OiM - How it All Began

[SirBayer]

Suddenly, Smith was holding an M82. It was unclear as to where it had been - no one had noticed it before. What was more important, though, was that he was loading it and treating it like a normal human being might treat an assault rifle. This was terrifying in ways more than one.

---

"Stop, stop, stop!" Arthur told Henry. "Now I'm sure it's a trap, listen to that. Here, let's throw something at it," he said, pulling one of the forks he had collected earlier out of his backpack.  

[Venom3001]

Andreas turned and looked at the edge of the clearing. "Guys, form a circle, backs facing inwards," he cautioned. He wasn't, he suspected, ready to use his telekinesis on a big attack yet, so soon after his Psychic Nosebleed, but his fists weren't feeling juts dandy.  

[Jokerman-EXE]

Henry jumped back as soon as he felt it, but upon seeing no movement and hearing the "Shh!", he did as Andreas suggested, backing into the circle with his knife held ready.  

[NativeForeigner]

Ro sighed as Henry ignored Arthur and took the fork himself as he backed into the circle, facing the nutcracker.
He threw it experimentally at the toy. The fork hit it's mark and the toy was knocked over.

Nothing.

A small, fist-sized snowball flew out from behind trees at an alarming speed, flying for Andreas' head.

"Attack!" a voice, high-pitched and squeaky, announced.

Another snowball flew out, more ice than snow, for Henry. The sound of a small BB gun firing rang out followed by what felt like a bee sting on Ro's neck.



Gregory yelped and pushed his way to the center of the circle.

"Let out the crazy guy!" the same voice ordered.

***

"Oh!" Smith interjected, "And one more thing, do not light any fires. The air is bad, we all know that, but in some pockets, the air is actually flammable."

He shrugged, "And the only thing harder to breath in than polluted air is air that's on fire. Gas masks won't help you there."  

[Venom3001]

Andreas reached up to grab the snowball, yanking it telekinetically into his hand without realizing it. He inspected it and hurled it back at the source.  

[SirBayer]

((Well crap, that would've been good to know!))

Arthur ducked. It had been a long time since he'd been in a snowball fight, but he suspected that whoever his opposition was, it wouldn't exactly be suitable to start knifing them. Maybe there were more elves.

Didn't matter, he grabbed some snow, packed it, and threw it back, then repeated as appropriate, attempting to dig a hole for himself for cover.

This was silly.

---

Juliet cocked an eyebrow. "Flammable? How the heck do you get the air to be... flammable? What happened to this place, anyway?"  

[NativeForeigner]

It stopped being silly when Arthur heard the BB gun-like noise then felt a similar sting between his eyes as Ro had immediately after.
More of these shots came from behind the trees followed by a large snowball, about the size of a large medicine ball and twice the weight, hurtled through the air at towards the group.

A man with dark brown hair and wearing the remains of a tattered, black parka made his way through the trees, snarled, and charged Arthur.

***

"You pollute it...a lot." Smith answered before sighing, "Through lots and lots of pollution, lots of factories, lots of smoke and pollution, you know? It wasn't always this bad, though, the Driskoll's just helped make it worse."  

[Jokerman-EXE]

Henry had slightly less trouble dodging the snowballs, since he could sort of sense where they would be just before they were, so he slid into the snarling man's path and slashed at his face with his knife.
"Is now a good time to call for Shepard?" he shouted over his shoulder.  

[NativeForeigner]

The man pulled back just in time to evade the tip of Henry's knife before returning with a vicious headbutt.
One of the BB-like projectiles flew at Henry's temple. He felt a tinge in time to instinctively move his head forward in an attempt to evade it.
It hit his ear instead.

"Halberdiers in." the same voice as before ordered.

Out from the trees came a dozen animate (though stiff), nutcrackers emerged from behind the trees. They were larger than a normal nutcrackers, though bore the same red, black, and gold design, and each held a halberd in their right hand that stood one and a half times taller than the nutcracker itself.

The group was surrounded by these nutcrackers now.

Not particularly terrifying, but definitely a cause for worry.

They began to stiffly, yet quickly close in.

"Yeah, maybe." Ro suggested, lobbing a snowball a knocking down one of the nutcrackers.

The first nutcracker now stood and approached Andreas from the side, holding a small rifle.

It fired at Andreas' neck.  

[Jokerman-EXE]

Henry decided that the others could handle the rather comical nutcrackers and focused his energies on the Crazy in front of him. Henry slashed across once, at his throat, then again at the chest, stepping forward and doing a shoulder rush after the second strike.  

[NativeForeigner]

((...the man threw a headbutt at you and you were shot in the ear...))  

[Jokerman-EXE]

((You said they were BBs, and I assumed that Henry moving his head to avoid the shot meant he avoided the headbutt too.))  

[NativeForeigner]

((BB-like, and they still sting. "Like a bee sting" to quote myself.
And he moved his head forward, not back, meaning you still have to do something about the headbutt.))  

[Jokerman-EXE]

"Son of a whoop!" Henry said, tingling and ducking to the side at the last moment to avoid what could have been a painful headbutt. Ignoring the pain in his ear, he did the stuff from two posts ago.  

[NativeForeigner]

((Mmk))

The Crazy blocked the first strike with his forearm and tossed Henry's arm away violently, stopping Henry from following through with the second strike, but not stopping the shoulder rush.

The man stepped backwards and almost slipped on the snowy surface. He grabbed for Henry's shoulders and tried to throw him down.