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]

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.

Such a conclusive kill came at a price, however. All zeroing in on the same target meant that the three men still had both the unpredictable movements of the malfunctioning raptor and the actions of a perfectly functioning, 100% undamaged raptor to deal with. Still nearby to Depth Charge, the malfunctioning one continued to flail and spark at random, its shrapnel-spiked tail swinging in a wild half-circle right at the Maximal's torso. The rest of its control unit would have to be disabled before it ceased functioning entirely.

Meanwhile, the functional raptor did not take very kindly to the destruction of its packmate. It took advantage of Depth Charge still being under attack, keeping its distance on the other side of the room and firing lasers first at S.T. and Scott to keep them at bay, then at Depth Charge's backside. Then with a roar, it charged in for what was intended to be a killing blow with its large metal foot claw.

[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.

He turned back to S.T., whom he really hoped hadn't gotten hurt yet. "You okay there?" he asked, eyes glancing back and forth between him and the melee with Depth Charge. "Think you can get an opening to smash that glitchy guy's radio box thing? I'm gonna try going for the other one."

And he knew just what he could do it with, too. Depth Charge had returned Scott's favour by giving them the harpoon to use. Not what Scott had intended when he tossed his sword over, but he was going with it for now. Wincing as he put weight on his burned calf, Scott twisted the harpoon out of the fallen raptor's back. It was a lot heavier than it looked, he thought as he hefted it over one shoulder.

There! The undamaged raptor had made a charge. Hoping that harpoons weren't much harder to aim than swords, Scott lobbed the weapon across the room with as much force as he could muster (which, admittedly, was a lot considering his body size). He was aiming for the control box, but with a moving target and an unfamiliar weapon, all he was really hoping for was any kind of debilitating hit.

[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.

"Sure." Good all-purpose answer.  S.T. sounded more confident than he was.  He'd had a lot more practice dodging bullets and a variety of other macroscopic unhealthy objects over the past few months, but he was well aware this wasn't his usual gig.  He felt about as well-equipped for safari as a yuppie who'd bought a Land Rover and khakis and a fishing hat.

Shit, both of then were going for Depth Charge.  He pulled his head out of his ass and ran like a defensive lineman that just had a pass fall in his hands.  He wasn't sure what to do but if he didn't do it fast he was going down.  No time to line up a perfect shot -- as soon as the spasming cyborg-reptile was maybe in range he started swinging.  The first swing was too short, but the second hit the corner of the box, glancing off in a shower of sparks.

[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!

Luckily for him, S.T. was already on the case. As he saw the man's lash out towards the control unit he dropped his head, shielding his face from the inevitable rain of sparks- but he wasn't just going to cower like Waspinator or someone. With a grunt of effort he rolled onto his side and kicked out at the raptor's legs, trying to knock it to the ground.

[damned_monsters]

The malfunctioning raptor got one more tail swing in at S.T. before his pipe finally hit true, destroying the other half of the control unit. With that out of commission, the thing finally followed suit with its packmate, falling to the ground in a shower of sparks and glitched-out hissing as Depth Charge kicked out its legs from beneath its body.

Depth Charge's fall and roll also did well against the functional raptor, surprisingly. The move may have been meant for the malfunctioning one, but it put the Maximal out of the path of a fatal attack, meaning the beast landed just behind his head rather than on top of him. Still, that put it dangerously close, enough so that the raptor's next screech would be pure torture to the eardrums.

There was still good news here, though. Said screech ended up being the result of the harpoon landing a hit on the raptor. It was far from direct, as expected, but the weapon did pierce just below the grated metal on the raptor's lower haunch, making movement of that leg much more clunky and awkward. It also provided a good opportunity for the weapon to be grabbed back by either Depth Charge or Sangamon.

Enraged, the surviving raptor shook its leg wildly, unable to get the harpoon out. In its fit, more lasers were fired near the ground, this time at close quarters with the men.

