A Troubled Little Town Called New Hope, Part 3 - RPLOG
Participants
Date
Monday September 16, 2019=Log=
Twilight gives way to the dark of night as four riders set out to storm Old Red's hideout, their fifth staying back to escort their informant back to her home in New Hope. Leading the small group, Riley steers their horses through the darkness, their two-hour-long ride spent mostly travelling uphill, passing through the edge of Utting and approaching Harcuvar Peak. There, the insect morph would go offroad and slow down, continuing to climb as they all began to near their destination.
"Well, there it is." Going prone over the side of the peak, only Riley's antennae can be spotted through the sparse foliage of the desert bush he was hiding behind. A pair of binoculars are passed to the nearest agent as the ant man eyes the house for a bit more. "Well, I've done my part now. You three don't get yourselves killed while staking out the gang, eh?" With that, he parts away from the side of the peak he was looking over and prepares to mount his horse once more.
The fox turns a sideways eye towards the ant, then casts it towards his team. "You just gonna let him run off? Suit yersevlves." the fox shakes his head, muttering something about how they had the perfect mole or hostage right here for them to use and letting it go... His attention turns towards the house. "I'd wager I could collapse that thing whole and have this all done in a snap if I had some dynamite. All I got is... nothing. Hard way it is then. If we had some gasoline we could douse the whole place and set it on fire to smoke the scumbags out, but we came by horseback. No fuel either..."
The fennec squints his eyes and snags the binoculars from whoever had them last, then peers at the structure. "Windows... could have tossed incendiary or cryogenic grenades in there if anyone had those, but..." he'd hand the binoculars and sighs. "Again, nothing. This is the kinda thing I'd do in the city... god damn it. They got a hawk on the roof. Good thing we went at night. If only I had a silenced weapon..." The fennec grumbles "If I can just make my way over there and climb the wall... I'd be able to take him out up-close and personal..."
"Don't look at me. Explosives and bombs and firearms aren't my style." Nena watches the building like, well, a tiger stalking prey. "I prefer to be close, myself. We could try to go around and get the drop on him, but I'm not sure what other eyes they might have. I only see the one right now, but there could be more. I've got smoke bombs, but that would be pretty obvious. Might be useful later though."
Having followed Riley and the rest to the point overlooking the house where Old Red was supposedly held up, Zen crawls over to get a better look. "Hey, Riley, you what sort of terms were you on with the gang? I heard you say you wanted to get out... but you didn't burn any bridges with them, right?" He says softly with a glance towards the ant-man. With the others discussing their angle of approach, Zen takes the binocs but doesn't have quite as much luck with scoping out the target. "Well, I can't quite out too much from here... so getting closer seems like something we will need to do eventually. "If that hawk you saw up top is their watchman, perhaps we can use something of a diversion to get someone close?" He muses while giving another glance to Riley, "You know, as far as everyone back at the settlement is concerned, you still aided these guys in getting what they wanted. Think you could try and get their focus on you so someone from our team could get up close?"
"Hell, if there were any bridges to burn, they'd be made out of sawdust and dirt." As he's addressed, Riley turns away from his horses and back to Zen. "I'm surprised at myself by how long I stuck around the crew. I was never anybody but the new meat to them, and nobody ever came along to bump me up further on the hierarchical totem pole." He's about to continue on to the horses when Zen's request catches him again. "...damn, alright, I might as well. Zophah told me what's what, and I suppose I owe it to Rosa and all the other folks back at the settlement."
With that, the ant man fetches a flashlight, sits by the ridge for a moment, and then flashes a signal with timed switches of the beam before climbing over the edge of the rock face, starting to approach the cabin.
As he departs from the group to approach, all three others can hear him muttering under his breath; "Fucking hell, it's Simon." The figure on the rooftop spreads his wings and glides down to land on the ground, just in front of the cabin's porch.
"Perfect. I'm going around the back. If you hear gunfire, it means they've spotted me. I'll have made a distraction for you, use that however you want." the fox nods and rubs his hands together before running off, following the cover the local hills provided. It was the long way around, but he was fast, very fast. Here in the wide open desert-like terrain, Magnus was most at home, his form suggested as much and so did his out of bubble experience. He'd reached a hiding spot behind the house in no time, and peeked over his cover for a moment, scanning for the presence of anyone or anything that might spot him and become a problem. Oh, how he wished he had his comm unit to relay details to his team right now. Unfortunately... the presence of his armor made things a little less... easy than he was used to. As he ducks for cover under one of the bushes there, he startles a raven, the bird fluttering off from its hidey hole... god damn it. He readies his pistol in one hand, and a blade in the other. Whoever wants some will have to come get it.
