Mint. He smells like mint and fresh rain, acting with the lurking violence of a storm on the horizon. Just as threatening, twice as forceful as lightning strikes and emulating the krack-boom of thunder in his voice.
Sometimes something merciless drips from his clenched fists, where his nails dig into his palms and bleed out his misery on the wet concrete. Sometimes something sage gleams from the depth of the well in his eyes. Sometimes, but not always, the murmur of an approaching hope hides under his breath.
All of it is sometimes, but not always, but never has his heart seized up at the sight of the grey, weathered clouds, except that it leans to fury. Who dares blot out his sky, where he can spread his wings and soar towards the summit? Who dares obstruct his procession towards the golden flame at the peak? Who dares block out the moonlight and silence the solemn wind?
Mayhem upon them! A reckless, insatiable violence upon them. A wild, brutish assault on everything they are. And he’ll drag them by their hair into the center of the maelstrom and look them in the eyes, bare his fangs, and swallow them with a pitiless glare.
For what is he but the center of the calamity? And etched onto the back of his spiked leather jacket: “No fools in the heart of the storm!”
'Cause I still believe in miracles
I swear I’ve seen a few
And the time will surely come
When you can see my point of view
I believe in second chances
And that’s why I believe in you!
Phoenyx had an opening. Not a big one, but an opening all the same. By some miracle, the wounds he’d sustained had cauterized from the plasma, yet they still felt like hell incarnate.
It was time to return the favor. That in mind, he sliced into Ramson’s left arm with his claws. The bleeding would be profuse if left untreated. He followed up with a savage headbutt, the beak of his mask working wonders on that front.
For a moment, at least, the tide was turned.
He wanted a hunt? That was cute.
He’d give him a massacre.
The blood spray was immense, and the roaring crowd was stunned into silence as the favorite-to-win fell over and rolled through the flames. It was an unnatural silence, the audience mesmerized as the prince struggled through the flames, his adversary lost amid the smoke and lashing hues.
“You- you damned peasant!”
By now, the camera bots had reached the finale of their musical score. as such, there was a return to silence, a deadly calm settling within the forest as Prince Ramlethal looked one way and another, only to be met by flames, flames, and more flames.
There were no tracks to scout his prey with, and his heat tracking was useless amid the roaring flames. No scent on the churning winds and near-zero visibility as the forest began to roast. The prince was left stop-gapping his wound with a palm plastered against his torn suit, his head darting one way or the other as he tried to search for an advantage.
What could be said to the hushed masses that were eagerly anticipating his triumphant reversal of the situation? What could be said to the small few who realized, then-and-there, that there as no come-back? What could be said to the Prince who felt fear lodged in his throat, as he was left wounded, weaponless, and turning in circles, lost amid the hellfire?
No one said a word, and the announcer found his throat dry for commentary.
Still, there was one among the crowd who believed in the Prince’s victory, who held his head high in hopes of watching success break free from through the turmoil. The royal bodyguard stood to rise, cupped his hands around his mouth, and prepared to chant:
“Prince Ramlethal! Prince Ramlethal!”
But his moment was snatched from him, seized in the red-tinted fangs of a beast more bloodthirsty than most, who bellowed at the top of his lungs, carrying words of utmost violence along a furious air.
Smith crushed his armrest with with his grip as he roared at the arena, a single crack of thunder among the silent sea, a red glare along his visor to match the scorching forest.
“Fucking take his head off, old man!”
Who best to empathize with a bird of prey than a beast of mayhem?
Smith’s brutality was truly mindless. Mali couldn’t detect a single hint of purposeful hatred. She made a conscious step towards one of the labcoats heading toward her, making certain that there was a distance between them and Smith - not that people wanted to get close to the beast. She takes the papers and a USB flash drive, slipping the USB into a small pouch around her waist and connecting it to something.
Looking up from the papers, Mali offers a smile. “Stay right there, for a moment, please.” Words left her mouth just above a whisper. She passed the papers to Smith, and took the unconscious man into her arms without issue. She carefully dumped him onto the waiting labcoat.
