Hunting in the Smoke IC, British Shadows are dark... mostly... Options

[Mysterio]

Not cool... Deice didn't like getting hit, and he certainly didn't like pain in any form.
Not liking the odds, Deuce made a dash to the stairs to regroup and rethink.

[Rakshasa]

Why doesn’t the silly sod stay down!? Piper ignored the fleeing Templar and stepped toward the downed, profusely bleeding, broken nosed Templar on his right. A swift swipe with the barrel of his Roomsweeper to the side of the man’s head laid him flat.

There had been a lot of firing, some of it the Irishman’s own, but it seemed that, so far, no one had actually been killed, though of that Piper could not be sure. It was, however, inevitable that more of the enforcers would arrive sooner than later and Piper had no intention of offering himself up as a target in a shoot-out situation.

Considering the possibilities, he did what to him was the logical thing. He knelt by the stricken Templar, facing the arch, holstered his gun and applied a balled handkerchief to the spurting wound in the man’s shoulder.

When the reinforcements arrived, he would not resist arrest, which would be their proper course of action. He’d just say that the fallen man was bleeding badly and for them to fetch a medic, in his best commanding, parade ground, voice.

With any luck it would distract the Templars long enough for the rest of the Team to make it out safely with their target; always assuming they’d found her.

There was a very brief lull in the noise level from the bar area. Either everyone was dead or they were regrouping. Either way, Piper wouldn’t have long to wait.

[Mysterio]

Getting partway up the stairs, out of the sights of anyone in the room below, Deuce stopped and turned around to see if he was being followed.
Fraggin' bastards!!! he gave himself a once over. drek...
He put away his pistol, and straightened out his ponytail. He was pissed, but tried to calm himself down.

[DrJest]

I wander thro' each charter'd street,
Near where the charter'd Thames does flow,
And mark in every face I meet
Marks of weakness, marks of woe.

Hello London, you great big beautiful bitch.

Poet turned his collar up against the chill of the night air. Even London's smog had long since ceased to irritate his lungs; pausing to light a cigarette, he idly wondered if the fags had something to do with it. No point moving back to Wales now, boyo, he told himself lightly. The air's so clean you'd probably forget to breathe...

Leicester Square. Heart and soul of London's cinematic world. Whatever your taste, you could find something to satisfy it here. High art, low porn, cheap action...

...and fleeing customers. Poet glanced once at the clubbers exiting the industrial goth-grunge nightmare of Pipwerkz, then looked more closely. There was some definite genuine fear there.

Don't do it, old son. You know you'll regret it.

But his feet were already carrying his protesting thoughts towards the club. From inside he could hear gunfire. Local gangers, he told himself unconvincingly. But that deep-throated roar bespoke something a little more serious than the Saturday Night Specials the local thrillgangers usually packed around. Some kind of sawn-off? Something with a heavy calibre, certainly. As the last of the terrified clubbers disappeared, Poet walked into the bar, guns prudently drawn if slightly concealed in the folds of his long overcoat.

[DrJest]

Halfway down the stairs, an elf burst through the archway at the bottom. Clearly pissed off, he tucked a small pistol away, straightening his ponytail and brushing at his coat. He looked up and saw Poet; their eyes met for a heartbeat before Poet grinned like a wolf and said, "Were I you, boyo, I'd duck."

Over the elf's shoulder, Poet had seen a familiar black-suited shape - at least one, maybe more. Templars, moving into the stairwell. His own guns came up and spoke with heavy reports.

[Drain Brain]

Deuce & Poet:

The American runner was not happy, bleeding as he was from a pair of perforations in his person. A little tug on his locks arrayed them into a somewhat passable state, pulling his sharp features into a small wince as he looked around.

A glance behind him showed nobody with a firing solution. He moved his attention to the upper floor and spotted a tastefully attired man approaching. definately better dressed than those slags downstairs. A leader, perhaps? Deuce tagged him as a potential threat and was about to respond... in some way... to his presence, when footsteps reached his ears from below.

