, Gunther. He only moved when he felt he had the advantage, which was why he had blocked the sword and shot the figure at point blank range with his left forearm laser cannon. The cannon, had Ilari's opponent been human, would be dead, with his internal organs fried and a good portion of his vertebrae turned into a fine ash. Unfortunately, despite Ilari's cautiousness, he had made what would be for him a fatal mistake. He had forgotten to at least do a physical scan of the creature before him and leapt blindly into battle.
As an Intdiv Navmar, such action is generally met with great consequence. Ilari was about to meet up with the consequences of his lack of cautiousness now--that consequence being a sharp attack to his right side. The sword struck, and Ilari, far too prideful for his own good, had not engaged the shields of his suit. While the suit took no outward appearance of damage, Ilari could feel a great pain welling up in his right arm that had taken the brunt of the attack. In fact, he was certain that the bone had been smashed by the force of the blow from this creature that had failed to die from the cannon blast. Instead, the creature had done a spin and succeeded.
Ilari would heal his broken bone, it was only a matter of transforming. You see, Vadasian generally don't appear human as Ilari and Gunther do. Instead, they are born looking very much like animals, wolves to be exact, and must teach themselves to change their shape into that of a man. The process is interesting enough; the ends of the bones actually disintegrate in a sense before reforming, longer and sometimes with a slightly different shape. Ilari was going through such a transformation at this very moment, his muscle mass which had been constricted to appear human bulging outward and his face elongating.
He now stared at the individual who had decided to cause such harm to his person with such contempt that he rushed in blindly, his animalistic Vadasian rage boiling over from beneath the calculating surface. He was more beast than anything now, although some portion of his mind was still working away on how to regain control of himself.
Ilari had taken the brunt of the attack, true, but now he moved forward. His left arm, still a cannon, did another morph. This time a bayonet over about a foot length extended just atop the barrel of the cannon, and with this new implement, Ilari wished only to batter his opponent to the ground, smash him to pieces or if it came to it, simply disembowel him. He raised his left arm, his right lunging forward to grasp his enemy. That was how Ilari would deal with his threat.
Gunther, on the other hand, who normally was not cautious and very much given over to his rage, was doing the exact opposite to his Intdiv Navmar counterpart. He only partially watched as hi laser fire was stopped short. Shields, he thought instantly, or something similar. He saw her press the small device on her wrist, sat her activate the shield and deactivate it, meaning she couldn't fire while it was up. Gunther didn't have that same problem.
He did, however, dislike the idea of being shot at, and decided standing where he was while she pulled the trigger on her own sidearm was foolhardy. So Gunther did what any person with combat experience would do, dive for cover, except in Gunther's case he wasn't so much as diving as he was jumping into the traffic that continued to buzz above their heads.
His antigrav coils activated and he slammed into the tail end of a passing hover car. Not waiting to see whether or not the woman was tracking him, Gunther, climbed to the fore of the car in less than a second and punched through the window the grab the driver and bodily hurl the driver at the woman below. The car, sensing that it was without a driver, jarred to a halt throwing the clinging Gunther from it to flash through the air along the same path as traffic before he got himself under control.
While the man Gunther had just sent earthward at the woman screamed. He would die when he hit pavement. Gunther didn't wait for that moment. The cannon on his left arm, the tip of the barrel, opened up like a four-petaled flower and from it erupted a single micro missile on a trajectory with the woman below. Either way, somebody was going to die, either her, or the figure that Gunther had thrown at her. Now all he needed to do was think of a use for the stopped car hovering in the air...
From: c0mbatw0mbat | Posted: 2/28/2005 8:48:08 PM
~II~
The Gunner
As the wolfman came at him with a blade, the knight simultaneously dropped his sword and slid the Seraph out of his left forearm.
It was a fully automatic needle gun: a slender silver barrel half the length of his forearm, where the skin was folding back like missile silo doors to reveal the weaponry.
Of course, no one could see much of it since he wore long sleeves.
The Seraph had twenty armor-piercing bullets loaded (his forearm couldn’t hold more without bulging like he had a tumor). Its effective range was quite short, five meters. The long thin bullets tended to waver and go off-course with little to no wind interference and the short barrel didn’t make it too accurate at long -- or even medium -- distances.
Fortunately, this was a long shot from long -- or even medium -- distance combat. Or would it be a close shot?
Either way, the knight let the wolfman barrel him over, knocking off his plumed hat in the process. The blade on his opponent’s wrist dug deep into his abdomen, ripping through skin and tearing a great gash a quarter of an inch deep, half an inch, three quarters ... an inch ...
And then it stopped penetrating with a loud scraping noise like metal on metal. His shirt was bloody but he didn’t care, hurling the wolfman off him and attempting to roll backward. His right leg didn’t work quite right, behaving very sluggishly, and he scraped his shoulder hard on the ground before coming up on one knee, left arm raised.
