Nick was smiling as he smacked some gangers in the head. When the crack came, he dove to the floor like everyone else, and when the kid fell, he smiled again and got up.

The shot to the knee was quite unexpected, but he didn't have time to contemplate that. There was only the pain.

"OH, FUCKING HELL!", Nick screams, clutching his kneecap as blood pumps out under his fingers.

"FUCKITY FUCK FUCK FUCKING FUCK! IT HURTS GOD!", he continues, using his good leg to push himself back against a wall, his boot heel making streaks in the blood pool. Once there, he leans against the wall and stops screaming and starts breathing hard.

"Goddamn...did you see...the size of that fucking cannon? Fuck me...", he gasps. Then he spots Kake.

"Ah...fuck."

Sue is immiately at Nick's side, smoke is rising from the two barrels of the shotgun. He tucks the Predator into his waist band and pulls out the flask "Drink this. I'll go find the Magic Man."

Sue leaves the flask w/ Nick and goes off to find to Ricks.

"Thanks man...", Nick says, taking the flask. He quickly spins the top off and drinks the contents, hoping it makes him nice and drunk. After its empty, he sets it aside, then takes the belt out of his jacket, and tightens it around his knee, in an attempt to staunch the bleeding.

Blitz moves to cover Nick, just in case anyone's got the bright idea of taking a shot at him while he's down. There's a grim look on the big trog's face. Another failure on his part.

"Fuck, this is bad. Better call Mickey right away."

Retile dials on his cellphone with his left hand, while holding his smoking AK-97 in his right hand and looking anxiously around for potential threats, ready to shoot.

"Hey Mickey. Fuck! Shit happened. Kake's dead. Nick's badly injured. We don't need reinforcements but Painkiller has to get the fuck down here real quick. Sue's looking for Ricks right now, but send us Pain just in case." Reptile says on the phone really fast, than hangs up.

"Nick, fuck, you need a hand?"

Feeling the warming effects of the alcohol kicking in, Nick smiles.

"No, mate...I need a knee.", he says, the laughs.

Ricks suddenly appears next to Nick, "Damn man, that looks fucked. Lemme see what I can do about that for ya."

He bends down and grabs ahold of Nicks leg. As the mana flows into Nick, Ricks gives him a wink, noticing the boner that grows inside his pants. "Seductress likes ya I see. I'll get one of my girls to heal that problem for ya when we get back."

Chuckling, Ricks stands back up and wipes his hands off, "Thats the best I can do."

"I'm comin'! I'm comin'!", says Painkiller as he stumbles across the room.

"Drek, the fragging squatter bited me! Who the frag does he think he is, Neil the Barbarian?!" -He gives a brief look at his wound.

"Hmph, this wound can wait. Ok fellas, who needs a doc and who needs a trip to the chop shop? I can deliver both of them."

Mickey gives the order to secure the floor to Junkie and Bruised, keeping Yellow with him just in case one of the idiots decided to chuck a brick through a window in some petty revenge. Then he gave the applicants the once over after Yellow patted them down and removed anything dangerous.

"Allright, you are going to tell me your name and what you do best when I point at you." He went from left to right, pointing at each in turn, watching how they carried themselves and their body language as much as he listened. An idea popped into his head as he listened...a new gang sign. THe red bandana would suffice, of course, but a proper symbol would do wonders for morale. A red circle-and-slash...with a "sharp gleam" on the top surface of the slash and blood dripping off of it...

His mind returned to the task at hand, then his cellphone rang. Ah, good, he thought. They're there. He caught the hasty message but never got a chance to respond as Reptile hung up the line. Dammit! They were supposed to call before they engaged! Well, it was possible they got caught in a streetfight, but unlikely. He'd scouted those streets himself. If there was a real threat he should have noticed it. He tries to remember who has a phone, then just shrugs and hits the dialback feature to Reptile.

"Reptile, this is Mickey. If Nick is able, hand him the phone. If not, hand it to Blitz." Once the phone is handed over he says, "Report. Situation and status."

Standing guard over Ricks as he works his mojo, Sue curses inwardly, Not the best way to impress the new boss, boy.

When Ricks is finished with his business, Sue crouches down next to the captain and huals out the now semi-crushed pack of smokes. He lights two and hands one to Nick. "Whats tha' feel like?" He takes a drag, exhales, and indicates Nick's knee with a nod of his head. "Th' magic, I mean."

Nick grins when Ricks makes the remark.

"Thanks man. I could use a bit.", he says, taking the smoke from Sue. He takes a drag and looks at him.

"The knee felt awful. Just throbbing pain now. And a weird feeling, like it didn't heal in the right position. The magic felt...", he starts, then trails off, searching for a word. "...warm.", he decides. Then Reptile's phone rings, and he hands it to Nick.

