Door 2 - The Wasteland

[NativeForeigner]

Maria put her hand over her mouth and blushed. She let out an embarrassed giggle.
"Ow, I'm so sowy! I pro'a'ly shoulda done 'at firs', 'at I shoulda. Terr'bly sowy I am."
She then took her hands back and bent down to untie the two, loosening and untangling the many knots with light flicks of the wrists. "Terr'bly sowy I am, I am." she apologized again, "If I 'ad donis en th' firs' pla' ya prolly woulda trusted meh mo', enit? Thar we go, all done no' givem wrist a goo' rub."
She stood once more and gave the two a moment to stretch.
"I 'pose it'd be sillay o' me to 'old ma 'ands out like tha' agai', yeah? So just grabbon en Les ge' ou'a 'ere ef ya well."  

[Alastriona Estelle]

Elian did as Maria had said they should do. Immediately, she rubbed her wrists and slowly started to stretch her sore body, wincing as her tired joints ached in protest to her movement. It would take a little bit for her and Lyon to move fully, which gave her enough time to ask more questions.

"He has a point, I'd really like to get our possessions back, if that's possible. And would you mind telling us exactly what's going on? I know you said we should learn for ourselves, but if we're going to help you, we need to know what's happening, don't we?" Elian explained, slowly stretching her legs as she spoke. It felt so good to move freely again, the restraints having made her quite sore.

"Lyon, are you alright?" she said softly back to him, offering down a hand as she smiled.  

[NativeForeigner]

"Jus' be a 'lil patient no', I got ewer t'ings righ' 'ere." Maria said, reaching behind her back with both of her hands.
A moment went by as she seemed to search for something. She then produced two forest green cloth sacks from behind her back, one in each hand.
It wasn't apparent where she had gotten them from or how she even managed to keep them hidden from sight behind her back, they were both quite large.

She set them down in front of Elian and Lyon.

"Ther' ya are, all righ' as raainn, et is. Ever'thin' ewe brough' wichya, no worries, et's all fin', et is. Go 'head en check fer ewerself."

Maria simply smiled and shook her head, "Deary, lik' I sed, I can' tell ya right no', I can'. All ewe nee' ta kno' for no' es tha' ewer doin' us a great deed, ewe are. I pro'a'ly coul'n't tell ya exa'tly wha's goin' anyway, i's hard ta esplain, tha' et is."  

[Just an Innocent Face]

Shikyo could clearly see that the remainder of his marks were across a large gorge...There was a bridge but it seemed to have been damaged as the robotic wreck was flung into the chasm...What about that boulder Smith was toting around? Was it wide enough to allow an alternate route? No thats too obvious, they needed a way to flank the enemy, but how...

A long stone? A plank? a rope? In theory a makeshift ramp could be made and driven over to fly across the hole in one of the jeeps and begin laying down fire on the entrenched enemies with a mounted chain gun.  

[Magroodles]

To Lyon's surprise Maria didn't seem like such a bad girl. She seemed to sweet to say the least. And as she went to help them she did it so he wouldn't feel the need to flinch away from the girl at all. Instead, he let her come forth and untie him. As the ropes fell off his hands and body he found himself stretching out his wrists and giving them a good rubdown even before she told them to do such things.

After a while of sitting there, tied up and all, Lyon had started to go numb and was uncomfortable with the position that he was in. His eyes followed Elian, though, as she got to her feet and stretched her legs out. He was about to get up on his own when a hand made its way down and in front of it. Blinking a bit, he looked at it and then followed the arm back to the person behind it. Smiling down at him Elian had offered to help him up. He gave her a smile back in return and held onto her hand allowing her to help him get up.

"I'm quite fine, thank you. I hope you're doing well though," he said as he now moved away a bit to give him room to stretch out his legs. He hopped on each one a little bit to get the feeling back in them, but he knew that would still take a minute. The blood still had to flow down to his feet again after all.

When Maria spoke up again she mentioned that she had their positions with her. Lyon looked up from his legs with a confused expression upon his face. No she didn't, she did not have anything that he saw. But all the same she reached out from behind her back and puled out two forest green cloth sacks. Lyon, seeing this happen, couldn't help but flinch back a little startled as to what she had just done.

She placed the bags in front of them and Lyon couldn't help but to look at it as if it was about to jump at him and try to eat him. But all the same, she hasn't tried anything against them, yet, so he still figured it would be best to at least check it out. Slowly she bent down and grabbed an edge of the bag. He drew it closer to him and opened up.

