2014-03-30:Deathmatch

Deathmatch
You only thought it was a game.
IC Date	March 30, 2014
IC Time	Evening
Players	Brandon, Vance, Elise, Misa, Lazarus
Location	Uberzone Laser Tag Arena

Begin Log

The scene: Disaster. Tragedy. Many of the familiar signs are there in abundance... while others, curiously, are entirely absent.

The first of the first responders are just now arriving, summoned by fragmentary and confused calls to 911, along with perhaps a handful of random passersby that would be shooed away if they had greater manpower on the scene. Never mind the laser tag arena proper; even as they wander into the well-lit Uberzone lobby and snack bar, the air is thick with the stench of the slaughterhouse, cut with the copper tang of freshly spilled blood. There are dark red splotches and burn marks here and there... but where are the actual bodies? There are none. At all.

Brandon was just passing by. Really. He'd had a drink and he promised his landlord that he wouldn't drive.. because he ended up in HIS front yard, arguing with a lawn gnome. He was on his way home. This just happened. Looks like something out of one of his books, so he hovers for the moment, making sure to stay out of everyone's way, but edging in closer every little bit.

Vance arrives on scene of the strangeness. He's got a uniform, even if it is unfamiliar, his ID is government issue, and his demeanor is all official and unquestionable authority as he walks up flagging down the nearest first responder "What's the situation here?"

A silver Chevrolet Impala arrives and slides to a precise halt in a parking space a short distance down the street. Elise steps out of it, taking a second to fix herself up and scan the street around her, a hand resting on her hip, jacket drawn back to expose a flash of gold badge at her belt. She was on duty, if working on something else unrelated, but given an event of this magnitude her presence is probably not surprising. She keeps quiet for now, approaching the building with crisp, brisk strides, taking the time to study the crowd on the street around her, and quickly assess the presence of law enforcement agents in the vicinity.

Most of the other responders are focused on untangling the situation at hand, fanning out in different directions and methodically sweeping the premises for any new evidence, any sign of which way the parties responsible took off. Because there's no way this much damage was caused by just one person, right? One middle-aged fellow with a brown mustache splits off to address Vance and Wormwood and Basilisk, in order of how Supposed to Be Here they look. "We're still working that out. The 911 calls made it out to be gang violence out of left field, but the scale of it... no, this looks more like domestic terrorism."

Vance nods and moves deeper into the scene looking around at the blood and burn marks tapping his shades as he begins looking around the area. He'll stop and crouch by objects and spots that attract his attention as he reaches into a pocket and dons blue rubber gloves so as not to taint the scene.

Brandon slinks in a little closer. He's looking around at just about everything, his hands kept carefully in his pockets. If there's an area that seems to be LESS protected, he'll edge that way if he can get clsoer.

Gang violence is within Elise's purview, at least. She does another sweep of the street outside, looking for anything out of the ordinary, then heads into the premises, displaying her badge and a mask of expressionless neutrality. This might be a reassuring display of professionalism, but on the cool blonde it also comes off as mildly off-putting. Her phone chimes subtly, and she draws it out, speaking into it. "Walker here. I'm at the scene. No. Not yet. Yes, Sir." as she speaks, bright blue eyes pan around the room, trying to make sense of it.

Misa arrives a bit late to find out what the hell that noise was, but apparently before the police have set up a line. Shemoves quickly to insinuate herself with the responders, trying to look like she belongs here... which having been an investigator isn't an entirely difficult act. No bodies, but blood smears. It hasn't been long so one side or the other is trying to hide evidence. She looks which way the blood smears are heading and tries to follow.

Lazarus comes walking into the scene with his hands slid into his pockets and a pair of black wrap around shades covering his gaze. He seems to be in a good enough mood, even if he's wearing what appears to be the exact same thing he wears every night. Having heard about something weird over here that supposedly just happened, or happened some hours ago, he pops up on the scene like he was in the neighborhood or something. He can walk fast! Even if he is slower than first responders and all that.

Picking out a pattern from the blood smears is tricky. Eventually, though, they point Misa over toward the darkened laser tag arena proper-- where things are just now going very badly wrong indeed. For everyone.

