Gordon Freeman

Ka-click! The scanners capture the scene and immediately lift off, heading up and over the buildings as quickly as they can. In the distance, the second dropship lands and disgorges its cargo of Elites before both vast, ponderous vessels lift off again, making for the Citadel.

It is a very bad day to be on either side of this conflict. If you're not a rebel being shot or shot at, you're an Elite bursting into flames, or clutching at your mask, or simply reeling in circles and falling over backwards. That or you're the scenery and you're flying to pieces at the least little provocation.

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X does not spare the retreating cargo ships a glance.

They are, at the moment, glaringly irrelevant. And she does not have time for distractions.

There's nothing pretty about what she does. Brutal efficiency is probably closer to the mark.

And another group of Elites bites the dust.

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Annabelle appreciates the cover fire, and it's oddly satisfying to see the Elites getting fire in the face or shredded apart by X.

At the moment, however, she has more pressing concerns. With a final vault over the broken bits of building that Dora was using as cover, Annabelle finally reaches her. At the moment she is attempting to ascertain how badly hurt Dora is.

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captainryan.livejournal.com

Ryan's offering cover fire where he can. He isn't very concerned with Dora getting hit, soldiers die every day in war, but he'll do his best to keep his team mates safe.

Even Donighal.

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md_donighal

Michael would appreciate the gesture if he noticed it. At the moment, he's wishing he felt he could bring more firepower to bear on the departing dropship without risking the sort of overwhelming response Gordon told him is not a desirable outcome. He hits it amidships in a way he hopes will slow it down, but he's using most of his firepower to protect the team. Also, he's deciding that throwing fireballs takes too much time; some of the Elites are now executing good ol' opcode HCF just from him looking sternly at them.

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acts_of_gord

It's a pity the Elites aren't human enough any more to feel real terror. The remaining ones would be running if that were the case. As it stands, they're just going to deploy the secondary fire mode, the dark energy orbs, in the Milliways contingent's direction.

Dora, for her part, had to drop her gun. She's using both hands to apply direct pressure as best she can- there's a really amazing amount of blood spreading through the visible part of her clothing. "All right, this stinks," she says weakly and tries to suppress a wince. "Anybody got a rescue pack on them?"

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"I've got a vial of the bug juice. Will that work?"

There will be much cursing at the energy orbs when Annabelle has to dodge them. Getting hit by those is not an option.

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Vaporization, such as it is, is definitely not an option for X. Not one she'll survive, anyway.

Which is why she seems to be staying fairly close to those Elites, three quarters of her attention on dodging the energy orbs.

The other quarter is devoted to taking out those weapons. And the Elite holding them.

X is very bad at defensive fighting. That's why she doesn't bother.

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acts_of_gord

"It'll help," says Dora. "Ay. Is Boots still alive?- he's the medic," she notes, catching the look of incomprehension at the name. "I don't hear him..."

Now, it's a good thing to capture an enemy's weapons and use them yourself. X is making this no longer an option. On the other hand, a weapon destroyed is still a weapon denied the enemy.

It is a very, very bad day to be Elite.

Well. It was. Now it appears to be a good day to be a great many corpses....

(And away in the distance, the sound of fleeing dropship engines is overlaid with the sound of approaching dropship engines. There are three more of them. They are coming. And they are heavy-laden.)

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There is inventive cursing at the sound of new dropships. Annabelle hands Dora the vial. "Where was Boots when you last saw him?"

Annabelle is afraid that Boots is dead and hoping that she's wrong.

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X keeps one ear open to gauge the rate of the dropships' approach.

The rest of her attention is devoted to making sure that everyone who should be down is down.

And will stay that way.

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captainryan.livejournal.com

Ryan's scowling. He can hear the dropships coming and as much as he would've liked to get his hands on one of the pulse rifles, he'll just have to make do with whatever ammo he can scrounge.

He's also looking for health packs. Whatever he finds is getting tossed Dora and Annabelle's way. Just because he doesn't care about her doesn't mean he's going to stand by and watch her die.

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acts_of_gord

"With Sami and Ying Ying," Dora says, grimacing. She fumbles to get the top off the vial; it takes her several tries. And, alas, there will be no help from Boots, although Ying Ying (a narrow-faced young woman with a bloody bandage wrapped around one arm) comes to her feet and approaches the others. "Who needs ammo?" she says. "I've got more than I can carry..."

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"I wouldn't say no to ammo, if you have any to spare." Annabelle will pass on any medical supplies to Dora and others who need them.

"More Elites?" Annabelle asks, gesturing in the direction of the sound of incoming drop ships.

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md_donighal

Michael has opted to take to the air (sooner than he'd have liked) to avoid the dark energy orbs. He thinks he could survive one, but doesn't want to test the theory, let alone repeat the experiment. Besides, the vibes he gets from them remind him uncomfortably of visiting the ruins of Heartland, back in 2054, after Calvert Wycoff blew his stack. Remind him uncomfortably, as well, of how comfortable he, Divis Mal, was with the Terrible Glory of Taint™.