[vsyourface]

Scott didn't get to celebrate scoring a hit for long (though, he couldn't help at least one fist pump). From the looks of things, he may have handicapped the raptor, but it was still very, very functional. And also full of lasers.

Yeah. Not the best of circumstances.

At least there was only one of it now? So long as no one was killed in the next five seconds, the odds looked to be in their favour.

"Tell you later! After we take care of Jurassic Park III here!" Scott shouted back to Depth Charge across the room as he took a charge toward the melee. Again taking care not to leap off his injured leg, he took a powered leap into the air and aimed a Bruce Lee-style flying kick at the raptor's backside. "Tag team it, guys! Let's go!"

[toxicspiderman]

The tail swing connected with the leg the fanged leprechaun things had torn up the night before, just as the pipe hit true. S.T.'s knee buckled, and he went down a few seconds later, not far from D.C. or the last raptor standing.

There was a harpoon sticking out of its leg. Or Depth Charge's tail, but that line of thought needed a lot more drugs to make sense. He reached out for the end of it. When he had a hand on it, he didn't so much pull as just let it ride along, like a lazy paddler. It had a nasty barbed head. Do more damage on the way out, but getting it there required leverage. Maybe standing up.

Or he could just slow it down. Turn this whole thing into a Hemingway/Melville mashup with an aging hippie playing Ol' Ahab. That was the vicodin and the pain talking, but it wasn't a bad idea, was it? He hung on.

[scalyfishman]

His kicks might have saved his plating, but the only thing Depth Charge was aware of after the second raptor crashed was a hideous metal shriek, shooting straight through his back teeth and down his spine and disorienting him for a few precious moments. So much for recovery time; the sound was still reverberating in his ears when the laser hit him square in the side and singed both fabric and flesh.

Now there was a wake-up call he never wanted to get: rise and shine, Maximal, you're on fire.

With another grunt of pain he heaved himself back off of the floor and onto his less-than-steady feet, just in time to see Ex-Sword Guy take to the air for an impressive flying kick and S.T. make a grab for his tail blade (now there was something he'd never thought he'd hear himself think). And the sword was still in his hand.

Grimacing through the stretch, he thrust out with the sword, aiming to skewer the control unit as squarely as he could while the other two slowed the raptor down.

[damned_monsters]

The raptor gave another shriek and turned its head around low to snarl at S.T., its jaws so close that he would be able to pick up a faint smell of ozone laced into the hot breath on his face. Apparently, it did not appreciate the human trying to anchor its leg down the way he was. It took a swipe at S.T.'s hands with its forearm claws-

-only to find its aim thrown by another human kicking it high on its other haunch. The thing roared in outrage, firing a blind laser blast in what it assumed was Scott's direction.

Sufficiently distracted and hampered by Scott and S.T., Depth Charge's sword strike had more than enough leeway to score a hit. The blade thrust into one of the blinking lights like an arrow through a bullseye, one last hail of sparks spewing from the control unit as the raptor began to flail in its death throes.

A few more random swipes of claws and tail at its enemies, and then there was a small explosion from the raptor's overloaded unit. The thing fell over at last; the challenge was completed.

[vsyourface]

It was about the time that Scott's foot was about to make its mark that Scott remembered something: wouldn't making a leap off of his good leg mean he'd be landing his kick with the bad one?

"AGHH balls!" Scott spasmed in mid-air as his heel crashed into the raptor's haunch. His arms flew away from his torso and his eyes scrunched closed, pain surging up from his calf into the rest of his body. Unfortunately for him, the result of this meant that he caught two hits on his way to the ground: one burn on his right side from the laser blast, and one large gash on his left forearm as it came down on the raptor's spiny back.

At least the kick had achieved what Scott had wanted it to. Held down by S.T. on one side and with a leg kicked out of alignment on the other, he saw Depth Charge make his mark. He hoped the man (or whatever he was, certain Hasbro-related revelations now on the table) would forgive him for not raising a victory cry just yet. He was in a little too much pain to start celebrating right away.