Although the man at the top was speaking, Deuce's attention was (naturally) focussed on the guy below. Another suit had reached the base of the tunnel and, ready-armed, took a wild shot at Deuce. A small flinch from both he and the man at the top of the stairs proved un-necesary as the bullet struck the tunnel roof and carreened off into the upper bar, prompting a scream from some chica unwise enough to still be there.

Almost immediately, Deuce found himself in a potential crossfire situation as he noticed the newcomer bring out a pair of pistols.

But who was he gonna shoot?

Piper:

All was not going according to plan.... anyone's plan.

Piper, handkerchief in hand, was trying to staunch the flow of blood from the unconscious suit's shoulder. From beyond the bar-rotunda he heard a single shot ring out, the thick ping of a 10mm automatic round ricocheting off some hard surface, followed by a very muffled female scream from up the stairs. As he glanced in that direction, he spotted the man who'd started all this - the one with the photo of Natasha strong - stepping towards him, aiming a big barrel his way.

That'll be a bad thing, then...


Sandy, Tyen and the Target Girl:

"Please, no... I... I don't want to be a creature. I want to be me! Can't we just wait? Or go out the back door once they're gone?"

Two pairs of eyes met, briefly, at the girls question.

There's a back door... hmm...

[Drain Brain]

Deuce & Poet:

Deuce's ponderance was answered quickly.

It seemed that the Templar at the foot of the stairs had seen the other man too, and his eyes widened at the sight of him. Two pistols came up into line in a flicker of motion, and a double shot sounded.

Below, two .40's made their home in the Templar's torso, drilling their way through armour and body alike. Heart and Lungs failed to function under the onslaught and in the second it took the officer to crumple to the floor, he had already passed on.

[Rakshasa]

Plan B then! The dirty muzzle of the Templar’s weapon focused Piper’s attention. “Don’t just stand there!! I've got a bleeder!! Get a MEDIC!!!“

Somewhere in the back of his mind, the soldier caught the cough of a 10mm going off in the bar and more distant firing. The years on the ranges and battlefields told him the weapons doing the firing were no ordinary guns. Smith & Wesson .40 calibre, I didn’t know we had any cavalry!! but no accompanying bugles sounded.

[Mysterio]

Deuce let out a small sigh of relief as the new addition to this little firefight didn't pop him one, at least not yet. Strange people showing up for no reason, and then start firing, not what Deuce liked to have happen, unless it was him of course. But he did have to admit that the new guy had some decent threads. Not tres chic, but better than some of the runners he's seen over the years.
"Nice one.." was all Deuce could comment on the well placed shots from the guy on the stairs. Not to be out done or outclassed however, Deuce grinned as he pulled out his Warhawk.
Turning to the new guy, "Hey bub, don't go killin' everyone in there, some of them are part of my team."

[DrJest]

"Well," Poet said philosophically, "Unless your team includes a bunch of Templars, I don't think I'm going to make that mistake. You'll have to tell me what you did to piss off The Lord Bastard... later," he finished as Deuce drew down on the next moving target.

[Silverspur_2020]

Turning to Natasha, Sandy tries to sound casual... "would you be able to give us directions to the back door from here?"

[Drain Brain]

Sandy & Tyen:

"Um, yeah... it's at the end of the corridor and up the stairs. There's doormen, but they're okay. Leads out into the alley so we don't have to go past those men..."

[Silverspur_2020]

"Come on... lets go" and with that they follow Natasha's directions to the end of the corridor and up the stairs. Having slipped the small gun into her pocket she opens the door onto the street. Her at the front, Natasha in the middle and Tyen bring up the rear.

[Rakshasa]

The hesitation of the Templar, hearing the Parade Ground bellow calling for a Medic, was all Piper needed.
He knew he had to act fast for, behind the gun toting Templar he could just see the glittering, vertical, mirrors around the optics column in the centre of the bar area.
Even in the subdued light, reflected figures were moving toward the Foam Room arch from left and right….

[Drain Brain]

Sandy, Tyen and Natasha Strong:

The trio of women exited into the corridor whence they came - there was no sign of the suits. Strong looked into the managers office briefly, but quickly turned away as she saw the legs of a man sticking out from behind the desk, a rapidly darkening pool of blood surrounding them.

