2075: 86ing the 88s Options

[Mercy]

Tanya grins in the darkness as the Troll appears. Not able to talk to her companions, she simply steps in a bit and flicks her wrist in the direction of the small mountain.

[Jack_Spade]

The whip flickered into the still falling debris, but instead of the expected "splorch" sound she expected there was the fine "sirring" sound of a single string vibrating across hardened steal.
The Troll in it's full body armor lowered the riot shield a fraction, allowing Tanya to see her own face and her vanishing grin in the mirrored helmet...

[Aria]

Glo
Monday, 25 November, 2340; Approach to construction site behind Sam What's bar, Seattle Metroplex

Glo was in two minds about whether she should interfere with this attack on the runners…she didn’t hold them any particular loyalty and this could get ugly fast, on the other hand they could prove to be useful allies and there may be intel, however unlikely, from the attackers themselves…

Once more practically nude she stashed her clothes, wafted some odour neutraliser over herself (she could listen too) and slipped outside to be greeted by the sound of gunfire…so things were going that way already clearly…

Moving slowly and cautiously she headed towards the sound of the fight, her intention being to come up behind the people pursuing the runners…

[Mercy]

Monday, 25 November, 2340; Construction site behind Sam What's bar, Seattle Metroplex


If the Troll, or anyone else for that matter, had expected Tanya to panic or give way to the unexpected result of her whip attack, they were wrong. Her grin falters for only a moment as she recognizes a potential real threat. In her mind, the fight suddenly moved from the commonplace to something much more thrilling. She had half expected whoever had fired at the thugs to take a shot at the massive Troll as it stood in the hole it had made in the wall, but does not dwell on the possible reasons why that does not happen. As her huge opponent turns to face the only threat it can see at this time, she laughs. "Coming out to play with me?"

The Troll gives a mighty roar and moves forward, sweeping a huge hand at the woman who has attacked him. This is not his first rodeo, though, and he can certainly respect a monomilament whip, which can be dangerous in anyone's hands but lethal in the hands of someone who knows how to use it, and his opponent appears to be quite skilled with the weapon. He decides to go for the woman's feet to try to sweep her legs from under her and put her prone which would reduce her effectiveness a bit.

Tanya has often been glad of her love for gymnastics when she was in school. It had been one of the few things she had been really good at. Well, that and breaking into locked offices.....and stealing things.......and sex.....and, well, alright, there had been several things she had excelled at in school and they have all stood her in good stead in her career as a professional thief, but right now, it was her gymnastics training that helps her. She laughs out loud as she nimbly dodges the Troll's attack and prepares her own response.

[Jack_Spade]

John
Monday, 25 November, 23:40 pm; Construction Site behind Sam What's bar, Seattle Metroplex #168

John had returned just in time to see Al take on three goons by himself that seemed to have flanked them. His sensors recognized the two other goons sprinting forward to assist their buddies. John switched from suppressor to gas vent and brought the Alpha up in position. "Hello and goodbye."

A full salvo of military grade armor piercing bullets found the two goons, ripped through their bodies and let them fall to the ground like puppets with cut strings.
Somewhere close to the bar shots were fired, followed shortly by an exploding brickwall.
'Shit. Time to get the high ground.'
With another hydraulic jack assisted jump he gained height and began to climb upwards like a spider on one of the unfinished structures.
From there he expected to be able to get a better field of fire.
<<Glo, if you are still there, could you do us a favor and geek the support of this runner team? As far as I could see the rigger and the mage are back at their car.>>

[mister__joshua]

Jan
Monday, 25 November, 23:40 pm; Construction Site behind Sam What's bar, Seattle Metroplex

Jan took a look at the troll, then a look down at the compact MP in his hand, then back at the troll. He took one last sqig from a drink on his tray before setting it down and heading off in the direction of the site office. He'd seen a digger that'd come in real handy about now and could have a fair guess where the keys were...

[Mercy]

Monday, 25 November, 23:40 pm; Construction Site behind Sam What's bar, Seattle Metroplex


Tanya continues her gymnastics roll after dodging the Troll's fist then twirls to get some momentum behind her wrist and sends the single strand of razor sharp wire back at the mountain near her. The resulting scream of whip slashing against metal armor tells her that the blow is a solid one and she waits to see the effect.

