Hunters Hunted in the East Forest Part Three - RPLOG
Participants
Date
15/8/2013
Log
Having ascertained that Smokie and Arimia have suffered no serious harm in the scuffle, Delve quickly approaches the fallen mutant, kneeling beside it. Frowning, she inspects the creature quickly before jabbing it gently with her nanite collector. "C'mon, c'mon," she growls under her breath. Then the machine makes an unhappy 'bong' and she curses. 'Corrupt Sample,' intones the machine. "Well," she sighs with resignation, "at least it isn't dead. I'll stabilize it, cage it, then we can get out of here." The xenobiologist busies herself immediately with those tasks, bent over the creature in total absorption. Over her shoulder, in response to Dio, she comments, "Sadly, the trees here're too damn thick for extraction. We'll haveta pull back to the clearing where we started - or, at least, a more open section of wood. This canopy..." The coyote flicks her tail upward, hands being too busy to gesture, but the meaning is clear.
Angus was still standing over the creature, gun pointed right at its head as Delve worked. "You sure we can't just kill the thing?" He asks, cocking back the hammer on his gun as he clares at it. Before he catches another whiff of the creature, stronger then before. Something was off...he switches his Schofield over to his right hand, and reached into his coat to pull out another revolver. This one was different, the design more ancient as he cocked back the hammer on the heavy gun and held both up as he tried to focus on the scent.
Alkain looks over the unknown mutant and frowns a bit, "Yeah, I suppose so..." he blinks at the sense of being watched and shakes his head, "I think we have..." he gives a sniff and sighs, "Or maybe we are surrounded?" he frowns at the noises and looks around curiously as he tries to seem calm
It wasn't until late that Smokie felt something wouldn't go right. She didn't knkow what. She heard nothing, and she assumed the smell of the creature was, well, the burnt creature laying at their paws. She frowns, and puts her hands on her hips as she looks about the clearing, frowning. "Whatever it is, we probably ought not stick around too long, unless we're gonna have a picnic with every forest creature out here."
Arimia is preoccupied trying to do something about her injured arm. She lifts her head and looks around as she feels like she's being watched, but shortly turns her attention back to her arm, dismissing it. When Alkain speaks up, however, she stops trying to do something about the bent metal and grabs her jian again, looking around a bit more carefully. "And why not? Skewer them, roast them, and we can feast."
Along with the others, Dio felt something wasn't quite right. He looked down at the downed mutant and then began gazing about the forest, putting his sharp and sensitive ears to use. But before his ears pick up anything, his eyes catch a bit of movement ahead of him. "Over there," he points using the barell of his shotgun. "Movement in the undergrowth." He brings the shotgun to his shoulder and begins moving a bit closer to the area, ready to fire should anything nasty pop-out at him.
Delve's ears flick, listening to the others. The downed mutant is now in a sturdy suspension box, not merely caged, but in a state functionally equivalent to suspended animation. There is a small RSX label stamped on the side of the suspension box. Pressing a few buttons on the side of the box, Delve activates a program, causing the box and its cargo to shrink until they are only about nine inches on all sides. Then Delve puts the box in her backback. After tucking it safely within, she withdraws a pistol, a compact black semiauto .38. As she pulls back the slide, the coyote says, in a tone which suggest she's trying to be excited instead of nervous and not entirely succeeding, "Y'know, I was wonderin' how one li'l monster took down those big taurs so brutally..." Standing, with her backpack protectively shouldered, Delve holds the pistol in one hand and her knife in the other, leaving the nanite collector around her shoulders but ready for use. The napalm pistol remains in her belt for now.
Unfortunately, before Delve has a chance to give advice, Dio spots movement in the brush and advances. There is a rustle, and Dio sees another of the creatures ahead, looking away, scratching at itself. Almost as if it's allowing Dio to stalk it. Suddenly, two more balaur taurs whip out of the brush to either side of Dio and launch themselves at his sides, hissing viciously! At the same moment, more pour out of the woods around the group, all rushing to attack!
Well...there goes their little bit of rest. As soon as more of the taurs comes popping out Angus frowns, before targeting the twins heading his way. "Just my luck." He mutters, sighting them both and pulling both triggers at once. The twin guns barked, 44's slamming head on into them as the flash lights up the coyote shiloute on his older gun as he gets ready to move.
