| From: | Paul J. Adam Shadowtk@********.demon.co.uk |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Showdown and Revelation (6) |
| Date: | Fri, 4 Jun 1999 19:53:26 +0100 |
>>>>>[TO: D J H Coppinger, Director
More of the same. Hard work, good fun, and I singlehandedly save the
day.
+++++begin simsense recording
Lilith checks the ammunition cassette in her MC-71, as Emma steps back
from the jury-rigged door. "Ready?" the blonde Aztlaner asks. The
shapeshifter simply nods, and the internal bolts click back at Emma's
signal: the Dark Stranger and Cordovez grip the steel, pull.
After a momentary reluctance, the shutters fold back into recesses in the
frame, the unpowered servomotors yowling in protest. Behind is an
archway closed by a double wooden door, ornately carved and inlaid with
a complex, almost liquid tracery of bright metal: the patterns are no
familiar language.
"And so it ends." Lilith whispers to herself, bracing herself.
The ornate doors, not locked or barred, burst open to a kick. Lilith leans
around the corner, her machine-carbine aimed: Quinn passes her,
crabbing sideways in a crouch with the SPAS-22 held underarm-assault and
searching for targets. Mani follows, then Easy, both fanning out to find
cover and seeking threats.
This is most certainly the sanctum, the heart of the Doctor's power: a
large and beautiful space, caparisoned like a throne room with rich velvet
wall hangings and a thick carpet over the metal floor.
Small tungsten spots light the hangings, and the eye-tearing designs on
them, highlighting bizarre symbols, images of torture and desecration,
writings in script that no human hand created.
Like other parts of the Doctor's work, some of the images writhe under
the eye, as though the mind refuses to take them in and rebels at seeing
them clear.
At the focus of the room is a magnificent seat, with terminal and comms
gear discreetly built into the beautifully and yet horribly carved arms: and
yet that seems to be the darkest point of the room.
The rest of the team move in, weapons aimed, searching quickly. As
Emma, bringing up the rear, enters, the steel shutters shriek closed
behind her. Some turn to see what the noise was, or to search for other
threats. Emma starts examining doorframe and walls for any way to
release the steel shutters that block their retreat. Lilith keeps her eyes
fixed on the throne.
The darkness seems to flow and coalesce, taking form in the chair until
it's a man, robed and hooded in black, his eyes glowing from inside the
hood.
"Welcome to my kingdom." he says, with a synthesised voice that rides
bizarrely with the surroundings. "So kind of you to visit me at home. Some
of you, I know. Some of you, I do not. A pity, it's less pleasant to kill
strangers-"
"Oh, fuck this and fuck you, you pretentious asshole." Quinn fires, the
shotgun's blast and flash huge in the dimly-lit room. Sickly flashes of yellow
light flare a foot or so from Nar'moh'ach's body mark where some barrier
is stopping them, though it flares and sparkles brightly as most of the
room opens fire a fraction of a second behind her.
Lilith doesn't, though, unslinging her rifle and throwing it aside: reaching
back over her shoulder to draw her katana _Yukaze_.
Nar'moh'ach, still almost hidden inside the pulsing yellow corpselight of his
barrier, rises to his feet and lunges at Quinn with an unearthly speed: the
Coyote shaman blocks his rush with the shotgun, but in a crackle of
crimson energy half of it flies aside, sheared cleanly, her right hand still
clenched around the forestock. Quinn staggers back, the stump of her
arm spraying blood.
Cordovez, playing a tongue of fire across the barrier - seeing it not flow
off, but simply vanish into the pus-coloured light - is torn almost in half by
Nar'moh'ach's casual wave that splatters the fiery light across his chest and
belly. The Doctor staggers, though, as a swirling storm of electricity
compresses itself around him: he snarls at the Dark Stranger, a nauseously
alive green light crackling over the red dragon-armour -
Easy, her L7 fired empty and discarted, her sword drawn, launches herself
at the Doctor, who breaks off from his duel with the Dark Stranger to
throw out a hand at her. The same fierce green light envelops her and the
samurai's lunge becomes a sprawling collapse. Smoke rises from her
charred clothing, a few of the L7 rockets in her chest webbing fizzing and
jetting flame.
Mani's bellow of rage is almost missed as the big Sufi charges, and this
time Nar'moh'ach's wave of crimson fire seems to flow and part and splash
away from Mani as she swings her AK-97 like a club. Although the Doctor's
barrier stops the savage buttstroke in a strobing flare of jaundice, Mani's
berserk strength sends him staggering away regardless.
Nar'moh'ach snarls something incomprehensible and his red fire becomes a
wall, that throws Mani back and away even though it never quite touches
her skin, before he turns to Quinn who is clutching the (no longer
bleeding) stump of her arm.
"You think you can play these games, little coyote? Do you know what
powers I can call upon? Can your tiny mind-"
"Look behind you." Quinn replies with a grin, and Nar'moh'ach actually
does: in time to throw his hand up and catch Emma's knife thrust through
the hand, as he reflexively throws up an arm to defend himself. It seems
his magical protection doesn't follow _every_ part of his body; though a
split-second later a black tide of power seems to sweep from the wound
up Emma's arm and she gasps and shudders, pinned and helpless.
