10-25-2017, 02:26 PM
“Yo.” The blood-soaked Battle Rabbit said, reassuring himself that he would be reincarnated after a week when this moronic plan failed. He struck a 'cool' pose.
The assembled gangsters turned... and stared.
“Wh-what?” asked a fat man in a scruffy grey-on-white suit, similar to the one Kevin was fond of wearing. His jaw had dropped, along with those of many of his thugs. It was no surprise. They'd likely never seen anything this stupid in their lives... despite being part of a gang filled with men and women so idiotic that they'd actually thought it was a good idea to fire blindly in a room packed with their own crew.
He had to hand it to Kroll, at this rate they could probably tick 'Phase One: Recognition' off their to-do list in no time, since no one was likely to forget them in a hurry if they kept pulling ridiculous stunts like this... assuming they didn't all get themselves slaughtered in the process, of course, which was by no means assured... or 'remotely likely' for that matter...
Ugh... how in hell had it come to this?
***
Approximately Ten Minutes Earlier...
Hijiri swung open another door. This one led into a room with TVs lining one wall, a bar, and numerous comfortable seats and sofas. It stank of cigarettes... or... what was it the 'troopers had said those were called back in the Galactic Empire they (and Coruscant itself) hailed from...? Oh, yeah, 'deathsticks', that was it. As stupid a name as he'd ever heard, though he supposed that if you weren't remotely concerned with any sort of marketing strategy and were just looking for an accurate name then it was technically rather apt.
The room was completely deserted. Apparently even the bar staff here were just as willing to fight against the Empire as the rest of their criminal friends. He closed the door. It was possible that there might be something valuable in there somewhere, but it didn't look like any of it was immediately usable; he didn't exactly have time to go around extracting Omnilium from every remotely expensive thing in the building; right now they were looking for weapons, first and foremost...
Also, if he was to linger about in there for any length of time then one of the others might come in to help him search... and if that person happened to be Frank... well, the last thing they needed at a time like this was to have to struggle to drag him away from a large quantity of free booze.
Just as he was about to head into an adjacent room, though, they all heard gunfire from out beyond one of the doors. Bursting through, weapons drawn, they found themselves in another hallway, with a few more doors. Following the noise, they passed through another two doorways and down a short flight of stairs... the Rabbit realised he may have been underestimating the size of this place.
Before long, though, they saw the first bodies. Mostly Wolfpack goons, but with a couple of stormtroopers as well. Upon reaching a corner, Hijiri – being the fastest of them, and the only one capable of coming back from the dead – volunteered to poke his head around that corner and see what was up.
This next hall was much wider than the previous ones, and seemed like it might have been some sort of reception area. There were crude, furniture barricades on either side, and some fighters crouched behind them, whilst others hid through various doorways whilst they reloaded. For the moment, it seemed they'd come to another temporary ceasefire... though judging by all the corpses – mostly on the NSW's side, thankfully – both groups must have been here a while.
Ducking back around, he relayed his info to the others. They spent a little while discussing the matter in hushed tones... and by 'they', that is to say Hijiri, Kroll, Brandon and Priya. Leon simply followed her lead, Trevor was ignored and Frank just leaned back against a wall, removed his helmet, and started drinking again.
Ultimately, the plan Kroll settled on and the others agreed with reluctantly was... well... stupid, to put it bluntly. The first part involved Hijiri sitting down for three minutes to absorb the Omnilium from the soot which had stained the blood that now soaked his body. Not the blood itself, though, just the soot. He'd look more intimidating this way, the 'sergeant' assured him. Especially if he smiled... for some reason, the others seemed to think his smiles made him look mean... or 'like a goddamn psychopath', as Brandon so eloquently put it.
Whilst he was concentrating on that another brief gunfight broke out, and Kroll gave more whispered instructions to the others. Hijiri couldn't really tell what, though; manipulating Omnilium always seemed to require his full focus.