Nena watches Magnus take off, raising her brow. She's in no hurry to follow, nor can she tell of his distress. She stretches out and adjusts her glasses, the city girl tiger not quite as in her element as the fennec, but she would be ready. Ears flick as the raven flies, and she narrows her eyes waiting for a sign. Either the unguarded flank of an investigator or gunfire. Either or.
Zen gives a nod to Riley and says, "Don't fret. Consider this a way of redeeming yourself. Would you rather go back as someone who turned tail and ran away... or someone that realized their mistakes and tried to set them right? If I were you... I'd be doing every little thing I could do to get back on the good side of the settlement you'd be going back to." Watching the signal go out, the kitsune takes a moment to commit it to memory. Who knows when that signal might come in use. When the ant started to make his move towards the cabin, Zen looks to Nena and Magnus. Seemed Magnus was going to go on a wide flank and was off before he knew it. "Well... getting multiple angles on the place sounds like a good start. Perhaps I'll try and work my way along the south ridge. If Riley looks like he is in trouble, and you can't seem to get him out of it... Well, we might have to go loud."
Simon takes a few steps towards Riley as he approaches the shack. Everyone can see the two during the dimming light, but hearing them is another matter; their speech to each other isn't as easy to hear. It is, however, easy to tell that the gryphon mutant is less than pleased, when Riley gets suddenly pistolwhipped down to the ground and the barrel of Simon's revolver levelled to the ant's face. As if to add emphasis, the gryphon speaks louder; "If you've been playing hooky on every single night you've been on here, I should've killed you on day one, greenhorn. I'll see you in-"
Simon pauses, his ears twitching at the sound of a raven suddenly getting disrupted from its nest. He squints over towards the ridge, before kicking Riley's gun out of its holster and picking it up for himself. "Stay here, and don't you move a godforsaken inch, or I'll slash out your entrails and leave you for the buzzards." Punctuating himself with another kick to the insectoid's cheek, the gryphon's steps now steadily starting to get louder to Magnus and Zen as they're both approached.
As Simon peers over the ridge, he quickly spots both Magnus in his hiding spot and Zen, noticing the latter first. His gun hand sweeps fast, but not fast enough; Zen's arrow lodges right into his shoulder, while Simon's bullet kicks dust from the ground in front of Zen. The gryphon is promptly finished off when Magnus grappling hooks him and knocks him out with a solid punch, more than likely leaving him unconscious while he's left to bleed out. A gunshot is a gunshot, however, and the gryphon's sounds out across the mountains...
Zophah comes up behind Nena, worried that she was left behind. And with the sound of a gunshot being heard she hopped down from her horse, pulled down her night-vision goggles over her eyes and drew an arrow on her bow. "Cover me, Nena. I'll sneak up to those rocks over there." She then jogs forward, keeping an eye out for sentries other than the one recently taken down.
"Come here, you bitch." Magnus mutters as he is approached, already fuming from how that bloody gryphon up and pistolwhipped their ant teammate. He wanted to do that, damn it! All jokes aside, the fennec flicks his wrist, drawing a small hooked projectile out his left wrist. He aims it right at the incoming gryphon and fires, impaling his pistol-holding arm and yanking him in, down the slope with ease. The fox' other fist swings as his prey comes flying in. He'd put his pistol away to free those knuckles of his. As the gryphon comes tumbling down, the fox' fist collides square with his face, reinforced skeletal structure heavy and dense delivering a punch to remember.
"Fuck! He got a shot off! Great..." Magnus exclaims and casts a look at the house, then the one they'd done something awful to. "He'll die if he bleeds like that. Bah... not my problem. Come on." he'd wave to Zen before running towards the building's front. "Urrrghhh... why does it always have to be like this?" He'd shake his head before sprinting over toward the ant. He doesn't even stop, he just whisks the male away and runs at nigh-superhuman speeds over to the others. "Here!" he lets Riley go onto the ground and huffs. "He ain't looking fit to fight right now. I won't hear the end of it from Rosa if he kicks the bucket. Rather my ears enjoy some tunes, not the pained whining of a heartbroken cowgirl." The fox then draws his pistol once more and turns to face the house...