She clears her throat, turning on her heel to face Smith, the compassionate softness gone from her demeanor. “Thank you for trying to not kill the man. The papers should give us a bit clearer direction on where to go from here. The weapon itself - I would need all the specifics to give you a clear idea of how it works, but it’s a rifle with assault and sniper capabilities. That’s all I could gather - that’d be in the papers, too. The rest is superfluous, armory inventory, letters, etcetera.”
Mali’s eyes look back to the people, turning some as she gives them an OK hand, signalling for them to go forth with their escape. Then she focused on Smith again. “Lead the way.”
Was she angry? He couldn’t tell, but he didn’t dwell on it for too long. Rather, he flipped through the pages and let his helmet commit them to memory.
“Most of this stuff is junk. Just a bunch of numbers that’ve been crunched with all the juicy info already flushed out. Wait a sec...” Smith raised an eyebrow and glanced through them again, this time scrutinizing them with a careful air.
“Wouldya look-a-that. Seems like the bad boy we’re after emits some serious energy from whatever sort of cell it’s got going on. And we even got some sort of crazy residual energy spikes after it fires.”
Smith crumpled the papers into a ball and used it to bean one of the researchers.
“If we can find out exactly what sort of energy it dishes out, I can set the Hell-Met to scan for it. And if we got us a prototype smack dab in the heart of the officer barracks, then we’ve got a fight ahead of us. We’ve wasted enough time with the specs here, let’s bounce, toots.”
Smith kicked a door off its hinges and followed through, heading down the dimly lit hall until he reached a hallway intersection. One more level down and they’d have access to the base’s true, inner shell.
“Wait, whats that?”
Like bugs crawling through the woodwork, the sound of stomping boots and rushed orders alerted to the guards quickly closing in on him from the sides.
“Trouble,” he smiled, drawing his bat. “Boutta have trouble with me. On your guard chick, they ain’t packing heavy heat, but they’re packing.”
Once again, he thanked whatever diety on high that had convinced him put on armor for this one. Those energy bolts were vicious.
He caught one under the arm, not two centimeters from an artery. That would have been it had the Prince not been such a terrible shot.
He pressed himself against the side of a tree, taking a moment to catch his breath.
First thing’s first, he had to ditch the cameras…
No doubt the Caesar had rigged these things with all manner of booby traps to prevent tampering. As such, he’d have to disable, not destroy…
A handful of mud. Not the most elegant of solutions, but sometimes simple worked best. He lobbed at the lenses, gobbing them up as best he could.
That would…wait a second.
Was that music?
It was horrible…
What he would have given for some Tito Puente or something with an actual rhythm, honestly.
As it stood, he’d have to play this one a bit differently than normal. No bravado, no righteous stand. Just brutal and efficient.
He waited for the pompous fool to draw close. At which time, he leapt from the tree and brought his claws down on his rifle.
Ramson smacked the side of his visor as his surveillance was quickly muddied up. “Damn it! I told them to install wipers on those-!” With no more birds-eye view and the music causing a ruckus, Ramson had been robbed of his awareness.
By the time he’d spun around to fire at the shadow in the corner of his eye, his rifle had already ported a pair of nasty gashes down its side.
“You filthy peasent!” shouted the prince, pulling the trigger anyways. “That was a custom!” The rifle choked and spat, only minute sparks issuing form its barrel. The plasma within had bottle-necked inside its charge cell, and as soon as either fighter knew what that meant, the rifle began to bleed plasma from its wounds, emitting a deadly crackling noise as Ramson dropped it and turned to run.
The Prince only had moments to accuse his enemy of foul play.“No, no, no! This is sabotage, you can’t do that here!”
And then the rifle exploded. With the “Murderfy” setting set to run, the blast was twice what it should have been. A surge of sizzling, green energy bursted outward, knocking the prince off his feet and running him straight into a tree. Flames took over, as fire and smoke began to eat way at the trees and spread along the grass.
