| From: | Mike Goldberg <michael.goldberg@*******.COM> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | dancing in the midnight rain (part 2 - long) |
| Date: | Mon, 15 Sep 1997 14:54:10 MST |
>>>>>[ Sorry about that interruption. The world truly does not stop
for those of us who wish to have a time out every once in a while.
Where was I? Oh yeah.
Alpha team (Midnight, Easy, Geiger, Griffyn, Phoenix, Quinn,
Shadowfox) went in through Entrance 3, which was on the southern most
East side entrance, right near the Freight Elevator. Shadowfox and
Phoenix quickly had a brief chat with the one member of Death's Squad
posted by the entrance. The scope was that Death's squad was split
into thirds. On the first floor they had entrances 1,2,3,4, under
control. Six (the only entrance on the west side) was being heavily
contested. They had and lost entrances 5 and 7 -- the two entrances
that were immediately next to the lobby. Second floor was a mess,
and they hadn't even gotten close to the higher floors. They had
already pulled out one prisoner when we were late. That one was in
the basement. They said they were about to try and find the one
other warded area they found.
Geiger with the help of Shadowfox and Phoenix managed to open the
freight elevators door. They had left the elevator on the third
floor. Geiger scanned the elevator shaft and found a hidden door.
Geiger and Shadowfox spent the next few moments fighting the door to
get it open. They almost got killed when the security on the other
side opened fire on them. Death's squad reinforcements came at the
right time, and between them and Phoenix they were able to beat off
the first wave of security. Shadowfox left Geiger to guard the back
in case they opened the other side of the elevator doors and went in
on the unknown part of the building.
Meanwhile, Midnight, Easy, and Griffyn went upstairs in Stairwell B.
They were forced out on level 2 by security swarming down the that
very stairwell. The fighting was exceptionally spirited for using
pistols and rifles. Death's squad was getting their lunch due to
sheer numbers handed to them on the floor, and Midnight and group
were caught off on the second floor. At this time, Midnight ordered
in Beta Team (Whirlwind, Doomsday, FireWraith, Lady Quinn) to assist
Death and his cronies who were making slow but steady progress toward
the lobby. Midnight also rallied Death's mercenaries to him and
began trying to try a meet them in the middle approach. It almost
worked.
There were more than a few tense moments between Phoenix and Death's
squad when he realized that Pestilence was leading the group.
Shadowfox managed to temporarily disarm the situation by reminding
everyone that there will be another time to straighten out old
scores, and that they were way to outnumbered to truly fight now.
Pestilence agreed, and Famine decided that she was going to even out
the odds. So she started using White Phosphorus grenades on the
opposition. It got their undivided attention in a hurry. Phoenix
unleashed some spells at the same time, and together they effectively
fireblasted the whole hallway. It was a slow tedious process for
them to get to the second ward. At the second ward, Famine and
Shadowfox disabled the mechanical gifts left by whoever set the ward.
Then Pestilence and Phoenix had to work together to drop the ward.
Phoenix said it left a very bad taste in his mouth working with
Pestilence, and I almost don't doubt him.
About this time, Midnight's group had been forced out of the hallway
leading between stairways A and D (the main east-west corridor on the
north side of the building). They were almost to the overlook for
the lobby when they had to take cover due to attackers coming from
both sides. Midnight joked that at least it didn't happen in cube
land where there was no hard cover to hide behind. Meanwhile,
Death's squad plus Beta team almost collapsed the floor above them in
attempt to calm down the black rain that was coming. Death certainly
had no qualms about using grenades to get results. Quinn says she
was starting to get an uneasy feeling being around Death. Whirlwind
responded that they have to hope he keeps it together long enough to
get some space from him.
The sub-basement group opened the doors to a room. They had found
Colleen! According to Shadowfox, she looked horrible, but at least
she was alive. Phoenix was going to put her out of her misery, when
Shadowfox pointed out that he would set off the bomb if her heart
suddenly stopped. Pestilence then further pointed out that she would
be more useful alive as she would eventually be able to tell people
what they had been interrogating her about. Shadowfox looked at the
bomb and then cursed his being out of action for so long. He didn't
understand all the complexities this bomb had to offer. Famine
joined him. Something passed between the two of them, but it was
unclear what.
Of course, something had to go wrong. The warning bell was Geiger
almost shouting on main channel, "Oh Drek!" There was a loud
explosion. Famine - bless her nonexistent heart, is of course, wired
pretty heavily. She reflexed wrong, and speed up the timer on the
bomb. There was no response from Shadowfox trying to get a hold of
Geiger. Shadowfox took charge. He told Pestilence, Phoenix, and two
other of Death's Squad to backtrack and see what the hell happened to
Geiger. He ordered the rest of the mercenaries to start trying to
find another way out of the room -- through the ceiling if they had
to. Famine and Shadowfox had a brief argument as to whether the girl
was worth it, but Shadowfox astutely pointed out that if that
explosion was near the elevator, there was no other way out.
Everyone heard the explosion. For Death's group, it escalated the
fight to using submachine guns. They were almost to the lobby by
this point. Buying almost every foot with lives. Doomsday was
effectively shielding Quinn so she could cast spells without being in
the direct line of fire. FireWraith was being a truly effective fire
hazard. Whirlwind and War were grimly leading the way with Death
hounding them every step of the way. The more people that died, the
more that even Whirlwind began to wonder if Death was going to keep
his head on his shoulders.