Alkain looks over at the box and hmms, "Interesting..." that's before the little creatures attack! He growls as he aims and fires at one, knocking it off course as it leaps at him! Though he doesn't really have time to get out of the way of the second who is dashing towards him, he growls more as he gets ready to run with the others
Smokie wasn't at all paying attention to the box, until she looked back. "Hey, where's the body...? HEY, who the FUCK?!" She spins back around, seeing shapes, hearing a fight, and begins unloading the pistol Angus gave her into the forest, without taking on a target.
Arimia looks around as the beasts come charging out of the forest. She gets a tighter grip on her sword, then grins a sharp-toothed grin. Before the first one reaches her something happens, her normally heated form grows hotter, until it actually bursts into flame. Then the serpentine woman is moving, first to strike one of the beasts charging her, then another, then moving to find yet another.
Spotting another one of those strange creatures, Dio aims down the sight of his shotgun and prepares to fire. Before he manages to get a shot off however, his eyes soon catch the impending danger on both of his sides. The lion aims his pump-action shotgun down, not too confident he could get both shots out in time without getting smashed by the other. Instead, he raises a sleeve towards each attacker where a bit of bunching up seems to appear under the cloth. Mere moments later, shards upon shards of sharp crystal fly from his sleeves and towards his attackers.
Delve's pistol cracks once, twice, and one of the raptaurs leaping at her falls to the dirt, twitching and bleeding. A quick slash with her knife makes it gasp, then begin to wheeze. The non-feathered parts of it pale to an unhealthy ashen color. Moments later, however, a second is upon her. Rearing back, it kicks out with one hind leg, slashing a pair of parallel wounds down the coyote's flank. Growling, she wheels from the fallen taur to the new attacker, burying the snakebite knife in its human-gut, but its claws rake at her arm even as it slides off, badly injured. A low snarl ripples from the normally cool-tempered biologist. "All right, fuckers, if that's how we're gonna play..." Stuffing her pistol into her belt, she draws the napalm pistol instead, backing toward the group to try to keep any of the beasts from leaping on her back. "Don't try to run! They'll pull ya down!" Perhaps futilely, Delve strives to keep the battle from devolving into total chaos.
Meanwhile, the two leaping at Dio are surprised by the glassy outburst, but it isn't enough to fell either of them. Bleeding severely, sliced open by dozens of shallow wounds, the two fall on the silver lion, seeking soft spots to sink their talons and teeth into! In the same moment, Angus cuts down two of the raptaurs and Alkain drops a third in a blistering burst of gunfire. Beside them, Smokie fires randomly into the brush. The bestial yowls arising from the darkness prove that at least one bullet hit something hostile. Then the forest lights up as Arimia ignites herself and launches a counter-attack, slicing her way through the oncoming raptaurs! Some of the creatures hiss in dismay and flee, but others emit horrific yowls and remain, as if maddened even further by the sight of the flame. Several of these climb into the trees, vanishing into the foliage, only to pop out again and fall onto the agents below!
Angus smiles, watching both of his targets go down in a hail of gunfire. "That will teach you you over grown freaks!" He shakes a fist in triumph! Before another one decide to try and piggyback off the yote. "Hey, no free rides!" Snarling he doesn't even look back, before his electrical current around him comes to life. Sending the creature to the ground a screaming twitching mess, before he silenced it with a slight spin and a bullet to the throat.
Alkain looks to Delve and nods at that before he takes down a taur, he growls as one assults him and something seems to snap inside of him. He roars in fury as his sickle-like claws dig into it's flesh and he growls as he practically rends it's flesh from it's body with all four sets of claws!
The smalle coyote woman in the blue jacket shoves the pistol in her belt, now empty, and withdraws her bayonet, standing her ground wide as she turns back to her group. She sees one near her husband, and with the quick working of her animal legs, she barrels towards. Once in range, she concentrates, pressed her paw to its head and draining the very life-water out of it.
Arimia laughs as the dino-taur ends up on her and uses her serpentine form to her advantague, twisting and coiling about it. Once it's secure in her length she starts to squeeze down on it, while keeping as much of it surrounded in her searing, electrified metal hide as she can.
Dio stopped his flow of crystals into the beasts, seeing as they weren't quite sharp enough nor have the stopping power to cease the beasts' charge. With a bit of maneuvering, he manages to just get out of the way of one creature, but the other one manages to sink its teeth into shoulder. Blood dripping down his arm and staining the sleeve of his suit, the lion ROARS out in pain and anger, nearly shaking the trees with the pure primal ferocity. In his pure adrenaline fueled rage, he grabs the head of the biting creature and places one hand under them. With tremendous strength and a loud roaring grunt, the lion grapples the creature and uses a tremendous amount of momentum to slam it upon the other creature's body.
