03-11-2018, 02:03 PM
Now
They were loud, harsh breaths, for such a small woman.
Timidly, a six foot seven bruiser with biceps like watermelons crept towards the little old lady, through the the thick, charcoal grey smoke. He licked his lips nervously, “Uh… b-boss? You… better... yet?”
Things turned to face him. He shuddered, and gulped. He could only see them out of the corners of his eyes, but there was no doubt that they were there. He could hear soft, padding footfalls, as light as breaths of wind. A shape that might have been a bear lumbered past on his right. He had only caught a glance, and even that had been obscured by the haze in the air…
But he knew that it had been watching him, like all the rest. Something brushed up against his leg and he whimpered, flinching away, only to almost topple over as he stumbled on something. Looking down, against his better judgement, the smoke seemed to clear a little, as if something wanted him to see what was down there.
White armour stained crimson, the plastoid plate shattered as though it were no more durable than a dinner plate, half a disembodied hand lay discarded in the centre of a pool of blood. The thumb, index, middle and ring fingers were all there, though the pinky and most of the palm were nowhere in sight.
Wrenching his gaze away, he forced one foot in front of the other, “Boss, please, it’s over. It’s over, y-you can stop now.”
“Yes.” a small voice whispered hoarsely. Doreen Withers was bent over, kneeling on the ground, “It’s all over. All over. All dead. So many dead. We have to get them back. We have to make them pay.”
“No, boss-” he began. She had responded. That was good. He had felt a flicker of hope when she first spoke, though it was quickly snuffed out, like a match in a gale, by her words. She hadn’t taken it well. Not well at all. She didn’t even realise that she had already done everything she was contemplating.
“No? No!?” she whirled to face him, her lined old face tear-streaked and racked with grief. Grief, and rage. Around him, the sounds of shuffling beasts grew louder, and a few low growls echoed dimly through the passageway. From somewhere he couldn't quite pinpoint, all noise somehow being warped and concealed by the miasma around him, came the sound of wings beating furiously, and a raven’s caw, “You want to let them go? You want to let them get away with what they've done!? Traitor!”
“No! I’m not! I’m not a- Aaaaaaarggh!” just moments after her condemnation, they fell upon him. Even then, he got no clear view of any of them. It was no surprise to him at all that these abominations had so easily torn their way through the Empire's forces so easily. Claws, talons, spines, beaks, fangs, mandibles and stingers of all sizes and shapes shredded his flesh as he screamed and writhed in their grasp. He fell, their great combined weight crushing him beneath their bodies. He coughed, choking, unable to even cry out any more. The smoke was much, much stronger now, as though it were seeping from the pores of the beasts themselves.
The thug sought feebly to shove them away. Their fur, feathers, scales, or whatever else they might have felt greasy. Oily. Filthy. He hardly had time to ponder these impressions, though. There came an agonising, wrenching sensation in his gut, and he did manage to find the air to shriek this time, though from where he knew not. Before him, a hazy figure whose silhouette somewhat resembled that of a gorilla reared up, the gangster's intestinal tract dangling from a maw filled with needle-like teeth that no gorilla he’d ever heard of had been equipped with.
***
Down the hallway, in a small room, cowering and whimpering and weeping in a corner, were some of the survivors of Doreen’s crew. Big, tough men and women all, they huddled in fear, trying to block out the screams and cries of the man who had sought to calm their leader. Just as they had done when this same fate had befallen the two who had preceded him.
They'd closed the door, but even so, the smog was finding its way in. It was already a foot high off the ground, and still rising steadily. If none of them could calm her, or the old woman didn’t manage to calm herself, somehow, then before too long there would be enough of the smoke in here for things like those outside to begin forming. And when that happened, the whole group was convinced, that would be the end of them all.
A Short Time Earlier
Vanessa Cartwright was burnt. She supposed she ought to have been grateful that these Imperial fuckers loved their blasters so damn much. Cauterised wounds didn’t bleed, after all. Better this than a bullet wound, she told herself. It wasn’t much of a comfort, not with a hole punched in her left shoulder and that arm flopping limply at her side.