Nena lifts her head when the shot goes out. Well, well. Looks like things are really getting into swing, now. Hopefully the two on the ground were alright, Riley moreso. With the others taking cover behind the rocks to the south, she starts heading north, trying to circle around behind the building. Hopefully all attention would be towards where the gunshot was.
Zen's ears flatten a bit at the sound of the gunshot. So much for the advantage of surprise... He gives a glance to Magnus before the fox starts to bolt over towards Riley with an almost-unbelievable quickness. "Well, shit, so much for sneaking past the watchman." He mutters to himself before shouting to Magnus, "I'm going to continue east along the further ridge. I want to see what I can see on the other side of the house... They must have their horses somewhere." He looks for the nearest softcover while moving in a way that would keep him obscured from the house until he reached his destination. Well, since they were already up, perhaps he would try a bit of a bluff. Before moving to his new spot he shouts out, "We have you surrounded! Give up the server and you might just manage to walk out of here!"
As Magnus swoops past and snatches Riley up before carrying him away, he can hear a commotion being raised from the inside of the cabin; if he were to look over his shoulder as he bolted straight for the horses the group rode in on, he'd see lights get turned on from the interior of the house. As he drops over the ridge, the glow of a lightbulb coming through the windows soon gets replaced by flashing sparks instead as a short burst of gunfire streams out of the hole. It fires right into the darkness as Magnus drops behind the ground, but their intent is clear. They do restate it for Zen, however; a second burst of automatic fire spews out through another window, vaguely in the direction of the kitsune, before a voice yells out to translate for him. "Like hell we are!"
Zophah focuses and draws her bow. She focuses to put an arrow through the raider that was aproaching the rocks where she was taking cover, her breath steadied. Keeping in the cover of darkness and with no sound but the brisk wind of a barbed arrow, she lodges a shot strait in the chest of the raider. As the raider falls, his M4 discharges, stray bullets kicking up dust and soon shooting up into the air as he falls dead. She quickly draws her next arrow, ready for the next poor sod to aproach her position.
"Like hell you are." Magnus growls as he clenches his fists, triggering the electronic systems in his armor. Plates slide up and over his exposed bits, encasing him in durable protective metals and other composite materials. He makes a run for the house and aims for the window from whence gunfire was coming his way. Some might call it reckless, but Magnus called it LIVING. The adrenaline was coursing through him, providing a high he seldom got to experience. Leaping into the air, Magnus enters fist-first into the building and rams right into his attacker, tackling him, though sadly insufficiently-so. The bandit manages to wrest free from his grip, and delivers a punch to his gut. His puny fist strikes metal and dense muscle, causing him to reel back clutching his injured hand. The fennec draws his twin blades and locks onto his enemy~
Nena locks eyes with one of the bandits as he steps out of the building, and stands there with her hands in her pockets for a moment. "You should join me, instead," she encourages. "You live better and longer that way." Though her words, and whatever else she was trying to do, don't seem to have their intended effect when he opens fire in return. With a snarl she dives behind cover, though not unscathed. She was tough, though. She'd endure. "... Not the answer I was expecting. You'll regret that one."
As the retaliation sounds out and tufts of dirt and sand get kicked up sporadically around the hillside, Zen drops prone behind a desert bush and waits for a few moments before peeking back towards the house. He sees a threat moving towards the rocks just outside the cabin, but didn't want to risk revealing himself from the new ridge to engage them. For the moment he would be patient and wait, looking for an opportunity to either pick off another with a shot from his bow... or to move in closer and try and engage them in close quarters. He was starting to wish that he had borrowed a smoke grenade or two from Nena before he split from her. Seeing another arrow lodge itself in the bandit's chest, he lets loose a calming breath of relief. It was then that he notices another bandit making their way to the roof from a ladder on the side. Allowing one of them up there would severely hinder the effectiveness of softcover, and would make it a hell of a lot harder to close in. Notching another arrow, he lines up his shot before another spray of lead flies in his direction. Unfortunately, one of those bullets connects with his arm, causing his arrow to veer wide. Hissing in pain, he rolls back behind cover and takes a look at the wound.
