The group of Milliways patrons earmarked for the pincer movement is ushered into City 17 without much ceremony. The streets here are cobbled, the buildings grey with age; the handful of cars in the street are old, old things, worn down with time and lack of care. They have the look of machines that were abandoned where their owners fell. This was a residential part of town, once. That was before the Combine- before the black thing on the horizon existed. In the distance it rises, visible down the eastward-facing streets: a tower of such immense size that its top pierces the low-lying clouds.

"Hey," calls a human voice- a Hispanic-looking woman, young of face but old of eye and attitude. She's dressed in dark blue and black, partially bulked up by the body armor of a fallen Civil Protection metrocop, and she carries a submachine gun. "Didn't see you guys show up. Are you part of the diversionary force?"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

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.

From:

aeons_crackshot

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...

From:

smelltheashes

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.

From:

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.]

From:

cutting_edgex23

Since one of the Striders is now focused on someone that can easily take it out, X diverts her attention to the Strider Annabelle is not occupied with.

It doesn't take her long to take a running jump across one rooftop, clawing her way up to a spot she can leap from.

She doesn't scream as she launches herself at the Strider, claws catching and holding, legs swinging free for a moment. Then she swings herself sideways, digging in with a footclaw and clambering to the top of the creature.

It's kind of like the armored car, but taller. And more prone to whipping around.

Now, to find this thing's version of an engine. Or controls.

From:

aeons_crackshot

Annabelle climbs very fast indeed. When she reaches the knee she whips out the modified grenade and jams it into the joint. Securing it with duct tape, she makes sure she has a grip on the twine.

The idea is that the twine is long enough that the pin will pull out of the grenade shortly before she hits the ground, giving her time to get out of the way of the explosion and the Strider.

"FIRE IN THE HOLE!"

Annabelle gets down from its leg even faster than she went up. Mostly because a portion of the descent is a controlled fall. Even with the body armor she's going to hurt when the adrenaline wears off.

When she hits the ground she quickly rolls out of the area, hoping that she won't have to climb another leg to take the Strider down.

From:

acts_of_gord

At a time like this, things seem to happen all at once.

- X's Strider has no controls, and no engine, but it does have the body segmentation one would expect of an insect or crab. Abdomen, thorax, head. Head implies brain. Segmentation implies weak point.

- Donighal's Strider begins bobbling and weaving on all three legs in an effort not to get hit. This is... not as successful as it would like. The rebels have never had air support before, so there aren't many routines or instincts it can fall back on...

- Annabelle's Strider pauses, tries to lift its booby-trapped leg- and staggers violently at the explosion.

There's fifty feet of Synth hellspider about to fall into the street head-first. As for the other two Striders, neither one is what you'd call long for this world.

From:

aeons_crackshot

Annabelle cackles with glee at the explosion from behind the worn out remains of a Vespa.

Once the Strider hits the ground she'll go over and find a weak point in the head to make sure that it's dead.

Annabelle checks to see how her teammates and the other Resistance members are doing.

From:

cutting_edgex23

X, meanwhile, is trained to strike at weak points. Funny how this all works out.

She darts forward, body tensed to dig in not-so-metaphorical claws if she feels herself start to slip. And once she reaches the 'head'--

Then she really gets to work. It takes effort to dig beneath the carapace, but not more effort than X can muster. It helps that she's not interested in clean, surgical cuts.

The utter destruction of the brain, stem and all, is essentially her current objective.

From:

acts_of_gord

Annabelle's Strider is still thrashing furiously, its sounds almost drowning out the rebels' screams of glee. Apparently, that kind of an attack isn't something they've had a lot of luck with in the past. The impact made the weak point between head and thorax much more obvious; if she's got any more grenades, one lodged in the right place could probably do the thing's head in.

As for X, her Strider is spasming and flailing frantically, trying to throw her off in some way. Synth body material is no match for adamantium, though. There's an incredible shower of blood and sparks in all directions as X hits home- again and again and again.

With a noise like a dying whale, the second Strider falls.

From:

aeons_crackshot

Annabelle grins at the screams of glee. As it happens she does have one more grenade.

With a bit of careful maneuvering to avoid the thrashing the grenade is wedged into the weak point between the head and the thorax. The pin is pulled and Annabelle dashes for cover again.

