Night 52: Rec Field

[tsunagari]

[from here]This was already further than Sai had gotten the past couple nights, which was saying something. It was getting over the wall that would be the real test, though. The actual act of scaling the brick would be simple, but the night had an odd way of ending before he'd gotten beyond that point. Hopefully the same wouldn't hold true this

Comments

[unheroed]

[From here.]

Not surprisingly, the field was already lively with what looked to be a few separate attacks. There was one man who was being terrorized by what he was pretty sure was a huge bird, and then three other patients further down the field, all of whom seemed to be more interested in each other. Maybe this would work in their favor, then.

It was funny, though, when he thought about it. When it came to whether or not they should help, chances were that Jones would want to, Recluse wouldn't, and he... Well, he could go either way. Not that he was going to tell that to either of the men. In this case, maybe Jones' need to see more of that mine would outweigh any benevolence.

"So, what's our gameplan?" he asked the two. (Was his shadow flickering against the wet grass? No, of course not.) "We could try to sneak past." And over a wall, which wasn't the most inconspicuous of actions, but if they were quick about it...

[In MMO parlance, we would call this “drawing aggro".]

[tartaros_avatar]

Recluse very slowly raised an eyebrow at Sechs’ reaction to the bullet, maintaining a façade of unimpressed observation. Well, frankly, he was still unimpressed, but he was gathering himself to dodge further along the wall as discretely as possible.

The sudden burst of light hurt, his already narrowed eyes closing shut with an irritated snarl, turning his head to look away. Even beyond his peripheral vision, it felt almost scalding to his senses. If only he had proper control over his own eyes!

Despite the near blinding, he was still able to keep a sighting on the direction he intended to dodge, and when the painful glow moved, he waited until the last possible moment and leapt to the side, separating himself further from the other two. If he could continue to draw fire, then they could escape without too much of their time wasted.

"Then get moving!" he hissed to the other two as quietly as he could. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve been waiting.” He then turned his attention back to Sechs, intent on continuing the taunt until

[sixth_attack]

The colossal weapon whipped forward, its solid form almost bending from the high velocity of its speed, and cracked through the air, rending the thrown boulder useless and cleanly sliced in half. The two pieces fell to the grass with a dull thud before Sechs' feet as the Titan blade shot up again, this time its owner struck its end into the ground, propping it like a mast close to his side. "Close but no cigar!"

Sechs' wolfish grin viciously twitched at the persistent taunting. That big guy was really asking for it, wasn't he? He may not have sounded impressed by Sechs' attack, but his pained blinking told the Replica a different story.

"So you've seen that before, huh?" Sechs said, jerking his head to the side to throw out a wad of spit to the ground. "Then tell me, have you seen this yet

[its_the_mileage]

Fine. If Richter wanted to play the hero, with the high chance of getting killed that implied, Indy was prepared to let him. Leaving people behind never sat well with him, but he'd done it before with people he knew better and liked more than Richter. The rock trick hadn't worked anyway. He motioned for Dent to give it up and jump down on the far side with him

[unheroed]

The second that Recluse took on that tone, Harvey was pretty much finished with waiting around for him to get done with the taunting match and get moving. He wasn't sure if he and the brainwashed patient had some sort of history or if he was just that interested in mocking dangerous people into attacking him, but

[tartaros_avatar]

[Wow, Sechs. You have part of a powerset that is among the most annoying to fight in CoV!]

This is just wonderful. The least desirable side-effect of drawing the ire of an attacker was of course the distinct possibility that you were going to get hurt. But seeing how damned long it had taken the other two to climb the wall, he really had no choice. It was that, or directionlessly wander around the woods while the other two burnt to a crisp.

He didn't even try to hit the decoys, bringing his arms up to protect his face, snarling as they burned him, portions of his clothing catching fire. This was as far as he could take the distraction. Too much longer, and one might hit the gun he was carrying, and that carried a risk of the gunpowder cooking off inside the pistol. Whether the others had finally made it or not, he couldn't tell, he was absolutely and painfully blinded by the light from the doubles. But if they hadn't, he was going to leave them, consequences be damned

[sixth_attack]

Once the flaring decoy's victims tumbled down the wall, their glaring forms gradually evaporated and melted back into flying streaks of plasma before their energy dissipated into the night like a cluster of rogue fireworks. The plasma's vanishing presence ignited the night sky one more time and fell back into the shadows, leaving scorched dents in the wall and flaming patches crackling away in the nearby trees.

Sechs was nearly beside himself with barbarous mirth as he watched the tallest man catch fire and plummet off the wall. So much for being some guy who fought gods before! That ought to teach that big blowhard not to mess with a warrior like Sechs! The Replica's display of power may have been finished, but he still had one more treat for the escaping men...

As his own skin of plasma burned out into the cool air, Sechs lifted the enormous slice of concrete over his head with a single hand. "HEY ASSHOLES!" he shouted to the prisoners on the other side, "Got a parting gift for ya! CATCH!With very little effort on Sechs' part,

[its_the_mileage]

"We were trying to make sure you made it!" Indy shouted back defensively--more as a reflex than in actual anger, since by that time Richter was already down and he'd seen the burns. He did appreciate the decoy act, but now didn't seem like the time to get sentimental about it.

He almost reached out to grab Richter's arm, but thought better of it at the last second (the man's sleeves were still smoking). Instead, he grabbed the far end of the whip and pushed it into Richter's hand, wrapping a foot or two of the slack of the near end around his own forearm at the same time so they'd have freedom of movement but not so much distance Richter would lose him.

The giant rock crashed with a loud noise and a violent tremor just feet away from them, admittedly startling the hell out of Indy (who'd had bad experiences with boulders). Nothing obvious was following them, but he wasn't waiting for it to start. "Come on!" he barked, and started moving north at the fastest pace he thought Richter could match blind.

[to here]