"Situation? We kicked their asses. Its under control. Status? My kneecap got blown off, Ricks healed it. Still hurts though. Some kid with a big shotgun got lucky. Oh, and he killed Kake.", Nick says, then hangs up the phone (Unless Mickey has more things to say)

Nick staggers to his feet and still propping himself against the wall says

"You know, this is the knee that got me arrested, too."

@ NIck: "Figures, omae. It was just bad karma..." And pats him on the shoulder.

Sue turns to Blitz, "Ya wanna keep an eye on 'im while me an' the boys police up the place?"

He turns to the rest of the Edgers: "I need a burial detail for Kake. Two men. Take him back the new HQ. The rest of you fan out and search the doss. Pain, your special task is chrome huntin'. Find every peice these bastards have...And get it." Sue takes a deep drag and holds it for a second. "I assume you can come up with a way to dispose of the bodies." He moves to where Nick left the flask and retrieves it. Sue upends it to get the last drop and finding none puts it back in his pocket.

Went to a good cause...

Taking another drag he starts searching the gang house.

Reptile finds a big blanket and carefully puts Kake's body into it.

"I'll bring him back to HQ while you guys finish the clean-up here. Anyone wants to cover me on the way back? I wouldn't want to have to drop him to defend myself.

"Shit, today was fucked up," he says to himself.

Blitz simply nods, and he kneels beside Nick. When Reptile comments about the fucked up day, he grunts.

`Welcome to life on the Edge.`

The first quatter seems confused about having to pigeonhole himself so quickly. "Uhh... Gene and I... uhh... umm... uhh... fuck." He hangs his head in shame as Mickey points to the next one. Judging by her clothes, she was once the most expensive kind of goth. Now she's not. "I'm Little Raven, and I'd make a great scout or spy. I've been sneaking around my whole life."

The last one is a hard-bitten dwarf, at least fourty years old, who's missing an eye. "I'm Lou, that's short for liuetenant. I've been crushing heads since before the desert wars were even wars."

Ricks reaches into his pocket and pulls out a self-rolled cigarette. He extends his arm out to Nick, "Here, smoke this. It'll help with the pain."

Ricks turns around and as he does so, a tall, thin figure appears before him, "Gather all the guns and weapons together and put them in a a pile over there."

The spirit moves through the room and begins to go about its task, ignoring any looks anyone gives it. Ricks then glances around to make sure no one else is hurt, then turns to Reptile, "I'll cover you." Then, "If anyone else is hurt, let me know now so I can patch you up, the quicker Healing is done, the better."

He then turns back to Nick, "Sorry we lost one of the boys, but all things considered I think this was a big score. With the heat these guys were packin' it could have been a lot worse. And hell, we get all their gear now for ourselves too."

Responding to Nick's report, Mickey says, "Return for debriefing A.S.A.P." He'd deal with the lack of the phone call later.

To the three applicants he is short and to the point. "Lou. Rank: Applicant. Specialty: muscle."

"Little Raven. Rank: Applicant. Specialty: Intelligence."

"Gene. Rank: Applicant. Specialty? Joyboy."

"Now, one of the Bleeding Edge lost their lives today while furthering Our cause. There will be a service and a pyre. Your first job is to go and prepare the pyre. Gather up any broken wood and burnable stuff that is not usefull and set it up in the alley. Begin."

Two birds with one stone. Pyre prepared and garbage removed and disposed of!

The three get cracking fairly immediatly, gathering any burnable bits of Jetsam.

"Thanks, Ricks. I really appreciate."

"Is there anything you want me to tell Mickey before I come back here, Nick?", asks Reptile while covering the corpse in the thick blanket.

Reptile lifts Kake's body in his strong arms and starts to head back to the doss, followed closely by Ricks. Reptile keeps his body very straight and he walks slowly, in order to pay proper respect to the man's soul.

"Ricks, did you know Kake well? Tell me about what he liked and what he did not like in life, I want to know a little bit about this man before the 'funerals'"

Nick speaks from his precarious stand in the corner.

"Hey, you guys are doing it wrong. We need to take him back to HQ, and pyre him there. Here, we can use his truck. I won't be able to bike.", he says. He starts limping outside.

"Someone else drive. I'm a little drunk."

Ricks grins, "Ummm... and I'm a little short to drive it."

Ricks scans the area as they go outside to make sure they aren't getting jumped by any of the gang members that got away. He then shifts his sight to the Astral to check things out there.

"All right, boss. I'll drive him back to HQ with Ricks."

Reptile puts the body in the truck and picks up the keys. He then takes place in the driver's seat, waiting for Ricks to get in as well.