With clenched teeth, Ramson drew his plasma dagger and spun it in his hand. He couldn’t see past the flames that rose around him, but it didn’t hinder his ego from spouting curses and deadly insults. His words might have been soul-crushingly effective, had not the camera-bot music reached it crescendo, filling the air with a parade of off-beat drums and off-tune trumpets.
“Hello, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Agent Mali Soun. And this is… actually, I’m afraid I do not know this man’s name. What he said was true, and he’ll follow through with it, much to my dislike. Our questions are very simple, answer them with honesty and nobody gets hurt. Remember, a life other than yours is at stake.” Mali offered a smile and made a broad gesture with the whole life statement.
“Our first question is… we need an up-to-date map of this place, a very detailed map.” One of the nervous lab coats carefully began moving, gathering documents in a hurry, assumedly to give to the duo. The men and women around him began to help him, in a frantic frenzy.
“My second question is… we need as much information on this facility as you can offer. Digital, physical, verbal - any kind will do. For example, we can start with what’s in the central armory.”
Smith put a squeeze on the head of his hostage.
“You look like a guy who knows things, pal. Better cough up before your brains start leaking out your nose.”
“If we talk, we’ll die!” he said, clenching his jaw against the strain.
“Shame. But get this: you’re trying to walk yourself back from the six-feet-under club, and I ain’t got no qualms with putting a bullet in ya, neither. Got plenty of egg heads in this room. Pretty sure one of em knows something.”
“Stop!” Shouted the hostage. “We don’t know! We don’t have the clearance! We just see the numbers after all the confidential information’s been scrubbed clean. We don’t even know what the weapon does, only that it emits ”
Smith rolled his eyes and put a tighter hold on his talking buddy.
“Somebody better find something we can work with, or you’ll are gonna qualify for severance pay.”
“The armory! The guard’s armory is... two floors below us. Quadrant B, section four! With the base on high alert... They were training on the prototype version, maybe it’s still in the barracks!”
Smith drove a punch into the man’s gut, landing it with a “whoompf” that stole breath and knocked the man out. He pointed his revolver about the room and urged the others to hurry.
“Let’s move it, people. Me and the pretty lady here don’t got all day.”
(Extmydust) "Hey, I know you! Fuck, you're that Smith guy Phoenyx was talkin' about. Shit, you ARE a big boy."
Smith stared at her like a man about to pick his nose in full view of everyone and no degree of shame to hold him back. “You here on behalf of the old man? Huh. Didn’t expect he’d send someone so uh… vertically challenged.” Smith’s helmet flared yellow as he laughed to himself, before he crouched down to meet her face-to-face.“I dunno who you are, but we ain’t buy no girl-scout cookies today, champ.”Never heard of her before today. Might as well get acquainted.
The next thing Smith would know, he’d be hit from above with a sandstone pillar.
“That about do it for ya, big boy?”
This was…fun. Phoenyx hadn’t been kidding, this guy was TOUGH.
The ground shook as Smith flexed out of his sandy tomb. His helmet flickered and whined as he smacked the sand off of himself.
“Tch-” he started with crossed arms, “I ain’t impressed toots. Where’s the real damaging stuff? It’s like we’re having a play-date at a beach and not a bone-breaker, ya get?”
Where’s the flair, the bravado, the unrest of the elements? Was she holding back?
“If I had a bucket of water, this would’ve been over easy.” Smith slammed his boots into the ground, crouched low, and howled at the top of his lungs.
“Give me your best shot, already!” What’s the worst that could happen?
It had been some time since Mali had heard such blatant disregard for life. For some reason, she didn’t expect it though she knew she should have. Anger stirred and was expressed as a pause, followed by an irritated sigh as she composed herself. Her hand rested on the handle as she turned halfway towards the brawler. “You won’t need to hurt any of them, sir, and I’m going to show you why. You’re free to take over if you want to speak in bullets, but like you said, they will probably try to shank me instead.”
The lock made a soft click as the handle was turned, and the door was pushed forward slowly. Mali rested a hand on her gun as she entered, making note of what Smith said.