You would be amazed at how fast his eyes could lighten up. Lyon looked like a young boy once more opening a gift for his birthday that was just what he was looking for. Out of the cloth bag he pulled out a navy blue case. Quickly he unzipped the case and opened it up. And before you could say that he was the happiest he could be, he lit up even more. Out of the blue case he pulled a violin, in which he proceeded to pluck the strings. First he started with the A and tuned it before moving to the other three strings. Once it was in tune he placed it back down in the case and zipped it up.

"Thank you," he said in a soft tone, but you could tell that he was completely happy. He proceeded to use the straps on the case and lift it onto his back. There it stayed as if it were some sort of backpack. Then he reached down to the bag again and pulled out the smaller items that he just stuck in his pockets.

The boy's soft eyes moved over to Elian as he found himself packed and ready to go. Another small smile made it upon his face, but it was one of the smiles that someone could tell that he was happy to the fullest extent. He then glanced to the bag, a little amazed that the green sacks held their possessions, but it made him so happy.

"Your stuff is there too, right?"  

[SirBayer]

Smith jumped back from the thing, reloading as rapidly as he could. The five empty rounds dropped out, and a five-round moon clip appeared in his hand; once it was jammed into his revolver, he snapped the gun shut again and fired three more times into the pipes, hoping to sever another one.

ROUS: 3/?
M82: 10/?  

[NativeForeigner]

Gwen saw no opening to fire, the remaining soldiers were simply too far away for her to aim accurately. Cindy paused to speak to Gwen and Smith's men.

"Everybody head around the back, there's a garage there you can use to flank the enemy from inside." she told them. She pointed to one of Smith's higher-ranking soldiers, "You're in charge of the squad until you rejoin with the rest of us.
The soldier nodded and ordered everyone to move out.

Mark chimed in, "Get up here, Gwen, we're gonna teach you how to operate a sniper rifle."

*

Unfortunately for Shikyo, none of the jeeps actually had a mounted gun, they had Smith for that. However, it didn't seem that it would be too difficult to cross the rather deep trench, there was plenty of debris around and the boulder used to destroy the bridge could probably be climbed over or aroun to get to the other side. Or perhaps there was another way a little further around the factory that would also allow for some flanking.

*

Maria waited patiently for Elian to gather her things.

*

The Wreck had almost managed to climb out of the trench by the time Smith had reloaded. Smith's first shot caused the Wreck's left eye to burst, followed by another angry growl from the machine. Before Smith could get his other two shots out, the Wreck grabbed hold of the ground with both of it's hands and vaulted itself out of the ditch, causing Smith to backpedal to avoid being crushed. Or rather, in Smith's case, bumped aside.

Shikyo's magazine: 3/12
Orion's magazine: 12/12 (HG)/ 9/12 (rifle) Battery life: 90%
Juliet's magazine: 0/24 (SMG) / 12 (HG)
Alastair's magazine: 17/36 (AR) | 12/12 (HG)
Gwen's magazine: 10/12 (HG)
ROUS: 3/5
M82: 10/12
Smith's Men (1): 5
Smith's Men (2): 7
Enemy soldiers (2): 7, 3 injured [02], 1 medic [01], 1 Wreck (Punctured pipe, destroyed left eye)  

[SirBayer]

Smith roared in surprise and jumped back, then shoved his revolver into its holster before drawing the massive hammer by his side and swinging with all his might at the thing's face, adding an inane roar to his mighty, might strike.

---

Juliet nodded. "Is there cover back there do you think?" she asked. "Don't want to be trying to fight through the open."  

[Elesariin]

Gwen quickly clicked on the safety and nodded. "Be right up." Then she stood--which was more difficult than it sounded, since she had been crouching for so long-- and hurried toward Mark and Cindy's position.  

[NativeForeigner]

The Wreck's left arm flew up with unexpected speed and intercepted the hammer. It's arm was dented and sparks flew, but it rotated it's hand and took a firm hold of Smith's hammer.
It's right arm cocked back towards it's head, components in it's forearms opening up. In a cloud of steam, it's punch was rocketed towards Smith's head by several jets of steam.

*

"Of course there'll be cover." Mark assured Juliet as he rolled his eyes behind his mask, "Have you seen this place? There's debris everywhere. And if not debris, rocks. You'll have plenty of cover, I promise."

Seeing Gwen struggling to get up, Cindy offered her a hand up.
"Alright Gwen, we're gonna teach you to fire a rifle, okay?"

She glanced over at Mark, "You keep the other squad covered while I teach her, okay?

Mark nodded.