Ricks frowns, looking up the street, "Hang on man, I think I see something. Stay with the body and I'll go check it out."

Calling a city spirit to him, he heads up the street, but fades from view as the spirit Conceals him. He moves into the alley where he saw the activity and peeks his head in to take a look.

"You do that, Magic Man.... Damn! Where did he go!?"

Reptile puts a hand on his Pred just in case, and looks around to try to find what this something could be.

Around the corner sit four gangers, each with armored vests and pistols at the ready. They're talking amongst themselves quietly, and obviously keeping a very good eye one one specific chunk of road that the truck is likely to cross in order to leave. One of them has a radio, and seems to be conferring with someone over it.

Sue looks at the haul and picks up a Pred III and inspects it before tucking into his waistband. He does the same w/ one of the Frianchis before slinging it across his back. It takes some adjusting but eventually he gets the two shotguns sorted out so their almost comfortable to haul.

"I"ll take your bike back, or we can just load it into the truck. Your call, boss."

[If anybody says anything about appropriating the weapons: Sue holds his hands up and says, "Hey, its just fer safe keepin'...."]

Ricks call his Watcher to his side and gives it a message to take to Reptile, "The alley two houses north of the one we invaded has a small camp that looks to want to jump the truck as we leave. They are on the radio with others, I'm going to listen in and see if I can tell where the others are. Go inside and get a few more for backup and I'll signal you when I'm ready."

"I'll never get used to this mojo..."
Reptile gets out of the truck, holding his Pred in his right hand. "Allright guys, there's an ambush waiting for us down the street, two houses north of this one. They're a bunch of them according to what I understand from the weird talking ghostly thingy that Magic Man sent to me. Ricks'll probably send me another messenger when he's got more info. For now, I would need at least two more guys for backup."

Sue looks to Nick, "Can you walk?"

"I can limp. And I can shoot.", Nick says, limping outside. He picks up a Spas-22 from the pile of guns.

"Someone load all this up. And hey...this rocket launcher...maybe we could take out those four gangers with it. Anyone know how to use one?"

"I do." Reptile says with a twinkle in his eyes and a wide smile.

"It would be a waste to use it on the four gangers, though, if you want my opinion. It's probably the only missile we'll have in a long time, so maybe we want to keep it. It's your call though... and I'd certainly be very happy to use the new toy right now."

Ricks calls the Watcher back to his side and asks it to go check up the other side of the street. Specifically for a small group of men wearing yellow, most likely hiding in an alleyway.

Sue turns to Reptile wth what the fuck? look on his face, "Okay, chummer, I'll bite: how do you know how to fire a rocket launcher?"

Mickey has Yellow supervise the new applicants as he takes the other two with him to the second level. Time to make sure this erea was clear. A room by room search is done, then up to the third floor where that elf hating bugger was.

In a loud voice designed to carry authority he shouted, "Bleeding Edge coming up," then headed up the stairs. The Ingram was ready, safety off and pointed ahead as he started a new search for this level. This level would be the hard one to eject people from. However, if they did not choose to leave then, if successfull, it would be the most fun...watching as they were propelled out the window to splat dramatically on the street below.

Blitz grunts.

`Yeah, wut's the deal? Don't see many guys wit rocket launchers out in these parts.`

Makes him wonder where the squatters got one at, and if their employer knew about it.

"Yeah man...I was kind of off hand when I asked...where did you learn? And, can you teach me? Anyway, if you think we shouldn't use it, I'll defer to your opinion.", Nick says, leaning against a wall. He strokes his chin thoughtfully


"Hmm...how could we get them easily? If...I could get at a second story window a ways away, I could pick them off with my M-23.", he says. Nick starts scanning the buildings around for a second story window that would overlook their position.

"Well, I learned back in the time that I was with the Silver Medals. You probably don't know about that gang, but we had quite a rep down east in the Barrens. We had gotten one when we ambushed some sort of shadowrunners or the like, and I was the one designated to learn how to use it. We had luckily fond a way to buy missiles to a friendly weapons dealer. Anyways, this rocket launcher had proven very useful to us and it's one of the many reasons why the Silver Medals were able to win almost any fight... until the day we lost badly to the Desert Dogs and we got wiped out almost entirely. Only three of us, I think, made it, and I keep in touch with the two other survivors of this massacre. This was about 10 years ago, and recently I felt like I'd like to end my life fighting instead of dealing.

Guys, now is not the time to discuss this anyways. I don't think we should use it now cause we might only have one missile to use for a while and it be used in even more critical situations. Actually, have we found more than one missile? Cause if yes, than we should definitely use it since it will surely kill the threat. That's my opinion anyways.