The door swung open to a small gathering of people in lab coats, all rapidly shuffling documents and boxes around, hurrying towards one of several doors that would serve as an escape route.
“Nyah, what’s up docs?”
Smith stared at them as they stared back, and the doctors panicked at the sight of him. Grabbing a man by the collar, Smith reeled him in and kept him pulled close.
“Ain’t nobody move a muscle or the senior citizen gets it!” he threatened, putting a squeeze on the elderly man’s head. “Now me and the chick over here are pulling a Q&A. We Q and you A, and If I don’t like what I’m hearing, then I’ve got rounds and I’ve got aim. Oh, and I also got this sorry fucker.”
Smith’s helmet flared red as he slipped the man into a headlock and drew his revolver. The barrel gleamed in the low light as he swayed it about, his aim dragging across several individuals. The doctor’s stopped moving, several of them raising their hands to show they weren’t a threat, others on the verge of crying.
(Extmydust) "Hey, I know you! Fuck, you're that Smith guy Phoenyx was talkin' about. Shit, you ARE a big boy."
Smith stared at her like a man about to pick his nose in full view of everyone and no degree of shame to hold him back. “You here on behalf of the old man? Huh. Didn’t expect he’d send someone so uh… vertically challenged.” Smith’s helmet flared yellow as he laughed to himself, before he crouched down to meet her face-to-face.“I dunno who you are, but we ain’t buy no girl-scout cookies today, champ.”Never heard of her before today. Might as well get acquainted.
The knee shot hit, with certainty, but Smith’s posture didn’t move rattle and his momentum didn’t stop. Missing the punch, he opted for the bat, swinging the mace off of his back with a wind breaking speed. He missed, put followed up with downward swing, strong enough to split the concrete they were standing on.
“You’re gonna need a lot more firepower if you hope to get out of this alive!”
“Ah, forgive me and my questioning. I like making informed decisions.” Mali let out a soft chuckle, pocketing her device. “Clever thinking, it hadn’t occurred to me that we could get an updated map from them. You shouldn’t have to kill them either, it’s likely they’re just doing their job.” She watched him destroy and plunder valuable ones and zeros, wincing as another computer was knocked over. Hundreds of thousands of dollars, all down the drain.
Mali peered at the escape tunnel, eyebrows raised slightly. “Even if the doors aren’t safe, it would be wise to get the men and women behind the compound’s security out of the way, don’t you think? Wouldn’t look good for business if you failed to keep non-combatants out of harm’s way. If you’re not great at non-physical intimidation, I would be glad to take the lead.” She looked down a bit, before testing the tunnel to see if they would receive gunfire of any kind. When nothing was received, she slid down through the hole, analyzing her surroundings quickly before alerting the behemoth. “It looks clear for the most part down here, can you fit?”
Chick. She was still toots. Hmph, maybe he was one of those people who didn’t refer to people by name until they earned their respect or something… She missed people she could talk casually with, instead of it being work, work, and work. Informed decisions wasn’t a complete lie, she did like knowing as much as possible.
Smith struck another table to just to watch it clatter over. “I’m sure the lab-coats in here are just ‘doing their jobs’, but they’re disposable if this company is big enough, and they sure as hell signed up for it, didn’t they? Besides, I’m only gonna need to hurt like one of em, two tops!” Smith jumped down the hole and followed from behind. The shaft was a snug fit, but nothing that could hinder his movement.
“You wanna be talking point, all yours, but if anybody decides they wanna speak in bullets, then I’m taking over. You ever meet a disgruntled office worker? Low on coffee, high on stress, work out the ass? They’ll try and shank you with a ballpoint, babe.” Talking from experience.
Smith’s helmet switched between its visuals, trying to grab a complete picture of the environment. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, up until they reached a door at the end of the hallway.
“Not getting any sign of nobody past this door. Better be on guard.”
“How interesting. Your strength does have a limit. So, that rules out the possibility of being a military grade android.” Mali attempted a half-assed tease, stepping several feet back as she watched Smith showcase strength a demigod would envy. Letting the brute do a little demolitions work and clearing the path for her would work. Of course, with any partnership, she would like to pick up the slack. Teamwork does have the letters of W and E, after all!
