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Looking to the right, the hallway goes quite a ways down. There are several doors along the way, but also an open space at the far end that looks like it might be a stairwell.
Unfortunately, it's immediately clear that these hallways aren't going to provide any cover whatsoever.
Unfortunately, it's immediately clear that these hallways aren't going to provide any cover whatsoever.
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From:
Re: Landing bay
Goldy is staring at the monstrous invertebrates, not fearfully, just purely repulsed. The disgusted face she pulls as she powers up her Deatomizer confirms her feelings.
"Yeuch! Did anyone bring Raid?"
From:
Re: Landing bay
He readies his gun.
"Scatter, or go in as a group?"
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Re: Landing bay
Jen hefts her bo - she can use it to engage their mouths, depending on how smart they are - and takes three grenades out of her bag.
"All right, kids. I'm using these, so scatter! Let me try and clear a path down the middle."
She charges the closest one, and in the time dilation effect that is typical of a pitched battle, when gallons of adrenaline surge through one's system, she has time to notice just how very slimy they are. Like slug slime times infinity, and she can almost feel the alienness of the Oil, on top of the alienness that usually typifies ravening space bugs.
"Smile, you. Come on, open wide..."
She ends her charge with a flying leap straight for its face, yanking the pin out of the grenade while she tosses it towards the roach's impressive dentition.
From:
Re: Landing bay
Which is why this roach has its jaws wide open to chomp down on the large green woman coming at it.
But the grenade arrives first, and roach greedily swallows it down, just in time for an incredibly loud: BANG!!
The bug keels to one side, slamming heavily to the ground and screeching furiously as it flails around, whipping its sharp-edged tail at the not-so-good green woman.
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Re: Landing bay
Further insectile shrieks of pain fill the chamber. However, for all that her aim is near-perfect, even while she's in motion, the weapon isn't quite as devastating as she had hoped. A leg disintegrates here, an eye there, and she leaves two of the bugs with gaping craters in their segmented thoraxes. But none of them are seriously incapacitated.
Rather disgruntled, the Fable pulls up behind a cluster of futuristic stanchions and takes stock of the situation. When she notes the effects of Jen's grenade attack, a wolfish grin overtakes her face. She's really beginning to like this crazy green chick.
With a pump, she primes her weapon's underside attachment, then pulls the secondary trigger and launches a grenade towards the nearest roach...
THUNK!
There's no explosion when it hits the ground before the rearing beast. The little shell-shaped cannister just gives out a feeble cough and releases a cloud of thick white fog.
"For fuck's sake! Who labels smoke grenades yellow!"
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Re: Landing bay
Of course, 'skitters' might not be the word for something that makes a solid 'thud' everytime one of its legs hits the floor.
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Re: Landing bay
She holds her breath.
KA-BOOOOOM!
This grenade is orange, and its payload turns out to be rather more destructive than the yellow one. It explodes compactly but with obliterating force, right under the belly of the skittering bug.
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Re: Landing bay
The concussive blast scatters the smoke from the first grenade, obscuring a good part of the Landing Bay.
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Re: Landing bay
The resulting shower of brown gunk is disgusting, yet satisfying—more of the latter since the Fable manages to avoid most of the splatter by ducking behind the pillars again. Being immortal, her survival instincts are somewhat lacking, but her clothing preservation instincts are second to none.
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Re: Landing bay
"The Oil! Goldy, watch the Oil! Don't let it get to your face or any orifices!"
And now, Jen, a distinguished veteran of situations both implausible and ridiculous, has crossed a hitherto uncrossable hurdle.
"...that's the first time I've ever said 'orifices' in the heat of battle."
She's landed with a CHOOM near a second bug, and then jumps again, trying to land on its back.
"Sit, Marmaduke! SIT!"
Well, it worked for Hank McCoy, didn't it?
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Re: Landing bay
"All holes are un-lubricated over here!" she hollers back.
Switching weapons, she fires up her flamethrower again, and starts burning every bit of glistening fluid she can see. This has the secondary benefit of keeping the remaining bugs away from her as well.