The next step in the plan was to summon seven pairs of sunglasses. This only took three or four minutes or so, since he summoned them all as a set, rather than individually. When he was done he saw that the others had removed their helmets already. Doing Kroll's bidding, they all dutifully put on their shades (and Priya let down her hair as well), then stepped out behind their enemies.
“Yo.” Hijiri said, as they all struck their poses.
“Wh-what...?” the man who seemed to be the leader of this group asked, before lapsing into silence and simply staring at them for a few seconds, almost as though he was too shocked by their stupidity to even speak. “Are you people actually braindead?”
“I am Kroll vor Iechtelsteir!” declared Kroll suddenly, then pushed his bangs out of his eyes, puffing out his chest and placing his hands on his hips. “I am a sergeant of the Empire and this is my elite team of stormtroopers...! Plus one Prime.”
From one of the nearby doorways a skinhead with a face full of piercings spoke up, “You swine really think just 'cause you got a fish that makes you some kinda bigshots? Let's just waste 'em, guys!”
Dropping out of the moronic pose, Hijiri turned to the ex-noble, “I told you this was a dumb idea.”
“No, it was a great- Dodson, what the hell are you doing!?” Hijiri turned and noticed that the others were all just standing around casually now... none of them were even pointing their blasters at the enemy. Trevor, however, was not standing. Hijiri's brow furrowed in confusion.
Somehow, from somewhere, the soldier from another universe had picked up the Japanese custom of dogeza, and was now kneeling down and bowing to their enemies... whilst apologising profusely and begging not to be killed. Dropping his scabbard, Hijiri used his now-free hand to facepalm, as their ostensible leader began ranting at the pitiful coward.
Frank took out his canteen again and started drinking. No one had removed their shades. They made quite the picture, to be sure.
“Quiet!” roared the fat man, pointing his gun – a Uzi – straight at Kroll's chest, “Now, if you lot want to live through the next three seconds, you'd better give us a damn fine reason not to gun ya all down right here and now.”
“What!?” it was the same skinhead as before, “Boss, are ya crazy!? Ya can't seriously be considerin' lettin' these bastards live!? Them just bein' here means they musta killed all the resta our guys already!”
Priya coughed loudly.
The leader, who had been about to respond to his goon – angrily, judging by his expression – turned to her instead and growled, “What is it?”
She remained silent, but Leon spoke up in her place. “Your gang includes women as well as men. Don't you think it's disrespectful to them to use a male-specific term like 'guys' to refer to your entire group?”
For a couple moments the assembled thugs simply stared at them in bemusement... as though wondering if it was actually possible for people to be this moronic. Then the silence was broken by a girl with a mohawk and the top half of her right ear missing as she burst into a fit of laughter.
Talking over her, their boss said, “Are you dumbasses seriously berating a criminal syndicate for not being politically correct? Really?”
Leon opened his mouth to speak at the same moment that Kroll snorted with suppressed laughter and Frank handed over his flask to one of the thugs – a woman with a vertical scar bisecting her lips – who took a swig from it. They seemed to be conversing in low tones while ignoring the other members of the two groups entirely. At least someone was enjoying themselves.
“What's so funny, huh?” rumbled a huge ogre of a man, who was just barely managing to keep his head below the top of their four-foot-high barricade, even though he was sitting on the ground.
“Hah. Sorry, sorry.” said Kroll, pretending to wipe away tears of laughter, “I just found it funny to hear your boss there call you a syndicate, that's all. I didn't mean to offend anyone.”
“What's so damn humorous about that, huh?” snarled the fat guy.
“Well, come on, it's just not true, is it? I mean sure, I guess you're pretty big in Northside, but compared to the Orc Mafia, the Hutt Mafia and the Westside Coalition... those three are some of the biggest players in Tier Five, so I guess you could call them criminal syndicates... but you lot? No offence, people, but you all couldn't even manage to take out a gang of teenage pyromaniacs... you're not exactly the most feared of organisations, y'know?”