It hurt like hell, she may well be crippled for life, and the boss was gonna be seriously pissed off at her. Doreen hadn’t even wanted to bring any of her engineers originally, but when Vanessa and a couple others had insisted on coming along, she had ("against my better judgement", as she put it) eventually conceded, as she often did when her favourites wanted something. She was going to be insufferable when she got wind of this.
The young woman smiled in spite of her pain, though, and in spite of the lectures and the punishment detail still to come. Getting this far had cost them good men and women – too many good men and women; these self-proclaimed ‘elites’ and their supposedly untrained stormtrooper recruits had put up more of a fight than they had been anticipating – but they had finally reached their destination. The command centre.
From this room, those three motherfuckers had orchestrated every misfortune the NSW bikers had faced thus far, and now the swine were about to pay dearly for it. Oh yes, she was going to enjoy this, “You ready?”
“Yah.” rumbled a mountain of a man standing before the door. The rest of them – Vanessa included – were all crowded into the passageway behind him. There was going to be one hell of a mad rush to be the first inside once that door came down. They’d all lost friends today, and none of them were in a forgiving mood.
“Alright Carl, hit it.” the thug, Big Carl, slammed his Enforcer (a type of handheld battering ram) into the door. Once, twice, thrice… and so on. It didn’t take too long. And then they were struggling and shoving against one another. The woman cursed and swore and bit her tongue to keep from screaming whenever anyone bumped too hard against her injured shoulder.
Eventually, she was in. Immediately, she noticed that something was wrong.
The bikers were tearing the place apart, shooting at or hitting or kicking or throwing everything they possibly could. The gangsters were so sure that their quarry must be here that they were destroying everything in sight in their efforts to root out their hidden prey.
In the room’s centre was a raised dais, atop which was a ring of computing equipment. Very hi-tech, very Empire. Beyond the platform, other desks spread out in concentric circles. All completely unoccupied.
She was forced further in by the tide of people at her back. Before she had gotten more than a few metres, though, lights flickered at the centre of the dais, and three faces she was getting to know all too well appeared before them. They were holograms, their entire bodies comprised of nothing but blue light. All three wore stormtrooper armour, sans helmets. The one in the middle, reclining casually in a chair, was an elf with delicate ears that slanted backwards and must have been a good foot long. The pair standing at his shoulders were humans. One male, one female.
“Hello again, vile intruders,” the elf said smugly. Unlike Lana’s group, who were no doubt having an easy time of it, having been the ones to spring an ambush of their own upon the stormtroopers, Doreen’s people had been hit hard by all the tricks and traps that the Imperials had, it seemed, wisely opted to put in place in the aftermath of Steve’s botched attack on their base, “and once again, goodbye.”
He held up both hands, his right with middle finger and thumb pressed together, whilst his left was curled into a fist. Slowly, he unfurled his left index finger. He was pointing at something above their heads. The ceiling? Vanessa, along with many, many others, turned their faces up in the indicated direction. There were six small spheres somehow stuck up there. The hologram snapped the fingers of its right hand, and with a mechanical click, something was released, and the half dozen orbs began to drop.
The young woman had never seen anything precisely like these before, but could guess their purpose easily enough. She flung herself to the ground, heedless of the threat of being trampled by her own allies in her desperation to avoid the detonation of what she was sure must be grenades.
There was a flash of blue light. She never felt a thing.
***
Moments later, when the survivors from the hallway – those who had been far enough back from the entrance to escape a plasma bath – poked their heads into the room, they were, to a man (or woman), horrified by what they saw. Which was molten metal, mostly. The entire room looked as though someone had tried to use it to contain a miniature sun for a few hours. Aside from the ash and embers mixing with the red-hot liquid that was the floor, nothing even remained of their comrades.
