Night 55: Weapon's Range

[scalyfishman]

[from here]If the last room had seemed bright, this one was even brighter- or perhaps that was only because he hadn't been anticipating it at all. This room was totally new to him, and as he stepped through the doors, for the first time since he arrived at the Institute Depth Charge realised that he was aware of every part of his new body, from tip

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[damned_monsters]

The long range remained empty for a brief stretch of time following Depth Charge's entrance, his footsteps echoing off the walls and ceiling. That calm was not to last long, however. From the far side of the room, there came a cluster of clanking and clicking, mixed with low hisses and growls. The clanking shifted behind the walls, and there was scratching there too; something was eager to get out

[vsyourface]

Scott had been too weirded out by the sword hilt. With last night still too vivid in his memory and the hilt flecked with god knew whose blood, he didn't want to touch it. Besides, he still had a weapon, and one he was positive wasn't some kind of potential trap, too. Maybe it was dulled, but it had one thing that a creepy possible-replica-of-the-physical-manifestation-of-his-love-for-Ramona didn't have: it had come from a friend.

...Crap, he hadn't told Peter about Senna before they had split up.

Scott didn't have much time to bang his head on the wall about that (just enough for a few good bashes). The others were already moving, S.T. with a gun and D.C. with... his tail? Uhhh. 'kay then. Scott was suddenly glad that Depth Charge was on their side. He wasn't sure he wanted to tangle with the guy whose tail doubled as a means of killing Mecha Moby Dick.

He gripped the sword a little tighter as they moved into the next room. The room was empty. It was bright. It was quiet. Something was way, way too serene about this, he thought.

[toxicspiderman]

"That's not how you headbang, dude," S.T. said, but Scott was already moving. He stashed the revolver in a pocket and followed

[scalyfishman]

Depth Charge recognised that sound. That snorting, snarling, techno-organic hiss overlaid with those metallic thunks he himself had made what felt like decacycles ago, like some demented remix. But that was crazy, right? Seriously crazy. This wasn't some sort of mind-screw, this was gonna be some sort of test. Why the Pit would Landel send out something he already knew and had fought before? Someone, even? The tail blade suddenly felt both uncomfortably heavy and worryingly light for piercing metal in his hands- all while his new, human heart picked up the pace, as if to remind him that it was there. That it could be crushed far more easily

[damned_monsters]

Metallic claws dug deep into the stone floor as the first raptor landed with all the force it had originally intended for Depth Charge. The thing growled low, the red lights on its control unit blinking steadily as it sought out its target again. This time it sent out a laser blast as it shrieked and charged again at the downgraded Maximal

[vsyourface]

Well that had possibly been the most useful a cookie had ever been in the heat of battle, Scott thought in bafflement as he watched the two back-up raptors begin bickering like bratty siblings.

He almost didn't register that he had an opening to give Depth Charge some help in time, the sight was so unexpected. Realize he did, however, and he took that opportunity. With no more laser blasts firing, he took a short rush forward and yelled out at the raptor attacking D.C.: "Hey! You! With the face!"

Hoping that would be enough to distract the attacker, even for a microsecond, Scott raised Senna's sword over his head, pointed the hilt at Depth Charge, and hurled it over the raptor's head like a javelin. Here's hoping 20X6 here is a good catch, he thought with mentally crossed fingers. Scott knew he could still defend himself, even without a weapon; he even preferred to fight weaponless in some situations. Depth Charge he figured was a capable enough fighter as well, but if the raptors really were focusing on keeping him as their main

[toxicspiderman]

That hadn't been the effect he'd been thinking of with the cookie, but he'd take it. S.T. spent a good ten seconds chewing himself out for not bringing anything in a spray bottle; the eyes were an obvious weak point despite the lasers.

While Curly and Moe were doing the Three Stooges routine in the background, they had a shot at taking down Larry Leader. Or at least D.C. did, while he was just going to try to avoid being dino chow.

Scott did something high on the idiotic/heroic scale, chucking his sword to give D.C. a double-barreled assault. Flinging more crap around was just going to get someone smacked in the face with something a little sharper than Chips Ahoy.

He stepped closer to Scott. Either the kid was going to need the minimal protection of a piece of steel pipe. Or he was about to do something awesome. Safest place would be beside the guy with the super powers, not in between him and the enemy.

[scalyfishman]

The harpoon broke the skin, and a brief but glorious hail of sparks spat out at him from the wound; then the raptor was shaking it off, like it hadn't just had its throat impaled on a spike, and Depth Charge realised he was gonna need a little more tactical ingenuity than stabbing wildly generally entailed.

Which meant doing his slagged best to dodge when the raptor decided it was time for a counter attack, and he'd bared gotten the end of the tail blade out of the creature's neck before its head snapped towards him, ominously close to his shoulder-- and then he heard someone shouting. Not S.T., and not one of the raptors. Next thing he knew, there was a sword flying towards him. Wait, a swordOrdinarily he'd have rounded on the thrower (three guesses who) for giving up his and S.T.'s only means of defense, but in this sort of situation you couldn't afford to be picky. The raptor's jaws were all but brushing his skin, so close that he could feel the heat of it, when he dived for the hilt- and clasped it. Just

[damned_monsters]

The raptor did stop for a moment when it heard the yelling from behind, turning its eyes just briefly in that direction. It looked just in time to miss stopping the throw of the sword, and growled in frustration for that, sending Scott a quick warning blast with its optics

[vsyourface]

Scott had to vigorously remind himself that having the sword still in hand probably wouldn't have helped fend off lasers very well. Even so, he was already starting to feel jabs of regret for having thrown it, like spikes dipped in acid running themselves through his stomach.