Turning scarlet with rage, and practically slavering at the mouth, the boss guy didn't look too happy, “All right, that's it! It was a little entertaining at first, but I've had it with you lot! Die already!”
As though having been waiting for this moment all along, the thugs opened fire the instant the word 'die' left their boss' mouth.
Crackle. Spark. Pop.
“Hey, it works...! I mean, yeah. I knew this would happen all along. No surprises here.” Brandon said with a wide 'I'm-so-glad-I'm-not-dead' grin plastered to his face.
An energy shield of some kind which seemed to be infused with electrical energy had appeared in front of them just in time to deflect the lasers and bullets which would have turned them all into mincemeat otherwise. Brandon was holding a small cylinder with a red button at the top, connected by a black wire to the small plastoid backpack he wore, which was giving off a pale blue light of a similar colour to that of the forcefield...
As they continued to fire, though, Hijiri could see the light begin dimming noticeably, and it even flickered a couple times, “Get back!”
Following his lead, they all dashed around the corner. Frank was the first to speak. “Damn, I wish I'd had a little more warning before they started shooting; I left my flask with that chick...”
“Shut up and get ready to fire, this shield won't last long.” Kroll snapped, suddenly all business. The field had already withdrawn a little as Brandon had run back the couple metres to get around the corner, so some of the enemy had poured forward after them, and more would follow every second. Once the small generator in the technophilic elf's pack gave out, they'd be overwhelmed in moments. Due to the field's limitations, they couldn't fire out from behind it themselves, so they had no choice but simply to wait and take aim...
This entire plan was completely dependant on something utterly outside their control in order to succeed... they had to trust in the noobs. Luckily, that trust paid off. Just moments after their retreat tactical withdrawal around the corner, as the gangsters were leaving the safety of their barricade and sheltered doorways, the trap was sprung.
Davion's group had been notified by Kroll through their Communicators that they would be distracting the enemy, so they should attempt to close the distance between them as quietly as possible, then charge the barricade when fighting broke out.
These things they had done, and now did, respectively. Swarming over it in moments, the stormtrooper recruits and their lieutenant opened fire on the unsuspecting mass of goons.
Yes, this entire plan had hinged on a) one of Brandon's ridiculous inventions actually functioning as it was supposed to, and b) the NSW thugs being dumb enough to give them their complete and undivided attention despite knowing that there were more stormtroopers behind the other barricade several metres from their position. To call it optimistic would have been a massive understatement.
If they were going to go ahead with this whole 'pretend Kroll is in charge' thing, then they'd definitely need to have a talk about strategy at some point; that guy was really going to need to improve the quality of his plans before he got them all killed.
With another push of the button, Brandon's shield deactivated, and they all began firing upon the now-panicked foes they faced. Between Davion's own training regimen and the one they'd been undergoing with Hijiri and Sarah, the veterans had improved significantly over the last week; even Trevor was managing to land some shots, and he hadn't hit an ally even once so far!
From that point on, despite the originally greater numbers on the Wolfpack side, the battle was all but over. After clearing those coming after them, the veterans rounded the corner – cautiously, at first – and began targeting the others... and those gangsters soon came to realise that a grinning, blood-soaked maniac armed with a katana looks way more intimidating when he's standing right next to you, sword raised, than when he's a few metres away, striking a pose.
Once the fat man and other senior personnel had fallen (i.e. after, like, ten seconds or so) the slaughter ended almost immediately, with the remaining thugs begrudgingly dropping their weapons and raising their hands in the air. The stormtroopers may not have been the best soldiers in existence – they weren't a patch on Space Marines, for one thing – but they were still trained and disciplined combatants, and when they weren't fooling around like a bunch of idiots, they were easily more than a match for these low level street gangs.
As the others started pulling sets of handcuffs from their belts or, in the cases of those who had bothered wearing them (including every member of Kroll's group bar Hijiri), their backpacks, and going around cuffing their new prisoners, Frank knelt down by one of the fallen gangsters, plucked the metal flask from her hand, and sighed, “Damn, I was really hoping we could keep her.”
