ArchivedLogs:Playing Darts (Prometheus Raid Strike Team)

Playing Darts (Prometheus Raid Strike Team)
Dramatis Personae Ash, Hive, Jax, Lorna, Flicker, NPC-Joshua
In Absentia	2014-04-30 (Part of Prometheus TP.)
Location Prometheus Facility, Western Tennessee
All things considered the trip hasn't been all that long, for the team. The flight -- well, /would/ have been under two hours but a whole lot of insistence meant a stop in Memphis for lunch because, well, who ever did battle on an empty stomach? That was some while back, though, because doing battle on a /full/ stomach just means cramps. Also because after flying /into/ Tennessee they still needed to pick up the pair of vans that will take all the refugees /out/ -- they're certainly not all going to fit in the Blackbird. And so now with the refugees stashed it's a pair of cargo vans, loaded up with first aid supplies and snacks and all the team, that has made its way to the compound way off in western Tennessee. It's a quiet parcel of land they come up on, a few scattered trees around a wide fenced-in enclosure that admittedly doesn't look like it houses much. The small two-story building set off past a field and a small parking lot looks kind of boringly officey. The approach was quiet. Park the trucks, have Flicker teleport them in closer. Now it's just -- quiet. The vans left behind in the distance. The quiet chirruping of birds resuming off in the trees. A rumble of thunder far off in the distance. There are stormclouds rolling in overhead, starting to obscure the late-afternoon sun. It's a side door Flicker sets them down outside. No helpful windows that would make it easy for him to jump /in/. Alas. << Hold up. >> Hive's voice isn't abrasive, today; it slips in gently, an echoing murmur of many voices speaking in tandem. << We got this. And then you'll be -- >> He hesitates, a pause to confer with someone else. << Two floors down. There's a stairwell on the left. Give me a moment. >> "We're holding," Jackson murmurs, quiet. He's shed of colour today, dark and bland in cargo pants and boots and black X-Jacket over his body armour. And silently, << Got a read on how many guards we're looking at? And how many labrats? >> There are dark glasses over his eyes, and his gaze at the moment is tipped up towards the approaching stormclouds, a very faint furrow in his brow. Lorna is still as she waits for the next batch of instructions. She's in her fancy X-Men body armor, rather than the generic stuff that was issued earlier. She's looking a little like a gunslinger today though, with her regular pistol slung low on one hip, and the web pistol on the other. A taser is tucked into the back of her belt, and her hair is pulled back in a tight ponytail. She waits silently, only reaching out to put a steady, reassuring hand on Jax's shoulder. Ash sits tight, as they say, without actually sitting. He rubs a knuckle against the edge of his nose and presses close to the wall of the building, looking at the others in his group and nodding slightly when Jax says they're holding. He is wearing a civilian version of what the others are wearing with the same accompanying gadgets, but he's managed to acquire a good deal more dirt on his outfit without even trying. He also has a line of circular stones that look every much like exercise weights strapped to the outsides of his thighs, smaller ones on his upper arms. He just listens, his mind quiet and attentive to Hive's and Jax's words. From inside the building there's a quietly anticlimactic click of the lock disengaging; the door pulls open, a young woman in polo shirt an neat khakis, glasses, hair pulled back into a ponytail and a rather glassy-eyed expression standing back silently like a somewhat zombified welcoming committee. << Alright, >> Hive reports. << First hallway on your left, second /door/ on your left. This chick's got the keycard. Cameras fucking /everywhere/ though so good luck. >> There's a shimmer-blur of motion as Flicker returns one last time, with Joshua in tow this time. "Woah. Just in time." His green eyes are bright, a rather intense focus to them. "I'm always the last one to the party," Joshua complains. << Fourteen labrats in the basement, three on the testing floor, >> Hive finally answers. << Guards are all over the fucking map, I need another minute on that. >> Jax just exhales sharply, his muscles tense and a thin twitch tugging up at his lips. "First hallway, second door. Got it. Lorna, if you /see/ cameras can you handle them? Don't know if we'll get 'em all, but --" His head shakes, faintly, hand dropping reflexively to brush against the webpistol at his hip before he slips inside. "Ash, you guard our rear. I'm -- sure we'll have plenty of company soon enough." Lorna nods at Jax and says, "I don't even need to see them," she says with a smile. "They just have to be close enough. Does it matter if security knows they're out? Cuz there's nothing I can do about that." She gives an apologetic smile. Assuming it's ok to do so, she reaches out mentally and the closest cameras all go dead, electronics permanently fused inside. "You got it," Ash replies