For her part, Delve handles the taur dropping down at her, wielding primitive wooden spears in all four hands, by sidestepping and then swinging the napalm pistol around, firing it almost in the hapless raptaur's face. With a whoosh of flame the creature ignites. Despite its scream of pain however it tries to press forward, forcing Delve to fall back in alarm, slashing at it warningly with her knife. Finally, though at the cost of taking the jab of one spear in her left shoulder, she manages to drive the snakebite knife through the taur's spine, dropping it.
Panting, Delve grits her teeth, then pulls the spear from her shoulder, looking around wildly. The combat is wrapping up. Those raptaur which are still alive have all fled now, or been killed or incapacitated by the agents. Angus electrocuted his third attacker before shooting it in the throat, while Smokie desiccated the fourth into unconsciousness. Meanwhile Alkain rent another taur asunder, taking only a few scratches in the process, while Arimia met the bold one head-on, constricting it in spite of the slashing talons and snapping teeth. The taur hissed, screeched, and struggled with all its might, but the robotic medusa held on tight, and soon enough the brutal combination of flames and electrical shock did the thing in. Finally, Dio took a bite to the shoulder, but in exchange used one attacker to literally smash the other, doing massive damage to both of them in the process. Both raptaurs die of this treatment, their skulls smashed to such an extent that they appear decapitated.
Then, all was still, as the remaining taurs seem to have fled. Delve shakes her head, then calls out, a bit shakily, "Everyone okay? Jesus Hillbilly Christ."
Angus looks around, stomping on the chest of the third taur he had taken down as he tracks the retreating ones with his guns. After a little bit he drops his aim, snorting a little in defiance before he looks to Delve. "Sorry, but hillbilly Christ didn't have anything to do with it." Chuckling the guns go to their holsters, barrels still smoking a little as he smiles. "So, we caught one ugly. Scared its family off, and no one actually got badly hurt. I say that's a win win."
Alkain growls as he looks for something else to rend and blinks as he realizes what he is doing, he eeps a bit and shakes his head, "Owww..." as he puts a hand to his head, "That gave me such a headache..." he winces a little as he looks over his blood-spattered form and frowns, "Oh geez..." he shakes his head again and sighs, "Let's get out of here..."
Smokie pants as she comes up alongside her husband, ready to aid him in battle, though... Nothing comes at them. It seems they've scared off the beasts for now, and probably for the best. She shakes her head, and stays close to him, tense still.
Arimia uncoils from around the still form and pushes it aside. She takes her sword, looks it over, and slips it into it's sheathe. Only then does she look down to inspect any scratches and bite marks the thing had left on her. After a few moments to make sure she's going to survive she says, "Well. That was an interesting diversion. Think there will be more?"
Still in a bit of an adrenaline high, Dio gives his poor victims another threatening roar, despite their brains being scrambled inside their skull. After many a deep breath, the lion begins calming down and eventually falls from his high, the pain gripping at his shoulder and appearing once more. To help stop the bleeding, he puts an immense amount of pressure upon the spot with a hand, hoping the nanites would kick in soon to seal up the wound. "Looks like you got plenty of samples now," he says as he joins the group. "Let's pull out immediately."
Almost as if to contradict Dio's statement, a funny thing happens just then. Swiftly, stealthily, many of the surviving taurs creep back through the undergrowth, remaining out of sight. Their activity is revealed only by the fact that all the fallen taurs begin to slide into the underbrush and vanish. Before Delve or anyone can think how to react, all the bodies have been dragged away. Only smears of blood, charred tree trunks, bits of rent flesh, and fallen feathers remain to prove there was ever a battle here. Delve frowns deeply, her blood-smeared muzzle twisting cynically. "Right. That's that. I don't think they're as licked as they want us to think. Let's move. Quick, but smart." And with that she began to edge her way back out of the forest, the way they'd come, switching pistols again because the semiauto fires more quickly.
Angus blinks as the corpses are taken away, and he turns around to cup his hands over his muzzle. "That's right run! No wonder your mother was half chicken!" He starts making clucking noises, taunting them considering they just beat their butts. "Hah! Careful you don't lay an egg as you run!" ...Clearly the coyote was insane...considering he was actually taunting them...
