trans_9 | Riding to the Rescue (aren't we supposed to have white horses for this?)

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Riding to the Rescue (aren't we supposed to have white horses for this?)

The rescue team stopped just inside the doors of the Vatican for a quick last-second pow-wow, and to make sure that everyone knew their jobs and places on this team. A note was also made that if anyone was going to be f*$%#ing stupid, they should let everyone else know so they could be tied up and left behind as bug-bait. This was not the time to be pulling shit, not with over a half-dozen people captured and (hopefully just) one dead.

The general plan was that they'd all follow Jaime, since his scarab could track down Paco and Robin, and hope like hell the others were with them and that they didn't run into too many bugs on the way. There was wiggle room in the plan for as much running and screaming and shooting as necessary, but the end result was dead bugs and rescued crew members so they could all go back to trying to figure out how to get home.

Last chance to stay behind and fight the good fight in an enclosed space.

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Murphy was checking his weapons over, saying one last prayer, and generally only seeming to lend half an ear to the plan. Really, for a man whose twin brother was captured and possibly dead, he did appear to be handling the situation very well.

Except for the sharply controlled 'I will shoot holes in everything that gets in my way until it fucking DIES' expression on his face. That was just ever so slightly scary.

"Let's fuckin' do this already."

Bri nodded to Murphy. No more time for standing around.

"Alright folks, I'm going over this once and only once. We're following bug-boy here--" he jerked a thumb towards Jaime, "--so try not to lose sight of him. Try to stay about two to three feet away from the closest person, since stragglers make for easy pickings, but we don't want to get too close and trip everyone else up. Keep moving, and you won't get left behind. Keep the chit-chat to an absolute minimum. If what you've got to say isn't important, keep your mouth shut.

"People with heavy artillery or some sorta freaky equivalent, try to keep up front, so you don't have to fire over anyone's heads as we try and punch through. Everyone else, keep an eye out for anything they miss and anything coming up on our rear.

"If you got all that, then let's get moving. Otherwise, just try and keep up."

Bri makes a general 'move out' gesture with his hand, and starts heading forward himself.

Kate gave a nod to Mia once they settled and traded projectiles. Thusly geared up, she started to step quickly after Bri, keeping very alert. Sighting for possibly bugs to be targetted.

Kate had a passenger, not that she knew it. Ax was clinging to her collar in fly morph, hidden under her hair. Once he had some idea as to the direction they were all going, he would sneak off and demorph so that he could be of assistance faster.

Not to mention that he didn't relish the idea of being helpless in mid-morph when the roaches attacked again.

It took Jaime concentrating hard to focus the suit's sensors on just two bio-patterns, but it was worth the concentration--if he slipped and let the scanners work in full, it'd fry his brain.

Nearly-transparent blue wings buzzed as he took to the air, holding out a hand like a diving rod.

"I've got a lock," he said, and started to move.

Mia told herself to stay calm. They were bugs. Smush them or chop them up enough, and they'd die like any other bug.

She took a position opposite Kate. The two of them could lay down longer-range support than some of the others, and their trick arrows gave them more options.

She wondered what Conner would think about this. Be handy to have some zen at the ready.

Danny hovered after them, looking around carefully, prepared to shoot as soon as the bugs showed up.

Before long, they heard the fluttering of wings nearby. Dark shapes were darting in between buildings around them. They were being watched.

Ax had dropped off of Kate and demorphed as quickly as possible once they were sufficiently far away from the Vatican building. He tried not to let his hooves clop too loudly on the primarily-stone ground. Some places were softer, almost fleshy, which made him thankful for the stone.

His stalk eyes peered around in all directions -- including up -- and his tail arched high in anticipation of an attack.

Kate hadn't noticed the extra passenger, but she did notice the wings fluttering sound. Her head immediately turned toward it, and nocked an arrow on the bowstring.

"Get ready everybody."

Murphy's guns were already out as he peered outward from the group. "No fuckin' kidding. If ye're not fuckin' ready already, ye should fuckin' go back to fuckin' emergency nursery."

He paused, then added, "Especially if ye're mistakin' 'get the fuck ready' for 'stop an' look around like a fuckin' bunch of idiot targets failin' to rescue m'brother.'"

"Cut the chatter," Bri said curtly.

His eyes on the front and back of his head, as well as those on the tips of his antennae continually refocused and darted for a few moments as he tried to get an estimate on how bad their situation was.

"Can't get a good count, but they're all around. Keep ready, but do not fire just yet. We don't have an accurate count, and potshots right now might bring a whole damn swarm on our heads."

Mia nocked a cluster-bomb arrow. She fixed Murphy with a glare. "Calm the fuck down and get some focus." She hissed.

Men.

She exchanged nods with Kate, signalling that she'd let her take the lead for laying down ranged support.

"And don't be stupid like me and do something that'll knock half of us out."

Murphy appeared to finally snap, snarling and raising his guns. He had yet to actually point them at anyone, but that was obviously the next step. "If ye think I'm fuckin' unfocused, I'll be more than fucking happy to work on me own. Not all of us are fuckin' teenagers wanderin' 'round with our heads cut off, now are we?"

Resolute, he continued walking. If they wanted to stop and panic, he would obviously leave them behind.

That was when the roaches attacked.