[Jack_Spade]

Monday, 25 November, 23:40 pm; Construction Site behind Sam What's bar, Seattle Metroplex

The monowhip coiled around the troll's buttocks and cleanly cut a disk shaped piece of muscle and armor away. Blood gushed from the wound and with a small cry of agony, the troll fell to the ground.

Meanwhile, Glo was able to see the runner's base camp - aka their armored GMC Bulldog. The Dwarf rigger seemed to be unconscious in VR, secure inside his vehicle, while the elf seemed to be busy to cast spells on the human. There was no trace of the black clad ork to be found. Above the elf's shoulder the form of a translucent Samurai warrior was floating, casting spells of it's own.
The scream of the troll made them stop whatever they did and both the Samurai and the street sam started to move, while from the back of the car a Steel Lynx combat drone began to unload.

[mister__joshua]

Jan
Monday, 25 November, 23:40 pm; Construction Site behind Sam What's bar, Seattle Metroplex

Jan stopped in his tracks at the troll's scream, turned and started to laugh. "Damn chick, that thing's dangerous! I was thinking we'd need a machine to end that fokker." He ran over to where the troll now lay unconscious, hefted up the shield and kicked off the guy's helmet with the heel of his boot. "Not your lucky day fella." Jan leveled his MP at the troll's plate-thick forehead before tracking down a little to the softer eye-nose region. His finger twitches over the trigger. Runners didn't tend to do this sort of thing in the UCAS, executing fellow runners, but Jan wasn't from the UCAS. He was from an altogether harder environment, one where if you didn't kill a troll-mountain today then tomorrow you'd wake up to him stabbing you in the face. He'd learnt. Things like this had to be done.

[Mercy]

Monday, 25 November, 23:40 pm; Construction Site behind Sam What's bar, Seattle Metroplex


Tanya watches the Troll drop with a sense of pleasure at a job well done, then watches with much less pleasure as Jan runs over from somewhere and takes the shield away then kneels at the head of the Troll as he begins to remove its helmet. Something about the way the man is doing this disturbs her. She steps forward a bit to get a better look. "If you are planning on killing the Troll, you should know that I am VERY much against you doing that and I would ask that you reconsider. The fight might be long over before he wakes up and he might be able to give us some information on who sent them. Besides, he has friends out here that are already on the way and perhaps we should be preparing for them."

[Aria]

Glo
Monday, 25 November, 2340; Parking Lot, Sam What's bar, Seattle Metroplex

With a caution bred on the streets and honed by a vicious Aztech training programme, Glo stalked through the dark, hunting her prey. She was suitably cautious of the drone and its lethal payload but it seemed likely that it was headed away from her towards the tumult on the other side of the bar…now, if she could get between the mage and the safety of the van she could potentially remove the threat of the spirit and the drone, assuming the rigger’s meat was indeed inside…

Scuttling, almost on all fours, she ensured there were cars between her and the runner’s vehicle for as long as possible…whilst she had a reasonable reliance on her skin maintaining her cover to normal sight, she was more than aware of the possibility of acoustic monitoring, ultrasound movement sensors and radar detection that most gearheads arrayed over their babies and she wanted to be a surprise…

[Jack_Spade]

Monday, 25 November, 23:41 pm; Construction Site behind Sam What's bar, Seattle Metroplex

As the Steel Lynx moved past the elf mage, she began to move towards the interior of the car, yet still looked worriedly in the direction where the troll's scream had come from. She was visibly upset - in addition to the strain of concentrating on several spells at once, her steps were less than graceful and a bit faltering.

Using the distraction, Glo had no problem to quickly move across the open space towards the open doors of the car. Even though the rigger might have drones watching his meat, his attention had to be with the large combat drone that now moved with increasing speed towards the gap in the wall.

The black human had moved out of sight, accompanied by the samurai spirit. Whoever had fought the troll would shortly find themselves confronted by spirit, man and machine - unless of course Glo cut the strings of the two puppeteers.

It would be only a second or two before one of the countless sensors around and inside the car would catch her and warn the dwarf... Which meant Glo had a small eternity to work with.


