[center][img]http://i.imgur.com/VaKdwK5.png[/img][/center] 

“Yepper?”

Leila wasn’t exactly sure what to make out of the response. She would’ve assumed that to be a ‘yes’ if not for the prominent signature of cheer in his voice, which would require some explanation if the appearance of the robots wasn’t a good thing. It might be that the people of Nowhere had different guidelines towards curt positive/negative responses than she was accustomed to on earth.

“Does that mean ‘yes’ or...”

She decided to ask and make sure because she didn’t want to accidentally fire at - and then she had to duck because because the robot Aiden nonchalantly fired at just happened to be nearly right behind her.

[i]Okay, that was a yes alright.[/i]

She quickly stepped aside to place herself temporarily out of danger before bringing up her weapon, as well as taking some time to be confused about Aiden’s attitude towards the entire scenario.

[/b]"BUT LIZZIE, things are just about to get fun!"[/b]

“I - I fail to see how this is supposed to be fun?”

Leila said as she fired at one of the approaching robots. She wasn’t that familiar with guns except from seeing other people use them, and her own gestures were mostly somewhat clumsy attempts to map to firearms a very different kind of ranged weapon that was the bow that she used back in their days at Sol. The spherical paintball was much less aerodynamically ideal than the arrow and hastily made estimates resulted in her first shot being way off, joints hurting as the shock from the recoil propagated up her right arm.

The subsequent trajectories were adjusted and she managed to land two shots on one of the robots, dropping its healthbar significantly but not enough to put it down. That was all she managed to do before she was distracted by the robot approaching Aiden, who Leila tried to warn but not before he took a shot and fell back. Leila took aim too much slower than the robots did, and soon she had to find cover as well, tumbling back with her virtual health down for a fifth and two marks of paint across her armour.

Commands were shouted, but things were hard to keep track of when there’s also gunfire to worry about. The team soon started pulling back as the group of robots as well as the incoming teams seemed too much to deal with at once, the two soldiers firing in the opposite direction as they retreated.

[i]Both hands, both hands...oh nevermind.[/i] Leila followed, noting to herself to adjust the way she used the weapon, only to find it a bit too hard. She shifted the gun to her left hand and made an effort to interrupt one of the robots advancing a bit too fast. Aiming at silhouettes through the fog of a smoke grenade was harder and tt resulted in two splatters on a robot’s body (which then dropped powerless) , another two less usefully on the trunks of nearby trees; and one of a non-red colour on her arm.

Leila skidded to a stop behind a larger tree that seemed like decent protection (at least for a while), and quickly looked around the reassess the situation. Above the distant treetops were colour-coded flares which, as much as she could infer, probably pointed out their location - which probably wasn’t a good thing no matter who fired them. The whole area was filled with activity and the noise was overwhelming - she remembered not so long ago imagining how finding opposing teams would be hard in a place as large as this. Leila unloaded the empty magazine and in the meantime checked on the places the paintball shots landed on her chest ([i]admittedly, this should have been fatal to a reasonable degree[/i]). She also noted how it didn’t hurt - quite a curious fact, she didn’t even seem to feel the impulse from the shots. The seventy-five percent blinked stably on the display.

Looking to the side, she could find the other members of her team - it took her longer to identify Lesley, his hair now a shade of black and mostly tucked into the helmet made it harder to tell him apart.

The scene sudden fell considerably more quiet, triggered by the turning off of the early-game tracking devices - a reason unbeknownst to her at the moment. Leila swallowed some questions she was about to ask so her voice didn’t give them away. She looked at Lesley and he wriggled his eyebrows in an expression that was read as near mischievous before the man took aim across the swamp at a number of nearby players.

Leila herself would’ve preferred to stay silent and hopefully wait things out, and was unsure whether it was a good idea to go on offense under these circumstances - but before she could do anything Lesley let out something that she interpreted as some kind of absurd battle cry before firing at one of the members of an opposing team, hitting her square in the chest.

A sudden rise in frequency of gunshots and the scene was a storm of paintball pellets all over again. Leila grunted, tucking herself closer behind the tree as splinters flew from the bark that took the hits for her.