Door 2 - The Wasteland

[NativeForeigner]

Cindy placed a hand soothingly on Gwen's back, having seen what had happened.

"Don't worry, dear, it was just an accident." she reassured Gwen.

"It's not like they're people." Mark chimed in, "Even though they help and heal others, they're still the enemy, they're still just as inhumane as the rest of them."  

[Elesariin]

"I guess..." Gwen said quietly, but she still looked relieved to be clicking on the safety and relaxing her hold on the rifle.  

[SirBayer]

"See that?" Juliet asked rhetorically. "Okay, who wants to go up the center and who wants to go up the flanks?" She primed herself to move straight down the center. Ammo was running low - only two more magazines, or something like that - but she could keep fighting.

This was certainly not conventional police work.

---

Smith rolled, his gloved hand closing around the hammer as he spun away from the attack. While the Wreck was still recovering, Smith got back to his feet and began a massive swing under the up-swung arm, roaring along with it.

The ROUS had disappeared.  

[NativeForeigner]

Three soldiers silently volunteered to move down the center. The remaining two positioned themselves on the right, leaving Alastair and Juliet the left.
The soldier Smith had put in charge motioned with two fingers.
The two flanks began to move up. He made another motion and the center line began to move up shortly after, the man taking point.

Alastair reloaded.

*

Smith's strike hit full force, his hammer digging deep into the Wreck's armpit. Sparks, wires, and gears flew as the arm went limp to the machine's side.
Smith noticed the fingers still moving on the arm, but it was obvious that the Wreck only had control from the elbow down. The Wreck pulled back to throw itself at Smith.

*

Cindy smiled, doing her best to comfort Gwen. "It's okay, hon, I'll take it from here." she said, readying her own rifle, "We'll practice with some targets when we get some time, okay?"

Shikyo's magazine: 3/12
Orion's magazine: 9/12 (HG)/ 9/12 (rifle) Battery life: 90%
Juliet's magazine: 24/24 (SMG) / 12/12 (HG)
Alastair's magazine: 36/36 (AR) | 12/12 (HG)
Gwen's magazine: 10/12 (HG) / 2/5 (Rifle)
ROUS: 0/6
M82: 10/10
Smith's Men (1): 5
Smith's Men (2): 7
Enemies? (1): 2(?) Unknown.
Enemy soldiers (2): 6, 1 medic (Critically Injured) [02] [05], 1 Wreck (Punctured pipe, destroyed left eye, immobile upper right arm.)
 

[Elesariin]

Gwen smiled and nodded her assent, content to watch what Cindy did for a while. She did most of her best learning by watching others, anyway.  

[SirBayer]

Smith rolled away, bringing up the M82 in order to empty the magazine into the Wreck's face - close enough he couldn't possibly miss a single shot but far enough that the Wreck couldn't strike him immediately.

---

Juliet moved after Alastair, darting between cover and keeping her flashlight and weapon pointed at where she had seen movement.  

[NativeForeigner]

Smith fired the first shot, shattering the Wreck's other eye, effectively rendering it blind. Then another shot, piercing through the Wreck's head and causing a massive twitch and a loud, grinding sound.
The Wreck's head (or what was left of it) sank into it's torso. An ear-shattering, mechanical noise emitted from the Wreck. It was going into a frenzy, it was at it's end.

It launched itself sluggishly at Smith in a final effort, it ripped off it's right arm with it's left and began flailing it about blindly as it jumped forward, using whatever it could, including it's own body, as a weapon.

In ripping off it's arm, steam began jetting from it's socket. The pressure gauge was dropping rapidly.

***

The three soldiers down the center advanced. As soon as the lead soldier broke the threshold, two enemy soldiers stepped from behind the pillars on either side.
Each one had what seemed similar to military flamethrowers. There were two cylinders on each one's back and a steam gauge in the middle. In their hands they held a copper pipe with tight nozzles attached to the front end and a handle with a trigger on the other.
The handle and mid-section of the pipes were covered with rubber.

A thin, flexible tube connected the gun mechanism to the cylinders. The soldiers were wearing noticeably different uniforms than the ones encountered outside. They wore thick, obviously heat-resistant olive-green outfits, black rubber boots, and thick, black rubber gloves.
They wore thick belts across their waists, and the straps holding the cylinders on their backs made an "X" pattern across their chest, where they each held two grenades.
They wore gas masks with a single, large face shield tinted orange.

The pulled the triggers and two concentrated jets of steam flew forth from the nozzles at the soldiers.
The soldier in the lead swore and dove forward swearing something about "Steamers" as he rolled.
The female soldier in the rear stumbled back to avoid the jets, but the soldier in the middle was caught in both streams.
He let out a blood-curdling scream as he fell to his knees and threw his weapon down in pain.

Orion's magazine: 9/12 (HG)/ 9/12 (rifle) Battery life: 90%
Juliet's magazine: 24/24 (SMG) / 12/12 (HG)
Alastair's magazine: 36/36 (AR) | 12/12 (HG)
Gwen's magazine: 10/12 (HG) / 2/5 (Rifle)
ROUS: 0/6
M82: 10/10
Smith's Men (1): 4
Smith's Men (2): 7
Enemies? (1): 2(?) Unknown.
Enemy soldiers (2): 6, 1 medic (Critically Injured) [01] [04], 1 Wreck (Punctured pipe, destroyed eyes, immobile upper right arm.)  

[SirBayer]

Juliet shouted in surprise, bringing the submachinegun to bear. Those weapons were... dangerous. That was clear. It wouldn't kill immediately - no, death would be slow and agonizing. That was... bad.