Shikyo's magazine: 3/12
Orion's magazine: 12/12 (HG)/ 9/12 (rifle) Battery life: 90%
Juliet's magazine: 0/24 (SMG) / 12 (HG)
Alastair's magazine: 17/36 (AR) | 12/12 (HG)
Gwen's magazine: 10/12 (HG)
ROUS: 3/5
M82: 10/10
Smith's Men (1): 5
Smith's Men (2): 7
Enemy soldiers (2): 7, 2 injured [01], 1 medic [02], 1 Wreck (Punctured pipe, destroyed left eye)  

[Elesariin]

Gwen accepted the hand and climbed up. To be honest, shooting a rifle at things that were far away sounded like a nice change of pace. "Okay," she said quietly to Cindy, even though she was pretty sure the question had been rhetorical. It was more to show that she was ready to get started than anything else.  

[SirBayer]

Smith rolled himself around, using the secured hammer as a grip to get behind the Wreck. He would probably still get a steam burn, but it wouldn't be bad. Once he was behind it, he would probably try shooting it again.

((ROUS held six rounds, I thought, and the M82 holds 10, I know.))

---

Juliet nodded slowly, swapping magazines as she recalled the one in the submachinegun was empty. She'd need to go hunting for ammo pretty soon, or perhaps swap for another firearm.  

[NativeForeigner]

((Corrected))

Smith managed to get behind the Wreck while suffering minimal steam burns, but before he managed to draw his gun, the components on the Wreck's arm began to shift once more and the steam jets reversed direction, launching the Wreck's elbow around towards Smith as the Wreck's entire upper body pivoted around to face Smith.

*

Cindy shouldered her own rifle and picked up the rifle from the fallen soldier that held this post previously. It was of excedingly simple design, consisting of a thin, copper barrel, a thin pressurized chamber, a wooden stock, a telescopic sight, and a bolt-style action.

Cindy began to explain with hand motions.

"Alright, Gwen, this is a bolt-action rifle, it's one of the simpler styles of rifle. Now, it's not too hard to operate, just remember to never point it at anything you don't plan to kill and to always make sure that your barrel's never bent, dented, or clogged. Bad things happen then."

Cindy paused for a moment to aim the rifle towards the sky as though she were going to fire it. "Now, this is how you're supposed to hold it, just look through the scope to find your target, once it's in the center of the crosshair, that's when you want to fire. It's not too much different from the handgun, just aim and squeeze the trigger. Don't pull the trigger, that can throw off your aim, squeeze it."

She leveled the rifle once more, put on the safety, showing Gwen where it was in the process, and opened the bolt, "Now, to reload, just put on the safety half-way and pull back the bolt." Cindy pulled five rounds from one of her pockets, "Then you just push the bullets into the magazine, this one holds five..." she demonstrated for Gwen, "And close the bolt. The gun's now loaded, take it off safety and you can start firing. After every shot, you have to pull the bolt back to load another shot. You don't need to put it on safety to do this. If you want to unload any remaining bullets, just put the gun on half-safety and pull the bolt open and closed until all the bullets pop out. Got it? Show me."

Cindy handed Gwen the rifle.

Shikyo's magazine: 3/12
Orion's magazine: 12/12 (HG)/ 9/12 (rifle) Battery life: 90%
Juliet's magazine: 24/24 (SMG) / 12/12 (HG)
Alastair's magazine: 17/36 (AR) | 12/12 (HG)
Gwen's magazine: 10/12 (HG)
ROUS: 4/6
M82: 10/10
Smith's Men (1): 5
Smith's Men (2): 7
Enemy soldiers (2): 7, 2 critically injured [05], 1 medic [01], 1 Wreck (Punctured pipe, destroyed left eye)  

[Dark Angel of Sol]

Orion shut down his computer right after the wreck appeared. Jack warned, “Orion, we're retreating. Get back to the bridge.” Orion put away his laptop and started to run with Jack towards the bridge. Before they could get there, smith broke the bridge and left it just him and the wreck. Jack and Orion stopped shortly before the ditch and went prone. For a minute or two, they just watched the fight. When the wreck jumped out of the ditch, that is when they knew smith needed help. Orion spoke first. “Alright, the legs look weak and exposed. If we fire at them we might be able to hinder it's movement.” Jack replied, “Good plan. Lets do it.” Jack and Orion lined themselves up for the legs: Orion left, Jack right. When they get a chance to fire without hitting Smith, they took it: Jack a small burst, orion three shots.  

[SirBayer]

As the Wreck began to spin, Smith jumped up, wrapping his arms around its neck, gripping down tight. As soon as he could free up his right, he'd draw the gun and start firing point blank. He'd get his hammer back soon enough.

---

The man in charge set the men running, and Juliet followed after them.