Back Before That
“Oh no, you won't be getting through this way.” the holographic elf informed them smugly, before turning his head to his right and waving at someone, “Over this way!”
That prick was standing in a landing of sorts, where three corridors met. Not far from him, in the main passage, were one of the groups that Doreen’s bikers had been split up into for the purposes of this assault… and judging by the sound of running footsteps headed their way, the corridor which connected to theirs at a right angle, on their left, into which they could not see, must be filled with rapidly approaching stormtroopers.
Leo – a blond guy with shaggy hair, a goatee and tattoos all down his arms, who wore a grey denim waistcoat, matching jeans, a white vest and black combat boots – scowled. He, like the other few here with more than two brain cells to rub together (i.e. the bunch who had succeeded in memorising their extremely simple plan), was a member of their engineering corps, the old hag’s elite, her brainiest bunch… not that that was exactly the highest praise, considering the rest of the meatheads who filled out her ranks.
It was for this reason, though, that he had been placed in charge of these fools, and it was because he was in charge that the big lugs listened to him when he barked at them to stop shooting at the intangible, glowing, blue man in front of them. How on Earth those pea-brained cretins had yet to realise that blue light meant holograms, he had no idea.
It wasn’t like they’d been seeing them infrequently or anything. Practically the entire time they’d been inside the confusing and winding corridors of this damned building, these fuckers had been showing up constantly, taunting them, luring them into ambushes or distracting them. They had a huge numerical advantage over the swine, and their guys and gals were way hardier and tougher than their foes in their little shells of plastic, so they oughta be winning…
Yet instead, it seemed they were being outmanoeuvred at every turn. It did occur to Leo that perhaps he wasn’t the best person to serve in a leadership role, given he was just a mechanic with absolutely no experience at command whatsoever… but as the rest of his comrades likely weren't bright enough to count past ten without taking off their shoes, he was left with little choice but to do the best he could. He sure as hell wasn't about to let one of that lot take his place.
He ground his teeth together, trying to make a choice. He could hear the clatter of many pairs of booted feet charging down the metal hallway, aiming for the junction they had also been headed towards. It sounded like a lot of them. Maybe even all of them. Could it be possible that the barracks’ entire complement of troops had just formed up into one single group and was simply marching around their base obliterating any of the smaller squads that Doreen’s people had split themselves into, whenever they came across them? Possibly? Maybe?
Leo would be the first to admit that he knew nothing of the ways of strategy and tactic, but it seemed a reasonable enough plan… and if an accurate assessment, it would make sense for he and his followers to back off for now… the only thing was, this had been happening entirely too often. On the rare occasion that they had crossed paths with other bikers amidst this mess of a maze, those teams had also reported hearing large numbers of stormtroopers running about the place. It seemed highly unlikely that they could get around that fast… and the presence of their helmetless tormentors already proved that there was some sort of hologram tech rigged up throughout the building… so who was to say that these armies too could not just be mere phantoms?
It was a risk, but they could never hope to win if they allowed themselves to continue being corralled like hapless sheep, “Stop.”
The dozen or so bruisers around him, who had been starting to back off slowly, hesitated. Leo was a lean figure, never the sort to be called scrawny, but beside the goliaths that made up most of the crone’s biker gang, even he seemed short and skinny. One woman – almost seven feet tall, with her butter-yellow hair in a chin-length bob, a nose that looked to have been broken at least three times, and a belly like a keg of beer – spoke up, “Huh? You sure, Leo? They prob’ly gonna shoot us when they get here, y’know that?”
Sally, she was called. To publicly denounce her as being thick as a plank would have earned anyone numerous objections from Lana’s DIY aficionado group, who would none too politely inform the denouncer that they didn’t make planks that thick, and what they might be thinking of could more accurately be described as ‘logs’, or perhaps ‘tree trunks’.
“Just wait. Be ready to fire back if I say so.” there was no point in trying to explain anything to her. Not only would his words just go straight in one ear and out the other, but they didn’t have time to even attempt it.