quietly, his accent thicker when he whispers, eyes narrowing as he starts casting more glances behind them rather than staring down the door. He stays quiet, remaining in the back, his taser drawn and ready. As the team enters the facility the dead-eyed woman moves along with them, plodding on ahead towards, presumably, the stairwell door. There is, barely any time after the door has closed behind them, a sudden loud wail of alarm keening throughout the building. Lights on the walls begin to flash. From down the hallway they've /emerged/ into there's a sudden clamor of movement -- a door opens, though the wide-eyed bespectacled face that looks out just as quickly disappears back /in/, clearly in no hurry to tangle with the intruders. << Team of guards, >> Hive reports not a moment later, << coming down the stairs -- and another heading /up/ this way. Sage's found you another route down. Head straight down this hall, take a right. Move /quick/. There's another stairwell there down to the bottom level, it won't be clear long. >> Flicker hangs a little ways behind Jax, for now just interested in moving quickly. Joshua flexes his fingers, curling them loosely into fists and picking up the pace as well. "Yeah, no, security's gonna --" Jax ducks his head with a small grimace as the alarm starts to blare, "-- know we're here no matter /what/ so go for it. /Fff/." He just lifts his hand, not saying anything aloud so much as /signalling/ for his team to follow as he breaks into a jog in the direction Hive had indicated, now. << To the bottom level? How clear is it on the first? Can we find Joshua a route there, for the three in testing? He can get them while we get the others. >> Lorna actually sprints ahead, going in the same direction, but putting herself a little in front of Jax. Maybe she thinks iron plates in her body armor give her some advantage there. She feels ahead with her power, popping cameras as they go, as soon as each one comes into range. She also has her pistols drawn now, web in the left; handgun in the right. Ash scuttles after the group. It's a run, but he's running sideways to cover their backsides. << Not clear. Not swarmed either, Sage's mapped a route for him if you want to send him on it. >> The caliber of Hive's voice is changing quietly, odd new stresses and tensions as he picks up and drops people from his mental roster. << I've stopped the guards in the stairwell but I can't hold them long these fuckers are going to eat my brain. >> His helpful zombie-scientist is sprinting ahead with them, though. Unlocking the /new/ stairwell door so that they can head down it. Jax falls back into silence as he runs for the stairwell. Dismissing Joshua with a tap on the elbow and a quick gesture when they pass by the first landing, heading to the second. "-- Behind me," he says to Lorna, though, once they /make/ it to the basement, before opening the door down to the hall -- mostly because body armour lacks head protection and the shimmering forcefield he spreads in a glowing bubble in front of their entryway is a tidy protection from /most/ things. He steps out into the basement floor with teeth clenched, eye flicking around to take stock of /new/ surroundings. New surroundings are -- as so many Prometheus labs are. An oddly /normal/ common-area room, tables and nurse's station (though with thick bulletproof glass) and television and games. And hallways to the left and right with rows of thick locked doors. There are footsteps now pounding down from the stairs behind them, a quartet of guards approaching at fast speeds. A low droning hum, too, filling up the stairwell with a thrumming vibration. There are guards, also -- four on each side -- entering from doors at the far /ends/ of the prisoner hallways, each with their own thrumming quiet pair of Osbot drones whirring overhead. The drones, less savvy than the guards, whir down the left-side hallway just open fire straight /on/ Jax's shield, a rapid rat-tat-tat of bullets that thud against it harmlessly to send a hail of bullets clattering to the floor. Lorna falls back as instructed just in time! She flinches a little as the gunfire opens up, but then regains her composure. Her pistol hand flicks out, but she doesn't fire. Instead, she focuses and releases a tiny burst of electromagnetic energy right inside the closest Osbot. Ash turns at the sound of foot steps and the increasing hum echoing in the stairwell. Taser is reholstered while a webshooter is drawn. His free hand reaches to his opposite arm and grabs three of his stone discs, looking for the first sign of the incoming attackers, trying to keep the stairs themselves between him and them. "I got this. I'll try to keep the stairwell clear." At the first sign of a drone, he throws the discs. They gain speed and pummel the exteriors hard and repeatedly, looking for purchase with their beveled edges. Flicker touches his knuckles to his lips, drawing in a deep breath. He eyes the guards at the ends of the hallways, and then his team. For a moment his green eyes are wider -- just for a moment. He lifts a hand, squeezing lightly at Jax's shoulder, and then he