macrossRPG.COMmunity

[Cobalt]

Rush Sykes
What am I? I’m a killer. What have I become? Prey.


He was a killer. She was not.

He did not hesitate. While she was getting ready to fire, he was firing. While she cursed about getting shot, he took it and knew he was still good to kill. He fired both guns at her, center mass but going for the upper chest area. She had great breasts, it was a shame he had to shoot holes in them. A double tap with both hands and then he went for the head shot.

Actions: Keep Shooting
#1 – Double Tap Left Hand
#2 – Double Tap Right Hand
#3 – Single Shot Head Right Hand

OOC - He has the Devil’s luck, that is for sure. In a land of villains and criminals, I guess the killer is king.
_________________

~Let the Beauty Sleep

[inix88]

Rush fires again before Jenna has a chance to do anything besdes look surprised. She clearly thinks that she should have won by now. Even though his first two shots miss her head, the shrapnel from the ECM rounds cut her face, revealing a shiny alloy underneath.

She crouches down on her right leg, and fires wildly, lodging something in Rushes left foot. His rounds from his right hand gun, the conventionally equipped sidearm, slam home into her torso, but she doesn't even grunt as she springs down further, and pops into an improbable cartwheel into the angle of the hallway that she was hiding in orginally.

As she does so, Rushes last round finds its way into her left eye socket, making a strange black hole.

He hopes that whatever ECM rounds she was able to get into him didn't have any effect- they were cool for an experimental weapon, but they weren't exactly one hundred percent reliable. He has the feeling that the one he got into her left kneecap worked, though. She must be nearly ninety percent cyborg converted to be able take that much damage.

In any event, he has lost sight of her, even though she can't have gone far- he didn't hear any doors open, but then again, some quieter moments were lost when one began to let loose hand-cannons in a metal hall way.

OOC: The hallway Rush and Jenna are in is an L shape; their confrontation is taking place at the joint. From the way Rush is facing, the hallway goes off to his right. At the moment, the interior bulkhead corner breaks their line of sight.

[Cobalt]

Rush Sykes
What am I? A Sleepy-Eyed Killer. What am I? Very, Very Angry.


Rush dropped the magazine of EM rounds and the standard rounds out of his guns, catching them and pocketing them. In their place, he loaded the anti-mecha rounds he had just purchased and moved back a few paces, testing his foot. Then, if everything was still working correctly, he ran forward along the wall and then jumped, planted his foot against the wall and kicked off, up and higher than he would be just coming around the corner and out into the joint of the L Junction, tracking for Jenna with both guns, ready to fire if he saw her.

#1 – Jump-Push Off Wall
#2 – Shoot With Right Hand (If Jenna is there)
#3 – Shoot With Left Hand (If Jenna is there)

OOC - The Devil is still smiling over his shoulder, indeed he is. But will it be enough?
_________________

~Let the Beauty Sleep

[inix88]

Rush wisely takes a moment to change strategies. As he changes his the clips (thankfully the anti-mecha rounds were in quick load format) he hears scuffling and heavy breathing around the corner, followed by silence. Gingerly testing his foot, he notes a numbness around the ball. It feels like something is in there, something like a boulder by the sensation. Fortunately, the sheer adrenaline in his system lets him take the weight, and his bio-feedback pain circuits have switched to the cyborg version of shock. He notices a similar dullness in his abdomen.

Normally, the ECM rounds had a much faster effect, roughly like that of a Taser on a fully flesh-and-blood person, unless they were higher level field agents, with the most expensive safeguards- he can only surmise that this 'Jenna' person (obviously not her real name) is one of these agents, and that for some reason, his ECM rounds are working while hers are not performing to their designed potential. He's been somewhat lucky so far.

He bounds around the corner, using the wall to defy gravity and suspend himself away from where a more cautious attacker would appear. He is airborne, and slightly off kilter as the scene reveals itself to his outstrecthed guns.