"Click click click click click," chatted the Seraph in a jolly gunshot voice as a hole appeared in the left sleeve of his shirt.
The pavement all around the wolfman
pinged in a silver rain.
From: lachesis77 | Posted: 3/4/2005 9:23:31 PM
****... So much for an easy job...
The tally just kept looking worse by the minute for the hapless bounty hunter. She was already sober, which made her irritable and quite frankly impossible even on a good day, and smoke-free for more than a few hours, which made her edgy. The combination was bound to be disastrous for someone, though usually that someone was Mac herself. Case in point: this impromptu 'job'. Not only did the freak who turned his arm into a laser cannon (How the ****in' hell did he do THAT? she thought), he also managed to dive out of her proton bullet's path and thus avoid a charged slug in a vital part. Or any part, for that matter. Hell, the bullet could've pierced his thumb and Mac would've been happy -- or at least less pissed off than she was now. But at least the 'freak' had enough courtesy to jump into oncoming traffic.
"Serves ya right, ya damn freak", she muttered to no one in particular. "Go play in traffic so I can take the credit for doin' ya in myself." And of course, Mac was certainly not above underhanded ways of earning hard cash. All that mattered was the incapacitation of her current target and her bodily presence at the scene. If someone else did the job for her, she'd run in to capture the downed prey without a moment's thought. Tough **** to the sap who did her dirty work, she figured. Unfortunately for the sleazy bounty hunter, she was the only 'professional' in the area right now. The street was full of men and women screaming senselessly, probably pissing in their pants, but yet still enthralled by the display of violence. They just ducked behind parked vehicles and stole furtive glances once in a while to keep up-to-date on the situation. The only one who didn't seem to be running for dear life was some anachronistic bloke with a sword, from the look of things, fighting the freak's partner. If she was lucky, she'd swoop in for extra cash, if she was able to finish this job quick enough.
"Hey, speakin' of which, where'd he..." And then Mac looked up to find the freak floating in the air and some guy flying towards her. Her grey eyes widened as her brain slowly computed what was occurring now. "Holy **--!" And, because Mac was too stupid and slow to move out of the way, the falling man collided with her, sending the bounty hunter flat on her back on the pavement. "****... Gerroff, ya moron!" she yelled from underneath the dazed man. When the poor shocked fellow showed no signs of moving anywhere, Mac rudely pushed him aside, hurling a string of very unladylike insults toward him. In the middle of her tirade, the bounty hunter's amazing luck finally kicked in. Her ears managed to pick up something other than the sound of her own raunchy voice: the unmistakable whistle of a projectile closing in on her, and fast.
"Oh ****!" she spat out just as she dove away from her current position. Luckily, she reacted just in time; unfortunately for the poor man who was thrown out from his hovercar a few moments ago, his reflexes were still in limbo and would never recover in the fraction of a second that remained in his lifetime. The deadly missile tore into the dazed man as he stared helplessly into his demise. Blood spattered everywhere, and soaked fragments of concrete from the powerful projectile's impact with the pavement flew off radially. A few of them stung Mac, piercing her skin and staining her dirty clothes red, but it wasn't anything she couldn't handle. Easy or no, she was still determined not to let this job get away from her, if only for financial reasons.
She looked up quickly into the traffic overhead and noticed a hovercar, a bright yellow luxury Uratar no less, zipping by towards the floating freak noticeably past the allowed speed limit. It seemed whoever the rich ass was, he wasn't too bright or he was in a real big hurry, or possibly even both. At any rate, this presented a perfect opportunity for Mac. She quickly raised her pistol to the underside of the speeding Uratar, aiming for a precise supply vein that connected straight to its uranium-powered engine, and fired a single proton shot. Two seconds later, the hovercar, which was dazzling in the fiery sunlight after a presumably recent wash, was now gliding towards the freak in flames. But what about the driver? What about the driver? He was just some filthy rich dude who deserved to burn in hell for having enough money to afford a trifle Mac jealously coveted for herself. "Maybe this'll slow the freak down," she mumbled, the fire-wreathed car reflecting in her eyes like a hopeful twinkle. "I just wanna get this damn job over with. For all the trouble this freak's given me, I better get paid real nice." But somehow, a part of herself buried deep, the part that retained the last vestiges of whatever common sense she had, knew better. No beer, no nicotine, and no breeze for Mac Jansen and her lazy, boorish self.
From: Wolfgang Visarett | Posted: 3/5/2005 1:14:56 AM
Ilari had absolutely no time to react. His mind crystallized, the animalistic tendencies normally inherent in Vadasian abating and letting his cold, cruel logic surface, but it wasn't in time to activate his shields. It was enough time to have his deep green eyes widen in shock and horrid anticipation for the fate that awaited him. Whatever the weapon was, it was armor piercing. Ilari screamed once, a long howl of pain and rage resonating and twisting in the air as his dual vocal cords let forth the strange and very much disgusting sound.
