DJAtomika

The Spirits Within II

"Oh blast it!"

Eric had tried to finish off the fish thing with a few more well aimed shots but it was simply too fast for him. It escaped before he could even reload to finish the job. Grumbling, he ejected the spent magazine and shoved it into one of his vest's pouches, pulled a fresh one from the same place and jammed it into Fayth. As Wren went for the GPS he took up position next to but just behind Selene, rifle at the ready. No telling what else lurked in the marsh.

---

An hour of trudging through mud and murky water later, the group finally came towards solid ground; a sewer entrance, most fittingly. As they approached there came a group of refugees, bedraggled and dirty, the poor folk looked like they'd just escaped the brunt of the fighting, but from their conversation with their leader, they had reason to be worried. A cave in? Modrem? Trapped people? The three together didn't make for a particularly good image. Eric frowned. Not an hour into their first mission and already the dilemma no soldier wanted to face. On the one hand, saving the refugees earned them the trust of the people but the ire of their employers, but on the other hand refusing to help them weighed heavily on the conscience. Morals or mission?

Morals or mission...

"Selene, we should help them. For all we know the same cave in could be blocking our route forward. If we can kill two birds with one stone, why don't we?"

He felt for these poor people. His first time actually seeing Librans on their home planet and it was in this sorry state? He wouldn't stand for it. These people needed hope badly, and if a ragtag bunch of misfit youths with weapons and spirits was all there was, then by jove he'd provide.

"Wren's right, Seley. We're armed with spirits to help us, we could be through that cave in quick as a whistle. It won't make us deviate from our mission."

Us, Redux

Uh, this still going?

The Spirits Within II

Sorry my post is taking so long. x.x

Music Legends

@Saarebas Don't you worry, you've got a co-GM here, remember? Besides, looks like you got that issue solved already! That's good!

Betwixt the Eternal Light

Turncloak :(

Lone Star (Sci-Fi/Space Exploration/Criminal) - Party Full

Oh the rest of the party better hurry up and disable that other turret otherwise Simon's Swiss cheese.

Music Legends

Know I’ve done wrong,
Left your heart torn
Is that what devils do?

Johnathan took a rag to his shoes and gave them another wipe. He was already at the tournament's finals! His legs had carried him far, way further than he thought he'd go. He'd already fought past a particularly tough flamenco dancer and, before that, a metalhead whose power riffs had torn up the ground he had to tap on. Thankfully his feet, shoes and speed brought him through to the final stage: the all-important Battle Royale. The finals, where only the best of the best fought for supremacy, with the last man standing getting the title of Caesura's Champion and awarded with wealth and fame beyond compare. The money he could use, the fame and recognition though? Something he didn't want. Perhaps he'd concede it to someone else, maybe take the second place prize for himself. After all, he was only in this fight for the money.

Took you so low,
Where only fools go
I shook the angel in you

With rag still in hand, he ran the cloth over the toes of his shoes until they shone enough to reflect his entire face in them. He grinned and shook his head. These shoes, these were priceless. The top weapon of Basin's warriors, the shoes were only conferred upon the feet of the dancer whose moves topped the rest. And he'd been up there, only to find that life after that would've been stuffy and boring. That was enough reason for him to flee the city, taking the shoes with him and leaving his entire people on the verge of breakdown. True, they were hunting him with a fury unmatched anywhere else, but what did he care? He was living life! He was happy and free! These shoes were the icing on top a particularly delicious cake and he wasn't intent on sharing it with anyone.

Now I’m rising from the ground
Rising up to you

As if to prove a point, he straightened up and tensed his right leg. He was resting in the innards of the stadium grounds, past the arena where the fights had taken place, where no one would find him. He spotted a plank of wood resting innocuously against one of the many stone walls that the fairgrounds had been built upon and cocked his leg. With a practiced eye he took aim and, by reflex and training, his foot shot out faster than the eye could blink in a straight-heeled kick. The air cracked audibly around his foot as an invisible projectile shot straight towards the wood plank and shattered it into pieces, throwing chunks of stone out of the wall behind it. He grinned to himself. Only the best could throw a kick that also fired the air he kicked like a bullet. He still had it.

Filled with all the strength I found
There's nothing I can’t do!

Johnny relaxed and drew a cigarette from the pocket of his slacks and lit it with a lighter. It was the resting time between fights, after all, and now that the upcoming fight was also the last one, he had more time to relax and limber up. He knew his opposition was strong; from another metalhead whose screaming vocals he'd heard from all the way across the fair, to an electronica musician whose lights and synths grew solid in the air, to even a violinist whose instrument manipulated the elements at her whim, this last fight was to be the toughest, grandest and most spectacular of the whole fair. It was a fight he was looking forward to.

Oh he'd kick ass. No doubt about it.

VIGILANCE: Memento Mori

"Look at the stars
Look how they shine for you
And everything you do
Yeah they were all yellow."