He sees a leg jutting out into the middle of the hallway, and a stack of cardboard and wooden crates on the interior wall, about three meters in. This hall way is littered with containers, some opened and seemingly empty. The muzzle of 'Jenna's' pistol sticks out over the lip of a crate directly in front of the leg (which appears to be leaking hydraulic fluid). He can see into her good eye, and her other one doesn't look so hot.

A microsecond has passed since he came around the corner...

OOC: The actions of reloading, checking your possibly injured areas, etc. don't leave you time for any attacks, so I had to take some liberties with your intents. I assume that if someone were to wing around the corner guns a-blazin', then you'd dodge to the best of your ability, etc.

[Cobalt]

Rush Sykes
What am I? A Sleepy-Eyed Killer. What am I? Very, Very Angry.


Rush saw her and felt nothing.

No remorse, no regret. Perhaps later he would lament that he never got to have sex with her but that would be much later, maybe even while he was in bed with Shari, staring at the ceiling of his or her quarters and basking in that quiet afterglow.

At this particular moment, all he saw was that his target was hiding behind wooden crates and he was armed with anti-mecha rounds. He knew where her leg was, he could see her eyes. He aimed for center mass and shot through the crates with the high-powered mecha-killers.

#1 – Shoot With Right Hand (Center Mass)
#2 – Shoot With Left Hand (Center Mass)
#3 – Shoot With Right Hand (Between the eyes)

OOC - Tossing dice with the Devil, la dee da.
_________________

~Let the Beauty Sleep

[inix88]

If there had been an extra second, maybe Rush would have seen Jenna's flinch, her acknowledgement that she was, in fact, losing. Maybe he would have seen the sad look on her face, painted there by the months of tracking him down only to be undone by shoddy planning. She hadn't known what to do with him when she lured him into the corridor- she had known that there would be a fight, but she hadn't checked her ammo to see if it was bunk or not. For the life of her (which was running out rapidly) she didn't know how she could make so many mistakes in such a short amount of time.

There wasn't an extra second, however. Rush's first shot fell just short, blowing the thick cardboard container hiding Jenna's body into a cloud of flaming confetti. His second shot slams home, putting a fist sized hole through her sternum, and his third shot paints the wall with bone, tooth, blood and brain. He lands somewhat awkwardly on a steel case.

Cloverdale agent 'Jenna Renfrow' is definitely dead.

[Cobalt]

Rush Sykes
What am I? A Sleepy-Eyed Killer. What am I? Very, Very Angry.


Rush stood over her for half a moment and then pulled out the PDA that Shari had given him. He brought up the kill order from the K-Staff and updated it.

Target Eliminated.

He snapped one picture with the PDA and attached it to the message before sending it off. It was not pretty but he had, regrettably, seen much worse. Moving rapidly, he went through her pockets and took anything of value, listening to make sure no one was coming up behind him to investigate the shots.

When he was done, he left.

K-Staff would clean up the mess or they wouldn’t. He needed to get to the surgical center. It was time to change his face and he needed some repairs. He sent a message to Shari when he reached the center, letting her know that she was safe and to meet him there. He stepped into the center and looked for someone to assist him.

“Hello? I need some repairs and a new face.”

OOC - If I went too far, let me know. I can adjust my post.
_________________

~Let the Beauty Sleep

[inix88]

Standing is front of the heavily detailed and strange doors of the Surgical Center, Rush is struck by a Bosch-like perception of a vision of hell. So much red and black. The kill had gone down messily, and doubtlessly someone from the K-staff would want to talk to him about it in some depth. While he is contemplating that, a holograph of a masked figure (a surgical mask, deep-blood-red for some reason) appears about a half meter from him.

“Hello? I need some repairs and a new face.”

The masked figure regards him with as much bemusement as can be mustered into just the eyes. The hologram (dressed head to toe in the same deep-blood-red hues of the mask, obviously dressed for surgery) turns it's eyes to it's chronometer before it speaks again.