          "--oh shit, we got more hostiles--"
          "--screw heals, I'm going--"

Just out of sight, there's the sound of energy rifles powering up, one after the other. Not something one hears often in real life, but video gamers certainly know the style.

          "--the fuck?--"
          "--stand down, STAND DOWN--"

The guys with the energy rifles fired first. And second, and third. It's only when the screams have started up anew that anyone manages to locate and use a projectile weapon. Some of the first responders run or stagger back away from the arena floor, chased by humanoid figures clad from head to toe in glowing suits of green and blue power armor.

But that's not the weird part. Oh, no. The weird part? Is the giant floating neon letters that spell BONUS ROUND in Tahoma 768, repeated out loud by a disembodied baritone voice for good measure.

Vance straightens drawing his sidearm out of his jacket as he calls out to the first responders that are fleeing "Everyone past me! Get to hard cover!" then to himself "Device. Spin up combat gyroscopes and bring dynotherms to full power. Hostiles incoming. Combat engagement is go." as he begins to stride TOWARDS the sound of energy weapons. "Attention! Surrender immediately. This is your only warning."

Misa sputters a long string of loud curses in Mandarin while bolting for cover. She has no idea what the hell that sound was but she's not going to get caught without cover like the others. She kicks off her high heels and reaches around behind herself to pull a throwing knife from the small of her back. "If I get fired for stabbin friendlies..."

Lazarus does, in fact, go towards any hard cover available nearby so he can get his bearings. He's not exactly used to combat. He will, however, take the time to scope out the scene as he gets a at least a semi secure location. Anything will do really. Priorities are 1. Get out of sight. 2. Scope out the scene to identify potential hostiles, which are likely the ones with the glowing armor! And 3. Try to get behind something solid, preferably away from civilians. While he's at it, might as well turn on comms as well. These shades are nifty.

Elise lifts her gaze from the inspection of a nearby wall and turns towards the sound of energy weapons and screams. A thin crease sets on her brow, and lips draw into a tight line as walks towards the sounds. She reaches for her holster, draws, keeping her pistol aimed down. Ice blue eyes shift towards Vance for a moment, before turning her attention to her surroundings, walking around the lobby, swiftly moving past the snack bear in a methodical search for some sort of employees-only entrance to burst through.

What. The. Fuck. Brandon slinks a step inward, but only to bring himself to a bit of cover. Whatever that might be.

BONUS ROUND fades into thin air, only to be replaced by a series of holographic heads-up overlays here and there. Perhaps they mean something important, but the only immediately obvious bits are the labels hovering over each person's head. The guys in power armor have labels like Gl0ryH0und, B3rs3rk3r, L33r0y, and one in a red suit dubbed Bl00dnyte. He must be the leader. Most of the first responders are simply marked NPC, except for a few who have already collapsed from grievous burn wounds. Then there's Guest_82040, Guest_21061, Guest_61916, Guest_41488, and Guest_92581.

The guys in power armor focus their fire on the NPCs, whose numbers are quickly dwindling on account of being largely unarmed and unprepared. Bl00dnyte, while continuing to line up shots here and there, addresses the approaching Guest_82040 in an electronically filtered but otherwise human-sounding voice. "Sorry, dude, we already got a full group here. Don't worry, this'll all respawn once we're done, then they're all yours!" One of his teammates chimes in as well: "Yeah, this game is bad ass!"

Guest_92581 has no trouble spotting what she's looking for. Currently, it's taken the form of a glowing neon panel labeled DO YOU HAVE THE PASSWORD? with a keyboard underneath.

Brandon edges over that way toward 92581. "Let me try," he mutters, assuming he can even get there. "I've been here a few times." It's a lie. But at least he LOOKS like he knows what he's doing, right?

Password. Elise 'Guest_92581' stops in front of the glowing neon panel and gives it a flat, impassive stare. She reaches out with her left hand, fingertips hovering over the keyboard, but stops herself, draws her hand back, and turns her eyes to Brandon, briefly scanning him up and down. "You know the password?" she asks curtly. She's not blocking the way to the keys, at least.