He steeled himself for what was to come, tensing his muscles, preparing to dive to the ground if those really were actual stormtroopers approaching. Alongside him, his crew fidgeted nervously. They may have been a big bunch of toughs, but even they were bright enough to realise that plasma bolts were still deadly no matter how bulging your biceps or how prodigious your pecs.
The stormtroopers rounded the corner and opened fire. His own people shot back immediately, in blatant violation of his order not to do so unless commanded. Leo breathed a sigh of relief, too pleased to care that they had ignored him. Brandon, the holographic elf, scowled. The swine he had called over were nothing more than a recording. Ghostly blue images projected into the air around them. They were shooting, but their attacks were no less intangible than their bodies.
“Stop firing! Stop firing!” the mechanic roared, and gradually, hesitantly, the bikers did as ordered. The stormtroopers continued blasting them, though of course their bolts did no harm. Slowly, the fools Leo had been saddled with seemed to realise that they had nothing to fear and began grinning and laughing amongst themselves.
Brandon snapped his fingers and the illusion vanished. He sighed, irritated, “Well, I suppose it was only a matter of time until one of you cretins proved bright enough to work out what we’ve been doing. Tch.”
After casting a parting glare are Leo, the elf vanished just as had his imaginary troops. Brimming with satisfaction, the mechanic strode forwards, “Come on! They obviously don’t want us headed this way, so what do you lot say we follow this path and see what it is they’re so desperate to keep us from, huh?”
“Yeah!” with a roar of agreement, his group of a couple dozen leather- and denim-clad bikers charged after him. They headed straight on, past the intersection and down the long corridor ahead of them.
Or they would have done, at least.
Just as he was almost across the little landing, Leo felt a furious, firey pain lancing through his gut. He stumbled, looked down. A smoking hole on either side of his stomach. The plasma bolt had passed straight through. But… how…? Where?
He turned. Vision blurring, dizziness threatening to overwhelm him. As much as this hurt, he was sure it ought to have been even worse. Was he going into shock? There were screams around him, and flashes of light as his team were mown down like blades of grass… they were faint, though. The noise of his own ragged breathing seeming to be the loudest thing in the vicinity. Facing the junction he had bypassed, Leo saw them now.
He couldn’t make out numbers, not when everything around him seemed to be doubling and tripling up of its own accord. But he could tell that they were stormtroopers easily enough. Lying in wait halfway down the adjoining hallway, their first row knelt on one knee as they fired bolt after bolt, whilst those lined up behind them stood, shooting over the heads of their compatriots.
Another blast took him in the shoulder and he stumbled back, gasping at the sharpness of the heat, tripping over something – someone – and falling, landing on his ass. He struggled to stand, but then was struck a third time, on the right side of his chest. He toppled. Leo was no expert on human biology, but he knew where his lungs lay. Without immediate medical attention, he knew he didn’t have long left to live.
A blue light flickered into existence before him. That damned elf. Back to looking smug. Brandon Windvale's ethereal form stood with hands clasped behind its back, smirking down at the gangster, who coughed. He could taste blood in his mouth. His wounds burned, but for some reason his extremities felt icy cold. His eyelids were getting heavy.
“Oh yes, you saw right through us. However will we stand up to such wisdom and cunning?” his tormentor taunted, his words seeming to come from a great distance away. He then chuckled softly. The screaming had mostly ceased by this point, though the sound of plasmafire continued unabated, now with a chorus of moans and whimpers supplementing it from the background.
Leo closed his eyes, wheezing softly. He coughed again. Blood escaped his mouth this time, a few drops spattering on the steel-paneled floor, whilst a trickle ran down from his lips. He could feel it on his skin. It was one of the few things he could still feel. He wasn’t sure if the fighting was over or whether the elf still spoke, but there was no noise now. He relaxed, letting the welcoming numbness envelop him.
They were loud, harsh breaths, for such a small woman.
