OiM - How it All Began

[NativeForeigner]

((I WANT YOU ALL TO READ IT ALL!

There will a short quiz next post stare ))

"Well," Mark started, looking at Gwen, "We backup the other group, let's go."

((Just so you know, Shikyo, Smith's men have more than just handguns.))

The explosion that Shikyo had anticipated never came. Instead, a loud clicking noise sounded through as the grenade's internal components activated and the outer casing began to rotate with more clicking sounds. Within a second, a whirring sound picked up, louder than the clicking and speeding up. Upon hearing this, one of the targeted soldiers instinctively dove behind cover. The other wasn't so lucky. Just as the first soldier had taken cover and before the second could react, several pores opened up on the grenade and concentrated jets of steam shot from the grenade.

The jets didn't have as much as a regular grenade would have, but the grenade was close enough to the man to severely scald his legs, chest, and face, burning through the fabrics of his close and partially melting his mask. As he cried out in pain, one final click sounded from the grenade and the pores began to close. Just as they did and before the steam faded, the grenade casing exploded outwards a cloud of steam, a small amount of boiling liquid, and shrapnel. The soldier was sent flying backwards, shrapnel shattering his right eye socket and the liquid and steam melting away at his body. His broken weapon flew from his hands as he crashed into a large rock protruding from the ground nearby, breaking his spine.

*

Shikyo's first shot missed, but the other two hit the soldier in his shoulder and neck, killing him.

Shikyo's clip: 12

The sound of Jack and Orion's gunfire drew the soldiers' attention and they turned simultaneously. Jack's target received the entirety of the burst to the face, destroying a good part of the soldier's mask and head and sending the soldier backwards. Orion's first and second shots hit the man in the chest, sending him back, but the recoil sent his final shot astray, hitting nothing. But, seeing as the soldier was now dead, this was no big deal.

Orion's clip: 9

Smith's men: 14

Alastair and a group of six men moved up on Smith's orders leaving the small bridge to head to the facility grounds. His other soldiers watched their backs, keeping an eye out for any enemy activity.

A shot rang out and struck earth near the feet of one of Smith's men. All six soldiers immediately dove for cover behind the ragtag fences and rubble. Another shot was heard, but it came from the opposite site.

The soldier who had fired the shot at Smith's men fell from a tower in the opposite corner of the factory grounds.

Smith could see that Cindy and Mark had overtaken an enemy tower. Gwen and Tannor were guarding the tower from below, keeping an eye out for approaching soldiers.

"The Marksmen team's got you covered!" Smith yelled, "Go!"

As Smith yelled for his squad to go, roughly two dozen enemy soldiers rounded the corner and set their sights on Squad one.
The first dozen soldiers opened fire on Smith's men while the second dozen got into position and began approaching.

One, two, three shots came from Mark and Cindy's position, each downing an attacking soldier per shot. That just left 21 more to go. A grenade landed behind the cover that three of Smith's men were using.

Before Cindy or Mark could land any more shots, ten soldiers began approaching them on their side and began laying down covering fire.

***

Sounds, similar to those that they all heard before the nutcracker ambush, began to come from behind everyone.
They all figured that they should MOVE.
Unless they really wanted to fight so close to a deep and pointy chasm.

Juliet's Clip: 9
Alastair's Clip: 12
Gwen's clip: 5  

[Jokerman-EXE]

Apparently, an ice bridge was too great of a challenge for the group of mentally empowered travelers, so Henry looked for a way around it.  

[Elesariin]

Gwen tried to stay hidden to avoid the cover fire. How many more enemies where there, anyway?  

[Just an Innocent Face]

Scanning the adjacent area Shikyo was sent sprawling back into cover by gunfire. Aparently his grendade had missed one of the smarter soldiers. Picking up a stone he was able to toss it out to one side and clacked it against a boulder to his right. Hidden under the illusion that Shikyo had shifted his position during the explosion he crouched just above the rock face and shot two times at his head. He could feel power coursing through him and his eyes analyzing every detail at a dizzying speed as the pair of slugs flew out.  