Vance reaches into his coat and pulls out a small rod, depressing one in it lights up with a hum and he chucks it into the crowd of 'players' before suddenly the lights, devices and powered devices around the players spark spitting electricity and a crackle as the 'grenade' goes off.

Lazarus curses a little under his breath, then stands from his covered position to get a better luck at said assailants. Have to know at least something about what they are, right? He stands, then reaches up to tap the side of his shades once as he looks in the direction of the power armored gentlemen. He then begins to speak, apparently to himself, seeing as he's standing alone over there watching for the time being, in a muttering voice that is likely drowned out by weapons fire to most people.

Misa finally notices Vance standing out in the crowd as he tosses... something at teh players. Either way he's got their attention now, she tries to move quietly and use the chaos to stay out of sight while making a break for some of the arena's built up cover. She readies her knife, first glowing guy to come around the corner is going to have the worst or best night of his life.

"I know what it used to be," is Brandon's quiet reply. Fortunately, he's got most everyone else tuned out except for Elise there at the keypad. He takes a deep breath and lays his hands on the keyboard, running his fingers over the keys a time or two.

"Malfunction! Heads up!" The power armor guy closest to Vance's grenade wastes no time in tossing his energy rifle toward some of the NPCs, then turning and running the other direction at full tilt. A second later, it explodes. Then again, those NPCs looked like they were already dead or nearly so, so... Bl00dnyte, meanwhile, turns toward Vance and assumes a stock 'Really?' sort of posture. He's probably making the face inside his helmet, too. "Bit of friendly advice? You do not want to PVP with us. We're the number one clan for a reason!" A chofus of hurrahs goes up from his squadmates, along with pointing their rifles in Vance's direction in case he decides to not take their advice.

Lazarus stands fully from his cover, then reaches up to tap his shades again to scan his gaze around the room. As he does, his hands come up to slides the gloves from each other to slides them into his back pocket as he continues to speak, presumably still to himself. He looks calm, at least, so that may or may not be reassuring to the remainder of the living people in the area. He also goes about sliding those long sleeves up to his upper arms, apparently getting ready to actually do something or other. Not that anyone is paying attention to anything but the energy weapons and big guy over there.

Elise lets Brandon handle the keyboard for now, studying the way his fingers move over the keyboard. After a second, she looks away, and takes a few steps off to monitor the situation from her corner of the lobby. Back there, she may miss much of the events, and she at least seems unaware of any oddities in her immediate vicinity, but she listens and processes, and her jaw clenches as she turns back towards the man, a harder ring to her voice. "What is the password?"

And you know, he KNOWS better than to do this shit. In the heat of battle? Of ALL things? REALLY? This is a fucking emotionally charged situation. Brandon JERKS his hands back from the keyboard and you know what he does? You know how HE fixes the situation? He lifts a hand, curls it into a fist and BASHES at the keyboard - unless he's stopped, of course.

Misa hears the lingo from the big guy in red and knows now what she must do. She may not like it, but she knows it's going to buy survivors time... and let Vance do whatever he's doing. She moves to teh other end of the cover so Vance is out of view and blows a loud whistle before stepping out of cover, tugging her tank top down in the front. "Oh boys!" she chirps, giving the team a quick flash.

Elise stares at Brandon, unimpressed, but doesn't actually stop him. "I assume you don't know the password." she comments flatly, and starts walking back over, pistol in her hand, fixing her eyes on the glowing panel with a subtle tension of anticipation on her face.

Vance keeps an eye to make sure Misa's distraction works. Muscled tensed and prepared to engage them if any point their weapons at Misa. He calls out to the other pair "Any luck shutting this down?"

Fortunately, the clan does not in fact aggro on Vance-- well, L33r0y probably would, but he's still occupied with chasing down other targets. The unarmed NPCs are all down, the ones who do have sidearms are fighting back but starting to shout about running out of ammo. One of them has enough presence of mind to try calling for backup, only to be met with the static noise of a dead channel.

It's Misa's free shot, of all things, that throws some dissent into the ranks. One of the soldiers advances toward her, only to be held back by his buddy. "Oh, c'mon, this is basic trolling! There are no girls on the Internet!" "Fuck, you're right. Sweet skin, though, those would be some hot little tits in Are Ell."