“What?” snapped Leon, who had happened to be roughly shackling a nearby thug, “These people are criminals, not pets. This isn't like with Watt and Fischer; this lot have nothing to offer us. We're hardly going to circumvent imperial justice just 'cause you wanna chat up some girl you met five minutes ago.”
“Heh. Yeah, I guess not.” he ruffled the woman's blonde hair fondly – ignoring Leon's eyeroll – and got to his feet, then drained the rest of the canteen's contents, stuffed it into his pack, grabbed some 'cuffs, and began helping out.
Once that business was taken care of, and they'd searched the building thoroughly to make sure there were no more thugs lurking around, they were all about to head back to the cramped vans when Kroll pointed out that there wasn't actually enough space in there for them all as well as the prisoners... in fact, there had barely been enough space even without them. He then suggested that they should remedy this issue by forming a convoy of sorts; one van could take the lead and the other bring up the rear whilst in between the prisoners could walk, herded along by the squad's veteran stormtroopers.
Davion agreed easily enough; having spent the whole mission with the recruits, he could tell easily enough that they'd all appreciate a break. Honestly, if it had been up to him he never even would have wanted recruits down here; they weren't ready for this level of danger.
Before they left, there were a few minor changes that had to be made. First, since they wanted their captives staying together rather than rushing off into the crowds at the first possible opportunity, Kroll ordered Hijiri to summon a length of chain with which they could tie the 'cuffs of the prisoners together, so that they were all stuck in one large mob. Davion told him to shut up... then he ordered Hijiri to do the same thing himself.
Second, since it wouldn't look very professional for the stormtroopers to be recognised driving around in crappy old vans, at Kroll's 'request', Hijiri gave them a new paint job and made them appear good as new. It wasn't all that hard, since they had actually been almost as good as new; they'd simply been designed to appear like they were almost falling apart. Both vans still had tinted windows, but were now gleaming white and had the letters 'EPD' emblazoned in a bold, black font on either side.
Thirdly and finally, the Battle Rabbit turned all the blood and other grime which covered himself and his compatriots into Omnilium, absorbing it within his body. They now also looked good as new. After having waited almost half an hour by the time they were done with their 'make-over' as the lieutenant insisted upon calling it, Davion was in a hurry to be getting back; he didn't like simply loitering here, where more foes could show up at any moment.
He was so preoccupied, in fact, that he didn't even notice that his veterans had chosen to stash their helmets in one of the vans, rather than put them back on, and that they were all still wearing their 'cool' sunglasses instead. Happily, he also overlooked how bulging full their plastoid backpacks had all been ever since they were sent to search the building following the end of the fight...
The journey back was pretty slow, as walking meant that they could travel no faster than the slowest of their prisoners... not that it would have gone all that much more quickly if they'd stuffed them into vehicles, though; Tier Five was just as congested as ever.
Despite the long time it took, Hijiri couldn't help but feel that it might actually have been a little productive. Many people saw them, no doubt taking note that the stormtroopers were finally doing their jobs around here. Some even approached and spoke to them, which gave the group a good opportunity to emphasise their own humanity; faceless, imposing helmets may be good for inspiring fear in enemies, but down here on Tier Five, there were just too many of those for that to really be a viable tactic. The only way they stood any chance at properly performing their jobs was with public approval; if the citizens were as scared of law enforcement as they were of the gangs then no matter how many goons they killed or captured, the Empire would never manage to properly secure this tier.
Once they got back and had locked their captives securely in the holding cells, Davion gave them all the rest of the day off as a reward for living through this latest raid. When night fell, though, Kroll was not so generous, and so, as usual, Sarah and Kevin were released from their cells and the veterans got right back to training.
They had survived in large part thanks to Brandon's gadgets working exactly as intended... which – given how rare an occurrence that was – was not a position any of them other than the elf was ever keen to be in again. If they hoped to avoid such a risk, though, they had a lot of work ahead of them.