Timidly, a six foot seven bruiser with biceps like watermelons crept towards the little old lady, through the the thick, charcoal grey smoke. He licked his lips nervously, “Uh… b-boss? You… better... yet?”
Things turned to face him. He shuddered, and gulped. He could only see them out of the corners of his eyes, but there was no doubt that they were there. He could hear soft, padding footfalls, as light as breaths of wind. A shape that might have been a bear lumbered past on his right. He had only caught a glance, and even that had been obscured by the haze in the air…
But he knew that it had been watching him, like all the rest. Something brushed up against his leg and he whimpered, flinching away, only to almost topple over as he stumbled on something. Looking down, against his better judgement, the smoke seemed to clear a little, as if something wanted him to see what was down there.
White armour stained crimson, the plastoid plate shattered as though it were no more durable than a dinner plate, half a disembodied hand lay discarded in the centre of a pool of blood. The thumb, index, middle and ring fingers were all there, though the pinky and most of the palm were nowhere in sight.
Wrenching his gaze away, he forced one foot in front of the other, “Boss, please, it’s over. It’s over, y-you can stop now.”
“Yes.” a small voice whispered hoarsely. Doreen Withers was bent over, kneeling on the ground, “It’s all over. All over. All dead. So many dead. We have to get them back. We have to make them pay.”
“No, boss-” he began. She had responded. That was good. He had felt a flicker of hope when she first spoke, though it was quickly snuffed out, like a match in a gale, by her words. She hadn’t taken it well. Not well at all. She didn’t even realise that she had already done everything she was contemplating.
“No? No!?” she whirled to face him, her lined old face tear-streaked and racked with grief. Grief, and rage. Around him, the sounds of shuffling beasts grew louder, and a few low growls echoed dimly through the passageway. From somewhere he couldn't quite pinpoint, all noise somehow being warped and concealed by the miasma around him, came the sound of wings beating furiously, and a raven’s caw, “You want to let them go? You want to let them get away with what they've done!? Traitor!”
“No! I’m not! I’m not a- Aaaaaaarggh!” just moments after her condemnation, they fell upon him. Even then, he got no clear view of any of them. It was no surprise to him at all that these abominations had so easily torn their way through the Empire's forces so easily. Claws, talons, spines, beaks, fangs, mandibles and stingers of all sizes and shapes shredded his flesh as he screamed and writhed in their grasp. He fell, their great combined weight crushing him beneath their bodies. He coughed, choking, unable to even cry out any more. The smoke was much, much stronger now, as though it were seeping from the pores of the beasts themselves.
The thug sought feebly to shove them away. Their fur, feathers, scales, or whatever else they might have felt greasy. Oily. Filthy. He hardly had time to ponder these impressions, though. There came an agonising, wrenching sensation in his gut, and he did manage to find the air to shriek this time, though from where he knew not. Before him, a hazy figure whose silhouette somewhat resembled that of a gorilla reared up, the gangster's intestinal tract dangling from a maw filled with needle-like teeth that no gorilla he’d ever heard of had been equipped with.
***
Down the hallway, in a small room, cowering and whimpering and weeping in a corner, were some of the survivors of Doreen’s crew. Big, tough men and women all, they huddled in fear, trying to block out the screams and cries of the man who had sought to calm their leader. Just as they had done when this same fate had befallen the two who had preceded him.
They'd closed the door, but even so, the smog was finding its way in. It was already a foot high off the ground, and still rising steadily. If none of them could calm her, or the old woman didn’t manage to calm herself, somehow, then before too long there would be enough of the smoke in here for things like those outside to begin forming. And when that happened, the whole group was convinced, that would be the end of them all.
A Short Time Earlier
Vanessa Cartwright was burnt. She supposed she ought to have been grateful that these Imperial fuckers loved their blasters so damn much. Cauterised wounds didn’t bleed, after all. Better this than a bullet wound, she told herself. It wasn’t much of a comfort, not with a hole punched in her left shoulder and that arm flopping limply at her side.