It'd been a month. A long, hard month. The day that that misbehaving Hype had been taken from the Square, Sam had gone home. Gone home to find the security shutters of his shop totally trashed, graffiti on what remained of the aluminium frame spelling out a death threat. The youths he'd scared off earlier in the day had been back. They were angry, no doubt, but as he picked past the wreckage of the shutters he found the interior still intact, thankfully. He'd even found his television frame up in its corner, complete with a new set. Charlie's man had been around; no doubt let himself in with the key he had stashed outside. On the corner his shop unit was a drainpipe that led up to the top of the building, and between that pipe and the red brick that composed the outside facade of his place, there lay a key, taped innocuously to the aluminium pipe. Between the key and the pipe was a small piece of paper and Sam knew what it was: an I.O.U. He flipped it open and yes, it was indeed a bill for the repairs. Ninety bucks. Not a whole lot, but still that would set him back a fair ways. He kept it in mind as he taped the spare key back in place; no sense using it, the shutters were damaged beyond any hope of being opened. He'd call Charlie again later to get another guy to replace the things. Nothing was missing, nothing broken, so he was still happy. The days rolled by and October hurt its head walking through his shop door, the days were colder and the nights were longer and he was wearing thicker clothes.

Today was like any other. His routine had returned the moment his shutters had been replaced. The early morning runs, meeting Mrs Robinson, having breakfast at the cafe while the two policemen rolled on by on patrol, everything was as it should be. He sat behind the counter, idly polishing one of his revolvers, by the name of Carl as it were, while his beagle Casey yawned and snuggled up to his stomach where she lay on his lap. Slow day, as usual.

Probably.

"I came along
I wrote a song for you
And all the things you do
And it was called Yellow."

“Hello, hi. You should change stations.”

That woke him up. He gently ushered Casey off his lap and onto the floor as he stood to greet the potential customer. The man in question wasn't that big, even if he looked it, with shifty eyes and hands that wringed and fiddled with each other nervously. In the crook of his arm sat a little doll, with a little red dress, shiny black shoes and a warm smile on its hand-stitched face. Casey ambled around the counter, her paws making a soft pitter patter on the linoleum floor as she went up to the stranger and examined his leg by way of sniffing it gently, before turning her cute head back to him as if to ask "who is this man, Sam?" He merely smiled and emerged from behind the counter, walking up to the beagle to give her head a gentle scratching. His radio, though on, was on soft, and it cast a little shadow of uncertainty over this strange, but interesting man that stood in his shop. He pushed that feeling aside as he tipped the brim of an imaginary hat and flashed a bright, warm smile.

"Howdy partner. In here looking for something?"

“You rent guns?”

Another question from the unknown visitor. Hmm.

"Sadly sir I do not, however if you're looking to buy one, you're in the right place. I sell secondhand firearms and restore old ones, all for a small fee of course."

He did do all of those, of course, but renting guns was something very few did around here. Mostly they did that in gun ranges and this was nowhere near a range, so rentals were out of the question. He smiled and spread his arms, gesturing to his whole shop.

"What y'see here is what ya get. Anything in here is for sale. 'Cept the shop, course. Hehe."

Lone Star (Sci-Fi/Space Exploration/Criminal) - Party Full

@Bonjour xx Hope I captured Marga in that post lol

Lone Star (Sci-Fi/Space Exploration/Criminal) - Party Full

He had expected Farvis to stand up and recover rather quickly; the man was a doctor, albeit not a very honest one, but a doctor nonetheless. He nodded as the doors to the innards of the ship slowly slid open after Marga's fiddling. Progress. Finally.

"Marga rescued you, Farvis. And as to the medical bay, unless someone has a detailed map of the ship interior, I don't we'll find it that -"

Suddenly he was interrupted by the pings and cracks of laser fire from down the hall, and as he ducked out of the way he saw that the fire came from two ceiling mounted turrets that swiveled and tracked their movements with frightening accuracy. Obviously these things were a threat that needed to be taken care of, but he was too busy trying not to get shot to solve that problem. As he dove for cover he spotted Marga and Farvis, frozen in the hallway. He knew that the augmented human could dive to safety quick enough, but Marga wasn't that fast. She took a spatter of laser fire across her abdomen, scorching her suit and whatever armour she wore as she fell. He heard her swear multiple times ("FUCKING SHIT FUCK OW BLOODY FUCKING <alien swear words> OW") as she hit the floor, while their Syndari teammate took cover behind her drone and blasted her way forward. Simon sighed and reached out, grasping Marga by the wrist as he pulled her out of the line of fire and into the relative safety of the bay. Once done, he assessed her just like he did with Farvis.

He guessed that the lasers the ceiling turrets were packing weren't strong to completely incinerate whatever they hit, but lasers were lasers; they were hot and they hurt like a bitch. That's what he needed to treat first, and another tube of medigel was all he needed. With Farvis recovering quickly enough from his injuries, he'd still had half a tube left over, so he used that tube and squeezed the rest of it all over her burned stomach and sides, using his gloves to liberally spread the cooling, numbing gel all over the burns. The regenerative agents within the gel would act quickly, sealing wounds, healing her inner flesh and regenerating the outer layers of skin, and though they wouldn't heal whatever cosmetic damage she'd sustained to her suit, she was healthy. He capped the empty tube and slid it back into his rear rigging for refilling later, so now he focused on the turrets. Those things were dual-barreled security turrets, rapid fire laser guns that were more for area denial than anything else. He cursed under his breath, flipped his faceplate down and deactivated the safety of his battle rifle. He felt its computers whirr its internal machinery into life, powering up the huge, magnetic rails and tines that made up its assembly. With fire still spattering the front of that hallway, Simon had barely any space to reach around the wall, but so he did, and he aimed his rifle at the relative area where one of the turrets was and pulled the trigger several times. Slugs of molten metal screamed their way towards his target, punching through whatever armour the turrets had as they buried themselves in the machinery and circuitry, frying and searing whatever they touched before they rapidly cooled, sealing themselves inside their holes, preventing any repair.