Ricks walks back down to the building the gang took over and calls inside, "Alright guys, lets get the fuck outta here."

Once everyone is ready, Ricks tells them his plan. "Alright, we got four guys up the road here ready to take us out as we go. There is another group, but they are covering a different escape route, so if we take this group out, we can make our way out in that direction. I need two or three guys to come with me, the rest of you get ready to roll. Who's with me?"

Blitz grunts, and straightens up, towering over the gathered gangers.

`Go with the rest, they may need your mojo. I can take the four, distract them long enough you'll all get clear. Last time I needed you someone got lucky, ain't gonna happen again.`

Vindication time. He's failed this group more than he'd care to have, and now he could make up for it.

"Er, Blitz, how'll you get back, assuming we escape while you fight? No...we have two options here. We could speed through and just drive-by, or something. Or we could have someone snipe them. I think we should do that.", Nick says

"Look. I'll get on a second story building or rooftop, or something, and pick one or two off. Then, while distracted, the others could pop out and cack the rest. And without Mickey, I'm in charge, so let's be safe on this.", he says. Then he starts searching for a suitable position to shoot from

Blitz grunts.

`I's got a bike, y'know... dun need to get everyone in danger 'ere... they 'ad a rocket launcher, who know what else dey be packin'?`

Ok, so he's defeating his solo logic, he's still no genius.

Ricks looks up at Blitz, "Can I at least throw a little help your way? I've got a spirit on stand-by."

Turning to Nick, he suggests, "I really don't think they are that big of a threat. I honestly could have done away with them myself, but figured I'd play with the team instead. If I throw a spirit into the mix with Blitz, he'll have no problems."

"Plus, if you guys want, I could go scout around in the astral to see if I can find that other group they have waiting to jump us."

"Well, it is only four guys...yeah, I suppose you guys can handle it. Ok, Ricks and Blitz are gonna cover our escape, and everyone else'll ditch this place.", Nick picks up an Ingram Smartgun and chambers a round.

"Sue, you take my bike back. I'll ride with you.", he says, nodding to the purple and silver bike leaning against a near wall, the name Dreamshredder airbrushed on the gas tank

The second floor is nothing but chipped out squatters, really, and having heard the gunshots from downstairs, those that were in a condition to move dragged those that weren't and everyone was cleared out in five minutes flat.

The third floor, however, is a slightly different story. With the entire floor basically intact, families are entrenched here. Mothers and fathers will protect children and no one will want to leave. It's a tough decision how to handle this.

Noting the third floor's difficulties, Mickey doesn't advance very far. For an operation on this scale he'd need about twice the men the Bleeding Edge had. But, there was another option. Water and food would be an issue here. A small number could hold the exits from the third floor. They could lay siege! Starve the Renraku...the civilians out. He shook his head, rattling out thehated memories. This was not the arcology!

They would have to go. That decision was allready made. Perhaps the carrot and the stick would work best. He went up all the exits, looking at the halls from all the angles he safely could and counting the number of apartments. Then he went back down to level 2.

He pulled out his phone, dialing up Nick's number. "Nick, this is Mickey. I need you to send someone out, a trusted Edger. to go and get <# of rooms on the 3rd floor> survival kits." He doesn't explain himself, merely waits for an affirmative response.

Those that chose to leave peacefully would get a survival kit for their family. Those who did not accept his generous offer would be killed. He'd not make the offer until he had the bribes in hand, however.

"Right-o, old chap...", Nick says, flipping his phone closed.

The hell's he need with that many survival kits. And where the hell would I get that many around here?, Nick thinks.

"Er...Beast!", he says, more or less randomly picking a member. "Here mate, take this money, and go buy <x> survival kits from fuck knows where. Take 'em back to Mickey, ok?". He hands a roll of plasti-weave nuyen bills to the kid. He limps over to his bike and swings his leg over, wincing from the sharp pain.

"Sue, Reptile, Ricks...and Beast. I think you can all call yourselves Edgers now."

Ricks nods and says, "Don't leave till I give the signal, they've got some sort of explosives setup and I don't want anyone getting blasted."

Ricks looks back to Blitz, "Come on, lets go kick some ass."

He then leads Blitz back out towards the alley, while calling his spirit to Conceal Blitz as well.

Blitz simply nods, his face setting in a death mask. If this is his last stand, he seems not to mind.

`Just cover my ass mojo man, and we're gravy...`

Despite the magical cover, Blitz is walking on soft feet as he approaches the ambush, eyes scouring the streets.

Ricks points down the alley, then steps out and blasts the guy holding the Detinator with a stunbolt. He then steps aside and lets the towering Troll go to town.