With a pair of quick taps on the trigger (firing perhaps five rounds in total), Juliet hoped to drop the one on the far side from her before advancing on the enemy closer.

---

Smith roared in victory, then threw his massive rifle to one side in order to distract the Wreck. He accompanied this with a roll to the side.

The soldiers nearby pumped their fists silently, interested in not attracting the Wreck's attention.  

[NativeForeigner]

Juliet's shots struck the far soldier dead on, two to the head, two in either side of the chest, and the last puncturing one of the man's tanks as he fell. Alastair opened up on the other soldier, loosing about six shots.
The other soldiers quickly followed their example, quickly dropping the remaining enemy quickly.

The soldier who was doused in steam was now writhing in pain on the ground, slowly dying. Sounds of choking could be heard as his gas mask melted away.

***

The Wreck dove forward and stumbled into the ditch where it remained motionless.

Orion's magazine: 9/12 (HG)/ 9/12 (rifle) Battery life: 90%
Juliet's magazine: 19/24 (SMG) / 12/12 (HG)
Alastair's magazine: 30/36 (AR) | 12/12 (HG)
Gwen's magazine: 10/12 (HG) / 2/5 (Rifle)
ROUS: 0/6
M82: 10/10
Smith's Men (1): 4
Smith's Men (2): 7
Enemies? (1): 1 Steamer
Enemy soldiers (2): 6 Soldiers, 1 medic (Critically Injured) [01] [04], 1 Wreck (Punctured pipe, destroyed eyes, immobile upper right arm.)  

[SirBayer]

Smith turned to the matter of picking off the remaining enemy soldiers; his soldiers joined him in the task as they engaged the enemy in a fairly long-range firefight.

---

Juliet rushed over to the dying man. "Anyone have a gas mask, or a replacement or anything?!" she shouted. She didn't have anything particularly useful for the situation at hand...  

[NativeForeigner]

Seven minutes passed and Smith and his men had taken down four of the enemy soldiers. Smith hadn't lost a single soldier in the process.

The Medic seemed to be running out of time. He looked ready to collapse. The Medic fell to a knee and began digging into his jacket. He pulled out a rather large needle filled with a clumpy-looking, brown liquid and stabbed it into his thigh and forced the plunger down, injecting himself with the liquid.

He collapsed immediately afterward.

***

Alastair rested a hand on Juliet's shoulder, "We can't save him, lass." he told her, "The most we could do is make his death comfortable."

He turned to the soldiers, "Does anyone have painkillers of sorts? Morphine? Anythin'?"

The head soldier commented on the writhing soldier, "The air's gonna infect his wounds if it already hasn't." he explained. Another soldier walked up, the medic from before, and pulled a syringe from his bag and injected the soldier with it, "That should help with the pain...rest in peace." he said as he gently closed the soldier's eyes.

The soldier slowly began to stop writhing and eventually stopped. His breathing was shallow and soon, stopped.

Orion's magazine: 9/12 (HG)/ 9/12 (rifle) Battery life: 90%
Juliet's magazine: 19/24 (SMG) / 12/12 (HG)
Alastair's magazine: 30/36 (AR) | 12/12 (HG)
Gwen's magazine: 10/12 (HG) / 2/5 (Rifle)
ROUS: 0/6
M82: 10/10
Smith's Men (1): 4
Smith's Men (2): 7
Enemy soldiers (2): 2 Soldiers, 1 medic (DEAD?)  

[SirBayer]

Smith growled. "Can we get in there fast enough to get the man alive?" he roared, trying to advance with the ROUS blazing. "Get into the ditch and we can move up from there!"

---

Juliet stood up as the man began to die. She turned away from him and moved as far as she felt safe before taking the time to control her breathing. People died. She hadn't ever seen it before, though. As a cop in a small town, big things never happened. She hadn't been involved in a shootout outside of paintball simulations, and it struck her now just how hefty the loss of human life was.

Sitting heavily on whatever was available, she set down the submachine gun and cradled her head in her hands, taking a moment to recover.  

[NativeForeigner]

Smith and his men flanked and utterly raped the remaining enemies as they advanced from the trench. Upon reaching the Medic, Smith found him to be motionless.

***

Alastair shied away from the dead man and over towards Juliet. "Are you okay, lass?" he asked, "We're in enemy territory, lass, we shouldn't dwaddle, now."

Orion's magazine: 9/12 (HG)/ 9/12 (rifle) Battery life: 90%
Juliet's magazine: 19/24 (SMG) / 12/12 (HG)
Alastair's magazine: 30/36 (AR) | 12/12 (HG)
Gwen's magazine: 10/12 (HG) / 2/5 (Rifle)
ROUS: 0/6
M82: 10/10
Smith's Men (1): 4
Smith's Men (2): 7
Enemy soldiers (2): 1 medic (DEAD?)  

[SirBayer]

Smith bent down over the figure, trying to get its pulse, before realizing he was way too huge to do it, not to mention his gloves were on. "Medic, over here!" Smith ordered. "Try to see if he's alive." Smith made sure the ROUS was fully loaded before leveling it at the enemy medic's head to ensure he didn't try anything funny.

---

Juliet nodded. "I'm fine," she said picking her head up. "Just need a moment. I wasn't... I wasn't really trained to do something like... this."  

[NativeForeigner]

The medic rushed over to check the enemy medic's pulse. He didn't necessarily feel a pulse, but he could feel the blood, or what he took to be blood, simply flowing through the veins, not a pulse, just...flowing.

There was no breathing, however, that could be determined and no movement whatsoever.

***

Alastair nodded sympathetically, "It's alright, lass, there's no shame in it."

The accompanying soldiers were anxious to move on.