Mali slid down the ladders with a sort of feline ease, dropping down into the server room - or what looked like one. “Poindexter? So you don’t work alone?” She offered Smith a smirk as she looked through the consoles, humming as she worked through them, deducing which ones would open the armories. “You don’t have to call me toots, sir. Soun will work fine. I have no reason to hide my name.” Mali offered some chit chat as she produced another device similar in appearance to the electronic keyring, this time with a long cable. She inserted it into the terminal’s USB port. She waited, before her fingers worked away at the keys.
ARMORY EPSILON, OMEGA, CHI OPENED - the monitor displayed, alongside a female synthetic voice reading it out. She exhaled, running fingers through her hair. “It’s going to take too long for me to deduce each and every password and terminal and whatnot for every single hatch, but you mentioned a poindexter. Are they available? No issue if they aren’t, we’ll simply bruteforce our way through. That is, assuming their knowledge is in the tech field.” She glanced around for a door - if this was two floors down instead of one, they would have halved their operation time, but she had a feeling that this kind of thing was going too easily for a facility owned by a private military contractor. There was a kind of unease creeping on her, she wasn’t enjoying it.
“You should exercise more caution from here on, for such a facility we’ve not encountered much resistance. Either someone is incredibly cocky and stupid, or… we’re just lacking information.”
“Hey, hey, hey, what’s with all the questions? This ain’t no interrogation, chick. Besides, ain’t no help coming this way, not from above and certainly not soon. Gotta do this the old fashion way, find our road by going straight through, can’t afford to go around.” Smith jabbed a screen with his finger and hurled it aside when the screen saver blipped. “Cool toy,” Smith said of the A.I. “But this place couldn’t have evacuated all the nerds and geeks in charge of this mess. Check it,” Smith slammed his hand on one of the rolling chairs. “Seat’s still warm.”
Glancing around the room, Smith switched the camera on his helmet. Over by the wayside, atop a stack of papers, a hot cup of coffee was still milling about.
“We get our hands on some pencil-pusher geeks and we can get a layout of this place, cause you’re right, something smells like a trap.”
He walked around a bit more, kicking tables over, shoving desks aside, knocking over computers, up until he struck his foot against a smaller hatch built into the floor. He looked down, noticing the smooth, subtle contours of a hidden handle that he grabbed and yanked at full strength. It came off with a snap and he tossed to the wayside.
“Look’n like some sort of sudden escape tunnel. But the hell’d they need that for... unless the doors in here ain’t safe in a shutdown...”
(Extmydust) "Hey, I know you! Fuck, you're that Smith guy Phoenyx was talkin' about. Shit, you ARE a big boy."
Smith stared at her like a man about to pick his nose in full view of everyone and no degree of shame to hold him back. “You here on behalf of the old man? Huh. Didn’t expect he’d send someone so uh… vertically challenged.” Smith’s helmet flared yellow as he laughed to himself, before he crouched down to meet her face-to-face.“I dunno who you are, but we ain’t buy no girl-scout cookies today, champ.”Never heard of her before today. Might as well get acquainted.
“Oh, I thought you’d never ask, Chuckles.” She cocks back her fist and, instead of actually punching, she summons a cloud of dust and makes that into a fist about 6 feet in diameter.
WHAM.
Smith took the hit without flinching, and the wallop of sand sent him skidding twelve... fourteen... sixteen... twenty feet back. He came to a grinding halt with sand strewn over his shoulders, his arms slowly coming together again, and a siren wail rushing out of his helmet.
“Oh, so you’re trick’s getting sand in people’s shorts,” he said, rolling his shoulder a couple of times. He dropped his weight into a crouch and dashed forward, arms by his side, fingers coiled into mallets. “Guard up, toots!”
A singular, wild, arcing swing cut through the air from his freight-train momentum as he returned mote’s punch with twice its force.
Well, so much for the element of surprise. He was caught flat-footed, cornered like so many other trophies his opponent had claimed.