The raiders have attempted to break out of their cover to push through the agents, but so far, haven't seen much luck. Though they are giving them quite the hassle, the party has taken one of them out and have had no casualties themselves, despite being outnumbered at the start. They aren't entirely victoryless, however, with Zen and Nena injured and the two desperadoes keeping their focus on pinning those two down.
The fox shoulder-rushes his target and impacts his belly, forcing him into the wall. His blades cross against the wolf's neck and press firmly against his exposed flesh. A part of the fox' armor, at least that covering his muzzle retracts, allowing him to speak. "This can go one of two ways. Either you tell me who's leading you fle-bitten scum rags, or I'll be going home with your decapitated head as a trophy." He'd hiss loudly to him. "You have five seconds. Tick tock tick tock tick tock..." as the time passes the wolf would feel those sharpened edges press more and more firmly into his neck, threatening to slice right in~
Zophah can't get that clear of a shot to try and take down the raider that has Zen pinned down, so she moves a hand into her bag and pulls out her portable shield drone. She switches it on and directs it to give Zen cover, ready to snipe whomever tries to fire on it. She doesn't get the chance before the raider behind her rocks tries to shoot her in close range, both of them exchanging fire. The quick shot manages to leave an arrow in the enemy's shoulder, while Zophah got lucky enough that the raider's revolver shot wide.
With a scowl, Nena emerges from her cover on both sides. The one the raider chooses to shoot is the wrong one, as it turns out, bullets passing through the air. It's enough to buy her time to close in, and just as he gets his aim set she collides like a train or, well, a tiger. A pounce later, she starts simultaneously trying to pry his gun away and put the strangle on him only to find her victim blacked out from the impact. "Hrmph. My guns were bigger after all," she mutters, as she relieves him of his gun anyway and seeks cover against the house itself, unsure of the situation within.
Zen hastily takes out some bandages and starts to dress the wound. It wasn't the worst spot to get shot... but it would still need some attention once he had some time to breathe. He grits his teeth before taking a moment to blow out a pale-blue flame that collects in a ball. Shooting up like a flare from behind his cover and the shield provided from Zophah, the ball of light crackles through the air and homes in on the raider on the roof. The rattling of gunfire sounds out as the bandit tries to shoot down the Forest Wisp, but it doesn't seem to be having the greatest effect. In an effort to escape its harassment, the bandit dives down the roof hatch before closing it behind him.
The wolf mutant being held against the wall by Magnus struggles against the smaller fox's surprising amount of strength. Clutching at his grasp, he eventually realises it's a futile effort. "Ghhh, you've already shot him dead." He tilts his head briefly to the raider behind the front window, clutching at an M4 in death with an arrow right in his chest. He then takes a quick gamble, fist swinging towards Magnus' face and knee pointed between his legs. "I'm not dropping to a bunch of third-rate bounty hunters today, though!"
Zen's wisp causes the blue jay on the roof to get stunned, before promptly dropping down the ladder and shutting the hatch behind him. Once he recovers, though, he spots Magnus wrestling with the wolf, and quickly levels his gun and fills it with a fresh clip. "Oi! Get off of him!" Four shots discharge from his gun at the two mutants fighting.
Four shots catch the The fox grabs the hand and scowls immensely, taking an evasive step away from the knee. His grip on his dagger tightens as the grzing bullets impact his armor, forcing a hiss of pain from between his teeth. The fennec flings his dagger, impaling his armed attacker between the eyes, the blade splitting his head open, blood and viscera spraying the wall. The first sent his way grazes his ears, and the fennec takes a step back. He raises his hands and cracks his fingers, ready to brawl~
Zophah is close in combat and everyone else may be in danger. So she draws her spirit animal and kitsune connection from within herself, a totemic bear and companion wisp charging out to deal with the closer enemy. Using the resulting melee to cover her movement in the dark, she dashes over to Zen's cover to double check on him. Seeing the damage, she takes cover with him and reaches into her bag for local anesthetic and bandages. "Not a full job, but at least I can fix your first aid." She says, taking Zen's banadges back off and resetting them herself.
Nena looks towards the door of the house. There was gunfire, then silence. Relative silence, anyway. Not about to leave someone potentially in danger, she braces herself and reaches to open the door- Though she has the presence of mind to do it from the side, so that she doesn't open it with her standing right in the doorway.