Meanwhile, over by the override panel? Sorry, Brandon, .,n;lknln does not appear to be the correct unlock code. DO YOU HAVE THE PASSWORD? the display repeats.

Brandon has a Queensryche song stuck in his head now. How fucking awesome is THAT? He doesn't bash the keys afterall, just punches in a couple of things, tapping away like he actually knows what he's doing.

Vance shakes his head muttering "I HATE FPS Players." He pops his neck and rolls up his sleeve to check the display on his computer, he taps some buttons. Then softly to himself. "Device. Engage Target Calculations Protocol."

Elise's eyebrows descend in a milimetric frown aimed at Brandon. She looks over her shoulder towards the others, then eyes the display. "Please step back." she reaches out, one hand firmly assisting Brandon in moving out of the way of the control panel. Then, apparently, she decides the password is S&W Model 4006. Stepping in front of Brandon to block any ricochet with her body, she aims and discharges her firearm three times, twice into different locations on the glowing panel, once into the keyboard.

Misa figures that's something of a success at least, breaking team cohesion. "Tell ya what, last ona you guys standin I'll show where I got the skin!" she has no idea what the fuck she's saying, but hey she's a good liar and is more than willing to roll with it if she can get some more infighting. "Gat got tattoos too!" She keeps up a smile the entire time she talks, like nothing unsual at all is going on here.

Lazarus actually growls a little as he nods, still to himself, then steps past Vance to begin pummeling on the nearest power armor guy with his bare hands. Armor? Pfft. Whatever. Hopefully his apparent force is enough to at least hurt something past that metal green shit they're wearing.

Good try, Brandon. DO YOU HAVE TH-- well it's a moot point now. Alas, this does not cause a door to swing open or anything. On the up side, it doesn't prompt the squad to paste Elise, either.

Lazarus manages to stagger his target, which is actually kind of impressive given that he's bare-handed and the target is wearing friggin' power armor. Vance's sidearm is similarly effective, though the haymaker that follows it up might as well be a slap on the wrist; it must have hit a structural support. The squaddies take a couple of steps back, then start to shake it off and raise their energy rifles once again.

Bl00dnyte shakes his head. "I told you you didn't want to fight us. Of course, it's not fighting us that you need to worry about..." Reaching for his utility belt, he takes out a glowing red Batarang-shaped thingy and chucks it squarely toward Vance's chest, where it clamps into place with a metallic magnetic THUNK.

Vance dives into the fray with Lazarus, massive handgun roaring twice at targets but not quite connecting with his backhand. Seems shooting is his specialty as the shots are exacting and precise in their placement, he doesn't even look in the direction he's shooting. He shouts to call their attention to him "Bitches! I'm a one man raid and I hear your mothers drops fat lewt!"

Lazarus takes the staggered guy in power armor and punches him again, because apparently his fists are made of fucking adamantium or something. Take that, bad guy! I don't need no stinkin armor, especially if it doesn't do shit against these punches a perfectly 'normal' guy is throwing. Rawr!

Brandon has no fucking clue what to do at this point, but ducking and covering might be a good option. When Elise goes to town, Brandon ducks a little, covering his head, and stumbling back a few steps.

Elise lowers her gun and narrows her eyes slightly at the effect it had on the control panel. That wasn't very effective. She looks away from it, quickly scans the lobby for another likely point of access to the maintenance bowels of the building, but simultaneously begins moving towards the arena and the rogue FPS players, her brisk walking stride hastening. She takes in the scene, focuses on the players, and keeps coming in without saying a word, gun still aimed at the floor.

Misa rushes one of the grunts as she sees the other two moving into melee with people, just before she reaches her target she plants one foot and rotates on it, letting her running momentum carry on with her other leg, stuck out to the side catching the man's leg near the ankle in an attempt to take him to the ground. She attempts to grab the gun on the way down with both hand and plant it against her shoulder to wrench it out of his hand sby surprise.

So, when that thing clamps on to Vance, and then he promptly pulls it off again? Uh oh. That does not seem to be the response that they anticipated or hoped for. The squad covers for it decently enough, but they continue to fall back, continuing to restrict their potshots to the remaining NPCs as the PCs continue to get their blows in. "That's enough, guys," Bl00dnyte declares, "we'll get these guys in a followup round! Just get to the portal and let's move on to the next server." There's another electronic noise at that point, this one coming from somewhere further away.

