11-23-2017, 02:26 PM
He opened his eyes.
His head was pounding. Ugh.
Someone was speaking... their voice crackling faintly? Oh. That guy on the speakers. Yeah, that's right, that's what it was they'd been doing; fighting for their lives against a bunch of vengeful gangsters who'd invaded the barracks.
He slowly sat up, wincing at the sharp pains that shot through his chest the moment he moved. Looking down, Hijiri saw that his jacket and shirt had been removed at some point and almost his entire torso was wrapped in bandages... most of which were by now more red than white.
Still, he hardly had room to complain; now that he could think more clearly, the Battle Rabbit knew he'd been so close to death that only a miracle should have been able to save him... even with urgent medical attention, surviving that would have been a long shot... so how...?
Wait! Yes! Jallus had forced him to summon that medical droid!
He must have done an amazing job for it to have managed so well.
Dragging his eyes off his own bloodied body, the Rabbit looked out across the-
“Holy fucking shit!” he shrieked, shoving himself backwards with enough force not only to fall but to topple the rickety hospital bed as well. He then screamed once more, though merely in pain this time as opposed to shock and terror. By falling – and bringing a bed down on top of himself – Hijiri had managed to reopen every one of his wounds, more or less.
“I see you're awake, Takanomiya.” Kroll's amused voice came from past... whatever that thing was. A mass of jagged, skeletal metal limbs, scalpels, needles, saws, drills, glowing lights, tubes and wires filled fully half the room... and as he watched a stream of sparks cascaded out of some part of it, the thing shuddered and trembled, and a few lights went out.
“Iechtelsteir, what the hell is this thing?” Hijiri demanded, still staring wide-eyed at the abomination as a claw-like appendage grabbed the fallen bed and dragged it back up into its proper position.
“This is your handiwork, corporal. You didn't exactly manage to replicate the medical droid. On the bright side, it was working really well to start with. Rather than treating everyone separately, it sorted us all out at once. Of course, it seems to have worn down pretty quickly, so not really the best long-term investment... still, we shouldn't complain; it's as a result of this thing that not one of us died... well, apart from those four who were already gone before you summoned it.”
“What? Four?” the Rabbit asked, suddenly filled with dread. They had lost one 'trooper not long after entering, and another two during the ambush... which meant someone else had died since.
“Yeah. You can relax, though; it's no one whose name you know.” Brandon was the one to make this statement. As was the case with the 'sergeant', the elf was completely hidden from his view behind the monstrous contraption which occupied the centre of the room.
Though he felt a little guilty for it, Hijiri was relieved. These generic Tier One reinforcement stormtroopers who'd barely finished basic training before being sent down to Tier Five meant a whole lot less to him than those he actually knew.
“I see. Okay then... and how long was I out?”
“Funny you should mention that,” Kroll said, a touch of humour in his voice, “we were actually just discussing it before you woke up. Right, Mr Villain?”
“Yeah.” growled the voice from the speaker system, “You lot have been in there for more than five hours now, and I'm getting really bored over here. So I've decided, if none of you make it to where I am in the next half hour then I'm coming to you. Good luck keeping all your unconscious guys safe in the middle of a fight.”
“Five hours? And now another half hour?” Hijiri asked incredulously, “... Why would you even give us that long? You had the perfect opportunity to kill us all.”
“Because you suck.” the man told him bluntly, “How am I supposed to enjoy my revenge if you just drop dead at my feet before I even get the chance to shoot you? And as for your backup here... well, it's not like they matter. You could have dozens of Secondaries all well rested, fully healed and equipped however you saw fit for all I care; it wouldn't do you the slightest bit of good against me.”
“Confident, isn't he?” Kroll asked cheerfully... then came walking round from behind the hideous robot which had been intended to be a medical droid, with Brandon in tow. The ex-noble's arm seemed to be fully functioning once again, though it was still bandaged, and for his part the technophilic elf had bandages around his head – where he'd lost an ear – and his shin, yet seemed similarly unimpaired by those injuries. Whatever the medical monstrosity had done for them, it seemed to have made a pretty good job of it.
“You heard the man, everyone.” the 'sergeant' announced, “Up and at 'em. Singh, Leben and a couple of our nameless mooks here are two injured to keep going. Nash and one more of our faceless companions are going to stand guard, while Takanomiya, Windvale, Reiner, Dodson and the three other 'troopers are going to head for the training section to keep this guy occupied... and I have a special mission for myself.”
