Gordon Freeman

X didn't flinch back from the explosion, and she only spared half a second to make sure no one's moving.

It is better to be thorough.

She hits the ground hard, dropping beneath a sudden rush of gunfire and buying herself a moment to scan the area.

There's got to be another few entrenched groups she can dig out.

Literally, if necessary. Adamantium is very useful.

Edited Date: 2008-09-09 07:22 pm (UTC)

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Two of the rebels up ahead are playing a bullet-laced game of cat and mouse with the arriving Combine reinforcements, darting in and out of cars and rubble. And there's plenty of rubble, thanks to X's efforts- storefronts may be designed to take the impact of an oncoming car, but they're rarely reinforced against damage from within. The dust from the explosion is clinging, harsh stuff that'll linger in the hair and lungs for days.

Doubtless Annabelle will be thrilled to notice that the dead Combine soldiers are carrying grendes- cannister-shaped affairs rather than the pineapple sort, but recognizable nonetheless. Pulling the pin on one causes the end to light up, perhaps some sort of concession to individual safety. There's a grenade or two on each dead soldier, and one Combine out of any given four or five has shotgun ammunition. The rest are armed with submachine guns, and carry the appropriate ammunition for same. A few of them even still have viable armor, thanks to death by-

We don't suggest examining the headshotted Combine too closely. What was under the mask bears very little resemblance to the structure of the human head as most know it. Most heads don't have nearly that much cyberware, and are stuffed with a lot more gray matter.

On X's side of things, there's a growling sound- engines, at ground level. An armored black vehicle with no apparent windows or doors, only a massive gun turret in the front, is bearing down on the rebels' position at speed.

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Ryan moves forward to lend the rebels an extra gun. Three moving targets are certain to cause more confusion and be harder to hit than two, not to mention that Ryan can afford to be a little more brazen in drawing fire.

Holtzmann shield generators are fun like that.

If there's a pause in combat, he'll pick up a few grenades and one of the submachine guns. Yes, he's got his rifle but limited ammo. Better to have something where his odds of getting more munitions are good.

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X's assessment is quick, and she shifts her angle of approach to intercept the gun turret. And the car it's on, of course.

Her mass is too small to make a difference (if Santo were here, or Piotr, it would be different, but that is irrelevant), and she is not strong enough to overturn the vehicle.

A running start, however, means she can use the wall as a pivot point and hit the hood of the car. At least it'll put her close to the turret, and even if she's using the claws in her hands to keep her attached to something moving at speed--

She's got claws in her feet that'll cut through metal well enough. She'll take out the barrel first--it's much better when a weapon cannot fire anymore.

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The car turns out to be somewhat larger than one might expect- it's an armored personnel carrier on the rampage. X's claws slash through the gunbarrel with a terrible shrieking of metal, just in time to prevent rocket fire joining the street combat up ahead. The APC slows, then begins zigging and zagging in an effort to shake X loose.

Doubtless that will prove harder than one might think.

The Combine are concentrating their fire more on Ryan and Annabelle's vicinity than anyone else. The rebels give the impression of having scavenged body armor, after all, whereas the new arrivals look as if they might present easier targets. That, of course, is not the case for Ryan; briefly the gunfire falls off as they realize something is going wrong and reassess their strategy...

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Ryan likes his shield generator, he does. Smiling just a bit, he takes advantage of the break to switch out weapons and pick up extra ammo and explosives.

Which is about when it occurs to him that the Combine might decide grenades could take him out. They won't, he knows that much already, but they will send him flying.

So he might as well send them flying first. Anyway, its a good way to determine precisely what these grenades do.

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Doubtless a mutant weapon is very difficult to shake. X shifts position again, bringing one knee up under herself. That (conveniently) puts her toes right up against the hood, which means she can jab in one claw and hold.

And now, of course, she has her hands free.

The real question is--would it be more efficient to try to annihilate the engine, or go after whatever might be driving the car?

Efficiency suggests her position makes option 1 more acceptable, and so X suits thought to action.

What is under the hood?

Edited Date: 2008-09-09 08:47 pm (UTC)

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Bluntly put? They do a lot of damage. It's probably not a good idea to attempt to throw oneself on such a grenade to save the rest of the unit, as it would appear that the grenades are perfectly capable of sending their victims- or their victims' parts- flying.

As for X's situation, what lies under the hood is an internal combustion engine of a sort. Whatever fuel it runs on, it's heavily based on alcohol rather than petroleum. It looks as if someone got hold of a Wankel rotary engine and forced it through fifty years of design evolution or more in the space of a week.

The APC driver chooses that moment to slam on the brakes, perhaps hoping to fling the unwelcome passenger from the hood and into the line of fire.

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Momentum is a bitch. Superhuman reflexes and agility, on the other hand, are incredibly useful.

Which means that X, feeling the car jerk to a stop, drops her hands down and digs all of her claws deep into the inner workings of the engine.

When she goes flying--because even friction cannot save you when your claws cut through anything--she leaves a swathe of destruction behind her. If any of the fuel is leaking, someone should probably start hoping metal-on-metal did not give rise to any sparks.