From:

acts_of_gord

Three, two, one-

THOOM.

The explosion wouldn't have been so big if the grenade hadn't been lodged in a position that let it spark a chain reaction with the Strider's guns, but we doubt anyone's going to mind.

Edited Date: 2008-09-13 08:07 pm (UTC)

From:

aeons_crackshot

Oh look! Annabelle is cackling with glee again. What can we say, she lives for this sort of thing.

Now that the evil spider things are dead or dying it's probably a good idea to check on Dora and company.

Also,to look around for vials of bug juice. Her ribs are starting to hurt right about now.

From:

captainryan.livejournal.com

People might have noticed Ryan's been rather quiet. In fact, he's not out on the street at all. His tactic of choice when fighting something 25 feet tall is to head into the buildings and climb a few floors.

The buildings, however, have issues of their own. Like scattered Combine troops. And the headcrab zombies. Anyone nearby would find themselves overhearing a bevy of growls, snarls, shrieks, whistles, yells, the occasional boom, and lots and lots of gunfire.

The worst bit was when he missed the head shot on a zombie and the crab skittered away. Ryan lost it in the debris and only found it again when it landed on his head. If it hadn't been for the shield, the team might be short one member. As it is, Ryan's starting to detest the smell of raisins.

He makes it to a window growling under his breath and fires the submachine gun's secondary ammo at the last strider. RPGs are a beautiful thing.

From:

smelltheashes

Yes. Yes they are. The Strider's still standing afterwards, but between Ryan's explosives and Donighal's powers, that's not going to last much longer.

Down at ground level, Dora's gotten to the point of sitting up and demanding her guns back- and looking around, blinking. "Hey," she says, "where's that kid with the claws?"

From:

aeons_crackshot

"She was taking out one of the Striders, last I saw," Annabelle tells her. "I'm not sure where she is right now, I was a bit...preoccupied."

Annabelle is rummaging through the remains of the Combine soldiers looking for guns, grenades, and bug juice. There might be more Striders coming.

From:

md_donighal

Michael, meanwhile, has been toying with his Strider like a flying matador. Now, noticing that it's the last Strider standing, he decides it's time for the momente de la verdad. The fireball he charges up this time is roughly the size of his torso, and it should, at the very least, make a hella impressive

FA-THOOM

on impact.

From:

smelltheashes

The air fills with the stink of scorching- and then, without any further ado, the Strider's central mass explodes. All three legs go flying in three different directions as alien gore begins to rain down like a whale carcass in the care of the Oregon Highway Department.

From:

aeons_crackshot

There is a grimace of "ick" from Annabelle as it starts raining Strider bits.

"Well, I think that one's done for." She turns to Dora, "Are we likely to get any more Striders?"

From:

captainryan.livejournal.com

Ryan, for his part, ducks back in the window and thereby misses most of the shower. "Show off," he says ungratefully as he looks back out the window.

He's got a pretty good view up here. He might stay, at least until his ammo starts running low.

From:

md_donighal

Michael starts settling gently but rapidly back to the ground. (Nothing personal, gravity, it's just that you were stifling his potential.) Nova senses picked up Ryan's mutter, and as he passes the window, he can't (or, at least, doesn't) resist the urge to say "Hey, if you've got it, flaunt it."

Within seconds of that observation, his feet are touching down. "Sorry about the mess," he says.

From:

aeons_crackshot

Annabelle looks in his direction as he comes in for a landing and raises an eyebrow at his comment to Ryan. "It's alright. It'll wash out...probably."

She grins somewhat mischievously at Michael, "I always knew you had a predilection for drama." She may be teasing him a bit, it's not like she has room to talk after climbing the Strider to plant a grenade.

From:

acts_of_gord

"No," says Dora, wincing as some of the other rebels start reporting casualties. "Not just now, I don't-"

"Dora," calls a narrow-faced man with reddish hair poking out from under his watch cap. "Are you hearing what I'm hearing?"

"... oh hell." Dora goes paler than before, if that's possible. "Incoming gunship. Who's got a rocket launcher?"

There are no positive answers among the rebels.

From:

aeons_crackshot

Annabelle grimaces at the news that a gunship is incoming. "I suppose that we've worried them quite a bit if they're sending one of those our way."

"I don't have a rocket launcher, I'm afraid. Is there anything else that might help kill one of them?"