The assembled gangsters turned... and stared.
“Wh-what?” asked a fat man in a scruffy grey-on-white suit, similar to the one Kevin was fond of wearing. His jaw had dropped, along with those of many of his thugs. It was no surprise. They'd likely never seen anything this stupid in their lives... despite being part of a gang filled with men and women so idiotic that they'd actually thought it was a good idea to fire blindly in a room packed with their own crew.
He had to hand it to Kroll, at this rate they could probably tick 'Phase One: Recognition' off their to-do list in no time, since no one was likely to forget them in a hurry if they kept pulling ridiculous stunts like this... assuming they didn't all get themselves slaughtered in the process, of course, which was by no means assured... or 'remotely likely' for that matter...
Ugh... how in hell had it come to this?
***
Approximately Ten Minutes Earlier...
Hijiri swung open another door. This one led into a room with TVs lining one wall, a bar, and numerous comfortable seats and sofas. It stank of cigarettes... or... what was it the 'troopers had said those were called back in the Galactic Empire they (and Coruscant itself) hailed from...? Oh, yeah, 'deathsticks', that was it. As stupid a name as he'd ever heard, though he supposed that if you weren't remotely concerned with any sort of marketing strategy and were just looking for an accurate name then it was technically rather apt.
The room was completely deserted. Apparently even the bar staff here were just as willing to fight against the Empire as the rest of their criminal friends. He closed the door. It was possible that there might be something valuable in there somewhere, but it didn't look like any of it was immediately usable; he didn't exactly have time to go around extracting Omnilium from every remotely expensive thing in the building; right now they were looking for weapons, first and foremost...
Also, if he was to linger about in there for any length of time then one of the others might come in to help him search... and if that person happened to be Frank... well, the last thing they needed at a time like this was to have to struggle to drag him away from a large quantity of free booze.
Just as he was about to head into an adjacent room, though, they all heard gunfire from out beyond one of the doors. Bursting through, weapons drawn, they found themselves in another hallway, with a few more doors. Following the noise, they passed through another two doorways and down a short flight of stairs... the Rabbit realised he may have been underestimating the size of this place.
Before long, though, they saw the first bodies. Mostly Wolfpack goons, but with a couple of stormtroopers as well. Upon reaching a corner, Hijiri – being the fastest of them, and the only one capable of coming back from the dead – volunteered to poke his head around that corner and see what was up.
This next hall was much wider than the previous ones, and seemed like it might have been some sort of reception area. There were crude, furniture barricades on either side, and some fighters crouched behind them, whilst others hid through various doorways whilst they reloaded. For the moment, it seemed they'd come to another temporary ceasefire... though judging by all the corpses – mostly on the NSW's side, thankfully – both groups must have been here a while.
Ducking back around, he relayed his info to the others. They spent a little while discussing the matter in hushed tones... and by 'they', that is to say Hijiri, Kroll, Brandon and Priya. Leon simply followed her lead, Trevor was ignored and Frank just leaned back against a wall, removed his helmet, and started drinking again.
Ultimately, the plan Kroll settled on and the others agreed with reluctantly was... well... stupid, to put it bluntly. The first part involved Hijiri sitting down for three minutes to absorb the Omnilium from the soot which had stained the blood that now soaked his body. Not the blood itself, though, just the soot. He'd look more intimidating this way, the 'sergeant' assured him. Especially if he smiled... for some reason, the others seemed to think his smiles made him look mean... or 'like a goddamn psychopath', as Brandon so eloquently put it.
Whilst he was concentrating on that another brief gunfight broke out, and Kroll gave more whispered instructions to the others. Hijiri couldn't really tell what, though; manipulating Omnilium always seemed to require his full focus.
The next step in the plan was to summon seven pairs of sunglasses. This only took three or four minutes or so, since he summoned them all as a set, rather than individually. When he was done he saw that the others had removed their helmets already. Doing Kroll's bidding, they all dutifully put on their shades (and Priya let down her hair as well), then stepped out behind their enemies.