Uproarious laughter could suddenly be heard from across the announcement system, “Hahaha, 'special mission' my ass! Your 'brave' leader here is leaving you all to die. Hah! Well, at least one of you Secondary fuckwits seems bright enough to realise how hopelessly outmatched you are.”
“No.” Kroll declared coldly, “I can't exactly delegate this task, since you're listening in on everything we say... but trust me, I'll be coming for you when I'm done, Prime or not.”
Their foe simply laughed again in response, before cutting his transmission.
“I'm asking you all to trust me here,” Kroll said to the others he'd called upon to leave the medical bay, who were slowly making their way into a rough group standing before him, “can you do that?”
“Do you even need to ask?” Brandon was the first to reply, not showing the slightest hesitation... barely even paying attention, actually; he had taken out his Dataverse Device and was casually flicking through Omnitwitter.
“Are you sure I can't be one of the two who get to stay behind?” Jallus droned in a dull monotone, showing a lack of interest to match the elf's... as he stood there waiting to march off to his probable death, he was calmly reading another of his trashy romance novels; this time it was a book with a picture of a buff, shirtless guy on the front, signed with the name 'Fabio'.
“No. We need all the elites we can get for this. Leon's only getting to stay because Singh hasn't regained consciousness yet,” here their leader glanced briefly across at Hijiri, who felt the swell of guilt in his chest once again and avoided meeting his eyes, “and we all know there's no way he'll be willing to leave her before then... so, Dodson? Corporal? Other guys? Any of you have anything you'd like to say?”
“No, sir!” answered Trevor forcefully, standing straight and rigid, his face set in a mask of determination. He looked almost like some handsome and heroic knight straight out of a fairytale... if such fairytale knights were in the habit of donning armour made from hardened, white plastic.
Hijiri gaped his way confusedly... disbelieving the evidence of his own senses. The coward was apparently utterly unafraid in the face of danger... what the hell was up with him now?
“Takanomiya?”
“Huh? Oh, sorry sergeant. Sure, sure, you go do your thing, I'll lead this group.” the Battle Rabbit shook his head to try and clear it. Whatever was going on with that craven, incompetent idiot didn't matter right now.
“And you three? Any issues?”
“No, sir.” the helmeted newbies chorused, as disciplined and unimaginative as ever, even in a situation as dire as this... it was enough to make Hijiri wonder how much it would actually take to overcome whatever indoctrination the stormtroopers went through in their training...
“Good. Everyone inject yourselves with a couple of these, then let's move out.” Kroll said it as though it was nothing, as though casually sticking random liquids in your bloodstream without even first hearing what they did was a totally regular, sane thing to do.
“Uh... what are those, exactly?” Hijiri asked apprehensively as he eyed the small pile of syringes on the platter which Kroll had just swiped from that horror-movie medic-droid. They were filled with a bright orange liquid.
“Just a little something I had your bot here whip up for us. Fifty percent painkiller, fifty percent adrenaline shot. Don't worry about your wounds or fatigue; a couple of these'll make you feel right as rain.”
“Uh-huh... and why two, exactly?”
“Well, the recommended dosage is just one, but given what we're about to do, I figure we'll probably need a bit more.”
Hijiri sighed and shook his head, “No. No way. One each, at most. We're absolutely not listening to your dumbass opinion over a professional's when it comes to drugs. I'd rather not overdose on some weird chemical concoction of yours, thanks.”
The droid chose that moment to make a strange screeching noise and convulse violently as a few of its limbs dropped off and a small fire started up somewhere within the madness that was its body. It was then that they found out that Hijiri – in his exhausted state – had apparently been under the impression that medical machinery ought to come with a built-in fire extinguisher, as that was exactly what it used to put out the flames before they could spread.
A couple seconds passed in silence as they stared at it, fully expecting some other failure. When nothing more happened, though, Kroll spoke up again, “I get your point and all, corporal... but it was this droid that said we should only take one... and it doesn't exactly seem like the type to know best...”
“It was also this droid that made them in the first place. Should we even be putting any of that stuff in our bodies?”
Kroll sighed, “Uh, fine. One each.”
And so they – somewhat begrudgingly, in some cases – injected themselves with the former nobleman's strange cocktail, then moved out.