Lazarus isn't letting this one guy he's been pounding on go, apparently. He continues to slam away at the poor guy in his armor, even as he begins to retreat. As he does, he looks over his shoulder and calls out to anyone nearby "Call another ambulance." considering those paramedics were likely slaughtered. If not, they're probably shaken up by the experience anyway. Hopefully he got the guy on the ground, hopefully.

Brandon is just staying the fuck out of the way at this point. He knows his strengths, he knows his weakness, and his one opportunity to shine fell through. So he finds him a nice, safe place, and he hides out. He'll take care of anything that comes his way.. IF there's anything to do

As the group begins to withdraw, Elise slows down her advance. Though she keeps an eye on the group, the tenor of the discussion makes it seem like they are leaving, and she focuses on the remaining 'NPCs', moving towards the ones still living to assist in moving them to cover, up to and including positioning herself in front of people as cover in case of potshots, while brusquely steering them out towards the exits.

Misa knows two things very well about fighting guys in armour, thing one your fists won't work on them. Thing two, they don't move very well. After having failed to get the rifle from her target, she instead focusses on getting too close for him to use it, relying on her flexibilty over her strength she slips in between his arms, turns on one foot while placing him in what looks like a hug, until the hug drags him over an outstretched foot. The grunts feet pop into the air as she straightens her leg. The man goes ass over teakettle and lands on his back while Misa pulls one arm tight to stomach as she drives her hip into the man's armpit and presses her ribs into his chest... on the plus side for him she's smooshing his helmet into her chest to try and hold his head immobilized.

Yeah, this fight isn't going so well for the squad, is it? They took care of most of the NPCs pretty quickly, but maybe the effort took more out of them than they counted on. "Crap. Man down, we got a man down over here!" "Two men! Where's that emergency teleport?" "I'm working on it, you know the transfer protocol's still a little fucked sometimes--" They do seem to get it worked out, though, because the guy that Lazarus is beating up and the other guy that Misa is holding down... just shimmer out of existence, leaving them respectively swinging at or pressing down against thin air.

At least they're not shooting anybody any more. This time.

Misa flops onto her ribs with a loud yelp of surprise as she slams into the ground. "Cao ni ma!" she exclaims before doing a well practiced kip-up to her feet before doing another foot sweep blindly. She doesn't know where this guy went or half of what the crap they were saying meant, she just knows the guy she had held down is gone. After a few more short moments of swinging blindly at nothing she stops. "Anyone alive?"

Lazarus looks like he's about to punch the living hell out of that guy, AGAIN. He does look composed, luckily. So that's always good. As the man simply disappears, he curses quite loudly in... Russian? Yep, that's Russian. He pulls back, then taps the side of his shades to scan the area again. "Chert poberi. Lets get these people medical attention." he says quickly before realizing, wait... Well, he IS medical attention. He's a doctor! He quickly rushes over to the injured people and starts to assist with getting them the hell out of here ASAP. After that, he'll go about treating them in a most doctorly fashion with whatever equipment he can find in the likely parked ambulance, until the other paramedics get here. NPCify me!

Oh, and? This time, the dead bodies actually stick around. Someone will have to clean those up. Along with the bloodstains from the ones that weren't there earlier.

Elise continues to assist people in moving to safety in an orderly fashion, though she is not particularly commanding, nor particularly friendly. She's also not very good at reassuring people with a familiar narrative of gang violence or terrorism, but she nonetheless attempts to maintain a facade of normality on the events.

Misa is possibly a good counterpoint to Elise, she can't help anyone medically, but she can evac anyone who can walk. More importantly she is VERY good with reassuring words to calm people with, a shoulder pat here, a compliment there, assurances that no one else is going to get hurt all around. She's scared and confused, but none of that shows. She's a bastion of calm.

Brandon can actually help with the cleanup. He moves out from his safe spot - and really, who can blame an unarmed, untrained person for taking cover - and helps to drag living folk up, stop spurty wounds, so on so forth.

---

End Log