And besides, it seemed the raptor still wanted to go out with a bang, even with no working radio box thing. Scott rolled from his landing place, wincing and grunting as he rolled over his wounds. Once he was far enough away, he lay there and watched as the dinobot finally give up the ghost.

And then came the sigh of relief.

"So... Does that mean we win? We totally win, right?" Scott said in a decidedly strained tone.

[toxicspiderman]

"Major labels would sign you in a heartbeat," he mumbled, as the dying dinosaur shredded octaves and eardrums in a thoroughly brutal fashion. Then it huffed a faceful of ozone at him, disorientingly euphoric, like french-kissing an arc welder. With claws, man, but they fell short when Scott kung-fu kicked it. Or it was just distracted by his screams of pain, which were less painful to listen to than the raptors.

Scrambling out of the way was difficult when nerve activation to his knee was still a lossy channel, but he let go of the harpoon and dignity and rolled. He was grinding oil and dirt and charred dinosteak into the burn on his arm, but there'd be time to disinfect later. When it finally collapsed in a heap, he pushed himself to a sitting position. A little awkward self-groping (it was remarkably difficult to pull something out of a left pocket with his right hand) and he had a small bottle.

"Painkillers, anyone?" He flicked another into his own mouth and almost choked on it. Then he finally rolled up his pant leg to get a look at the knee. There was a lump on the side that hadn't been there before. This was going to hurt. In multiple places. He gritted his teeth and smacked it. Tendons shrieked and then relaxed in a little orgiastic agony spasm, but his kneecap was back dead center. He popped a couple of aspirin to wash the Vicodin down. "I'm not really sure I can stand up until this kicks in."

[scalyfishman]

Seeing the final raptor go down was an absolute Primus-send for Depth Charge, but it wasn't until the other two started to move again that he let himself breathe a final sigh of relief. Talk about a busy night. What kind of a crazy test was that supposed to be, anyway? What, was virtual testing or laser tag not lethal enough for Landel?

Stupid question.

As tempting as it was to crash out next to S.T. and the other guy straight away before his legs gave out entirely, he forced himself to stay standing long enough to haul the sword out of the control unit just in case something else decided to turn up and ruin their night. Or make it, in this case. His legs sang out with pain at every twitch, his shoulders and side were red-hot and his back felt like it had been steamrolled, but if they so much as tried anything else he could probably have powered through it on sheer slagging anger at the cheapness of it.

"Give it here," he said to S.T., then dropped down onto the floor with his free hand hand outstretched. "By the Matrix. Cyber raptors? And I thought I'd seen everything here. Here," he added, tossing the sword back across to the other guy with a clatter. "Won't be needing this anymore."

... slag it. That wasn't all he wanted to say. Before the awkward silence could build any more of that wall of resistance in his processor than it already had, he forced it out. "Thanks. For jumping in there." More of a mumble than anything, but that was just tough. "Couldn't have done it without either of you. Not that I know your name, but..."

[vsyourface]

It was after lying there on the ground for a few more moments that Scott realized he could see a small pool of blood on the ground toward the bottom edge of his vision. Shallow as they were, the claw marks on his face were still bleeding. Suddenly, their sting seemed to become more noticeable, as though simply remembering that they existed brought back the pain they caused three-fold. His arm was bleeding too, though, thankfully, it seemed as though the tough fabric of his coat had kept the metal spine from cutting all the way through to the bone there. Small blessings, he supposed?

Well, between small blessings and painkillers, I think I know which one I'll take, Scott thought with a groan, forcing himself to sit up some and instinctively swiping at his cheeks with his sleeve. "Yeah, pass one this way. Thanks," he said weakly to S.T., extending the hand of his unscathed arm while clutching at his side with the other. He winced big time as he watched the older guy pop his kneecap back into place. Where were the Potions when a party really needed them?

Scott got the sword back along with the pill, and pulled it over to him gingerly across the floor, taking care not to aggravate anything again too quickly. "Did I not say? It's Scott Pilgrim," he answered the blue-haired not-quite-a-man, popping the pill and nearly gagging on the thing. "Blkhh, and you're welcome."

