Okay, so I know retcons are bad (even if certain "perfect" characters need to be knocked down a couple pegs, *coughcough*) and all, but sometimes opportunities show up that I have a bitch of a time ignoring. Took a few revisions and running by Talvieno a couple times, but I think I got something down for Koth.
This was it. Her time had come.
That was all she thought for the short slide off the dangling scaffold, TACPAD replaced with satchel charge. Her timing was good at least, as she landed on a Parasol Battlesuit's front as it had tried to aim at her comrades. It wasn't a soft landing, not by any means, but she was able to move and the battlesuit pilot had made an audible “What in the fuck?” at her landing in his arms more or less.
Acting quickly, she mashed the charge into the suit's head, and with it one of the grenades she'd tucked under her magazine pouches for an emergency before forcing herself backward and away at a roll, the confused pilot blurting out “What the hell did he just-” before the grenade went off, causing the charge to go too. The resultant fireball was certainly impressive to the onlookers who hadn't been killed or wounded, but they were quick to get their bearings, at least as well as the sudden bursting of fuel lines could permit. Up on the scaffold, Operators resumed firing on the fleeing Contractors across from them, while down below, Koth stood alone.
“Drop yer weapons and hands op!” A dwarf demanded as Koth stood up, drawing her revolver. It was odd that she thought instead that he sounded like he was from the Corgyn'Bre region of home, rather than contemplating surrender. She looked around, Operators on all sides but not all focused on her. Behind her the scaffold she fell from finally gave out, crushing several humans and dwarves beneath it. To her front was exclusively regular ol' foot sloggers; the battlesuits on this side were unmanned.
She grasped the hilt of her whip and let the copper weapon unfurl, the dwarf shouting “Are ye deaf!? I said drop'em! I ain't gonna warn ye again!” Several more operators rushed over, maybe four in all now. The rest were busy putting out fires, trying to save munitions near said fires, or trying to help wounded allies; Ecem had certainly been through with the distraction he chose, as many Operators crying for help had been near fuel lines in the walls that ruptured.
“Information. That's why they haven't killed me yet.” Koth thought. They wanted her alive to question her. She wouldn't come quietly. They would need to kill her or come damned close to make her stop fighting. So she closed her eyes as a human stepped closer, shouting a similar demand to the dwarf, and took a deep breath.
When her eyes opened, the world seemed to have turned red.*
She twisted her body as she moved forward, managing to cover most of the short gap between her and her four opponents. The gaps was a short one, maybe a tall human in length if that and three of the enemy seemed concerned or hesitant for some reason. She assumed it was probably worry about hitting their fellows on the other side of the downed scaffold, it's relatively thin frame being little in the way of an obstacle to a mag-cel shot. But she didn't care as to why though; her left arm swung out, and following it came the copper whip, her one piece of home. It struck the nearest Operator, an elf or short human based on their height and build, square in the visor. The glass cracked and he yelped in terror, his weapon flying from his hands as he threw them up to protect his head!
Koth pulled her arm back skillfully, the whip catching the railgun and sending it sideways into the other three; one had managed to squeeze off two shots that missed wildly before the stock konked him in the side of the head, throwing him off balance and into the other two who had tried to move to get a shot at her when she'd moved. In the resultant tumble, she dropped a grenade, the dwarf shouting an obvious warning of “GRENADE!!!” As she ran past, having been the first to partially right himself. The detonation would kill the other three, and he would be lamed for life from the shrapnel, the flying metal sharps tearing into his right side and shredding most of his lower arm and whatever else not covered by the plates of his armor.
She continued forward, firing three clumsy shots into a trio of confused Parasol troopers, one getting struck in the throat and left choking on his own blood while the other two dove for cover behind a Lancer. She ran between it and the one before it, running around the back. She noted that all the APCs were open, probably to be rearmed or for some kind of maintenance. She ducked into the machine and got against the far wall from the side she came from and waited. One of the two operators came around, probably to check for her and she swung out, her armored elbow hitting the poor trooper square in the visor, the edge of the plate cracking it. Before he could get his bearings, Koth swung her revolver up and squeezed the trigger, the round shattering the now damaged visor and seeing the helmet go flying from the owner's now deformed head.
“Is'e there?” The other called, not seeing his squadmate slump sideways onto the Lancer's ramp. “Thelire? You ok man?” He swung around and cautiously peered over, and saw Thelire dead on the ramp, the back right part of his head blown out and helmet missing. He wheeled round to fire into the lancer but reacted just a few seconds too slow, and the Operator flew back as five railgun rounds smashed into his torso, sending him crashing into a pile of crates, most of his ribs shattering from the slugs and his spine and should being fractured by the crates. He still lived by some miracle, and was sprawled on the crate pile screaming in agony until Koth finished him off with her combat knife.