It hurt like hell, she may well be crippled for life, and the boss was gonna be seriously pissed off at her. Doreen hadn’t even wanted to bring any of her engineers originally, but when Vanessa and a couple others had insisted on coming along, she had ("against my better judgement", as she put it) eventually conceded, as she often did when her favourites wanted something. She was going to be insufferable when she got wind of this.
The young woman smiled in spite of her pain, though, and in spite of the lectures and the punishment detail still to come. Getting this far had cost them good men and women – too many good men and women; these self-proclaimed ‘elites’ and their supposedly untrained stormtrooper recruits had put up more of a fight than they had been anticipating – but they had finally reached their destination. The command centre.
From this room, those three motherfuckers had orchestrated every misfortune the NSW bikers had faced thus far, and now the swine were about to pay dearly for it. Oh yes, she was going to enjoy this, “You ready?”
“Yah.” rumbled a mountain of a man standing before the door. The rest of them – Vanessa included – were all crowded into the passageway behind him. There was going to be one hell of a mad rush to be the first inside once that door came down. They’d all lost friends today, and none of them were in a forgiving mood.
“Alright Carl, hit it.” the thug, Big Carl, slammed his Enforcer (a type of handheld battering ram) into the door. Once, twice, thrice… and so on. It didn’t take too long. And then they were struggling and shoving against one another. The woman cursed and swore and bit her tongue to keep from screaming whenever anyone bumped too hard against her injured shoulder.
Eventually, she was in. Immediately, she noticed that something was wrong.
The bikers were tearing the place apart, shooting at or hitting or kicking or throwing everything they possibly could. The gangsters were so sure that their quarry must be here that they were destroying everything in sight in their efforts to root out their hidden prey.
In the room’s centre was a raised dais, atop which was a ring of computing equipment. Very hi-tech, very Empire. Beyond the platform, other desks spread out in concentric circles. All completely unoccupied.
She was forced further in by the tide of people at her back. Before she had gotten more than a few metres, though, lights flickered at the centre of the dais, and three faces she was getting to know all too well appeared before them. They were holograms, their entire bodies comprised of nothing but blue light. All three wore stormtrooper armour, sans helmets. The one in the middle, reclining casually in a chair, was an elf with delicate ears that slanted backwards and must have been a good foot long. The pair standing at his shoulders were humans. One male, one female.
“Hello again, vile intruders,” the elf said smugly. Unlike Lana’s group, who were no doubt having an easy time of it, having been the ones to spring an ambush of their own upon the stormtroopers, Doreen’s people had been hit hard by all the tricks and traps that the Imperials had, it seemed, wisely opted to put in place in the aftermath of Steve’s botched attack on their base, “and once again, goodbye.”
He held up both hands, his right with middle finger and thumb pressed together, whilst his left was curled into a fist. Slowly, he unfurled his left index finger. He was pointing at something above their heads. The ceiling? Vanessa, along with many, many others, turned their faces up in the indicated direction. There were six small spheres somehow stuck up there. The hologram snapped the fingers of its right hand, and with a mechanical click, something was released, and the half dozen orbs began to drop.
The young woman had never seen anything precisely like these before, but could guess their purpose easily enough. She flung herself to the ground, heedless of the threat of being trampled by her own allies in her desperation to avoid the detonation of what she was sure must be grenades.
There was a flash of blue light. She never felt a thing.
***
Moments later, when the survivors from the hallway – those who had been far enough back from the entrance to escape a plasma bath – poked their heads into the room, they were, to a man (or woman), horrified by what they saw. Which was molten metal, mostly. The entire room looked as though someone had tried to use it to contain a miniature sun for a few hours. Aside from the ash and embers mixing with the red-hot liquid that was the floor, nothing even remained of their comrades.
Back Before That
“Oh no, you won't be getting through this way.” the holographic elf informed them smugly, before turning his head to his right and waving at someone, “Over this way!”