His left arm felt one, his abdomen felt another. His shoulder, left side that spun him in time to miss a few, but exposed his buttocks to the horrific outburst of needles (two in total). Suffice to say, Ilari wasn't pleased with himself, and dripping green-black blood from his half-dozen (or more) puncture wounds, he rounded toward the man, his animalistic side readying for another lunge to the surface when logic got the better of him. If he did not seek medical attention soon, he would die, and even he knew that. Sucking in his pride, spitting green-black blood to the ground and very much sending a deathly glare at the opponent who had so outsmarted the irate Vadasian, Ilari turned tail and ran. He activated his cloak and antigrav coils in one fell swoop before leaving, as well as sending a single burst transmission to Gunther: "I'm wounded; meet me at the ship soon."
Gunther got the message, but was himself somewhat preoccupied with a car that had barreled down the lanes far to fast, and miraculously, turned itself into an uncontrolled flaming projectile. Gunther had enough time to swear, curse the woman, throw in another curse for good luck, and still had time to pray to the Goddess Ankra Anris for the redemption of his sins. But despite all _that_ time, he never had enough to move out of the way. It was lucky for the Vadasian, however, that this lapse in attention span wasn't going to cost him too much other than some sever bruises, aches and pains. He hit the top edge of the hood of the vehicle, so only found himself rolling up and over the aerodynamically designed craft that was so engulfed in flames.
He found himself alive, bruised and very much enraged staring down at a woman who was covered in blood. The man Gunther had thrown had been the recipient of his missile. What a waste, Gunther thought. That she had used the man as a shield made this all the more infuriating, yet somehow Gunther found himself attracted to the woman who wasn't even of his own species. Her disregard for life seemed like the proper kind of turn on, and if she was surviving this far, perhaps should would make a good mate? Gunther banished these thoughts quickly; thinking of powerful children, even half-breeds, should not be something on his mind at the moment. His mind was, however, thinking about Ilari, and how his associate would be reprimanded for his actions and forced into front-line work as cannon fodder at worst or outright kicked from the Military...which also isn't considered a first-rate scenario for any Vadasian.
He was having trouble focusing, certain that the sudden impact with the vehicle had given him a concussion, and when his eyes cleared of their slight delirium, he turned sights on the vehicle still sitting in the air driver-less and waiting. He flung himself, or rather flew, toward the vehicle, morphing his left-forearm-turned-laser-cannon back into a forearm with appropriate hand appendage. His place was to cut the power system thus dropping the vehicle, but not before flinging it in the direction of the femme-fatal-turned-awe-inspiring-female-of-oh-so-perfect-ness in Gunther's view.
He reached the car in seconds, ducked under leaving himself in view of the woman below, he was sure (considering he was smoking in a very literal sense from his run in with the previously flaming hot car) and with a calculated slice from a beam saber cut power to the craft. The car began to drop and Gunther's antigrav coils strained to keep both him and the weight of a vehicle they weren't meant to hold up in the air while Gunther gripped and positioned himself. He did a full rotation before letting go the wreck and letting it glide in a path toward the woman. And if the vehicle itself weren't enough, Gunther had added a proximity mine to the bottom near the fuel cells. A centimeter or two before it would land it would create the most wonderful light show, and while some part of Gunther might have liked the woman, another part knew that it probably wouldn't work out.
From: c0mbatw0mbat | Posted: 3/5/2005 5:14:27 PM
~III~
The Magi
"No," the knight breathed as the wolfman fled. "No."
The knight gave pursuit. He wouldn’t get away that easily.
Step,
lurch, step,
stumble; left foot, right, left foot, right.
He had absolutely no chance to catch up; the knight knew that after taking a few steps, and resigned himself to letting the wolfman get away.
Well, one had escaped ... but there was still another. And he had a potential ally as well: a woman currently engaged in a gunfight -- carfight? -- with his quarry.
The knight had planned to infiltrate the auctioning of the Vadas himself, working freelance, but an informant within the Gre'kuquen Confederation had told him of the Confederation sending assassins to sabotage it. He and the other saboteurs all trying to blow up or kill all the attendees at once would be overkill. That made things so much easier.
Now he didn’t have to smash the entire vase. He just had to step on the pieces after it was knocked to the floor.
He picked up his sword, sheathing it for the moment. He doubted he would be using it much until he got his leg fixed. He retracted the Seraph, too. His cape was still as ice.
He raised his arms. He closed his eyes. He called on the powers that be.
The knight stood approximately thirty feet from where his remaining opponent would be if he had his feet on the ground. Since he was floating, you had to add a few feet to that measurement.