vanishes, reappearing -- but only for the briefest of moments -- on the other side of the shield wall just beside the hail of bullets. After this he's -- /visible/, but he's hard to /track/, a shimmer-blur of ghostly motion that moves at lightning-quick speed, ghosting down the hallway and vanishing past one of the doors. The next he's seen, it's with someone -- perhaps vaguely adult in size, long-haired, in scrubs, more than this is hard to /tell/ -- in hand, and then he's up towards the ceiling and gone. Jax lifts his hand, though slowly, to squeeze back at Flicker's. Most of his attention seems rather intensely focused on keeping the shield wall /up/ under the hail of bullets. His teeth grit as Flicker leaves its protection, hand lifting further to quietly cross himself, fingertips touching to his lips after this silent bit of prayer. His eyes flick to the guards, to the other drones, but with the /bullets/ still incoming he doesn't dare risk letting up his concentration to do -- well, /anything/. Just stand where he is and keep the shield in place. One of the two bots shooting at the wall just very unceremoniously ceases its droning, lights shutting off and bullets ceasing as it clatters to the ground. The other has evidently learned /enough/ that it can see bullets aren't working; it switches over to lasers. Pew pew? It's shooting so /hopefully/ at the shield. DETERMINED in the face of its fallen bretheren. Behind them, there's another duo of bots zooming down the stairs. Pew! Pew! These ones are happily lasering towards Ash with sizzly-streaks of energy. They shudder backwards at the rock attack, clanging into each other and regaining their -- metaphorical -- footing as a quartet of /guards/ don't /quite/ round the stairwell-landing corner behind them. Two guards peer around the corner and then press back against the wall, but then look around the corner again -- this time with guns in hand. Firing. Not bullets, but tiny plastic darts, aimed for the /faces/ and necks of the trio at the bottom of the stairs. Lorna turns at the sound of the dart guns and drastically changes her vector, flying up to press her back against the ceiling. She reaches her gun hand out again to create another little burst of EMP inside the lone drone on that side of the fray. Ash dodges out from under the stairs to avoid the lasering, freeing the next three arm discs. They do their best to shield himself and Jax from the darts, spinning in place to break the plastic tips when they hit and tossing them broken to the ground. When the drones become Lorna's jurisdiction, Ash pelts the guards with the first three discs, slicing across the guns near the handles. "Lorna. The Hall." There's the loud sound of cracking as square sections of concrete fly out of the walls and fly toward the guards' faces. There's a continued just -- /blur/ of motion from down in the hallways, Flicker continuing his rapid path. In-out-in-out. Not much to see of him. << Another wave of guards coming your way. Got bots with them. >> Hive's voice is just flat-bland. << Four coming down the stairs. I can't quite tell the backup coming into the hall. >> Behind the team on the stairs the two guards who had been shooting drop their broken dart-guns, pulling out /actual/ pistols instead when Ash breaks their non-lethal weapons to just unleash a hail of semiautomatic fire down the stairwell. One of them flies back with the square of concrete that thuds into his face though the second one, quicker, drops to the ground to slide /under/ it. The two remaining guards who had been /behind/ them emerge around the corner, now, quick and rapid in ther dart fire as well, taking advantage of the sudden spray of /bullets/ to aim -- up towards Lorna's neck as she focuses on the drone; the second one is concentrating his fire on Ash. The second drone outside Jax's shield drops, thudding to the ground, its lasers dead and its lights winking out. The two remaining drones down the hall are whirring closer -- though they seem to be paying little attention to the trio by the stairs. Focusing their fire on Flicker, for all the good it does with his rapid winking. At the ends of the hallways, the guards have their weapons readied. The hall has, admittedly, been inaccessible before now, shielded by Jax's large soap-shimmery bubble. But the moment Lorna takes out the second drone Jax drops it with a small breath of relief, a little paler than before. Not that it does him an /enormous/ amount of good with a sudden hail of fire from behind to consider; he stumbles forward with the /thud/ of impact against his body armour and in a heartbeat turns around again, a sudden bright flash of light popping behind them to /explode/ the gun in the man's hand in a very small rain of shrapnel. Lorna yelps a grunt as she whips her forearm around to protect her neck and face from the darts. The iron plates embedded in her suit /ping/ with the impacts, and then her body twists as she whips through the air, making herself a projectile. She cannonballs herself at the guards on the stairwell, in her iron-lined armor, trying to bowl over as many as possible before getting