"You, Diaz, shall have a special death! Your comrades are merely my
enemies. _You_ dared to betray me!" The Doctor sends another crushing
wave of blackness over Emma, who is bleeding from nose, ears, mouth,
even from her eyes... then, beset by searing waves of power from both
Quinn and the Dark Stranger, he quickly drops her to the floor where she
lies, concentrating on repelling their attacks. Steam or smoke rises from
Emma's flesh.
"Your death shall be an artwork, Diaz, long after these fools are dust you
will be screaming in agony-" He bellows in his synthetic voice, as dragon's
fire and cartoon lightning tear again at his magical shield.
Quinn is knocked back, nose bleeding, by one Gargantuan strobe of
power; and as she recovers, the Dark Stranger's dragon-armour is
engulfed in a hissing, sizzling wave of toxicity, falling sideways. Its ornate
decorations dissolve like ice in boiling water, and the Stranger is distracted
as he frantically tries to shed the ruined suit.
As he focusses lethal power on his enemies, though, Quinn's severed hand
- ignored where it fell - clamps its fingers around his neck: it had scurried
up his robe while he gloated over Emma.
Nar'moh'ach makes a gagging noise and tears at the disembodied
member, which clutches his throat with undead strength, as Mani groggily
rises to her feet and with determined purpose picks up her rifle and
reloads it, and Lilith circles to the left to keep the Doctor at the centre of
a triangle: his three foes still mobile spaced around him, defying easy
extermination.
Nar'moh'ach wrenches Emma's knife out of his left hand with a scream of
agony: the serrated edge and saw back doing more damage on the way
out than it had on the way in, but it also works well to let him mutilate
the severed hand gripping its throat until he can pull it loose. That done,
he flings a cloud of blackness at Quinn, and the shadowy mass seems to
spread wings and talons as it flies at the shaman - only to break up and
scatter like dust in a gale before it reaches her.
"I've been studying, Doc, I know your games and I know what you're
using." Quinn chuckles. Mani's Kalashnikov causes the barrier to flare and
flicker and strobe as she empties the magazine in one long, furious burst,
empty 5.45mm cases spewing from the breech: the barrier's slowly
contracting under the attacks, but too slowly, too little...
"You cannot harm me!"
"Don't need to. I just need to keep us alive until someone else kills you."
Quinn chuckles. "Oh, yeah! Fuckhead!" She seems to find that hilarious.
"Your hovercraft is full of eels!" That, for some reason, even more so.
"Bring out... THE COMFY CHAIR!!!"
"You believe you can defeat me? Fools!" Mani, who's riddling the Doctor's
shrinking shield as fast as she can load and fire her AK, staggers as
crimson fire envelops her for a long, long moment... but Nar'moh'ach''s
vermillion fury never quite reaches her. "You are _WRONG!_"
The Doctor drives the knife into his thigh and twists it, howling with pain
as the crackling red light surrounding Mani brightens and intensifies. Quinn
raises her remaining hand, and a red cylinder appears in it: stencils on its
side proclaim it to be an "Acme Company" fire extinguisher, that belches
foam that chokes the eldritch fires around the Sufi mercenary.
"Guess again. Cartoon magic, Doc, you never did have a sense of humour.
And _that_ will be your downfall. Unless you've got some really, really good
ace in the hole-"
And almost on cue, the security barrier parts, with a menacing whine of
servomotors.
The room falls silent as Mitchell paces in: his black fatigues are torn in
places, and damp with blood that might even be his. The soldier's
unblinking blue eyes sweep the throne room with their snakelike gaze, and
he looks even less human than normal: but the H&K in his hands tracks his
eyes perfectly, smoke still drifting from the muzzle.
"Commander. I'll forgive you your lateness." Nar'moh'ach says smugly, as
Mani reaches for a magazine that isn't there and throws the useless rifle
aside with a vicious curse.
"I was unavoidably detained." The ex-SEAL replies calmly. He's limping, his
left foor leaving bloody prints in the thick carpet.
Neither Lilith nor Quinn move or react, as Mitchell advances to stand less
than five feet from Lilith, his Heckler and Koch battle rifle held at high
port: the Dark Stranger is still struggling with half-melted release catches,
shedding his ruined armour and out of the fight for a moment, and
Emma, Cordovez and Easy are all down hard and unlikely to rise.
"Kill these inconveniences, Mitchell. Quickly." Nar'moh'ach orders.
The black-clad soldier turns on his heel to face Nar'moh'ach, fixing him
with his icy blue stare. "I'm not Mitchell." he says, in a different and yet
familiar voice.
Nar'moh'ach stares, surprised. Quinn cackles like a maniac. Mani looks
puzzled as she raises her Mini-Uzi, uncertain who to shoot at. Lilith
stands, cooly impassive.
"My name is Jason Running Wolf Lynch." the soldier says with terrible
firmness.
Nar'moh'ach recoils in shock from those words: and for the first time, his
eyes are full of fear.
+++++end simsense
Singlehanded - geddit? Oh, never mind...]<<<<<
-- The Mighty Quinn <19:48:46/06-04-60>