[Dark Angel of Sol]

Orion's gut turned as he saw the soldier he killed fall. Jack patted him on the shoulder and congratulated him: “First Kill, Good Job. It gets easier. Trust me” Orion replied half-heartedly, “I hope your right.” Before the conversation could mature, Jack and Orion spotted the small army firing on the main attack line. Jack almost shouted, “s**t! Orion check them. See if you can find anything to use.”  

[NativeForeigner]

Orion's clip: 9

On the fallen soldiers, Orion found two grenades, an fully loaded semi-automatic rifle, and two clips of ammunition for the rifle. Upon closer inspection, it would seem that the ammunition of the handgun and rifle were interchangeable with each other.

Shikyo's clip: 10

The soldier had turned and began to fire upon Shikyo's false position, leaving himself open to fire. Shikyo's first shot skimmed across the soldier's lenses, missing by only a few inches. The soldier turned his head to receive the second slug to his lower chin, blasting a hole through the left of his chin and lower mouth and severing the gas mask's filter.

The soldier dove behind the boulder that Shikyo had thrown the rock at and was now coughing loudly. The hole in the gas mask was making breathing more difficult, but not impossible. A grenade flew from behind the cover and landed approximately six feet behind Shikyo.

*

As Gwen heard the amount of gunfire coming from the other side, her question was answered: A lot.
There was a pause in the gunfire as the soldiers stopped to reload. The instant the gunfire stopped, Mark and Cindy stood from their cover and fired as the soldiers ducked behind cover.
Mark's shot hit a soldier as the soldier was ducking down, hitting him in the center of the neck and breaking through the soldier's neck bone, killing him. Cindy's shot hit another soldier in the heart before he could duck behind cover.

Juliet's Clip: 9
Alastair's Clip: 12
Gwen's clip: 5
Smith's Men: 14

***

Henry found no obvious way of getting around the ice bridge. He did, however, discover many notches in the chasm wall leading downwards into the darkness. The notches became a small ledge further down.
Their choices were clear.  

[Venom3001]

"Hell with this," Andreas muttered. He lined himself up with the center of the bridge, sprinted at it, and slid straight across, keeping himself centered telekinetically when necessary.  

[Just an Innocent Face]

"s**t s**t shiiit" Shikyo rambled to himself tearing off the ground on all fours to the nearest cover until he gained enough momentum to get onto his feet and throw himself into cover. He gritted his teeth against the abrupt shockwave that rippled through his spine upon landing so roughly in the dirt. Spitting into the sandy earth he wrestled away the minor pain and raised his gun. Being sheilded from the grenade he was also exposed to the gunman. A smaller rock stood between himself and the shooters new position but it would be difficult to stay behind. Being sure to be in the clear from the steam grenade he alligator crawled up behind the sheet of stone and waited for his opponents move. Three shots cracked over the lip of his cover inches from his head and he looked at the fine sandy dirt. Picking it up in his fists he began to toss it back into the sky until he was surrounded in orangish red clouds of dust. Litterally flitting between cover he placed himself just to one side of the soldier, shot once at the rock behind him and taking advantage of his surprise by pouncing upon him with his gun.

Pinning down his gun hand he held the gun in the enemies face and fired once.  

[NativeForeigner]

Andreas' method had actually managed to work to an extent. He managed to slide a good fifteen or so feet before slowing and coming to an abrupt stop in a rough patch of ice, causing him to loose his footing and stumble dangerously close to the edge.

***

The grenade went off as Shikyo dove for cover, narrowly avoiding the brunt of the steam jets. The dirt that Shikyo had tossed into the air was quite as effective as he had hoped, but it was still somewhat so as the soldier had difficulty tracking Shikyo's movements.

As Shikyo positioned himself to the side of the soldier, the shot didn't even phase him as he beat the pouncing Shikyo down to the ground with the butt of his gun.

The man aimed to shoot Shikyo's winded body, but he erupted into a coughing fit as he pulled the trigger, sending the shot wild.

((Shikyo, I'm gonna have to ask you to please stop taking control of the soldiers as I'm the one who decides what they do.))  