Koth was quick to loot both corpses, reloading her revolver and quickly curling the whip back onto her belt. She could still see fire being exchanged up above, specifically she saw Parasol's side of the catwalks. So she ran into the next Lancer, and by the grace of her gods, it appeared to have just had it's heavy cannon reloaded. She crawled up and turned on the power, and once everything lit green, she pivoted the turret upwards. A few of the Parasol troops glimpsed the gun light up and at first thought it was a friendly, until they realized it was pointing up at the wrong people.
Koth felt the gun rock from the armature rushing forward and then back several times in the gun, and on the weapon's HUD there were small bursts of shrapnel and occasionally limbs from the few rounds she fired. She slid down from the seat, thankful that some idiot had left the keys in it, and rushed out, carbine ready to take down anyone waiting for her.
For a full minute, all she was greeted by was confused engineers, soldiers, and other workers trying to snuff the spreading flames and tend to the wounded, too busy to notice her in the smoke and general disorder.
This changed as she made it to a doorway, where several Operators spotted and then fired on her. She counted herself lucky that whatever was driving her had as good reaction time as it did, as one shot winged her helmet, cracking the outer plate and breaking off her visor as well as giving her a splitting headache. She grabbed a flash bang and hurled it over the last APC she was using as cover, the flash blinding many besides the intended victims, causing many slugs to fly wildly in all directions, including into allies. She swung out and fired, several shots missing, but many hitting home, splattering blood and bits of armor on the wall and floor after their owners bounced off them. Several civilian workers in firefighting gear were also killed as well, having come through the door at the worst possible moment behind an additional trooper. She shoved the two bodies blocking the doorway clear and quickly shut it, smashing the controls afterward in hopes of stalling any pursuers from the hanger. She sprinted down the hallway and went left up the flight of stairs that lead to the catwalks, but knew from the lack of shooting up there that her squad had now fled.
“Good.” She thought out loud. It meant they'd gotten out without any more trouble. She peered out far enough to see her handiwork from before properly, and there were only a handful of medics, both military and civilian, tending to the wounded. In other places fuel storage tanks had clearly detonated along the walls, sending large swathes of the scaffolds into the hanger onto the Parasol troops, equipment, and workers below.
She spun around and kept running, taking two more turns before encountering anyone. By now whatever she'd felt in the hanger was long gone, with the apparent danger having passed and the world looking the way it should again. Her encounter appeared to be a wounded security guard, as well as an adult human trying his best to tend to the guard's wounds and a young girl crying with her legs pulled up to her chest. The man was trying to console her and referred to her by name, indicating he was likely her father or at least a relative or friend. His attempts were mainly so he could more readily help the wounded guard without the youngling crying next to them
She could see blood but no wounds on the poor child, and figured Ecem had started this ruckus in a break room or something. It hurt slightly to think that there may have been kids hurt in this operation, but she pushed it aside, remembering how she'd seen so many children killed by raiders before she had gone to Shockedtowns. Even ones so young can't escape the reaper, and she resigned that she and her friends had to play the role of raider here. However it was what was past the trio she was most interested in.
A technician lay dead, a great deal of blood spattered and pooled near and open vent. The technician had several lights scattered nearby indicating an intent to enter it, probably to fix some wiring. That was her way out. The cameras in the hallway were all damaged as well, probably during the rest of the crew's escape through this hall.
She could hear people approaching from behind, and had to act fast. She reached for a flash, and found she had none. She couldn't let any of the three live or they'd point out her escape route. She took a moment to weigh her options, and decided it had to be done for her to get out of this situation alive. So she took a breath and swung out, firing a long burst of slugs into the hall. The girl, mercifully, was struck first. The first few slugs missed them completely but the first to find purchase hit the child in the head, a second in the side of her lower body. She'd died in an eyeblink. The human adult wasn't so fortunate. While two rounds had hit him, both struck his limbs, shattering the bones and mangling them and sending him skidding a short distance down the hall. The officer took the worst of it, but like the girl the officer perished relatively painlessly, as while two rounds hit her in the side the third hit her upper body and the forth destroyed her head, same as the child. The human cried out, after getting up on his rear through only adrenaline, for his now dead daughter. He managed to see Koth through his own now-bleary vision, and shouted hatefully at her “You fucking monster!” She didn't blame him for being angry. For all intents and purposes she was now. But it was her or these people, and she now had no plans of dying over not having a flash bang. She brought her carbine up but it only clicked, the ammo readout on the side noting the magazine was depleted. The man thought she'd spare him, to torture him for no reason, when she drew her revolver without much thought and shot him in the head.