Alkain blinks at the retreating mutants and shakes his head, "Well..." he looks over his wounds and shrugs, then Angus opens his big mouth! He grumbles a bit as he attempts to smack the 'yote upside the head, "Damnit, don't make them come back!" before he starts moving with Delve
Smokie baps her husband in back of the head, then grabs his scruff and pulls on it. "C'mon, let's get going, it's dinner time."
Arimia shakes her head at Angus' yelling. She fishes in her pockets, producing another of her hand rolled cigarettes. This time she simply uses her still hot metal finger to light it before starting back the way the group had come. "I think they've learned not to attack us. They do seem to have some intelligence. And their retrieving their dead would indicate some sort of communal structure. Basically, this group may be more than mindless ferals."
Dio looks back as the bodies are all collected by their comrades, choosing non-action and instead desiring to immediately leave the dangerous area. The lion continues to clutch at his wound, but the bleeding doesn't seem to be too bad. After Angus' verbal attack however, the bleeding seems to momentarily pick up in volume for a few short moments. Shotgun in one hand and wound in the other, Dio nods and begins following the path they had came, hoping another attack wouldn't occur.
As the group escapes from the forest, it is always evident that they are being followed, but the balaur taurs almost never make themselves visible. Still, everyone can smell their dry, musty saurian odor, hear their subtle movements. And always, the feeling of being watched. As the group moves through the wood, soft growls and hisses start to come from the pursuing taurs. Now and then one will leap out of the underbrush, snapping or slashing, but not very seriously, always ducking away before retaliation is possible.
However, just as they're about to break into the more open, brightly lit part of the wood, a real attack comes. Delve, who was bringing up the rear out of the same sense of responsibility which caused her to take point position earlier, is suddenly tripped by an outstretched taur-leg. She falls to the duff with an oof of lost breath. Although she tries to roll to bring her knife and gun into play, three taurs swarm down on her, grabbing at her, trying to drag her off into the brush the same way they did their fallen comrades! As she struggles, more appear, yanking and tugging!
"What already? can't it waittttt. The chickens haven't had enough harassment!" Angus was flailing his arms as he was grabbed, before Smokie started dragging him away. And drag him away she did, as he actually starts to leave furrows in the dirt. "ruining my fun, I'm not even hungry hun." He teazes Smokie, but all that messing around stops as soon as he sees Delve go down. "Company!" He shouts, both guns coming out of their holsters as he takes aim.
Alkain hmms at Arimia and nods at that, "Possibly..." he sighs a bit as he looks to Dio and winces at the lion's wound, "You going to be ok?" he growls as he eyes the mutants as the follow and even kicks one away as it tries to claw at him! "Damn things..." he fails to notice that Delve had been captured, but at Angus' call he is on it. He fires off a big, bright and LOUD blast of mostly harmless fireworks!
Arimia turns back at the commotion to see Delve getting dragged off. She spends a moment trying to figure out what to do when a burst of light goes off and the shooting start. She flattens herself to the ground and speeds forward in a quick slither. Reaching out she grabs Delve where she can, hissing "Sorry," And gives a powerful yank to try and pull the coyote free before turning so she can drag the woman low to the ground with her.
"I'll be fine. A bit of time and hopefully the nanites will seal the wound up." Noticing Delve going down, Dio looks down at his gun and quickly dismisses the idea of firing a spread shot weapon when a friendly was too close. With a bit of concentration, he brings up the necessary program in his NICE unit and initiates a large firework in the middle of the quartet, creating a loud and annoying boom along with a basic firework pattern to hopefully force the creatures to temporarily cease and drop their victim, allowing the other members to land clean shots upon them. Combined with Alkain's firework, the explosion is quite nasty even at the non-lethal level.
Being relatively small, and afraid of fire to boot, the taurs didn't have much of a chance when the fireworks exploded among them. Two of the beasts squealed and fled immediately. The last one was busily struggling with Delve for control of her backpack, the straps of which were ripped. Bullet fire forced it to let go, though - and then Arimia was dragging Delve rapidly away, back to the group. Delve climbs to her feet, a bit unsteadily, hugging her backpack with fierce possessiveness. "Thanks," the coyote growls gratefully to the others. "Now let's get the fuck out of here."
The group makes it out of the forest with no further incidents, although the sense of being watched doesn't go away until the group is fully out of the woods. There, at a good distance from the trees, Delve finally signals a stop to the running. Looking around at them all, she sighs. "I'm not sure I wanted to learn what I'm learnin'. Thanks. I owe y'all, each of ya." With that, she busies herself with her comm unit, arranging extraction by RSX.