Moving back along the hallway, all three could hear gunfire issuing from within the club. At the end, a doorway. Beyond the door, stairs.

As they were reaching the summit, a buzzing sound came from the internal tannoy speakers around them, followed by a whispered, electronic sounding voice...

"Sandy, Tyen, it's Bob... zere are two doormen at zee top. Vait a few moments unt I'll have zem gone."

The voice trailed into a hiss of static, only to return a few moments later. "I told zem vot vos going on downstairs and had zem report to zee front doors to help get zee customers out... You're all clear."

[Rakshasa]

The Irishman was still kneeling by the downed and unconscious Templar with that worthy’s gun lying in the splayed fingers of his right hand against the blood flecked foamy floor. Whether it would be more effective to grab the prone man’s gun or to re-draw his own weapon was Piper’s quandary.

He acted on an entirely different impulse, however, and threw the balled and bloody handkerchief straight at the face of the Templar training his nasty big gun at the Irishman. Piper’s Roomsweeper hurtled out of its holster, swung over, up and fired all in one swift action.

Width of Templar torso, say one metre. Distance to target, no more than six metres. No time to be accurate with the aim, just experience and a little magnified vision, judged the timing of the single shot.

[Drain Brain]

Piper:

One moment a bluff was in order, but it would have been painfully obvious to any onlooker that the wounded suit wouldn't fall for it. He was, to all intents and purposes, a soldier and Piper was the enemy. So the gun stays drawn, term.

Still, when he found himself faced with a rapidly growing ball of bloody cloth, his natural reaction was to dodge it. He didn't know what it was, and if it was dangerous...

The soggy missile clipped him in the cheek, leaving a nasty smear of his colleague's vital fluid across his face. Lucky that wasn't a weapon...

He was still congratulating himself on being alive when a massive boom sounded, a great 20 gauge slug urgently insinuating itself into where his gut should have been.

Consciousness left the Templar as he crumpled to the floor, leaving only five active adversaries for the runners - a beast with no head to guide it.

[Rakshasa]

Non commissioned officers in the British army spend a lot of time studying the history of warfare. From actual battle re-enactments to theoretical ways of eliminating the enemy.

Somewhere along the line, Piper had watched a war film from the late 20th century, quite early on in his military career. At the time he’d never seen a dead man, let alone what goes inside the human, or meta human, body. So Catch 22 made an impression.

There these guys were, trying to get home in a beaten up flying fortress, an old style prop bomber of the second world war. One of them had been hit, only there was nothing to see on account of his flying jacket still being wrapped around him. One of the other guys had to move the jacket to examine the wound…. Which is when the wounded flyer’s guts fell right out. So unexpected!

It was the same for the Templar the Irishman had just shot. He looked down as the impact pushed him back onto his rump, fascinated at the sight of his own dark blue and bloody viscera beginning to ooze out under shattered body armour onto the foam flecked floor with a soggy splash, just before darkness enveloped him forever.

But the soldier had no time to watch or even consider the dying man. He scrambled to the left of the arch, attempting to heave himself vertical, hard against the left hand side of the doorway, back against the wall, Roomsweeper levelled across his chest to cover the entrance.

Somewhere inside the bar room there were at least two more Templars, probably more from the earlier gunfire and the reflections he had seen in the bar rotunda’s mirrors. And at least one of them would be a Mage, knowing the luck of the Irish!!

[Mysterio]

Peeking out of the stairwell, deuce quickly surveys the situation, then takes aim at the closest templar that could be seen. "G'night..." he mutters as he pulls the trigger.

[Rakshasa]

From his vantage point against the left hand door jamb of the foam room arch, Piper stole a glance out into the bar. The well battered Templar who had managed to escape the foam room was staggering about like an idiot and, just between his legs, the Irishman could see movement reflected in the lower mirrors surrounding the bar rotunda. Something wicked this way comes! He thought.

To his right, and further out beyond the bar, he caught a glimpse of another Templar attempting to recover a mate. Heaven alone only knew how many more of the benighted coppers there were around!! At least that one seemed to have his hands full so he could be discounted as an immediate threat.