"I don't think you have enough time for that, Specialist. Aren't you all supposed to sortie soon? A new face will put you under for at least two days. As far as repairs..." The hologram looks Rush up and down,"You seem to have made it up here alright. Are you bleeding?"

[Cobalt]

Rush Sykes
What am I? A Sleepy-Eyed Killer. What am I? Very, Very Angry.


Rush took stock of himself quickly.

“My foot is numb, I may have damaged my knee joint articulator, and I’ve been shot in the torso. I can’t pilot a fighter like this. How long for repairs?”

He was watching everything in his peripheral vision, watching for anything or anyone sneaking up behind him. As much as the doctor’s appearance and mannerisms put him off, he was a beggar and couldn’t be choosy. He needed repairs, he needed a new face, this was the only place he could get either done.

C’mon, Shari… where are you?
_________________

~Let the Beauty Sleep

[inix88]

The hologram winces visibly. A burlier looking camera device extends from a hatch in the blood red wall, looking all the world like a video version of a gatling gun. Rush half expects it to run him through with lasers, but instead, he registers various muscle twitches as he is obviously bombarded with high speed rays. The device pings sourly when it runs across his wounds.

He wryly half-feels like it may have just given him radiation poisoning.

The hologram clears his throat. "Yes. You do seem to have stepped in something nasty. Come in, the flight surgeon will see you."

The zentran scale doors reveal a human sized hatch-way with the quick vacuum snick of bulkhead movement. The hologram disappears, and the figure that had been the holographic subject stands just inside, making a quick hurry-up, I'm-not-going-to-hold-this-open-forever motion with his hand. Rush looks around, but there is no sign of Shari.

Feeling an unfamiliar weight in the inside pocket of his fatigues, Rush is reminded of all the credentials that he had lifted off of Jenna's corpse, her PDA among them.

Well now, He may think, What have I got in my pocket?

[Cobalt]

Rush Sykes
What am I? A Sleepy-Eyed Killer. What am I? Very, Very Angry.


Rush flinched a little when the gatling scanner was aimed at him.

It was not that he was jumpy by nature; he just did not like having things that looked like guns pointed at him. Recent experiences had only served to heighten that feeling. He limped into the medical center, looking back one last time for Shari and beginning to wonder if she hadn’t set him up or, worse, been taken out somehow.

Feeling the unfamiliar weight of Jenna’s PDA and credentials, he resolved to take a look at the first available moment. He remained silent for the moment, following the doctor into the medical horror show.
_________________

~Let the Beauty Sleep

[inix88]

Rush is taken inside. The room is still the massive scale of the previous meltran owners, with micloning chambers lining both walls for a hundred meters. The entire decor is red and black, lending a dark and occult air to the space. The assistant from the door leads Rush to the small entrance of a micloning chamber near the entrance of the room.

"The flight surgeon is inside. You are in good hands now." The assistant then dissappears in to another hatchway before Rush has a chance to respond.

Directly inside is a human scale room. Rush has not seen anything like it since the biosurgery centers in Cloverdale- there is nothing in the room to make a human feel comfortable. Even the bed is a stainless steel frame, stylized and vaugely gothic. The black and reds are exchanged for naked metal and greens, and bright, bright neon lights. The walls are lined with tool after tool after tool, sharp and functional, painful to look at. Vats hold blood colored liquid, marbled with yellow gobules of fat. There are human organs in jars, beating with the pulse of life and fed by wires and tubes, the naked surgical steel and plastic of cyborg counterparts, and a whole robotic body, with the empty brainpan splayed open to reveal that the body was unoccupied.

Standing (or rather, sitting perched on a stainless steel stool) in clear contrast to the rest of the room, was a stooped, long fingered man draped neck to toes in a black, shiny lab coat. Floating in the air next to him is a holographic display. He looks directly at Rush, and keying a sequence into the ether screen says, "Gut mourning. I am Doctor Augustus Acula, chief uf surgery. You haf the fortun uf hafing me for your Doctor today. Vat seems to be the problem?"