That metaphorical burning sensation became literal when one of the laser blasts finally caught him, burning clean through his left pant leg and badly singing his calf. Scott couldn't help but stop for a half-second as pain seized up his leg, making him stoop some. That was all the opening the raptor needed to get up close to him for a double swipe at his face. Scott yelped as small claws raked down across his cheeks and jaw; he pulled back just fast enough to keep his face from being torn open, but even shallow wounds were worse than none.

"Son of a-! You are not a nice dinosaur!" was about all the wit Scott could manage as he took a duck and roll to the side. Hoping to get to the raptor before it could slice up S.T., Scott pushed off the ground on his good

[toxicspiderman]

Long, shaggy hair meant peacenik duck-squeezed, except when it gave the enemy a way to miss an easy shot.  If it had been a calculated attack on Sangamon's oversensitive nose, it missed that as too.  It smelled worse than the worst curling iron accidents he'd ever run into, but without the all-natural-doesn't-always-mean-good potpourri crap the girls always used when trying to pretend they were free from fashion's cultural bullshit and couldn't possibly be turning their hair into barren deserts

[scalyfishman]

The sword hit its mark, but at a price. Depth Charge was no more prepared for the reaction his blow got than he was for the cyber raptor's first appearance, and the flurry of flailing claws and scaled bulk caught him off guard with a glancing but deep slash across his shoulder and collar bone, then in a mad scrabble down his left arm- just as a stray laser skimmed his upper arm. The fresh bloom of of blood across his shirt was startling; he bit back the expletives on the tip of his tongue and gritted his teeth all the tighter for the pain. Yeah, yeah, he'd been stupid and reckless- but then, hey, what was new there? He'd just paid the price more liberally this time than he'd counted on.

Didn't matter, anyway. He'd pinpointed their weak spot, same as it ever was back on prehistoric Earth, and that put him at a distinct advantage- so long as he could forget that his new, human weak spot was essentially his entire fragging body."Yeah? Tell that to Megatron," he called over his shoulder, to Not-Sword Guy, narrowly avoiding the powerful

[damned_monsters]

With a triple assault from Scott's punch, Depth Charge's harpoon, and most importantly, S.T.'s knocking out of the control antenna, the attacking raptor had no chance. Its balance was thrown off by the blow to the head, its ability to further control itself was knocked out with the antenna, and the harpoon scored a direct hit just below the control unit itself, knocking out the rest of the wiring that kept the thing moving. With a garbled dying shriek, the raptor fell over, sparking from the harpoon wound

[vsyourface]

"Wait, Megatron?" Scott's head perked up after he was done being totally awesome by way of punching a robot dinosaur in the mouth. The enemy fallen by the wayside, his gaze whipped around to Depth Charge and asked without thinking, "You mean like Megatron Megatron? Do you know Optimus Pr-aieeee!Scott's thoughtless question was cut off by another laser blast, though thankfully, he caught sight of it just in time to dodge. Well, almost. It managed to singe the bottom corner of his parka, which filled Scott's nose with the smell of burnt fabric. No time to think about the consequences of breaking the fourth wall: they still had problems inside walls 1-3 to deal with, apparently

[toxicspiderman]

This set of laser blasts hit closer.  Scott shrugged one off with what, if the laws of physics were even still vague guidelines, was an illegal dodge.  Sangamon hadn't gained the ability to break lightspeed, so one of the blasts scored his upper arm.  Left arm, so it could have been worse.  And the best thing about natural fibers was that they burnt rather than melting.  His coat and shirt had already lit and suffocated by the time he'd finished hissing fuck.  The burn wasn't deep.  Infection bait, but the creepy after-hours teleportation triage department were generous with the antibiotics.  It hadn't hit more than skin and subcutaneous fat -- no muscle damage.  With the vicodin he'd taken earlier, it didn't even hurt.  Much

[scalyfishman]

The sound of the harpoon cleaving all those carefully engineering bio-organic compounds was music to the Maximal's ears, even if the admission that three heads were better than one when it came to taking down Preds still made for a reluctant bite to swallow. Somewhere, all the way across billions of galaxies, Optimus Primal was looking smug that teamwork had triumphed.

Not that he had long to celebrate, what with the curve ball Ex-Sword Guy tossed his way a nanoklik later. "What? How do you know Megatron?!" How did he know Optimus Prime, for that matter? That would have been impossible, unless he was from around the same time that the Autobots were on Ear-

Something thick, hard and muscular slammed into the small of Depth Charge's back and sent him sprawling: the raptor's tail, heavy with metal and winding him, sucking out the breath he would have used to cry out when another laser grazed his hip-bone. Primus, that hurt a lot more there than it had on his shoulder