In a spirit of scientific inquiry, he hits one of the orbs with a small-scale version of his energy-suppression field*. If it causes the orb to fizzle, he'll try it again.

While he waits for that experiment's results to come in, he fires a nice big bolt at one of the approaching dropships, big enough to do some real damage.

* See the list of his powers in Aberrant: Worldwide Phase I.

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Ying Ying starts passing out the ammunition magazines right away. Sami, an older man with an unplaceable accent and badly fractured English, does his best to get the medkits from Ryan and start applying them in earnest. At Annabelle's question Sami shakes his head. "This, no," he says. "Flying too low now. Here come Striders."

The orb fizzles swiftly, which must be a nice feeling, given that the dropships dive with weirdly fluid grace and release their cargo about thirty feet above the ground, some distance away. Vast brown masses suddenly unfold three legs each, the legs striking the ground in synchrony mere moments later. Then they begin to straighten.

Remember that heavy thudding sound from the pulse rifles of the Elites? Imagine that, times ten, and coming from thirty or forty feet up. That's the Strider's main gun for you- and the warp cannon hasn't even been deployed yet.

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X looks up, and up, and up.

This will be problematic.

Her first priority is getting into an optimal position for an attack. Remaining at ground level does not seem like it will accomplish anything.

But is there anything around taller than the Striders?

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Annabelle frowns at the unfolding Striders, thinking about how to kill the giant mechanical spider things.

Then she grins and says, "I think I have a plan."

There is fiddling with grenades, heavy twine, and duct tape.

Then Annabelle is attempting to lure a Strider over to where it won't kill anyone on her side if it explodes or falls over.

She's going to try that plan she mentioned to Barney of climbing up to the knee joint and planting a grenade...

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Taller, no; but there are buildings still standing, not quite wrecked, whose roofs are about level with the mid-line of the monstrous Synths' bodies. The Combine does not build their assault weapons small.

Striders are unspeakably dangerous creations of a massively destructive alien empire. Any one of those legs could easily impale even an armored human without much effort on the Strider's part. And as for the guns- well, the lead Strider turns and takes utterly casual aim at the building nearest a straggling group of rebels.

zzzMMMCHHAAAAAAAA! goes the air as a ripple of pure spatial distortion like the plucking of a string streaks out from the curved cannon dangling from the thing's underbelly.

THOOOM! go the top two floors of the building.

And chuddachuddachudda goes the air on every side as the other two Striders start unleashing their pulse cannon fire. Lucky thing for Annabelle that the two rearward Striders are busier shooting at rebels than at the human near the forward Strider's leg, eh?

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X can work with access to the Strider's body. And if her claws fail to penetrate, she'll survive the fall.

She probably won't survive the ensuing pulse cannon blast, but when has that ever stopped her?

If you guessed never, you'd be right.

Some things are not relevant in the middle of a mission.

From:

md_donighal

Michael, on seeing the first orb fizzle, started stifling the others. Once he has that down to a reflex, he takes note of the general situation...

...just in time to feel a scraping sensation, like tinfoil on dental fillings, as the pulse cannons open fire. Don't point that thing at the girl, big boy, he thinks as he abandons the work of squelching orbs to charge up a fireball twice the size of your head and aim it straight at the "crotch" of the Strider nearest to X.

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It is very lucky that they are not concentrating on Annabelle. It is however, understandable. No one would be crazy enough to try and climb one of those things, right?

Annabelle rolls near the leg of the strider and stows her guns for the moment. She's going to need both hands for this...

With a cinematic leap Annabelle is on the Striders leg and climbing as quickly as she can to the knee...

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The forward Strider pauses, dipping on two of its legs for a moment as it tries to get a better understanding of why it suddenly has a weight on its leg. That kind of thing isn't in its programming or its instincts- these things aren't robots, they're cybernetically altered and controlled living organisms, and both sets of intrinsic instructions exist. Now if it can just turn towards a building and perhaps whack the human against a wall...

She'd better climb fast, that's all we're saying.

As for the other two Striders, the rearward one attempts to turn its cannons on Donighal's fireball, but its guns have little effect. The one nearest X thunders, whipping around to target the source as best it can- the underbelly gun may have to retract, but the ordinary cannons are mounted under the forward edge of the thing's carapace and haven't been touched yet, and they're fully charged and opening out in earnest.

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md_donighal

"Okay then," says the Donighal, and flames crackle in his voice. Those forward cannons aren't likely to hurt him, but they're awfully damned annoying. A quick barrage of fireballs ought to fuck them up sufficiently for his purposes.

[OOC: And the mun leaves for work in 10-15 minutes, thereafter unable to spend adequate time online until tomorrow AM. He may have one more tag in him ere he goes, but he makes no promises.]

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