"Seriously! I've got the worst case of dry mouth. I think it's all the smoke."
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Re: Landing bay
About now is the time when the small holding tank strapped to her forearm gives out, though. The downsides of insisting on manoeuverability. Well.
She unstraps it, ducking behind a support beam for the moment, and then darts out again to hurl tank, wand and attachments at the eyes of the bug closest to Duo.
"I appreciate your concern about your holes, Goldy, but can we focus on getting Duo to the giant robot?" she yells, over the roar of the flames. "We're on a mission here!"
The muttered aside after that may well have something to do with sex goop. Who knows?
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Re: Landing bay
Fortunately, the Oiled bugs can't see Steph, so none of them are climbing after her, but one bug is closing fast on Jen, and another is coming after Goldy.
The other two bugs are trying to dodge blasts of flame from above, but also seem to be looking around for something. Perhaps the other Delta who has somehow slipped from their sight.
On some level, they seem to realize that could become a serious problem.
But now there's a much more immediate one. The entire building shakes as something begins to rock its foundation. Something is on the move somewhere down in the levels below the Landing Bay. Something big.
Oracle's voice comes over the comm, "All units be advised, internal security grid is now active. I've designated the armory, the hangar, and the command bunker as safe zones. Advise me if you plan to leave them."
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Re: Landing bay
As the new bug charges at her, she stands her ground and flicks a switch on the flamethrower wand. The stream instantly changes from fire to liquid nitrogen, which she then blasts all over the front quarters of the monster, effectively freezing it to the spot.
She stops firing and puts her hands on her hips.
"How many bugs have you killed since we arrived?"
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Re: Landing bay
The frozen bug gets a grimace. The one coming up behind it gets an annoyed glare. It's interfering with the banter, and besides, crawling over the frozen bodies of your allies is just kinda icky.
On the other hand ... crawling up onto the new bug's back does put it at a good height for Steph to swing down in a quarter-circle, so that one booted heel collides with each of the thing's creepy yellow eyes.
"KII-YAA!"
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Re: Landing bay
Duo wipes off some of the bug slime to keep it from dripping into his eyes, and gives a wicked grin as the cockpit slides open, blowing his bangs back with a rush of stale air.
"Good morning, sweetheart. This is your nine o'clock alarm call."
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Re: Landing bay
Damn, they're faster than she'd thought, and she doesn't want to explode slime all over the place again if it's a vector for possession. With mitted hands, she grabs the bug's neck and jerks backward as hard as she can; there's some resistance, and then CRACK.
Now that Goldy's mentioned the lack of amenties, a nice tall glass of icy Gatorade would be nice right about now. Green, of course. Why can't superpowered battles be fought with scheduled breaks for tea, like they did back in the 18th century?
That thought dissipates almost as soon as it coalesces when the building begins to shake.
"Oracle? Zed? What's going on?"
And what happened to the kid? She's ready to start ripping open roach digestive tracks to find him, if he's been subverted into a snack.
"Where's the kid?"
Oh, hell. Still more bugs.
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Re: Landing bay
"That's half a kill at best," she comments, unclipping some randomly colored grenades from inside her jacket and lobbing them to her friend.
They are unprimed.
She then scans through the haze around the hall and spots a tiny shadow in the cockpit of the Mech.
"The kid's great!" she cries happily. "He's in the Mech already!"
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Re: Landing bay
The bug itself is scrabbling helplessly, unable to tell what blinded it but knowing it hurts. Steph keeps her balance somehow, climbing free of the eyes and the giant teeth and swaying atop its back.
She catches all but one of the grenades, and she's totally blaming the swaying of the blind bug for the miss. "You couldn't throw me a sharp pointy stick?"
A grenade will do. She pops a random pin, leans forward, and shoves the primed grenade into the bug's eyesocket. Then she somersaults free.
"This is gonna be so, so gross."
BOOM.
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Re: Landing bay
...this looks like the targeting system for the missiles. Heh heh heh.
He keys the comm. "All channels! Deltas, get the fuck out of the way. Everyone else, get ready for a really big boom. YEE-HAH!"
Duo presses the big red button.