Behind him, the air quickened, rubbing against itself: friction, heat, yellow orange red, and a flame sprung into being in the center of the whirlwind pyre; the fire swelled and sweltered, burning refracting frying, crackling and sparkling, coruscating,
shimmering, flameflowers blooming and brightening, pulsating with heat and light and glory. It was an inferno garden.
The knight opened his eyes, a swirling firestorm over twelve feet tall and half as wide brewing and blazing behind him. His cape rippled in the hot new breeze.
His hands pointed the way to the remaining Confederation assassin now, and he siphoned a foot-wide beam of fire from the autumnal column, diminishing it, to sear the sky and his opponent. His cape flapped wildly in the hot new breeze.
From: lachesis77 | Posted: 3/8/2005 9:37:48 PM
"Yeeeeeaaaaaah! Steeeeeeee-rike!"
Finally, finally, Mac's luck was taking a turn for the better. She pumped her left fist into the air quite vigorously as the hovercar she'd just set ablaze moment ago barrelled into the suprisingly slow-witted freak, sending him somersaulting upward. However, it seemed Mac's opponent had a bit of a lucky streak in him too, since he was still very much alive and conscious after colliding with a flaming luxury vehicle that was already travelling far past the speed limit. But at this rate, the bounty hunter would take what she could get. All she needed was for her luck to hold out long enough for her to survive and capture her prey -- alive, if at all possible. After all, dead bodies were worth a bit less than bounties that still had some life left in them.
However, she also seemed to have pretty bad karma to go along with her fortune. The things she did had a very nasty tendency of coming right back and biting her in the ass. This situation was one of those boomerangs: the freak had somehow managed to lift an entire hovercar while suspended in the air himself and hurl it at her. Mac's enthusiasm took a sharp plunge as her grey eyes widened at her immediate reality. "Oh... ****..." And then she turned tail and ran for dear life, away from her prey, hoping she would be quick enough not to get crushed by a heavy falling vehicle, all while muttering under her breath. A prayer, perhaps? A quasi-deathbed conversion to any and every god ever created by the sum of all races in the known universe, in case the worst happened? No, rather a string of profanities that would likely send her on a one-way trip to the hell of any religion, do not pass Go, do not collect 200 dollars.
But somehow, Mac's feet were just fast enough to get her clear of the falling hovercar; unfortunately, they weren't swift enough to get her clear of the ensuing explosion. The bounty hunter was taken by surprise by the fiery blast of shrapnel and broken glass that literally bowled her over and started a bit of a barbecue with her clothing. "Yaaaaaow!" she howled at the top of her lungs, running around like a madwoman for a few seconds before her survival instinct kicked in and she stopped, dropped and rolled. Mac kept on rolling on the cold hard pavement long after the flames were extinguished, even though every move she made only pushed the tiny pieces of charred metal further into her skin. She merely gritted her teeth and bore the pain as best she could. When she finally had enough rolling for one day, she painfully stood up and assessed the damage: dozens of tiny lesions on her skin and just as many embedded fragments of exploded hovercar, burns on her back and blackened smouldering clothing. Just as long as the holes in her tank top and pants weren't large enough to destroy her clothes entirely and thus leave her stark naked for all to gawk at, she was fine. With her pistol still in her right hand, after all this time, she pointed it upward toward her prey and prepared to fire a shot.
But then an interruption appeared in the form of that anachronistic medieval cosplayer. Apparently he had no dress-up parties to attend, so he decided to butt into Mac's fight. Big mistake number 1: Mac much preferred working alone, partly because she wasn't much of a leader (and even less of a follower) and partly because she didn't want to share any money she got from her bounty. She was already quite annoyed at Sir Buttsalot as it was for interfering, but her mood wasn't improved one bit when she saw exactly how he planned to go about stopping the morph-arm freak. He managed to summon up a huge column of pure fire that lit up the sky in its warm ruddy light, and sent one plume of flame straight at Mac's opponent. Big mistake number 2: bounties weren't worth much dead, but were absolutely worthless charred beyond all recognition. Mac obviously wasted no time expressing her deep disappointment.
"Hey, ya dumb clown!" she yelled hoarsely at the armoured knight. "Whacha think you're doin' to my bounty? I didn't order him extra-crispy! He ain't worth **** if ya burn him!" And so she turned her aim from her original opponent toward the fire summoner and fired off two quick condensed proton bullets at high velocity. Did she forget about the 'freak' and the exploding hovercar he sent her just a few moments ago? Not at all, but the bounty was more important than her bruised and burned ego. If that meant changing her target, then so be it. But if her prey ever thought to take that opportune moment to escape, he'd be in for a nasty shock. She kept one eye on the knight and the other on her bounty, ready to switch targets in a flash if needed.