On the other side of the alley, Tanya and Jan became aware of the steady rumbling of the large drone, navigating swiftly past and over debris and the bodies of the fallen. Whatever debate they wanted to have, it would have to be a short one...

[Jack_Spade]

Monday, 25 November, 23:41 pm; Construction Site behind Sam What's bar, Seattle Metroplex

Al was hurtling towards his car when he noticed a silent movement out of the corner of his eyes. A black clad figure just had jumped over the tall fence and intended to land with it's two extended nightsticks directly in Al's face. The face of his foe was hidden behind the helmet of a night black full body armor with a mirrored visor. To his own amazement, Al could see the tiny electrical discharge at the end of the batons reflected in his eyes which were in turn reflected in the visor - despite the originals getting closer with frightening speed (funny how in situations like this you can notice such minute details).

There was a crash as the black clad attacker hit the earth, immediately followed by an amazingly loud burst of gunfire from somewhere above them. When it stopped, the attacker was lying flat on the ground, bleeding from several holes in it's very expensive armor...

[Aria]

Glo
Monday, 25 November, 2340; Parking Lot, Sam What's bar, Seattle Metroplex

As Glo paused momentarily on the dropped ramp to the rigger’s domain she, almost nonchalantly, flicked the rapidly spooling whip out towards the oblivious mage. With a gentle flick of her wrist and fine servo controls in her fingers she sent it out in an arc to settle around the shoulders of her foe. With a tug she pulled it free and was about to turn towards the rigger when, to her surprise, the mage grabbed at an amulet and with a gesture flung lightening towards Glo, only then beginning to collapse to her knees as blood loss suddenly became a very real problem…

Whether it was Glo’s skin or the combat reflexes drummed in to her she leant back out from the spell that ionised the air where she had been moments before…the heat was intense but Glo didn’t really feel heat any more than she did cold…

Ducking in to a crouch she coiled out the whip once more towards the stubborn woman…

[Mercy]

Monday, 25 November, 23:41 pm; Construction Site behind Sam What's bar, Seattle Metroplex


Tanya and Jan note the arrival of fresh enemies and Tanya grins at the sight of the large drone as it enters the yard through the hole in the wall. "We have company. Let's argue about this later, eh. Can you get the guy on the wall?"

She moves with the grace of a gymnast and lashes out with her whip.

[Jack_Spade]

Monday, 25 November, 23:41 pm; Construction Site behind Sam What's bar, Seattle Metroplex
The drone didn't have a chance: Once the monowire cut through the hard exterior armor there was nothing inside that had even a remote chance of stopping the weapon's devastating effect.

Bisected the turret part slid of the rest as the drone died. The dark skinned mercenary that had appeared above the remnants of the wall didn't hesitate. In his hands appeared a whirling disk that at closer inspection would have turned out to be two flashbang grenades connected with a short wire, but almost as soon as he had pulled it up he had thrown it to the ground between Jan and Tanya and dropped out of sight.
In a earsplitting bang and a flash hat could be seen to the other end of the construction site the double pack of 'nades exploded.

[Jack_Spade]

Al
Monday, 25 November, 2341; Construction site behind Sam What's bar, Seattle Metroplex

The twin shock-sticks traced an admirably intricate web in front of Al, but after the Triad goons' machine pistol fire, the trajectories of the much-slower batons were easy to anticipate. Al and his pipe were just spotting a hole in the pattern to strike through when, in response to the short man's muttered invocation of the voodoo gods, his attacker was struck down from on high.

Al was not surprised.

The guy was pretty big, and the now-multiply-perforated armor looked like it was once expensive. One of the bullet holes bubbled pink as the guy struggled for breath, so Al kicked him hard in the helmet just to be safe and rolled him over. Yup, there were his cuffs, right in the small of the back where the rollers kept theirs. The guy's black-clad arms were about triple the thickness of Al's and not exactly compliant, but a finger in a bullet hole tended to get a person's attention. "Ya don't want more o' that, El Blackamundo, you'll make like a river an' go with the flow." Al tightened the cuffs behind the guy's back until they bit hard into flesh, then gripped the chain and hauled the guy to his feet. He was bleeding out rapidly, and when Al pulled the helmet off, the ork's bald, scarred head and face were deathly pale. His eyes were defiant, though, which Al admitted to himself was sort of cute and endearing. So he decided not to do anything about the murderer-for-hire's wounds, at least give him a fighting chance to exsanguinate instead of face Jan and Johnny in a dark room.