[Cobalt]

Rush Sykes
What am I? A Sleepy-Eyed Killer. What am I? Very, Very Angry.


Rush could not help but stare at the monstrosities casually displayed in the surgical center.

Here, men create monsters.

He took a good look at the doctor and felt a primal fear gnaw at his guts. The man was tall and scarecrow thin, with stooped shoulders and long fingers. A nightmare Sandman that was going to put him to sleep and steal his eyes… or worse.

“I seem to have fallen on some bullets, doc. My cybernetics were damaged. I’m feeling numbness and a loss of some fine motor function.”

He smiled, a charming half smile that he was sure was wasted on the doc but he was loathe to show fear.
_________________

~Let the Beauty Sleep

[inix88]

“I seem to have fallen on some bullets, doc. My cybernetics were damaged. I’m feeling numbness and a loss of some fine motor function.”

"Yah, but you are nots dying." Rush can see the a ten centimeter tall hologram of himself amongst Dr. Acula's displays. The his injured areas are highlighted in red while the rest of him is in translucent blue. "Meybe not piloting the wee-eff, but nots dying."

Acula's eyes don't leave Rush while he is talking.

"I dezigned your skeletal enhanzments you knows. Meybe some of your muscular bio-feebacks and reflex enhanzments. I do this vork for wery, wery long time."

Acula inches closer an almost imperceptible amount.

"You and your enhanzements, these I know. I vas Cloverdale Cybernetics research scientist for many, many years. It is the new things I am zeeings that wex me." He points to the full conversion 'borg suit. "This one- popular now, but patient is insane. May I point out the lack of genitals? Patient complete isolated from rest of human race. Cannot ever feel vind on skin, not the same."

He taps a section on his screen with his left hand, wand-like fingers kneading a message in the light, and reaches for a hydrosyringe with the other.

"I am clearing you from flight duties for today's sortie. Perhaps you can tell me of some of the other new things that I have been seeing from Cloverdale, the things that have come in your wake?"

[Cobalt]

Rush Sykes
What am I? A Sleepy-Eyed Killer. What am I? Very, Very Angry.


Rush followed the Doctor’s gaze to the full conversion ‘borg.

Jenna… she was one of those. Is that what he’s asking about?

“I ran into one of those,” he said, “and you’re right: definitely insane but damn hard to kill.”

He looked at the hydrosyringe and tried to relax.

“Cloverdale doesn’t like lost lambs. They always send the dogs out to bring them back, even the black sheep. I thought I had outrun them but…”

He gestured to his damaged self.

“…I was wrong. Since I’m off flight duty, can we talk about a new face?”

And where the Hell is Shari?

He was starting to get the feeling that he might not be seeing her again.
_________________

~Let the Beauty Sleep

[inix88]

“Cloverdale doesn’t like lost lambs. They always send the dogs out to bring them back, even the black sheep. I thought I had outrun them but- I was wrong. Since I’m off flight duty, can we talk about a new face?”

Doctor Acula grimaces. "Yah, yah. Ve can do zat. First the bullets, yah?"
He reaches over to a tray and picks up a pair of forceps. "Do you care to dizrobe? If we are engaging in the surgery, it iz bezt to not have too much in the way."

He sits back, a vacant and almost human expression on his face. "Ven I left Cloverdale they sent zese same dogs after me. Zey say I know too many of their zecrets, vich I do. Example iz, ven I cut into you and looks at your hardwares, I vill know who you were ven they vas put in, not who you zay you are now. You are in bad spot for hunting me, yah? You can't do much to me here, in my safe place zat the Colonel hasd made for me."

"Zo, Mr. 'Zykes', are we two foxez on the run from the dogs? Or are you a clever hound who tinks he hasd found my foxhole? Ve find out when I put you under de anesthia, yah?"