From: Wolfgang Visarett | Posted: 3/12/2005 9:52:14 PM
An interesting thing about Vadasian is that they do, and don't, burn. The contain within their sweat a strange little concoction brought about by evolution for what seems completely unnecessary reasons, but it's there just the same. The concoction is a combination of chemicals, several of which when combined form a natural napalm-like incendiary. Another set of chemicals act as a neutralization agent to keep the Vadasian from burning him or herself to a crisp. Essentially, a Vadasian can light himself on fire and not be harmed, which is what happened when the knight-wannabe decided that playing with fire was the in thing of the moment.
The problem for Gunther, however, was that while he might be immune to the fire's heat and more destructive effects, his armor was not, so he closed down the armor letting it melt across his body until it was focused in a band around his left biceps, which with a ruddy, red glow, disappeared into the Jorgani stone about his neck. This left Gunther exposed, in a sense, and very much covered in flames when they did engulf him.
Without the antigrav coils to hold him aloft, Gunther plummeted the fifty or so feet toward the ground. He landed, rolled with it, and came up a tad bruised and more than slightly annoyed. Vadasian weren't designed to be dropped from heights, and with a column of flame around himself, felt that he needed to oblige the sender with something of better or equal quality. No sense talking about the concussion that was already making Gunther rather muddle-headed, but he was thinking fairly straight and keeping his more animalistic nature under wraps for the moment (a feat in and of itself), unlike his now departed comrade Ilari.
What was even better for the Vadasian was that the woman didn't want a comrade-in-arms and turned her attention toward the medieval-themed figure. Gunther decided that if they wanted to fight amongst themselves, it was all for the better. Chaos was a good thing. Gunther was still on fight, and as he walked out of the blaze, he was a figure engulfed in flames. His clothes, which had been saturated by the chemicals contained with his sweat burned in a sense, but didn't burn up as one would have thought. A quick thought and Gunther reached with his mind deep into the confines of his Jorgani stone and searched quickly for an appropriate weapon. He found one, a simple handgun. If one watched the dancing flames on his body they would have noticed the ruddy glow that took place beneath Gunther's left armpit. And from the shoulder-holster that had so conveniently appeared there, Gunther pulled out a sidearm--a BPX-00 Jrakar Mark II--and pointed it at the woman before snapping off a couple shots.
He figured that if he kept shooting at her, she'd be distracted enough and either keep her shield up or dive. The only problem was the other figure with sword--while he might have to think about the woman as a target, he also would be focusing his attacks on Gunther as well. This meant the Vadasian had to split his attention. No matter; if it came to using his Echo armor again, he'd go for it, but why waste resources so early on?
From: c0mbatw0mbat | Posted: 3/16/2005 6:11:48 PM
As the world explodes
We fall out of it
And you can't let go
Because this will not go away
... There's a house built out in space
And I can't see that thief that lives inside of your head
But I can be some courage at the side of your bed
And I don't know what's happening and I can't pretend
But I can be your, be your
Thief, Our Lady Peace
~IV~
The Android
"He ain’t worth **** if ya burn him!"
But the knight wasn’t interested in the worth of bounties or --
whii-CRASH!
His left cheek exploded in pain, chunks of flesh flying to the ground, and --
wha-SLAM!
Stumbling backward, in more pain than he had even thought possible, something struck him in the stomach, too, doubling him over. The knight fell to his knees. Behind him, the firestorm wavered, and --
Nevermind, that’s it.
Warm, steamy blood poured all down over what was left of his chin and neck, then his shirt, pooling on the ground.
Ignore it, he told himself.
Ignore it ignore it ignoreitignoreitignoreitignoreit!
He threw back his head and howled in agony, then punched the ground, denting it. As his concentration failed, he felt himself losing hold of the firestorm. A spurt of flame jetted out from it, scorching the side of a building, liquefying glass.
It’s notnot real, Runasunas he tried to tell himself
(I think that’s my name). They programmedogrammed the pain into youintoyou to make you more humanan.
The crowdsrowdsowdsowdsowds liked that sort of stuff.
He could feel himself fading away. What’s
hapappening? But something stuck in his mind for a moment. Black armor. A woman. Justice.
Justice. That was right. They were both as one: the woman and the armor were both deserving of the fire. He could feel himself losing hold of it; he could feel it heating up as it expanded, and when he lost control entirely, the coming explosion would immolate him. It wouldn’t be long.
The knight was fading.
Standing, welcoming the pain, accepting it, bloody and battered, the knight turned, reached out through the ancient powers, grabbing hold of the firestorm. He pivoted, leg buckling underneath him, and flung the unstable mass ahead.
At that moment, it exploded.
But the flames were still moving forward, toward the woman and the man in black armor.
|intoyouintoyouintoyou|
Who am I?
Who are you? asked the darkness.
I’m Runas.
Model 3459, the darkness named him, Ye of No Name.
I’m Runas.
Are you? asked the darkness.
Am I?
No, the darkness answered.
I don’t know.