X, for one, does not mind either way.

It is not often immediately relevant to her survival.

Edited Date: 2008-09-09 09:25 pm (UTC)

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OOC: Sorry about the delay, but I was offline for a bit.

Annabelle has missed a lot of the action. This is because one of the combine that got a bullet between the eyes landed near some good cover and Annabelle decided to get armor on now as well as getting her hands on his/her/its grenades.

Even with cover, getting armor on in the middle of a combat zone is...interesting.

She sees Ryan using one of the grenades, which gives her an idea of how long it takes for them to explode.

She may cackle just a bit as one of the groups of Combine that was harassing the resistance meets her new explosive toys.

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In the words of John Cleese, that is an ex-engine. There's about to be quite a lot of fire; the Combine inside start frantically trying to get themselves clear before it becomes a lot of boom, too.

One almost pities the Combine at this point. They seem to have just enough humanity left to be freaking out. There's not a whole lot of them left in the area after Annabelle starts throwing, either. The rebels are pressing forward, and overhead something that gives the impression of being a giant, flying crab darts through the air, passing over the scene on the way to somewhere else. "Dropship!" Dora calls. "Bet you that'll be coming back with some serious nasties inside!"

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Annabelle grins at Dora's explanation of the dropship. Bringing the nastier forces over here is the plan, after all.

Annabelle adjusts a few things on the new Combine body armor during this relative lull and then walks over to Dora.

When she catches Dora's eye she asks, "Is anybody injured?"

When that question has been answered she points to the Combine that have died from headshots. "If anyone is interested in trading up on their body armor those suits there should be usable."

Annabelle would like to keep as many Resistance members alive as possible and better armor will help with that.

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Ryan's looking fairly satisfied as well as he heads towards their liaison. Hearing Annabelle's question, he puts his free hand on the radio (the dominant stays on his weapon).

"Do I need to contact Valerie?"

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Dora casts an eye over the other rebels and says, "We've got some wounded. Nothing some bug juice won't cure. Alf! Search the corpses- get their medvials!"

As one of the rebels starts stripping the nearest headshot kills of armor, several lurid green vials come to light and are passed towards the injured fighters. "They'll be good in a couple of minutes," says Dora. "That stuff's a damn miracle, is what it is."

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"Good. So that's what those are. I found one when I got my armor but I didn't know what it was."

Annabelle looks at her vial curiously, "Do you need this one and do you swallow or inject these things?"

She heard the bug juice comment. She's employing the age old human defense mechanism of 'not thinking about it'.

She turns to Ryan when he comes over, "How about you? Any injuries?" Michael may be avoiding him for some reason, but she doesn't know anything about him. Besides, he's on the same team and therefore deserving of civility and concern.

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"I'm all right," says Dora. "Swallow, definitely. It's only the ones in actual medkits that're pure enough to inject."

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"I'll keep that in mind," he says to Dora. Who knows? He may need medical attention before the day is out.

"I'm fine, thank you," Ryan answers politely. For his part, he doesn't know she's affliated with Michael, and even if he did, well. She hasn't threatened violence against him. He taps the fanny pack. "This doesn't let anything through, fortunately."

He does not switch it off. There's no guarantee of safety, here.

"Are we going to keep moving, or do we want to hold position here?"

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Annabelle grins when Dora tells her she's all right and stores the vial somewhere in case she needs it later.

"I'll remember that. It's just as well, finding an injection site in a hurry with this armor on is likely to be tricky."

Annabelle nods when Ryan responds and eyes the fanny pack curiously. "Sounds useful."

Annabelle liberates a machine gun and some ammo from another Combine corpse, just in case.

"What can we expect in the next wave?, she asks Dora. "Those strider things?"

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X, covered in soot and blood, returns from the scene of the wreck, such as it was.

"They will expect you to create an ambush?"

It seems like a relevant question. To her.

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"Not yet, I don't think," says Dora to Annabelle. "Elites, maybe. And more scanners, so make as much of a mess as you can, okay? Let 'em get off a picture or two before you take 'em down, all of you. They'll cue the Citadel in to where they've got to send the next reinforcements."

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Annabelle nods. "The Elites are the ones that carry sniper rifles, aren't they? I'll make sure to let the scanners take some pictures before I shoot."

Annabelle looks briefly concerned at X's appearance, but figures that from the way she's moving most of the blood must belong to other people.

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X nods just a little.

"Okay."

Beat.

"I will remember."

One thing she can do very well is make a mess. In case no one figured that out yet.

She also notices Annabell's look.

"I am okay. I heal."

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Annabelle smiles a little at X's answering her unspoken question. "It's a good thing I picked up that body armor," she says wryly. "I seem to be the least bullet-resistant member of our party."

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Snipers plus more of the same. Ryan nods.

"I'd've done the same were our positions reversed," says the werewolf keeping an eye on their surroundings. He is, after all, wearing Kevlar underneath his shield. "I received the shield generator as part of the kit for another mission. Talk to Ray Stantz when we get back; he'll probably be willing to make you one."

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