“Yo.” Hijiri said, as they all struck their poses.
“Wh-what...?” the man who seemed to be the leader of this group asked, before lapsing into silence and simply staring at them for a few seconds, almost as though he was too shocked by their stupidity to even speak. “Are you people actually braindead?”
“I am Kroll vor Iechtelsteir!” declared Kroll suddenly, then pushed his bangs out of his eyes, puffing out his chest and placing his hands on his hips. “I am a sergeant of the Empire and this is my elite team of stormtroopers...! Plus one Prime.”
From one of the nearby doorways a skinhead with a face full of piercings spoke up, “You swine really think just 'cause you got a fish that makes you some kinda bigshots? Let's just waste 'em, guys!”
Dropping out of the moronic pose, Hijiri turned to the ex-noble, “I told you this was a dumb idea.”
“No, it was a great- Dodson, what the hell are you doing!?” Hijiri turned and noticed that the others were all just standing around casually now... none of them were even pointing their blasters at the enemy. Trevor, however, was not standing. Hijiri's brow furrowed in confusion.
Somehow, from somewhere, the soldier from another universe had picked up the Japanese custom of dogeza, and was now kneeling down and bowing to their enemies... whilst apologising profusely and begging not to be killed. Dropping his scabbard, Hijiri used his now-free hand to facepalm, as their ostensible leader began ranting at the pitiful coward.
Frank took out his canteen again and started drinking. No one had removed their shades. They made quite the picture, to be sure.
“Quiet!” roared the fat man, pointing his gun – a Uzi – straight at Kroll's chest, “Now, if you lot want to live through the next three seconds, you'd better give us a damn fine reason not to gun ya all down right here and now.”
“What!?” it was the same skinhead as before, “Boss, are ya crazy!? Ya can't seriously be considerin' lettin' these bastards live!? Them just bein' here means they musta killed all the resta our guys already!”
Priya coughed loudly.
The leader, who had been about to respond to his goon – angrily, judging by his expression – turned to her instead and growled, “What is it?”
She remained silent, but Leon spoke up in her place. “Your gang includes women as well as men. Don't you think it's disrespectful to them to use a male-specific term like 'guys' to refer to your entire group?”
For a couple moments the assembled thugs simply stared at them in bemusement... as though wondering if it was actually possible for people to be this moronic. Then the silence was broken by a girl with a mohawk and the top half of her right ear missing as she burst into a fit of laughter.
Talking over her, their boss said, “Are you dumbasses seriously berating a criminal syndicate for not being politically correct? Really?”
Leon opened his mouth to speak at the same moment that Kroll snorted with suppressed laughter and Frank handed over his flask to one of the thugs – a woman with a vertical scar bisecting her lips – who took a swig from it. They seemed to be conversing in low tones while ignoring the other members of the two groups entirely. At least someone was enjoying themselves.
“What's so funny, huh?” rumbled a huge ogre of a man, who was just barely managing to keep his head below the top of their four-foot-high barricade, even though he was sitting on the ground.
“Hah. Sorry, sorry.” said Kroll, pretending to wipe away tears of laughter, “I just found it funny to hear your boss there call you a syndicate, that's all. I didn't mean to offend anyone.”
“What's so damn humorous about that, huh?” snarled the fat guy.
“Well, come on, it's just not true, is it? I mean sure, I guess you're pretty big in Northside, but compared to the Orc Mafia, the Hutt Mafia and the Westside Coalition... those three are some of the biggest players in Tier Five, so I guess you could call them criminal syndicates... but you lot? No offence, people, but you all couldn't even manage to take out a gang of teenage pyromaniacs... you're not exactly the most feared of organisations, y'know?”
Turning scarlet with rage, and practically slavering at the mouth, the boss guy didn't look too happy, “All right, that's it! It was a little entertaining at first, but I've had it with you lot! Die already!”