Kroll split off as soon as they'd left the room, heading away on his own... not back towards the exit, though. He was planning something, and it apparently didn't involve running for his life.
For their part, the others made their way quickly through the rest of the corridors and rooms between themselves and the indoor training section... not that they really need have hurried. The 'racks was large, but not nearly large enough that it would take half an hour to cross, and the medical bay was actually pretty close to their destination. It only took a couple minutes to reach the doors they sought.
Getting through them, on the other hand, was considerably more arduous and time-consuming.
Three huge bruisers – wearing battered white bowler hats and tattered white suits with grey patches sewn on to cover old tears in the fabric – blocked the entrance. Each of the three carried an SMG and crouched behind an enormous metal plate which seemed almost to have grown out of the ground... no doubt these objects were the handiwork of their Prime. Between them, the massive shields occupied the entire breadth of the hallway... the only way past would be to climb – or jump, in Hijiri's case – over them... something which would likely be pretty hard to accomplish whilst being shot at.
They simply hung back at the nearest corner for a while, discussing their next move in whispers... before realising that that did no good when the enemy Prime began taunting them by quoting much of what they'd said right back at them. Clearly, whatever audio recording devices were set up around the 'racks were pretty powerful.
Eventually they realised that they'd have no choice but to hit their foes head on.
When doing so, Hijiri reduced his weight as usual, and once again began building up energy in the blade he wielded, before charging forward whilst the others did their best to lay down some covering fire.
It... sort of worked. By the time all three goons had fallen, the Battle Rabbit had taken another couple gunshot wounds; one in the shoulder and one in the same leg as had been shot previously. Despite Kroll's painkiller thing, it did still hurt. So far as he could tell the drug seemed to be taking the edge off his pain and weariness (though in this latter case the main reason was likely more to do with the five hours of sleep) and not a whole lot else. It was better than nothing, though, he supposed... and he sure as hell wasn't going to admit that the fake sergeant may have been right about having to double the dosage they should take.
Once the others had crossed the strange, metal blockades, they shoved open the double doors and moved in, their blasters and Hijiri's katana at the ready.
“Finally.” their antagonist drawled.
His head was pounding. Ugh.
Someone was speaking... their voice crackling faintly? Oh. That guy on the speakers. Yeah, that's right, that's what it was they'd been doing; fighting for their lives against a bunch of vengeful gangsters who'd invaded the barracks.
He slowly sat up, wincing at the sharp pains that shot through his chest the moment he moved. Looking down, Hijiri saw that his jacket and shirt had been removed at some point and almost his entire torso was wrapped in bandages... most of which were by now more red than white.
Still, he hardly had room to complain; now that he could think more clearly, the Battle Rabbit knew he'd been so close to death that only a miracle should have been able to save him... even with urgent medical attention, surviving that would have been a long shot... so how...?
Wait! Yes! Jallus had forced him to summon that medical droid!
He must have done an amazing job for it to have managed so well.
Dragging his eyes off his own bloodied body, the Rabbit looked out across the-
“Holy fucking shit!” he shrieked, shoving himself backwards with enough force not only to fall but to topple the rickety hospital bed as well. He then screamed once more, though merely in pain this time as opposed to shock and terror. By falling – and bringing a bed down on top of himself – Hijiri had managed to reopen every one of his wounds, more or less.
“I see you're awake, Takanomiya.” Kroll's amused voice came from past... whatever that thing was. A mass of jagged, skeletal metal limbs, scalpels, needles, saws, drills, glowing lights, tubes and wires filled fully half the room... and as he watched a stream of sparks cascaded out of some part of it, the thing shuddered and trembled, and a few lights went out.
“Iechtelsteir, what the hell is this thing?” Hijiri demanded, still staring wide-eyed at the abomination as a claw-like appendage grabbed the fallen bed and dragged it back up into its proper position.
“This is your handiwork, corporal. You didn't exactly manage to replicate the medical droid. On the bright side, it was working really well to start with. Rather than treating everyone separately, it sorted us all out at once. Of course, it seems to have worn down pretty quickly, so not really the best long-term investment... still, we shouldn't complain; it's as a result of this thing that not one of us died... well, apart from those four who were already gone before you summoned it.”
“What? Four?” the Rabbit asked, suddenly filled with dread. They had lost one 'trooper not long after entering, and another two during the ambush... which meant someone else had died since.