Speaking of Depth Charge's humanity (or questionable status thereof), there was still the whole Megatron thing to ask about. He was betting one didn't get a name like "Depth Charge" without some serious 80's cartoon roots in their blood. Before he could say anything else, however, something else caught his attention. There was a faint sound of rock shifting across the room, and when Scott turned his gaze toward the sound, he could see a marble pedestal rising out of the ground. It was elegantly carved, like the whole range around them was. And sitting on the top, glittering in the false sunlight was a tiny, ornamental silver sword.

Scott's eyes lit up. Somehow, he was able to start slowly pulling himself to his feet. The feeling of accomplishment had lessened the sting of his wounds. Or maybe that was the Vicodin kicking in. Either way, he made his way over to their prize, and held it aloft as far above his head as his injuries would allow.

Doo-doo-doo-doo doodoodoodoo dodododododododo...

"Da-nah-nah-naaaaah!"

Scott, Sangamon, and Depth Charge got a Dinky-Ass Sword!

[toxicspiderman]

A grinding noise started up, and a section of the floor sled away.  Aw, shit.  Was there going to be a round two?  Three?   One for each of them?  Even if the gun had stuck around his hands were shaking too much to aim.  Adrenalin comedown.  Five more minutes and he'd be crying and hugging people if he wasn't careful.

What would it spit out for one Sangamon Taylor, anyway?  Trio of Mafia goons with North Shore accents, still thinking Basco was good for the paychecks they'd been promised?  Raw sewage, contaminated with a million biochemistry hacks' wet dreams.  In both senses of the phrase.

Naah.  Just a pedestal, with a trophy on it, this one shaped like a sword.  Scott got up, which was good.  Meant he didn't need to crawl over there on one knee, and they wouldn't be going home empty-handed tonight.

Home.  Hell of a thing to call a prison cell.  At least the company was good.  People came and left, but whatever else was wrong with Martin Landel, he had good taste in fictional characters.  The ratio of people Sangamon could stand (and the smaller fraction that would put up with his bullshit) was an unscientifically imprecise lot larger here.  Good people.  Even the supervillains.

Scott broke his Vicodin-aided meditation by doing his own victory fanfare.  S.T. snorted.  "Sword and shield, check.  Now all we need is a shrink-ray and a Lancelot.  Preferably one who can walk."  Maybe a miniature horse.  Or one of the mutant squirrels -- they were about the right size.       

[scalyfishman]

The noise caught Depth Charge's attention, but Scott (not exactly impressive, but it was better than Ex Sword Guy, all things considered) and S.T. got there first, so he didn't make any more effort to move than was entirely necessary. Hey, they had it covered. No reason to put any more stress on his body until he needed to.

Anyway, only a second later he was given a first-class view of the thing on the newly-erected pedestal, courtesy of Scott's slightly hampered victory pose. Real cute. "Riiight." he said simply, and then with an intake of breath he managed to get his legs stable enough to pull him up onto his feet and stumble over.

Their prize: a delicate miniature sword, a perfect match for the shield he'd caught sight of earlier. Didn't seem worth the effort at a glance, but even he could work out it was probably some sort of key to get them into the main attraction- and, more importantly, to Landel or whoever they'd pick to take his place now that he was MIA.

"Beats me who Lancelot is," he said once he was close enough, "but maybe the other team'll have a good enough substitute." If they'd survived. Primus only knew what they'd had thrown their way, if this place had managed to dig up a couple of Cyber Raptors for their fighting pleasure. "Let's move."

Considering his old injuries and the fresher wounds across his sides, it was fairly impressive how quickly the Maximal managed to turn on his heel and stalk back towards the doors at the end of the hallway- not the ones they'd come through at the start. That was the end of the challenge, so there was a good chance they'd come out in the ballroom area. He hoped. Wasn't like there was much point sticking around here, anyway. Glancing back again to make sure he was being followed, he pushed the door open and stepped through.

[to here]