As though having been waiting for this moment all along, the thugs opened fire the instant the word 'die' left their boss' mouth.
Crackle. Spark. Pop.
“Hey, it works...! I mean, yeah. I knew this would happen all along. No surprises here.” Brandon said with a wide 'I'm-so-glad-I'm-not-dead' grin plastered to his face.
An energy shield of some kind which seemed to be infused with electrical energy had appeared in front of them just in time to deflect the lasers and bullets which would have turned them all into mincemeat otherwise. Brandon was holding a small cylinder with a red button at the top, connected by a black wire to the small plastoid backpack he wore, which was giving off a pale blue light of a similar colour to that of the forcefield...
As they continued to fire, though, Hijiri could see the light begin dimming noticeably, and it even flickered a couple times, “Get back!”
Following his lead, they all dashed around the corner. Frank was the first to speak. “Damn, I wish I'd had a little more warning before they started shooting; I left my flask with that chick...”
“Shut up and get ready to fire, this shield won't last long.” Kroll snapped, suddenly all business. The field had already withdrawn a little as Brandon had run back the couple metres to get around the corner, so some of the enemy had poured forward after them, and more would follow every second. Once the small generator in the technophilic elf's pack gave out, they'd be overwhelmed in moments. Due to the field's limitations, they couldn't fire out from behind it themselves, so they had no choice but simply to wait and take aim...
This entire plan was completely dependant on something utterly outside their control in order to succeed... they had to trust in the noobs. Luckily, that trust paid off. Just moments after their retreat tactical withdrawal around the corner, as the gangsters were leaving the safety of their barricade and sheltered doorways, the trap was sprung.
Davion's group had been notified by Kroll through their Communicators that they would be distracting the enemy, so they should attempt to close the distance between them as quietly as possible, then charge the barricade when fighting broke out.
These things they had done, and now did, respectively. Swarming over it in moments, the stormtrooper recruits and their lieutenant opened fire on the unsuspecting mass of goons.
Yes, this entire plan had hinged on a) one of Brandon's ridiculous inventions actually functioning as it was supposed to, and b) the NSW thugs being dumb enough to give them their complete and undivided attention despite knowing that there were more stormtroopers behind the other barricade several metres from their position. To call it optimistic would have been a massive understatement.
If they were going to go ahead with this whole 'pretend Kroll is in charge' thing, then they'd definitely need to have a talk about strategy at some point; that guy was really going to need to improve the quality of his plans before he got them all killed.
With another push of the button, Brandon's shield deactivated, and they all began firing upon the now-panicked foes they faced. Between Davion's own training regimen and the one they'd been undergoing with Hijiri and Sarah, the veterans had improved significantly over the last week; even Trevor was managing to land some shots, and he hadn't hit an ally even once so far!
From that point on, despite the originally greater numbers on the Wolfpack side, the battle was all but over. After clearing those coming after them, the veterans rounded the corner – cautiously, at first – and began targeting the others... and those gangsters soon came to realise that a grinning, blood-soaked maniac armed with a katana looks way more intimidating when he's standing right next to you, sword raised, than when he's a few metres away, striking a pose.
Once the fat man and other senior personnel had fallen (i.e. after, like, ten seconds or so) the slaughter ended almost immediately, with the remaining thugs begrudgingly dropping their weapons and raising their hands in the air. The stormtroopers may not have been the best soldiers in existence – they weren't a patch on Space Marines, for one thing – but they were still trained and disciplined combatants, and when they weren't fooling around like a bunch of idiots, they were easily more than a match for these low level street gangs.
As the others started pulling sets of handcuffs from their belts or, in the cases of those who had bothered wearing them (including every member of Kroll's group bar Hijiri), their backpacks, and going around cuffing their new prisoners, Frank knelt down by one of the fallen gangsters, plucked the metal flask from her hand, and sighed, “Damn, I was really hoping we could keep her.”