Without being pinned down from the attacker on the roof, Zen packs away his trauma kit. With how poorly he applied it, one might be left to wonder why he even carries one around. He continues to watch towards the structure, looking for any other targets that might pose a problem now that he didn't have to worry about the fire from the roof. As Zophah closes in on him, he gives her a look over before saying, "Thanks for the cover... bastard on the roof clipped me before I could land a shot." He shows off his shoddy first-aid treatment before Zophah starts to fix him up a bit better. "I've had worse wounds... we should worry about the others first... who knows how many more there are." He says, still watching towards the structure as his own wisp joins the other summoned entities to assault one of the remaining bandits outside. "Ah... but... thanks. I've never been one to worry about patching people up, myself included."
One left. The wolf, now disengaged from Magnus, cracks his knuckles in turn. He gives him a long, hard stare as he assuems a fighting stance, before lunging forward, teeth bared and fists flying. His back lays exposed to Nena, however, so if the tigress was feeling particularly pragmatic, she could intervene and make the fight even more one-sided in favor of the smaller, stronger Fennec.
The fennec falls back onto his own back that is! As the wolf lunges, he'd find two hands and two feet pushing him upwards and forward, following his momentum towards the window behind Magnus. One firm shove and out he goes, flying like a majestic beast that'd just fucked up, flopping from whatever height they were at onto the ground with a loud and resounding *THUD*. Magnus stands up and dusts his hands off. He then moves over and *squish* pulls the blood-caked dagger out of the gory mess of the poor bastard's head, then steps towards the window himself, and hops out, landing on all fours with considerably more grace than the wolf before him. "I wouldn't stick around these parts if I were you." he'd chyme to the wolven male, before stepping towards the spot where he'd deposited Riley. "Guys?!" he'd call out to them...
Zophah redirects her wisp, bear, and drone into the house to assist Magnus and Nena. "Go help the others with your wisp if you can, I'm going to double check we haven't missed anyone." before circling around to survey the situation outside. She finds two of the 4 minions outside still unconcious, one from when Nena knocked them out and the other from Magnus, and two more surely dead. She drugs the remainder with a sedative from her medical supplies just in case he gets back up, and then makes her way over to Riley. She would have better time with actual medical procedures than first aid, and with one look realizes she doesn't have the materials for his kind of wounds. But she does mention "I don't see too much of a problem, especially since you didn't get shot. A cold pack should reduce your recovery time."
Seeing as Magnus had it handled, Nena backs away from the building if only for a moment to look around the corner towards where Magnus jumped out of the window. "Is the server not in there or something? Getting out of there already?" With adrenaline wearing off, she takes a seat with a huff. "If you've bandages or something I could use one. I mean, I've got some but I'm not exactly a medic, and seeing as you're going around with the first aid kit... I figure the server won't walk off while we treat injuries."
After a few moments of waiting, Zen looks to Zophah and nods towards the structure. "Seems like the gunfire has died down. Let's go see if the others need any help." He says, picking up his bow again and rolling the shoulder of his injured arm. He hears Magnus call out a moment later, giving a slight smile before saying, "Well, guess that means he is doing alright." He follows around Zophah for a time before entering the structure and looking around at the grisly scene. "I'm going to look around for the server... After all, it wouldn't do us well to head back empty-handed." He spots Nena through the widow and gives her a wave. "Guess that is all of them? Well, as much as I would've liked it to go smoother... guess we are just about wrapped up." He steps further into the building looking around at the sleeping quarters and seeing stuff haphazardly strewn about from the rude awakening they received. It doesn't take him too long before he finds what he was looking for. Hefting up a black box within some lamp-like object, he heads out to regroup with the others. "Right, I think we got what we came here for and did what needed to be done. Perhaps we should consider getting back to the settlement and seeing about getting the wounded tended to..."
Riley gives Zophah's shoulder a nudge. Despite being badly battered around, he's managed to crawl over to his horse during the firefight and unpack a bottle of whiskey from his saddlebags. "Thanks, doc. You're real helpful, telling me to go find some ice in the hottest state in America, during the summer when nobody has working refrigerators anymore." After a long swig, he continues; "You folk ain't half bad. You're not bounty hunters, are you?" He pauses. "Y'know what, don't answer that. Just help me onto my horse, so I can go bunk out at my shared room with Rosa and rest it all off." He points the bottle towards Magnus and Nena, presumably taking them to be fellow drinking folk once he spots them approach. "God, I can't wait to sleep in an actual bed."