[Just an Innocent Face]

((Sorry I'm trying to have longer posts and its difficult to just stop and go at every interval I'll keep it under control))

Being pinned down into the dirt Shikyos gun was tossed out of reach. As the soldier began to heave his arms was freed enough for him to painfully slip it out from under. Drawing his fist back he slugged his knuckles for his head and

-scrambled for his gun as the soldier rocked off his body. Getting his hand around the handle he would fire two shots at his skull from the point blank range.

((the - is the point from which your decision comes in and is changed or doesn't happen if you disallow his punch. I don't know if you agree but this seems reasonable and this is a situation where only a blind guy would miss a dude standing ontop of him with his fist))  

[Jokerman-EXE]

"Throw him the line," Henry said in a bored tone as he decided to climb down the notches to the ledge. Maybe it would easier to get across if they went down first.
His TK told him that so far, there was nothing to worry about.  

[NativeForeigner]

((Thank you, Shikyo.))

Shikyo's fist hit mask with enough force to send the soldier reeling backwards. Shikyo managed to grasp the gun's grip and brought it around to his target.
His first shot fired prematurely, nicking the soldier in the left arm as he stood. The second shot landed just above the soldier's sternum, causing him to drop his weapon and fall to his knees as he gripped the hole in his chest.

Within a few seconds, he fell face-first into the dirt.

((Since I'm sure you'll want to search the soldier, I'll do you the courtesy of telling you what's on him))

Upon inspection of the body, Shikyo found a single clip of ammunition. The weapon, unfortunately, and undergone some sort of fail-safe and was unusable as it had disassembled itself.

Shikyo's clip: 8
Orion's clip: 9
Juliet's Clip: 9
Alastair's Clip: 12
Gwen's clip: 5
Smith's Men: 14

***

The only thing that Henry really needed to know was what his common sense told him. Be careful, don't fall down, and bring a flashlight, it's dark and scary down there. Thankfully, Henry had basic scout skills which generally included rock climbing, so climbing the notches was horribly difficult, just a little tricky due to the ice.

Seeing that everyone seemed to be going separate ways, Ro faced the dilemma of where to go.
He reached into his pocket and removed his silver coin.
"Alright." he said to himself, "Heads, I go up above, tails, I go down below."
He flipped it and caught it.
"Tails, down below it is." He turned towards Arthur, "You've got the hooks and everything, you should go with Andreas, I'll go with Henry and we'll meet up inside. Do you have a flashlight we can borrow?"

Gregory really didn't want to go either way, but the bridge seemed to be the more acceptable path.  

[SirBayer]

Arthur produced a flashlight, one of the smaller ones - he wasn't really paying attention. He had, however, kept the Maglite for himself. He grabbed the hooks, and determined that he could chip at the ice and hold himself steady enough to go. The steel was functional for chipping little cracks, and Arthur could use those to drag himself along. It wasn't fast, but he was moving.

---

((I am a touch confused, but I'll do what I can.))

"Stay down!" Smith roared. "Prepare grenades, if you've got any, and get ready to return them!" He pulled his M82 out yet again, popped out the supports, and glared down the scope. The men in back began firing from safe range, while those in front stayed under cover until they had a very good chance to fire - they were pinned down, but those in back weren't, and they had excellent long range fire.

Crack! Crack! Crack! Eardrum-shattering explosions rung out from the .50 cal rifle, and although it wasn't as accurate as it could be, it was certainly good enough to do whatever job needed doing.  

[NativeForeigner]

Ro took the flashlight and began climbing down the notches behind Henry.

Arthur made slow but safe progress.

Gregory carefully crawled behind Arthur, moving even slower than Arthur was.

***

((Bayer, you also might wanna deal with the live grenade in the midst of your 6 men))

Smith's shots took down two of the firing soldiers, making the head of one disappear in a dark red mist and creating a large, gaping hole in the chest of another.  

[Jokerman-EXE]

Henry continued deeper, concentrating on keeping his grip. After a little while, it was easy.
"So...Ro, was it? What do you do?"