“Yeah. You can relax, though; it's no one whose name you know.” Brandon was the one to make this statement. As was the case with the 'sergeant', the elf was completely hidden from his view behind the monstrous contraption which occupied the centre of the room.
Though he felt a little guilty for it, Hijiri was relieved. These generic Tier One reinforcement stormtroopers who'd barely finished basic training before being sent down to Tier Five meant a whole lot less to him than those he actually knew.
“I see. Okay then... and how long was I out?”
“Funny you should mention that,” Kroll said, a touch of humour in his voice, “we were actually just discussing it before you woke up. Right, Mr Villain?”
“Yeah.” growled the voice from the speaker system, “You lot have been in there for more than five hours now, and I'm getting really bored over here. So I've decided, if none of you make it to where I am in the next half hour then I'm coming to you. Good luck keeping all your unconscious guys safe in the middle of a fight.”
“Five hours? And now another half hour?” Hijiri asked incredulously, “... Why would you even give us that long? You had the perfect opportunity to kill us all.”
“Because you suck.” the man told him bluntly, “How am I supposed to enjoy my revenge if you just drop dead at my feet before I even get the chance to shoot you? And as for your backup here... well, it's not like they matter. You could have dozens of Secondaries all well rested, fully healed and equipped however you saw fit for all I care; it wouldn't do you the slightest bit of good against me.”
“Confident, isn't he?” Kroll asked cheerfully... then came walking round from behind the hideous robot which had been intended to be a medical droid, with Brandon in tow. The ex-noble's arm seemed to be fully functioning once again, though it was still bandaged, and for his part the technophilic elf had bandages around his head – where he'd lost an ear – and his shin, yet seemed similarly unimpaired by those injuries. Whatever the medical monstrosity had done for them, it seemed to have made a pretty good job of it.
“You heard the man, everyone.” the 'sergeant' announced, “Up and at 'em. Singh, Leben and a couple of our nameless mooks here are two injured to keep going. Nash and one more of our faceless companions are going to stand guard, while Takanomiya, Windvale, Reiner, Dodson and the three other 'troopers are going to head for the training section to keep this guy occupied... and I have a special mission for myself.”
Uproarious laughter could suddenly be heard from across the announcement system, “Hahaha, 'special mission' my ass! Your 'brave' leader here is leaving you all to die. Hah! Well, at least one of you Secondary fuckwits seems bright enough to realise how hopelessly outmatched you are.”
“No.” Kroll declared coldly, “I can't exactly delegate this task, since you're listening in on everything we say... but trust me, I'll be coming for you when I'm done, Prime or not.”
Their foe simply laughed again in response, before cutting his transmission.
“I'm asking you all to trust me here,” Kroll said to the others he'd called upon to leave the medical bay, who were slowly making their way into a rough group standing before him, “can you do that?”
“Do you even need to ask?” Brandon was the first to reply, not showing the slightest hesitation... barely even paying attention, actually; he had taken out his Dataverse Device and was casually flicking through Omnitwitter.
“Are you sure I can't be one of the two who get to stay behind?” Jallus droned in a dull monotone, showing a lack of interest to match the elf's... as he stood there waiting to march off to his probable death, he was calmly reading another of his trashy romance novels; this time it was a book with a picture of a buff, shirtless guy on the front, signed with the name 'Fabio'.
“No. We need all the elites we can get for this. Leon's only getting to stay because Singh hasn't regained consciousness yet,” here their leader glanced briefly across at Hijiri, who felt the swell of guilt in his chest once again and avoided meeting his eyes, “and we all know there's no way he'll be willing to leave her before then... so, Dodson? Corporal? Other guys? Any of you have anything you'd like to say?”
“No, sir!” answered Trevor forcefully, standing straight and rigid, his face set in a mask of determination. He looked almost like some handsome and heroic knight straight out of a fairytale... if such fairytale knights were in the habit of donning armour made from hardened, white plastic.
Hijiri gaped his way confusedly... disbelieving the evidence of his own senses. The coward was apparently utterly unafraid in the face of danger... what the hell was up with him now?
“Takanomiya?”
“Huh? Oh, sorry sergeant. Sure, sure, you go do your thing, I'll lead this group.” the Battle Rabbit shook his head to try and clear it. Whatever was going on with that craven, incompetent idiot didn't matter right now.