That prick was standing in a landing of sorts, where three corridors met. Not far from him, in the main passage, were one of the groups that Doreen’s bikers had been split up into for the purposes of this assault… and judging by the sound of running footsteps headed their way, the corridor which connected to theirs at a right angle, on their left, into which they could not see, must be filled with rapidly approaching stormtroopers.
Leo – a blond guy with shaggy hair, a goatee and tattoos all down his arms, who wore a grey denim waistcoat, matching jeans, a white vest and black combat boots – scowled. He, like the other few here with more than two brain cells to rub together (i.e. the bunch who had succeeded in memorising their extremely simple plan), was a member of their engineering corps, the old hag’s elite, her brainiest bunch… not that that was exactly the highest praise, considering the rest of the meatheads who filled out her ranks.
It was for this reason, though, that he had been placed in charge of these fools, and it was because he was in charge that the big lugs listened to him when he barked at them to stop shooting at the intangible, glowing, blue man in front of them. How on Earth those pea-brained cretins had yet to realise that blue light meant holograms, he had no idea.
It wasn’t like they’d been seeing them infrequently or anything. Practically the entire time they’d been inside the confusing and winding corridors of this damned building, these fuckers had been showing up constantly, taunting them, luring them into ambushes or distracting them. They had a huge numerical advantage over the swine, and their guys and gals were way hardier and tougher than their foes in their little shells of plastic, so they oughta be winning…
Yet instead, it seemed they were being outmanoeuvred at every turn. It did occur to Leo that perhaps he wasn’t the best person to serve in a leadership role, given he was just a mechanic with absolutely no experience at command whatsoever… but as the rest of his comrades likely weren't bright enough to count past ten without taking off their shoes, he was left with little choice but to do the best he could. He sure as hell wasn't about to let one of that lot take his place.
He ground his teeth together, trying to make a choice. He could hear the clatter of many pairs of booted feet charging down the metal hallway, aiming for the junction they had also been headed towards. It sounded like a lot of them. Maybe even all of them. Could it be possible that the barracks’ entire complement of troops had just formed up into one single group and was simply marching around their base obliterating any of the smaller squads that Doreen’s people had split themselves into, whenever they came across them? Possibly? Maybe?
Leo would be the first to admit that he knew nothing of the ways of strategy and tactic, but it seemed a reasonable enough plan… and if an accurate assessment, it would make sense for he and his followers to back off for now… the only thing was, this had been happening entirely too often. On the rare occasion that they had crossed paths with other bikers amidst this mess of a maze, those teams had also reported hearing large numbers of stormtroopers running about the place. It seemed highly unlikely that they could get around that fast… and the presence of their helmetless tormentors already proved that there was some sort of hologram tech rigged up throughout the building… so who was to say that these armies too could not just be mere phantoms?
It was a risk, but they could never hope to win if they allowed themselves to continue being corralled like hapless sheep, “Stop.”
The dozen or so bruisers around him, who had been starting to back off slowly, hesitated. Leo was a lean figure, never the sort to be called scrawny, but beside the goliaths that made up most of the crone’s biker gang, even he seemed short and skinny. One woman – almost seven feet tall, with her butter-yellow hair in a chin-length bob, a nose that looked to have been broken at least three times, and a belly like a keg of beer – spoke up, “Huh? You sure, Leo? They prob’ly gonna shoot us when they get here, y’know that?”
Sally, she was called. To publicly denounce her as being thick as a plank would have earned anyone numerous objections from Lana’s DIY aficionado group, who would none too politely inform the denouncer that they didn’t make planks that thick, and what they might be thinking of could more accurately be described as ‘logs’, or perhaps ‘tree trunks’.
“Just wait. Be ready to fire back if I say so.” there was no point in trying to explain anything to her. Not only would his words just go straight in one ear and out the other, but they didn’t have time to even attempt it.