Which left the goon sneaking up to the foam room from Piper’s left. In the flash of consideration necessary, as his instinct allowed, the soldier made a decision and acted upon it. He held his Roomsweeper lightly in his left hand and brought his right hand up to his breast pocket.

The throwing knife slid easily from it’s small sheath on Piper’s chest and, exposing himself for a mere instant, he allowed himself a controlled fall to the short steps leading to the bar. Half facing left as he landed on his knees, he threw the deadly missile at the oncoming Templar.

Immediately flinging himself sideways, back into the shadows of the foam room, he fired a pot shot at the staggering man by the bar, just on the off chance, before diving left for the cover of the arch.

[Blitz]

:: As the three girls exited the club and disappeared into the mass of people, Tyen pulled up close to the girl and once again worked her influence to steer the girl into a more controlable location. ::

"We have a safe haven you can use, until you get your bearings. They'll never find you there. It's the best option."

[Rakshasa]

From one point of view, diving for cover had an unexpected advantage for Piper. He hadn’t accounted for the foam, some six to eight inches deep now, covering the floor.

From the point of view of his ego, however, it was denigrating, as the soldier found himself sliding, uncontrollably, toward the far wall of the Foam Room in an ever increasing snowball of the aerated mixture.

Flat on his back, his head nestled neatly against the wall, Piper put a cupped hand over his face, snorting foam from his nostrils, and caught his breath. There was no way to know what his sudden attack had done, whether he’d killed or wounded the two individuals he’d aimed for. But no shots had followed his tumble so there was a slim chance he’d got one, if not both.

The nagging doubt was what made him stay quite still, trying hard to listen for movement. It was that same doubt which would, if the Gods were kind, save his life.

Almost of its own volition, the Roomsweeper moved into position, ready for any change in the shadows in front of the foam covered Runner.

[Drain Brain]

Sandy, Tyen and Natasha Strong:

The waif of a girl gazed into Tyen's eyes as she spoke, a wave of understanding crossing her face - mixed in with hope and relief. She nodded mutely and allowed herself to be led down the alley into the crowd in front of Pipewerkz.

The mass of people were jabbering, talking, shouting, crying and running about in a scene of total chaos. Far off in the distance, The runners could hear sirens - getting closer every second - and from the sound it was from more than one squad car. Ahead and to their right, off near a ticket booth hawking places at the local venues, they simultaneously spotted a vehicle that fairly screamed its association with the suits - a gloss black Roadmaster, its massive bulk protruding past any obstacles.


In the Club:

Not wanting to be outdone, Deuce took a quickfire shot at the first Templar to rear his ugly face. Darting in to grab his cohort, the man seemed to have no regard for his safety - until Deuce's shot took him in the left shoulder. Deftly, however, the suit allowed the force of the impact to turn him and followed his feet back out of the line of fire.

Poet saw a potential Templar target - a red flag to a bull - and dove forward down the few remaining stairs, rolling at the base to avoid any potential hail of fire.

At the climax of his movement, he let fly with both guns. His left hand to the fore, Deuce's victim took a gel round squarely to the base of his spine and was sent sprawling forward, away from the stairs. The right hand weapon, seemingly seeking its own target, took a shot of opportunity at a Templar approaching from a room lit up as the fiery pits of hell.

It was an unlikely shot for most, but Poet's eyes were not normal - the Templar seemed silhoetted by distance distortion, appearing to the adept as if he were within spitting distance. The round flew true, impacting the mans gut and "tripping" him over his own feet as he doubled up, winded.

[Mysterio]

Deuce was pissed. these guys were more than a pain. This place stunk, there were foamy little bubbles floating around from the foam room, and deuce's suit was getting wrinkled. Not to mention his ponytail was coming undone. He took one last aim at the templar nearby and squeezed the trigger...

[Blitz]

:: As Tyen leads the way out of the throng of marks and down the alleyways to their dark safehouse, she speaks once over the coms to their decker overwatch. ::

"Bob, tell others girl is with us. Going to safehouse."