“And you three? Any issues?”
“No, sir.” the helmeted newbies chorused, as disciplined and unimaginative as ever, even in a situation as dire as this... it was enough to make Hijiri wonder how much it would actually take to overcome whatever indoctrination the stormtroopers went through in their training...
“Good. Everyone inject yourselves with a couple of these, then let's move out.” Kroll said it as though it was nothing, as though casually sticking random liquids in your bloodstream without even first hearing what they did was a totally regular, sane thing to do.
“Uh... what are those, exactly?” Hijiri asked apprehensively as he eyed the small pile of syringes on the platter which Kroll had just swiped from that horror-movie medic-droid. They were filled with a bright orange liquid.
“Just a little something I had your bot here whip up for us. Fifty percent painkiller, fifty percent adrenaline shot. Don't worry about your wounds or fatigue; a couple of these'll make you feel right as rain.”
“Uh-huh... and why two, exactly?”
“Well, the recommended dosage is just one, but given what we're about to do, I figure we'll probably need a bit more.”
Hijiri sighed and shook his head, “No. No way. One each, at most. We're absolutely not listening to your dumbass opinion over a professional's when it comes to drugs. I'd rather not overdose on some weird chemical concoction of yours, thanks.”
The droid chose that moment to make a strange screeching noise and convulse violently as a few of its limbs dropped off and a small fire started up somewhere within the madness that was its body. It was then that they found out that Hijiri – in his exhausted state – had apparently been under the impression that medical machinery ought to come with a built-in fire extinguisher, as that was exactly what it used to put out the flames before they could spread.
A couple seconds passed in silence as they stared at it, fully expecting some other failure. When nothing more happened, though, Kroll spoke up again, “I get your point and all, corporal... but it was this droid that said we should only take one... and it doesn't exactly seem like the type to know best...”
“It was also this droid that made them in the first place. Should we even be putting any of that stuff in our bodies?”
Kroll sighed, “Uh, fine. One each.”
And so they – somewhat begrudgingly, in some cases – injected themselves with the former nobleman's strange cocktail, then moved out.
Kroll split off as soon as they'd left the room, heading away on his own... not back towards the exit, though. He was planning something, and it apparently didn't involve running for his life.
For their part, the others made their way quickly through the rest of the corridors and rooms between themselves and the indoor training section... not that they really need have hurried. The 'racks was large, but not nearly large enough that it would take half an hour to cross, and the medical bay was actually pretty close to their destination. It only took a couple minutes to reach the doors they sought.
Getting through them, on the other hand, was considerably more arduous and time-consuming.
Three huge bruisers – wearing battered white bowler hats and tattered white suits with grey patches sewn on to cover old tears in the fabric – blocked the entrance. Each of the three carried an SMG and crouched behind an enormous metal plate which seemed almost to have grown out of the ground... no doubt these objects were the handiwork of their Prime. Between them, the massive shields occupied the entire breadth of the hallway... the only way past would be to climb – or jump, in Hijiri's case – over them... something which would likely be pretty hard to accomplish whilst being shot at.
They simply hung back at the nearest corner for a while, discussing their next move in whispers... before realising that that did no good when the enemy Prime began taunting them by quoting much of what they'd said right back at them. Clearly, whatever audio recording devices were set up around the 'racks were pretty powerful.
Eventually they realised that they'd have no choice but to hit their foes head on.
When doing so, Hijiri reduced his weight as usual, and once again began building up energy in the blade he wielded, before charging forward whilst the others did their best to lay down some covering fire.
It... sort of worked. By the time all three goons had fallen, the Battle Rabbit had taken another couple gunshot wounds; one in the shoulder and one in the same leg as had been shot previously. Despite Kroll's painkiller thing, it did still hurt. So far as he could tell the drug seemed to be taking the edge off his pain and weariness (though in this latter case the main reason was likely more to do with the five hours of sleep) and not a whole lot else. It was better than nothing, though, he supposed... and he sure as hell wasn't going to admit that the fake sergeant may have been right about having to double the dosage they should take.
Once the others had crossed the strange, metal blockades, they shoved open the double doors and moved in, their blasters and Hijiri's katana at the ready.
“Finally.” their antagonist drawled.
![[Image: Hijiri_Name_Sig.png]](https://image.ibb.co/k1H7Hd/Hijiri_Name_Sig.png)