He helped himself to the tusker's high-end medkit and nifty Narco patches, and was about to let Jan and Johnny know he'd bagged himself another one when a sharp crash lit up his little corner of the construction site, sending the shadows into a microsecond of sharp relief.

<<Y'all takin' care o' bizness, I hope? Got me another one fer a chat, don't reckon we need no more alive. Hate ta leave this one though - looks a little cagey - but I'll kill 'im an' come lend a hand if'n y'all need it.>>

[Mercy]

Monday, 25 November, 2341; Construction site behind Sam What's bar, Seattle Metroplex


Tanya watches the drone implode and spares a thought for the rigger that must have been controlling it. But just a thought as she picks up the arc of the tossed grenade. Her sensors also pick up that Jan might not have seen the device headed for them and she whirls to run at him, calling out "Grenade!" as she does. She reaches out to grab his arm and tries to move him with her away from the expected blast area.

[Jack_Spade]

Monday, 25 November, 23:41 pm; Construction Site behind Sam What's bar, Seattle Metroplex

With the explosion on the ground, the spirit had floated upwards and out of reach of the mono whip and looked intently at Tanya.
Suddenly a thought occurred to her: Jan had betrayed her - it had to be all his doing, he was the reason she was in this mess. If she could take him out all her other problems would go away...

[mister__joshua]

Jan
Monday, 25 November, 23:41 pm; Construction Site behind Sam What's bar, Seattle Metroplex

As the explosion rang in Jan's ears he was already heading off after the grenade thrower. The guy was hiding. He wasn't having that. Shield up, he headed for the hole the troll had kindly created.

[Jack_Spade]

Monday, 25 November, 23:41 pm; Construction Site behind Sam What's bar, Seattle Metroplex

Jan saw the street sam getting slowly back on his feet, balancing precariously on the metal dumpster. The man was armored and held an AK 97 in his left hand. His armor looked heavy enough to deal with small caliber weapon fire. Jan had to act fast...

[Mercy]

Monday, 25 November, 23:41 pm; Construction Site behind Sam What's bar, Seattle Metroplex


Tanya's arm meets granite-like resistance from Jan as she tries to drag him to safety. Her movement carries her past him but her mind tries to tell her that it is all his fault in the first place. Maybe more than his fault. After all, he had been the last to arrive, right? Perhaps he had tipped off the 88s about the meeting and had betrayed them all. A flick of the wrist would be enough to wipe that smug look from his face.

As she glides out of danger, her hand is already moving, but her mind snaps back to reality and she stops its progress. Looking around and up, she sees the spirit manifested in the air above her, well beyond reach of her weapon. Grimacing, she watches as Jan goes out through the hole, presumable after the man who had tossed the grenade and follows him.

[mister__joshua]

Jan
Monday, 25 November, 23:41 pm; Construction Site behind Sam What's bar, Seattle Metroplex

Using the momentum he'd built up in chase, Jan launched forwards and swung at the man as he was getting up. The rock solid arm struck the sam across the chest, knocking the wind out of him and clearing him off the bin onto the floor in front of Jan. He heard the man gasp as he scrabbled around on the floor.

[Jack_Spade]

Monday, 25 November, 23:41 pm; Construction Site behind Sam What's bar, Seattle Metroplex

The man was gasping for air but was already rolling around trying to bring his sidearm into play within the close confines of the alley, while still lying on his back. At this moment it seemed as if a shimmer crossed through the air and the movements of the man became just a bit slower than before.

Consequently, the shot from the Ruger was more than sloppy, allowing Jan ample time to get out of the way or block his gun hand.

[mister__joshua]

Jan
Monday, 25 November, 23:41 pm; Construction Site behind Sam What's bar, Seattle Metroplex

As the man raised his Ruger, Jan stamped down hard on his arm sending it sideways and the shot pinging off the dumpster. "Heh. Not today ya fokker..." Jan grinned at the wannabe assailant as he stood over his soon-to-be corpse.