But they didn't attack the rescue team. Instead, they heard a psychic shout and the sounds of violence being done back the way they had just come. A blue, centaur-like creature with a bladed tail -- like the one they'd last seen getting buried under roaches during the first attack -- backed around the corner, chopping at carapaces with lightning strikes of its tail.

And there were a lot more roaches than there were ~~Andalites~~ blue centaur things.

Go back and help or forage on ahead with the rescue mission while the roaches are distracted?

Danny spotted the figure fighting for his life.

"Guys, go on ahead without me." He said, before flying towards the bugs and the blue centaur,

Kate was torn. She wanted to save Paco, but somebody was fighting the bugs. And they were getting inundated by them. She never could leave somebody in trouble. That's not the way of an Avenger.

She then turned around, her bow ready and firing at the bugs.

"I got your back!" She yelled to Danny.

Murphy looked back and scowled when he noticed what the others were doing. Then he turned back and continued moving; apparently he was making good on his word and leaving them behind.

Not if a hand was grabbing him by the shoulder, he wasn't getting away.

"Yeah, that whole running off by yourself thing? Not a great idea. You'll get caught too. And seeing as there's no guarantee you'll be taken to the same place as your brother or be alive when you get there, and I'm the guy with the sensors, I suggest you stay with me, instead of doing something stupid."

Murphy jerked away quickly and pivoted, swearing, to level a beretta, the one Connor had dropped, at Jaime's head. "Get the fuck off o' me! He's my fuckin' brother! Of course I'll fucking find him!"

Well, this was a hilarious ironic position to be in.

What is with getting guns pointed at my head? Did Ted Kord keep almost getting caught in ironic cave-ins when he was alive?

At most, the bullet would knock him unconscious, but he couldn't afford that right now.

"Unless you've got some kind of psychic link, I'm still the way you'll find him fastest. Put. The gun. Down. Wait five seconds for them to help that weird blue guy--who can probably help us fight our way there--and then we'll keep going."

"Oh for the love of..." Mia grimaced, hastily switching arrows, not sure of how well the small explosives would sit with the blue thing. A flurry of simple arrows arched over Jaime's head, thunking into their insectoid targets.

"We need to move!"

Murphy didn't put the gun down. He didn't even lower it. Not one millimeter. "Ye fuckin' bastard, Connor's my fucking twin brother, for fuck's sake! I can fuckin' find him without ye and your stupid fucking superhero-kiddy tech!"

Well this was just embarrassing.

< My apologies, > he thought-spoke to his rescuers, including the ones that had stayed back. < I suggest crippling them rather than attempting to kill them, as the latter takes far more effort to manage. >

He'd seen a roach survive having its heart stopped (by tiny aliens. Very tiny, very obnoxious aliens). Chopping their heads off wouldn't kill them (not until they starved to death, at any rate), but at least a lack of mouth meant that they couldn't try to bite him. Or any of the others.

FWAP! FWAP! FWAP! Several roaches sreee'd their distress as limbs and antenna fell away from them, severed by Ax's tail.

But you might not be alive when you get there.

Look at what happened to Hudson.

This guy was going to hate him for this, but he couldn't let him run off and get himself killed. He'd deal with it when he woke up.

Scarab, my right hand, but keep it discreet. Population Suppression.

"I'm really sorry about this," he said quietly, and it seemed like maybe he was apologizing for holding him up, but he wasn't.

His movements with the suit were as fast as the insects'. One hand swept up to knock the gun out of his face, as the other hand moved to Murphy's face to vorp him with a glowing blue field of energy that would shut down his nervous system.

Edited 2008-11-12 05:53 (UTC)

Happy fun-time mocking Danny Phantom might've made note of Ax's advice.

But this was not happy fun-time mocking Danny Phantom.

This wasn't even slightly irritated but still relatively calm Danny Phantom.

This was "I am going to BEAT THE CRAP OUT OF YOU!" Danny Phantom, and he proceeded to illustrate said fact by punching straight through one the the bugs heads.

Kate was slightly more calm and rational, but just so. She continued plying the nearest bugs with well placed arrows.

"Working on the disabling part. If we can pin enough of them we can get going."

She added to Jaime, "Good job, but that just reduced our numbers, and he's got to be carried along. What can be done with him?"

Danny's current anger induced strategy of punching the bugs was getting him nowhere fast, and in fact was getting him quickly overwhelmed by the bugs. The halfa was pushed to the ground, a cockroach attempting to bite his face off while the ghost boy struggled to keep it away.

"Let...me...GO!" Suddenly, a beam of cryogenic power shot from Danny's eyes, freezing the bug that had him pinned. He chuckled, and began firing icy blasts of energy at the insectoids, freezing every one that he hit in place.

Ax would say that he was used to this kind of fight, except that he wasn't. Usually the enemy was shooting at him in addition to trying to take off his head or eat him.

Not that he was complaining.

< I am not entirely certain how effective your weapon is against them, > he noted to Kate as he waded through the fight, limbs littering in his wake. < It might be prudent for you to fall back at this time. >

The roaches fell back, away from the rescue crew, scurrying away in all directions, even straight up along the walls of buildings.

They probably didn't scurry far, though.

Jaime stooped and picked up Murphy, throwing him over his shoulder in a fireman's carry.

"Robin and Paco are on the move. That's good, right? This way!"

"Where is he?" Kate was on the alert when she heard Paco's name, and ran faster, shooting roaches in passing.

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Riding to the Rescue (aren't we supposed to have white horses for this?)

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