As much as he wanted to quip back at Ramson, he needed every breath to make his escape. He was already taking heavy fire from the bastard, and there was no time to waste in getting some distance between them.
He darted left, barely taking an energy blast to the shoulder. Luck was on his side this time as it bounced off his armor. Thank god he’d actually worn it for this one…
He took his opportunity to immolate the area surrounding the Prince, his flame jets spewing napalm everywhere. Knowing the rich kid, he more than likely had a way to defeat that too, but it would hopefully act as a distraction.
When the smoke cleared, the Iron Phoenyx had made himself scarce. With any luck, he’d managed to lose the camera as well…
“Gah!” Shouted the prince, turning away from the wildfire that began to blaze around him. “Damn it! Run, run, run, all you’d like, I have you in my sights.”
Ramson XIV gestured for the camera bots to take to the air, scanning the ground from up top. His vision tripled with his visor switching through its various, visual fields. He rushed forward, leaping through the mounting flames, emerging unscathed, a smug grin on his face.
“All that talk when we were conversing, but now that it’s come to a serious fight, you’re running like a coward? I’ve met slaves with more bravado.”
Ramson switched the scanning, using the two camera bots to form a 3D image of the environment and all activity in range. The sensors picked up movement, and he turned his rifle to aim.
Zipping, green plasma raced through the air, punching through the brush and smaller tree brances. The “Murderfy” setting on his gun worked remarkably well as the plasma residue exploded after landing a shot.
“And Play!”
The camera bots hovering in the air began to blare music, specifically the official anthem of his planet, titled “The Hunting King Doth Hunt Again.” A blaring cacophony of string instruments and horns made for an unpleasant, almost painful string of noise, but to the Ultralians it was a melodic symphony that inspired the great to greatness and reminded the lessers that they’d never be great. It was Ramson’s 13th favorite song, after his own self titled track album of twelve songs, all sung by him, extolling the magnitudes of his virtues.
It was also “on sale” at the on-site weapon shop for twice its retail value.
heroicfortitude - written by savvy
home | rules | characters
- indie rp blog
- 10+ yrs of RP exp.
- multi-oc, non-fandom
- mostly open
- OC and fandom friendly
- medium to high activity
- cyberpunk | fantasy themes, inspired by Deus Ex and Hunter x Hunter
(Extmydust) "Hey, I know you! Fuck, you're that Smith guy Phoenyx was talkin' about. Shit, you ARE a big boy."
Smith stared at her like a man about to pick his nose in full view of everyone and no degree of shame to hold him back. “You here on behalf of the old man? Huh. Didn’t expect he’d send someone so uh… vertically challenged.” Smith’s helmet flared yellow as he laughed to himself, before he crouched down to meet her face-to-face.“I dunno who you are, but we ain’t buy no girl-scout cookies today, champ.”Never heard of her before today. Might as well get acquainted.
She justs grits her teeth and growls at the much larger man. Her fists clench and she narrows her eyes.
“You don’t want NONE of this, big boy. I’ve taken out guys twice as big as you, and maybe half as ugly!”
Smith’s helmet whined as his visor turned red and a howl erupted from its speakers.
“I’ve taken out guys three times my size, so It ain’t exactly a challenge to flex my thumb and flick ya like a gnat.” A purple smoke wafted off of Smith’s body as he returned Mote’s glare with his own. “But where’d be the fun in that?” If she was running an errand for Pheonyx, then she must have something, something, that makes her dangerous enough to stand next to the old man. Smith stretched his arms wide open, offering an invitation with a single stipulation: “I’ll give ya one free punch, toots. But then it’s my turn.”
Mali wasn’t going to let Smith have the entire weapons cache to himself. Not now, not at such a critical point in operations for her. “The need for stopping and killing power is exactly why I’m here, gweilo. Unfortunately, last I checked, I don’t date those who murder for fun.”
Her side of the onslaught halted momentarily. Mali’s eyes watched Smith murder without a second thought, like it was second nature. She visibly cringed as a red spray marked both Smith and her, seeping into the ornate nature of her armor and suit. The texture seemed much more different than kevlar.