up to start punching and kicking her to victory. Lorna's cannonballing knocks over two of the guards on the stairs, one crumpling to the ground though the second, already rolling to deflect her blow, is rolling back up to his knees once he goes down. His initial hard slam of punch towards her earns him nothing but a heavy grunt of pain and likely some broken knuckles. His remaining upright companion is ducking below Lorna's swinging fist; learning from his compatriot's mistake he doesn't try to punch. At close range he just lifts his dart gun directly at her face and shoots. Real bullets cause his rock shield to shatter into puffs of debris and larger shards. Ash cusses quietly in Spanish and reforms the mess, holding it together. He has to stop suddenly after he makes a start for the stairs, finding Lorna there. Unable to use the shards as projectile weapons, he keeps the darts off himself at least. He draws back and looks toward Jax briefly before turning his attention to the hallway. "What's our status? How many we got left?" He crouches low and removes two of the larger discs from his thighs, one for each hand. The /hallway/ doors, too, are pouring three more guards to join the four on each side, a pair of drones accompanying each. The drones don't waste time, less reserved than the guards are, just zooming forward pretty instantly to -- also attempt to fire at Flicker. A hail of bullets, rather than anything else. The guards in the hall seem to take this as some sort of /cue/. With shields down and bot-reinforcement there, a sudden clatter-roll of -- two heavy plastic grenades are rolling down the hall to thunk against the base of the stairs. A rain of fire follows them -- though this is also mostly in the form of the tiny plastic darts, save for one of the guards who has apparently jus decided screw it because he's just opening a hail of bullets. << Joshua's getting his last. Flicker's -- >> Leaving a bloody trail on the floor, now, where his weaving goes through and sometimes /into/ the storm of bullets. The hallway is starting to glisten in spattery red. << -- Still got four to go. >> Hive's voice is still flat. Still calm. << Nearly done. >> "Lorna, can you -- get the drones, they're." << Killing him, >> echoes in Jax's mind, though what he says out loud is, "-- Slowing Flicker do-o-o-w, khhh." There are other small-blast explosions popping down the hall, taking out one gun and then another, but they cease in a brief burst of pain as Jax claps a hand to his neck, tugging out a dart that has lodged there. A smaller half-wall of shield shivers up at the base of the stairwell; he crouches low behind this, breathing heavily as he focuses, slower, steadier, on taking out the gun shooting /actual/ bullets. Guns are better from a distance, and close up, half the time they end up taken away from the shooter. This time is not that half. Her hand snaps up fast, faster than it should be able, to connect with the shooter's wrist aiming to do some real damage there, but not before the dart is fired as point blank range. Her minute flinch means the dart reaches her just as she blinks, pinning her eyelid down as the needle pierces her eyeball. She screams in rage and pain, stumbling back down the stairs. The only thing that keeps her focused are the voices in her head. Flicker's in trouble, and the drones need to stop. She braces one hand against the wall, dropping the web gun, and her other hand flies out, releasing an EM pulse big enough to engulf the hallway and all of the drones clustered there. Afterwards she droops a bit, dropping to a knee as blood begins to trickle down her face. Ash curses again, gesturing toward the ground where the grenades land. A hole opens up beneath them and swallows them. It's not a perfect seal, but it'll have to do for now. He then turns abruptly toward the hallway throwing the first disc then the other, discus style. Spurred on by his mutation, they ricochet off the walls, carefully avoiding Flicker's path on their way toward the guards. He then steps into the hallway and starts pulling down sections of the ceiling where Flicker has cleared out, heart pounding heavily in his ears. Ash's appearance in the hallway nearly immediately earns the rest of the fire being turned on /him/, a volley of darts turned his way. A volley that's -- admittedly soon cut in /half/ as the hallway starts to crumble around some of the guards. But the six left on the near side are still shooting. The door behind them is opening, now, disgorging the four guards Hive had warned of earlier, this time in proper riot gear and shields behind them. "-- Jesus," says the first one to arrive, looking at the downed men in the hallway. He slams the edge of his shield towards Lorna's midsection, oofing quietly when it hits iron-lined armor. Another of the guards is taking quick aim at Jackson, behind his half-wall at the base of the stairs but -- unprotected at /this/ side. Not with darts but actual bullets, this time. << -- He's down to the last one. The darts shut off your powers. Kay and Sage and Joshua are all hit, >> Hive's next report comes, just as plain-blunt