Then know, the darkness answered.
...
PROGRAMERROR
...
Who are you? asked the darkness.
I’m Runas, Runas answered.
Who are you? asked the darkness.
I’m a knight, the knight answered.
Who are you? asked the darkness.
I’m someone, someone answered.
Who are you? asked the darkness.
Nothing, no one answered.
-~-
A robot crawled up and stood after the flames had passed. It was humanoid. It had a head, blue beam eyes, a gash where a human’s mouth would be. A portion of its torso was entirely eviscerated, with scraps of molten metal ringing it, still red hot. White-yellow electricity crackled along the circuitry inside.
Its sensors took in everything and began processing it as best it could. It was damaged, it knew that, and missing something, too. A lot of things were missing. But it didn’t know what was gone.
The robot began to sort through the myriad system failures and program errors that plagued its consciousness, still monitoring the environment.
From: lachesis77 | Posted: 3/18/2005 10:32:28 AM
It seemed Mac didn't have to worry about her precious bounty being burned to a crisp, after all. Then again, in a strange way, the brash woman would've preferred seeing her prey writhe in pain consumed by the very flames that ate away at him. There was something deeply disconcerting about the way the weirdo stood around bathed in fire and somehow made a weapon appear out of thin air as if there were nothing more natural in the world. "Damn," she muttered to herself, "this guy's even worse than I thought."
Mac had just enough presence of mind to react to her bounty's shots and dive to the right. She never even considered activating the force shield portion of her bangle armour. Though the forcefield it generated was effective, it suffered the same failing as the wavejammer and every other protective field it produced: it needed an intial shock to adapt to. For the forcefield, that meant that some of the incoming force had to pass through the shield for it to adapt and push back the rest of the assault. Unfortunately, when it came to bullets, the forcefield never reacted quickly enough to deflect high-momentum projectiles. In other words, the first bullet would always go right through the forcefield as if it were never activated. Of course, subsequent shots would be deflected, but that came at a price Mac thought was too steep to begin with. Unless she was absolutely strapped for options, she always chose to run instead of taking a single bullet.
Again, her dumb luck pulled her through and Mac survived the projectile assault unscathed, save for perhaps a bruise or two on her chest and the wind knocked out of her lungs. She quickly rose to her feet, ready to counter-attack the fire-wreathed bounty that was now on the ground instead of floating in the air. Though the fact that the freak wasn't charred black by now still troubled her sense of normalcy, she had to admit the effect made him look quite imposing. Maybe this bounty was more trouble than he was worth; maybe he was out of her league. Mac never doubted her actions very often: she just shot first, collected her bounty and then, if there was enough time and her prey was still alive or concsious, she'd perhaps ask questions. Those doubts presently lingered in her slow mind just long enough for her consider the possibility that she might get the short end of the stick. "Bah, a girl's gotta try, anyway," she reasoned, pushing aside her thoughts for now.
Just then, she looked up and saw the column of fire that Sir Buttsalot summoned a few moments ago rush toward her and her prey and actually explode. Mac groaned inwardly at the prospect of another blast coming at her: her back was still stinging with pieces of shrapnel and the back of her clothing was still charred and burnt in some spots from the exploding car a while back. But this time, there was no outrunning this. Mac looked around frantically for something, anything to stop the fire from consuming her. She thought briefly of hiding behind a parked vehicle, but after seeing the explosions effects on a once-sturdy high-rise, she nixed that idea. Then, she found what she was looking for: a fire hydrant. Without another second to lose, she opened fire on the tall water well that was just behind the flame-bathed freak and thus let loose a powerful geyser. Her shot hit the top of the hydrant, and let the cold water jet upward at an angle, then arc down in a graceful parabola, creating sparkling rainbows with the afternoon sunlight. Then, as quickly as her feet could carry her, she dove toward the protection of her aquatic canopy.
Just before fire met water, Mac saw her assailant, formerly a knight in shining armour, now a damaged android. "Oh great," she said aloud in exasperation. "Am I the only normal person around here?" Of course, in Hu Zan Chak, 'normal' had four legs and blue skin, so the real answer to her rhetorical question would've been "No", but that was beside the point. Mac flipped a switch on her pistol, changing her ammuntion from proton bullets to condensed electrons, and fired off another two shots at the robotic knight, hoping the nature of her projectiles would give her an edge. Right after she'd attacked, the explosion met with the jet of water and created a thick fog of smoke and vapour. The fiery blast wasn't completely stopped, though, and Mac found herself climbing the fire hydrant and dousing herself with water to put out her burning skin and clothes. Then, the fire passed and it was safe to come back to solid ground. Mac couldn't see very well through the fog, but the mist would clear up soon enough. For now, she was burned and blistered, shivering cold and drenched, her clammy clothes clinging to her female form, but somehow still alive. All she had to do was keep herself that way.