“We could team up for now, gweilo, sir.” Seems she has given him a nickname. She quickly followed suit after him, guiding him along the correct path deeper, deeper, until the path into the next level was blocked by a giant, sealed hatch of an unknown metal. She stopped, chilled eyes looking towards the behemoth that crashed her operation. “How good is your strength against titanium alloy? Can you tear this door open?” She held her tongue from complaining. She would criticize the brute later.
"We all got our weak-points, but I guess we might as well help each other out. Whats the worst that could happen?” Smith chuckled, compromising on the lack of a date. The worst that could have happened had already unfolded, with lock-down broadcasts blaring throughout the complex and guards rushing about in a hurry.
And now a massive hatch hindered their approach, one that left Smith with a hand to his chin and a blank look on his face. “Huh. Take a while to punch through that... Would it?” He gave the lid a solid punch and listened to the reverb, then stomped his foot around its radius. “Huh. Sturdy stuff.” A glance at the hinges sparked a thought as he stood over them and cracked his knuckles.
“Don’t need to get through the ol’ fashioned way anyhow!” Raising a fist to the air, Smith brought a punch down with seismic force, sending cracks and ripples through the ground. He chased the diameter of the hatch with punch after punch, cracks and fissure running amok as he circled it. Then, rolling his shoulders, he threw a wink at Mali, not that anyone could see through his mask, and delivered another, upheaving strike at the hatch’s edge.
“Just gotta-!” Smith dug his fingers underneath and pulled, legs poised on stable ground as he yanked with all his might. The teeth on his helmet slid open to vent fumes as the grind and rumble of the hatch coming loose began to grow louder. First in snaps, then in a single rumble, Smith tore the hatch from its place, the hinges coming lose as he tossed it to the wayside. He stood proud, striking his chest with a fist as he peered down the hole.
“Woops,” he said, leaning away before gunfire ran up the hole. “Yeah, don’t wanna deal with that,” he added, unhitching a grenade from his belt. “Bottom’s up, babe.” The grenade rattled against the walls on its way down, followed by a silence in gunfire, a couple of frightened shouts, a boom, and then more silence.
“Let’s go, Alice. Got ourselves a rabbit hole.” Without a second thought, the berserker jumped down. He fell, fell, fell, falling past where the ground should have been and into the hole he’d popped open with his grenade. He came to crash in what looked like an underground office, filled with computers and servers. He picked himself up from the rubble, tossing away the desk that broke his fall, kicking the computer he whacked his elbow on.
“It’s uhh... It’s a long way down, toots!” he shouted up through the hole. “Might wanna watch your step! Use the ladder, eh?” Smith shook his head. “I shoulda used the ladder. All this pointless number crunching shit would be a field day for the poindexter, but I ain’t here numbers unless its a clip count. What’s half this garbage anyways?”
(Extmydust) "Hey, I know you! Fuck, you're that Smith guy Phoenyx was talkin' about. Shit, you ARE a big boy."
Smith stared at her like a man about to pick his nose in full view of everyone and no degree of shame to hold him back. “You here on behalf of the old man? Huh. Didn’t expect he’d send someone so uh… vertically challenged.” Smith’s helmet flared yellow as he laughed to himself, before he crouched down to meet her face-to-face.“I dunno who you are, but we ain’t buy no girl-scout cookies today, champ.”Never heard of her before today. Might as well get acquainted.
“You callin’ me short, buddy? I didn’t know they made jackets in size ‘gorilla’.” She puts her hands on her hips. “And if you want cookies, I got a five-finger supply for a right here.”
Another yellow flare of the helmet, and Smith straightened up, rolling his neck as he stared her down. “Ooh, you got me shaking in my size 13 boots, kid. Hell yeah, you want some mittens to put on those tiny hands of yours? Maybe a bib to go with the bottle? I can tell ya right now, you’re a ladder down my weight class to be picking fights, bite-sized.”
Four (Exceptionally) Angry Gentleman @kxhendricksandtheassociates - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