emotionless as before. << Can you get out or do you need Flicker to evac you? >> Lorna's pulse through the hall does cut down on a significant amount of the fire, at least -- the drones that had been left standing whine and clatter to the floor with heavy /thuds/. Crash. Boom. Splat. "Gnn --" There's another flicker of shivering shield wall just /behind/ Jackson but -- it seems like a heavy /strain/ to get it up, and the effort of making it gutters /both/ the walls out nearly as soon as he manages it. His eye widens with the effort -- just as Hive's explanation comes through. Though it doesn't seem to immediately sink /in/; there's an initial moment of confusion as he still tries (uselessly) to reach for powers that are -- fading. A slow flicker of light around him, and then nothing. It's the sudden pain of bullet tearing through the sleeve of his jacket that makes it really sink in, it seems. There's a splatter of red against the wall behind him. Another when he lifts his hand to clap to the side of his neck. He reaches for his webpistol instead, now, drawing it to fire at the face of the man shooting at him. "... evac," his answer comes immediately. << Me and Lorna are hit too. Get her out. Then Joshua. Then me. Then Ash. >> Though there's a tacked on unspoken amendment: Unless Ash gets hit, too. Then him, first. But he's still the most /useful/, right now. Left eye pinned shut, Lorna suddenly looks /very/ weighed down in her armor. Bullets pang off her suit in a rapid staccato, and streaks a red line across her cheek as the impacts push her over onto her back where she lands with a /whumph/. "/Fuck/," she gasps as the landing jars her ocular injury. She seems able to move the weight of her armored arm though, just managing to draw her pistol, rest it on her belly, and take poorly aimed potshots at the guards she can see past her feet down the hall. Ash ducks back into the stairwell when the firing resumes, waiting until flicker is clear down there to shut down the hallway permanently by dragging a slap of the wall from the other side of the hall in front of the door. He turns back to the pair with him, erecting a half wall around them when Jackson's walls fail, bending up the floor to use for cover. << I can take them out through the ground, but it'll fuck with Jax to be in the dark. >> There's a pause, << and it'll be slower than Flicker. >> He turns and starts on the wall under the stairs, pulling out chunks to give them a better pocket to hide in. << I want to take out the stairs. >> Flicker is reappearing -- his same rapid-quick blur of motion. Jax and Lorna aren't likely even going to be around to /see/ the results of their shots because he grabs for both of them together, clamping a hand on Jax's shoulder and then blipping over to Lorna /with/ Jax in tow to take her as well. The teleporter looks like he's kind of had a /time/ of it himself, once he's up close enough to see minus all the zipping around, his jacket a shredded mess, blood streaked down his hands, one of his legs buckling not-quite-right under him. And then the chaos of the hall and stairwell vanishes in favor of a nauseating zip of world as he whisks them off back to the van, leaving Ash alone in the stairs. "Take out the whole ugly place, the world'd be better for it." Jax's words come through gritted teeth, blood seeping through his fingers where they clap to his neck. And then he is -- gone! WHISK'D. Whoops. << No, I can... >> Lorna's first attempt at mind-talking is cut short by a painful cough, the pain in her eye cascading down the mental link. She can't manage any more protest before she's whisked away. She gasps when they arrive and is struggling to try and get out of her armor, asking anyone who will help her to undo the zips allowing her to slip free of the crushing apparel. There is a /shudder/boom from outside -- somewhere, perhaps, those grenades have thudded uselessly against Ash's cementy grave. For a moment there's a clatter-rat-tat of bullets against the wall Ash hides behind. Then footsteps. But with all their quarry escaped and most of the attackers gone, they're kind of /indecisive/ footsteps. And no more bullets. These guards don't, it seems, really just want to /kill/ Ash for -- effectively, now, absolutely no reason. The prison is empty. "With Pleasure." Ash's lip curls as he waves his team off, eyes narrowing as he tries to trace the blur on its way out. He cringes when the grenades go off, feeling the vibration through his feet as well as his powers, but when the bullets stop and the guards start to stomp around aimlessly, he stares upwards. "Oy, assholes, you're probably out of a job now, but if you don't want to run out of life, you should probably bugger the fuck off, because this place is coming down." Warning issued, Ash turns his attention to a key point in the building's foundation and turns it to gravel. The whole building begins to shake and rumble as layers upon layers of masonry and steel begin to shift. It's a slow crawl, giving the guards a chance to save their skin, but also allowing Ash to tunnel his way out of there before the whole building turns to rubble.