From: Wolfgang Visarett | Posted: 3/26/2005 1:31:15 AM
Had Gunther been human instead of Vadasian, the sight of the water drenched female would have evoked thoughts of wet T-shirt contests. And the fact that her form was very easy to appreciate, he would have been struck with thoughts leaning in the direction of far less clothing and more fun--but this would have been if Gunther was human. He wasn't, so the only thoughts running through his mind were on how to use the now blasted fire hydrant to his advantage, or anything else nearby.
Currently, the medieval-wannabe had shown its true colors once its flesh had been burnt away. It was now a medieval-wannabe-turned-metal-robot-of-impending-doom, or maybe of comical relief. It stood there, and Gunther was waiting for it to stand up straighter and mouth off, "By your command!" Or maybe he was waiting for the thing to pull a laser from somewhere and say, "Eat my laser! Eat it!" The combinations of what the machine ran through Gunther's mind and combined to make him laugh slightly, the sound erupting as a high-pitched yipping noise.
With the current lull in the battle, except for the woman having once more turned her attention toward the medieval-wannabe-turned-android and fire off several rounds. A thought came unbidden to his mind of using this to either deal with the robot--after all, the enemy of my enemy is my friend--or escape/retreat. With those two thoughts in mind, Gunther cocked in Jraker, loading in a different set of rounds. Instead of the projectiles he had been firing he was now using a plasma-encased clip which would pack more punch and do more damage.
He readily aimed it at the droid before snapping off several rounds. He did, however, keep a close eye on the woman. Had this been different circumstances, he might have asked her out for a drink (drinking of course is the Vadasian national past time on a major scale), but Gunther had a feeling she probably wouldn't consent to such, at least not in her current condition. And anyway, would the hell would he want to take a woman out who was currently trying to kill him or maybe even render him unconscious?
Of course, Gunther was still encased in flames, and since he had this little bit of current advantage, he thought to use it. So, after he had fired off his two shots, and while his mind rambled on for the split second before the thought necessary to form his current plan came into being, he stood motionless. But, as said, it was a split second reaction, like instinct.
The woman was to his left, his gun was in his right, so he switched it up. Gun jumped to left hand after the two shots were fired and his right arm swung under left in the direction of the woman. This action carried with it a bit of significance. That being that Gunther was flinging his sweat in the general direction of the woman. His sweat containing several chemicals, two of which acted like napalm (which is why Gunther burned), and the action he had done sent a cascade of flames flying through the air at the woman. If it touched skin, she would be in for a hell of a burn mark...
From: c0mbatw0mbat | Posted: 4/3/2005 11:54:13 PM
~V~
The Knight
Memory errors -- both long and short term -- various program and protocol errors which impaired speech and other modes of communication, lethargic movement of the right leg (this was caused by the hydraulics in the right leg being punctured by something, say, an extremely sharp knife), and a breached inner skin layer plagued the robot.
Its sensors took in everything and began processing it as best it could. It was damaged, it knew that, and missing something, too. A lot of things were missing. But it didn’t know what was gone.
MEMORYERROR
Its sensors took in everything and began processing it as best it could. It was damaged, it knew that, and missing something, too. A lot of things were missing. But it didn’t know what was gone.
MEMORYERROR
Its sensors took in everything and began processing it as best it could. It was damaged, it knew that, and missing something, too. A lot of things were missing. But it didn’t know what was gone.
MEMORYERROR
Having tried to scan the environment several times already, the robot concluded there was nothing to be scanned: a void.
There was a sparkling fountain of water nearby that the robot did not know of. It was, effectively, nonexistent. There were two beings nearby that the robot did not know of. They were, effectively, nonexistent. There was a problem with that, but to the robot, the problem was, effectively, nonexistent.
Taking stock of its weaponry, it discovered the most potent item in its arsenal were its fists. Then it found something else. It didn’t know what to make of it. It probed it; unsuspectingly used it.
A line of flame lit for a moment in front of it. It ‘saw’ it, but without its short-term memory could not register it. It kept delving into this enigma, immersing its consciousness in it, soaking in the unknown.
The robot’s systems fell even more into disarray as a photon bullet blasted its leg off at the knee, then another crashed into its chest. Seconds later, two more bullets with similar damage. One of those last two hit its short term memory node and fried it completely and so the robot, channeling the powers that be, channeled more. It didn’t know it was channeling.
Flames whirled and crackled around it; its circuits held an impossible amount of energy; the pyrestorm was a tornado. Its feet lifted off the ground, the metal of its hull glowing red, the circuitry exposed to the air melting from the heat.
The robot’s eyes saw through the fire – saw the black-armored man and the woman. Something – someone – some fragment of code inside it made it lift its hands. Two concentrated orbs of fire coalesced there. Its fingers were melting, dripping, and so was the rest of its body, immersed in the hot hurricane.