She loaded her carbine and clipped it to her back before slipping into the duct. She paused, realizing they could find her by her IFF transponder, and so she reached up to her helmet and pulled a small block with an antenna out. She drew her knife and smashed it on the floor with the pommel before continuing deeper in.
-
Years had gone by by now, she knew that much. Koth had survived and thrived in this place. First by stealing from cafeterias (often killing staff or janitors in the process) or be disabling cameras and looting vending machines. Then by trickery being able to just get what she needed from some shop or another. She'd become something of a terror in this place, wherever it was. She had made a home for herself in a barely inhabited apartment block in some slum far from the hanger she'd fought in, and she could hear those few residents discussing the murders that had been constantly on the news – her handiwork – at least for some time they'd been on constantly. She'd considered it a lucky thing that she'd been wearing her [ski mask] during the mission as it may have been the only thing keeping Security from having a face to put to the murders. If they had that, she wouldn't have a chance, not for long.
It started with lone patrols and technicians. She'd disable cameras or generators and hide, and when the crews came to fix the hardware, she'd kill them in as blood yet quickly a manner as her combat knife and whip would permit, then reactivating the hardware they'd come to fix. Always she left a personal sign, usually left with spray paint she'd found in the alleys or stolen from shops when they were unattended, but any special forces she'd beaten, she would paint the sign in her enemy's blood. It was a skull and two crossed halberds, the symbol of the Shockedtowns militia, or was supposed to be anyway. It was her way of telling her now long gone friends that she still lived, and still continued to cause as much torment as she could alone for Ballpoint's rival.
Rarely did she resort to her carbine or revolver and those few times had been during brief shootouts that saw a half dozen guards or Operators dead or wounded. After one such engagement, Parasol had given up trying to find, capture, or even kill her. Everyone they'd sent and every trap they tried, even gassing her, had failed. She even managed to kill a high-ranking officer and steal both his PEA and TACPAD, disabling the transponders on both so while they couldn't find her, she could see everything they did and go where she pleased. All it took for her to now move among the populous seamlessly was a handful of murders for attire that fit her readily and was warm enough for the chill of the bottom rung of society and a forged identity, which took some doing as she knew she couldn't trust even these bottom dwellers.
She had buried her old identity well, even in the dilapidated apartment she'd claimed. As far as even Parasol, even the other residents knew, the unkempt and generally unsocial resident of Apartment 893G was Seta Urngranite, an “unqualified” PEA technician who'd failed her requalification tests for the newer models. The only thing keeping her from being carted off like she'd seen some was that she was actually working for the lower half of society who couldn't afford the latest and greatest; to other PEA techs who saw her carrying older tools and carrying blatantly older models around, she may as well have been unemployed. But it was enough to get by, and enough for a suitable cover. But she'd still largely buried who she was, almost a little too well.
The killings continued of course, but now they were only reported if it was something big, such as the officer she'd killed raiding the armory for equipment or if it was some apparent act of terror when all she'd done was destroy a generator to a repair bay or guard station in some relatively public space, even without killing anyone. At times it seemed almost like she'd done it out of habit or to cling to who she was: An enemy of these people. Those few “neighbors” who had Televeiwers, she watched closely, and followed the reports of the terrorist attacks that had been happening lately. Perhaps she could leave soon, slip out somehow. She had to, as her own attacks were becoming less and less frequent. If she didn't get off Parasol soon, Koth would eventually just become a memory, replaced by Seta on the outside and possibly even in. She would end up an unimportant cog in her enemy's machine all because of her actions to survive.
She'd also watched a pair of out of place young ladies come and go from the area one day, one she noted as looking familiar. She could have sworn it was one of the higher end specialist, Carsenla, Carlena... Something like that.** She must've been on assignment now. If she could recall right, she may have her way off Parasol, back to those she considered family. But first she'd need a way to contact her, and that meant more forays into frequented public spaces.
*Now, you're gonna have to put the pieces together as to what has just happened to Koth. This isn't the first time a human has experienced such a trance after all.
** Reference to the Ballpoint infiltration missions; She'd have been close enough to hear the conversations but time has of course eroded her memory of what Vanya's last name really was and she 's just trying to piece it together on her own.
Now I'm sure some will cry foul of something or another, but keep in mind that I did do my thinking for this stuff and Talvieno can back me up on that. And if there's any particularly monstrous event you feel you must say something about, keep it to a PM and note that the game makes no distinction on who is a viable target for intruders.
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Topic: [34.11] Spearbreakers - It shudders and begins to move (Read 2282251 times)