Midnight was meanwhile, trying to also force his way to the lobby,
but realized that they had no cover once they got to the lobby so
still found himself in a horrible position. The explosion with the
sudden line chatter of Shadowfox trying to see if Geiger was alive,
distracted him for a moment, and almost got him run over by Griffyn.
Griffyn unfortunately forgot about Midnight's earlier warning about
silver bullets by Death's teammates and nearly got himself into
serious world of hurt by crossing the exchanging gun stream. Easy
used that same distraction to land on a couple of hostiles. Bad news
for them, good news for the lobby team. The radio then kicked in with
the wonderful warning of two minutes until everyone is a pancake and
perhaps some of the surrounding buildings as an added bonus.
Then we found out that Death knew it as well. They heard a unholy
yell that would probably cause Geiger to think he was dreaming.
Midnight turned around to see what was going on and immediately cast
a spell. The lobby on both first and second floor erupted in
explosions sending people everywhere. The barrier Midnight slammed
up saved Easy and himself and some of Death's team. The explosion
caught everyone but Griffyn, who was tearing a whole through the
enemy, off-guard. The enemy recovered quickly and as the explosions
continued, they drilled Midnight with some gunfire. Easy caught him
before he fell off the newly formed drop. Something Midnight said
before he passed startled Easy even further. Easy informed Shadowfox
that Midnight was downed. Shadowfox immediately ordered Alpha and
Beta to regroup at 1A. Shadowfox and Whirlwind had a few moments of
working out tactics. The basic plan was ASAP Beta team was to
extract itself and head to 1A. If they beat Alpha team back there,
then they were to help get them down to 1A.
Whirlwind realizing that he was too near the front to pull out,
ordered everyone else on Beta team to do as Shadowfox instructed.
Quinn, using Doomsday to clear a path, to a window. Doomsday then
crashed through the window. Quinn followed quickly, but they ended
up sneaking along the building on the sidewalk to avoid being seen.
Quinn had them invisibled, apparently, but it was still kind of
tense. My guess is that they were completely concentrated on Death
and the second floor action to pay any attention. FireWraith,
meanwhile headed up to second floor. Together with Easy, they caught
up with Griffyn. FireWraith half carried, half dragged Midnight,
relying on Griffyn and Easy to protect them. They ended up meeting
Doomsday and Quinn at 2A and then heading back down. Quinn called in
Wrecker to pull a hot-pullout of Midnight.
In the meantime, Phoenix and Pestilence found the true extent of
blockage. At Phoenix's instance, they worked quickly to dig free
Geiger. He had suffered among other things, a broken leg.
Pestilence casted something that stabilized him. He then instructed
his other two teammates to move him carefully, but quickly back to
the room. In the room, the remaining members of Pestilence's group
had broken through the roof and were clearing an area above them to
evacuate to. Pestilence told Phoenix to go up there and assist.
Phoenix looked at Shadowfox for agreement before he left.
A few seconds later, Famine announces, "We can move her. Pestilence,
stabilize her, and then get her out of here." Shadowfox extracted
himself from helping Famine, and helped Pestilence up with Colleen
through the ceiling. He then went back to help Famine with the bomb.
She tried to convince him otherwise, but according to Puppet,
Shadowfox responded with, "We were once comrades, Famine. You
remember my rule. We all go home or none of us go home. Now let's
disarm this fucker."
A few tense seconds later, Famine says, "All we have left is the main
bomb itself. Death is pulling out."
Shadowfox nods. "If this bomb was only going to destroy this
building I would say we should run for it. However, I cannot risk
innocents getting hurt. It would get a very good person in a lot of
trouble."
Famine says as she works, "That isn't the only reason, Fox."
"I haven't forgotten or forgiven them for that."
"Neither have I."
Shadowfox says, "Well this is it. Ten seconds left." He closes his
eyes and cuts the wire.
Famine's masked voice declares, "Not bad. 7 seconds left. New world
record." They both get up and climb up into the ceiling.
----
Well, everyone got out. It was very confused for a while.
Pestilence left with us. Whirlwind and Shadowfox left with part of
Death's team. Geiger, Midnight, and Colleen have been fully
stabilized. Death was furious that he didn't get his revenge.
Pestilence told us the reason that he and Famine were going for
prisoners is that we found out pretty quickly that our primary goal
wasn't going to be accomplished tonight. War and Death decided that
they should make it expensive for the guy though. Pestilence ended
up bolting from Key's van about the three blocks away from the
building. I guess he didn't really want to spend any more time then
he had to with Phoenix.
Pestilence's only comment on the other prisoner was that it wasn't
Nightmare. Just some innocent kid caught in the crossfire. Death
will probably release the poor sucker in a few days. We didn't see
Shadowfox and Whirlwind until early the next morning as they caught a
train up to Castle Glamis. Both of them looked pretty tired.
I didn't hear to much of how the battle went for Puppet and Trax.
Puppet said there were some pretty damn tight spots and that she was
glad that she was working with Trax on this one, but other than that,
the left me hanging without their part of the story.
I guess Easy, Griffyn, Trax, and perhaps Phoenix will be on their way
home soon. For them the job is over. Only the questions remain.
For me, I still have to hunt down some guy named Sentinel. I wonder
if Jester will be any easier to work with after last night.]<<<<<
-- Croaker <21:00:00/15-SEP-58>