In the last, final seconds before it was done, a terrible roar echoed through the city as twin jets of flame burst from the burning column, one searing for the man in black armor, the other aimed at the woman. There was a calamitous flash, and a shockwave raced outward from the being in the fire.
As the knight faded into the eternal darkness and the flaming column unraveled, four words lingered on the hot new breeze:
|MynameisRunas!|
From: lachesis77 | Posted: 4/9/2005 10:05:46 AM
How did Mac come to be here, anyway? How did she manage to find herself under the arcing shower of a busted fire hydrant fighting off a burning weirdo who could morph his arm into a weapon and a knight-cum-android-cum-psycho-fire-summoner? Mac could only vaguely remember an explosion while she was being surly over a drink she didn't get. Why would she have thought a blast would lead to a bounty and the immediate if not temporary end of her current financial woes? Something about the ones responsible probably being wanted by the local police or mafia or other shady organization. But honestly, could she really be sure about that now? And besides, how would she know who to deliver the freak to, if she ever caught him? Yes, now she was already thinking in "ifs" instead of "whens". And right now, that "if" was starting to look rather shaky.
She didn't make a sarcastic rude comment about the weirdo's dog-like laugh, meaning she clearly wasn't her usual self right now. She did have the presence of mind to turn towards him just in time to see beads of fire being hurled in her direction. Thinking as quickly as she could manage in her current state, the bounty hunter dashed towards the fire hydrant, cupped her left hand over a small portion of the powerful jet bursting out of it and cupped her right hand (still holding her pistol, somehow) over her left at an angle, thus directing a small stream of water to counter the fiery projectiles. Luckily, she'd acted quick enough and the napalm beads and water dissolved to vapour on contact and, if her karma was really working out for her today, maybe she would even be able to douse the freak's flaming aura. "Phew," she thought to herself. "That was a close one. I really need some al..."
Unfortunately for her, Mac was never able to finish that thought then and there and would never find out whether she'd been successful at getting the weirdo wet. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a bright flash in the sky. She craned her neck to look up and noticed what was happening, her grey eyes widened in pure shock and fear. The knight-robot-thing had just exploded. One less target for the bounty hunter, to be sure, but that wasn't what had her so afraid: just before the blast, the android managed to send two jets of fire down to the ground, one of them aimed at Mac yet again. She'd been lucky enough to counter the last one with the fire hydrant, but this column was headed directly for her and would not be in the water jet's path at all this time. With her rosary of curses, Mac ran as fast as her weary feet could carry her, away from the fire stream and from the freak she was trying to capture. She felt the intense heat on her bare blistered back and, just as the fiery column hit the pavement, she dove face-first and skidded a few feet before she finally stopped. With a miserable groan and a fresh string of obscenities, she got up and assessed the damage. All and all, she'd been extremely fortunate. The fire jet had crashed to the ground, but hadn't spread much thanks mostly to the water spewing out from the hydrant. Still, if she'd stayed where she'd been standing, she would've burned to a crisp. Her back was slightly seared due to how close the column had come, and her chest was likely black and blue underneath her soaked tank top, but she was still alive. And now, with only one target to worry about, she pointed her pistol at the weirdo she'd been after all along, and prepared to fire a couple of shots. "Aright, buddy," she announced aloud to her bounty, "this time it's jus' you 'n me."
Click. Click. Click.
Nothing. Absolutely nothing happened. No matter how many times Mac's right index finger pulled the trigger, no shots rang out. Frantically, Mac tried switching the settings on her weapon, but to no avail. "Aaaaiiie!" she cried out desperately, shaking her pistol around as if trying to knock some sense into it. As she did that, a steady stream of water poured from the mouth of the gun. "Oh ****," she spat out in disgust. That was why she couldn't fire a single shot now. Water had gotten into her weapon and damaged it from the inside. She would never be able to do anything until she got it fixed. "****!" she yelled even louder than before, hurling her gun to the ground in a frustrated and somewhat childish tantrum. The poor bounty hunter then proceeded to shout curses to no one and everyone all at once, blaming the world for her lot in life. Once she'd calmed down slightly (which took her quite a while, actually), she turned back to the weirdo, who now had the clear advantage. "I, uh... I dun suppose you wanna be nice to a poor girl 'n come quietly with me?" she asked hopelessly and pathetically.
She never waited for him to answer. She pretty much knew no one in his right mind would agree. "Ah well," she sighed. "Get on outta here. I'm gonna find someplace 'round here that serves real alcohol. After this, I really need to get wasted." And then she turned to walk away, beaten and downtrodden by her strange prey. Perhaps she'd come across better times in the future; perhaps she'd find easier bounties. But for now, she had nothing but rough times ahead.
Juryrigged > Works > RPGs > Duels > Foreign Skyscapes: Battle in Glass Canyons