He steeled himself for what was to come, tensing his muscles, preparing to dive to the ground if those really were actual stormtroopers approaching. Alongside him, his crew fidgeted nervously. They may have been a big bunch of toughs, but even they were bright enough to realise that plasma bolts were still deadly no matter how bulging your biceps or how prodigious your pecs.
The stormtroopers rounded the corner and opened fire. His own people shot back immediately, in blatant violation of his order not to do so unless commanded. Leo breathed a sigh of relief, too pleased to care that they had ignored him. Brandon, the holographic elf, scowled. The swine he had called over were nothing more than a recording. Ghostly blue images projected into the air around them. They were shooting, but their attacks were no less intangible than their bodies.
“Stop firing! Stop firing!” the mechanic roared, and gradually, hesitantly, the bikers did as ordered. The stormtroopers continued blasting them, though of course their bolts did no harm. Slowly, the fools Leo had been saddled with seemed to realise that they had nothing to fear and began grinning and laughing amongst themselves.
Brandon snapped his fingers and the illusion vanished. He sighed, irritated, “Well, I suppose it was only a matter of time until one of you cretins proved bright enough to work out what we’ve been doing. Tch.”
After casting a parting glare are Leo, the elf vanished just as had his imaginary troops. Brimming with satisfaction, the mechanic strode forwards, “Come on! They obviously don’t want us headed this way, so what do you lot say we follow this path and see what it is they’re so desperate to keep us from, huh?”
“Yeah!” with a roar of agreement, his group of a couple dozen leather- and denim-clad bikers charged after him. They headed straight on, past the intersection and down the long corridor ahead of them.
Or they would have done, at least.
Just as he was almost across the little landing, Leo felt a furious, firey pain lancing through his gut. He stumbled, looked down. A smoking hole on either side of his stomach. The plasma bolt had passed straight through. But… how…? Where?
He turned. Vision blurring, dizziness threatening to overwhelm him. As much as this hurt, he was sure it ought to have been even worse. Was he going into shock? There were screams around him, and flashes of light as his team were mown down like blades of grass… they were faint, though. The noise of his own ragged breathing seeming to be the loudest thing in the vicinity. Facing the junction he had bypassed, Leo saw them now.
He couldn’t make out numbers, not when everything around him seemed to be doubling and tripling up of its own accord. But he could tell that they were stormtroopers easily enough. Lying in wait halfway down the adjoining hallway, their first row knelt on one knee as they fired bolt after bolt, whilst those lined up behind them stood, shooting over the heads of their compatriots.
Another blast took him in the shoulder and he stumbled back, gasping at the sharpness of the heat, tripping over something – someone – and falling, landing on his ass. He struggled to stand, but then was struck a third time, on the right side of his chest. He toppled. Leo was no expert on human biology, but he knew where his lungs lay. Without immediate medical attention, he knew he didn’t have long left to live.
A blue light flickered into existence before him. That damned elf. Back to looking smug. Brandon Windvale's ethereal form stood with hands clasped behind its back, smirking down at the gangster, who coughed. He could taste blood in his mouth. His wounds burned, but for some reason his extremities felt icy cold. His eyelids were getting heavy.
“Oh yes, you saw right through us. However will we stand up to such wisdom and cunning?” his tormentor taunted, his words seeming to come from a great distance away. He then chuckled softly. The screaming had mostly ceased by this point, though the sound of plasmafire continued unabated, now with a chorus of moans and whimpers supplementing it from the background.
Leo closed his eyes, wheezing softly. He coughed again. Blood escaped his mouth this time, a few drops spattering on the steel-paneled floor, whilst a trickle ran down from his lips. He could feel it on his skin. It was one of the few things he could still feel. He wasn’t sure if the fighting was over or whether the elf still spoke, but there was no noise now. He relaxed, letting the welcoming numbness envelop him.
![[Image: Hijiri_Name_Sig.png]](https://image.ibb.co/k1H7Hd/Hijiri_Name_Sig.png)