“What?” snapped Leon, who had happened to be roughly shackling a nearby thug, “These people are criminals, not pets. This isn't like with Watt and Fischer; this lot have nothing to offer us. We're hardly going to circumvent imperial justice just 'cause you wanna chat up some girl you met five minutes ago.”
“Heh. Yeah, I guess not.” he ruffled the woman's blonde hair fondly – ignoring Leon's eyeroll – and got to his feet, then drained the rest of the canteen's contents, stuffed it into his pack, grabbed some 'cuffs, and began helping out.
Once that business was taken care of, and they'd searched the building thoroughly to make sure there were no more thugs lurking around, they were all about to head back to the cramped vans when Kroll pointed out that there wasn't actually enough space in there for them all as well as the prisoners... in fact, there had barely been enough space even without them. He then suggested that they should remedy this issue by forming a convoy of sorts; one van could take the lead and the other bring up the rear whilst in between the prisoners could walk, herded along by the squad's veteran stormtroopers.
Davion agreed easily enough; having spent the whole mission with the recruits, he could tell easily enough that they'd all appreciate a break. Honestly, if it had been up to him he never even would have wanted recruits down here; they weren't ready for this level of danger.
Before they left, there were a few minor changes that had to be made. First, since they wanted their captives staying together rather than rushing off into the crowds at the first possible opportunity, Kroll ordered Hijiri to summon a length of chain with which they could tie the 'cuffs of the prisoners together, so that they were all stuck in one large mob. Davion told him to shut up... then he ordered Hijiri to do the same thing himself.
Second, since it wouldn't look very professional for the stormtroopers to be recognised driving around in crappy old vans, at Kroll's 'request', Hijiri gave them a new paint job and made them appear good as new. It wasn't all that hard, since they had actually been almost as good as new; they'd simply been designed to appear like they were almost falling apart. Both vans still had tinted windows, but were now gleaming white and had the letters 'EPD' emblazoned in a bold, black font on either side.
Thirdly and finally, the Battle Rabbit turned all the blood and other grime which covered himself and his compatriots into Omnilium, absorbing it within his body. They now also looked good as new. After having waited almost half an hour by the time they were done with their 'make-over' as the lieutenant insisted upon calling it, Davion was in a hurry to be getting back; he didn't like simply loitering here, where more foes could show up at any moment.
He was so preoccupied, in fact, that he didn't even notice that his veterans had chosen to stash their helmets in one of the vans, rather than put them back on, and that they were all still wearing their 'cool' sunglasses instead. Happily, he also overlooked how bulging full their plastoid backpacks had all been ever since they were sent to search the building following the end of the fight...
The journey back was pretty slow, as walking meant that they could travel no faster than the slowest of their prisoners... not that it would have gone all that much more quickly if they'd stuffed them into vehicles, though; Tier Five was just as congested as ever.
Despite the long time it took, Hijiri couldn't help but feel that it might actually have been a little productive. Many people saw them, no doubt taking note that the stormtroopers were finally doing their jobs around here. Some even approached and spoke to them, which gave the group a good opportunity to emphasise their own humanity; faceless, imposing helmets may be good for inspiring fear in enemies, but down here on Tier Five, there were just too many of those for that to really be a viable tactic. The only way they stood any chance at properly performing their jobs was with public approval; if the citizens were as scared of law enforcement as they were of the gangs then no matter how many goons they killed or captured, the Empire would never manage to properly secure this tier.
Once they got back and had locked their captives securely in the holding cells, Davion gave them all the rest of the day off as a reward for living through this latest raid. When night fell, though, Kroll was not so generous, and so, as usual, Sarah and Kevin were released from their cells and the veterans got right back to training.
They had survived in large part thanks to Brandon's gadgets working exactly as intended... which – given how rare an occurrence that was – was not a position any of them other than the elf was ever keen to be in again. If they hoped to avoid such a risk, though, they had a lot of work ahead of them.
![[Image: Hijiri_Name_Sig.png]](https://image.ibb.co/k1H7Hd/Hijiri_Name_Sig.png)