1350/Gunfight at Vault 18

Gunfight at Vault 18
Date of Scene:	16 January 2015
Location:	Mojave Wasteland (NewVegas)
Synopsis:	Seft and the Starbound Flotilla arrive too late to stop the sacking of Vault 18... but there is a glimmer of vengeance in the distance of New Vegas.
Cast of Characters:	Kotone Yamakawa, 32, 626, Starbound Flotilla, 673

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Courier Six (32) has posed:
    It all starts with a panicked teletype message sent to Seft's flotilla craft. And Seft specifically. <they found us, nuka protector, help he>

    The message cuts off there. All attempts to return communication with Vault 18 go unanswered.

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    Seft's craft is with the Flotilla, in orbit, likely over this world, but she responds immediately. A quick pulse of data rushes through the other craft in the Flotilla, likely including Rory. "Urgent. Vault 18 matter now active. Deploying to planet." A brilliant red beam of light descends from Seft's craft... Followed by five more, shortly after.

    They'll be deploying to the area just outside the Vault, and it shouldn't be too far from a Warpgate. The radioactively lightly-fried badlands have many outcroppings, and this is one where large clusters of advertisements for Nuka Cola have collected in big displays on many billboards nearby. There's also a tunnel through the rock here. When Seft lands, the description of this area may have already changed, of course, with the passing of the Spawn of Festus, but it will be mostly irrelevant to her. She's going to move, quickly and robotically, into the tunnel into the Vault if she can.

    The other five members of the Flotilla will be next, though whether or not they follow suit will depend on the situation. Moonfin, for his own part, is going to be making a call for a moment.

Courier Six (32) has posed:
    The entrance to said tunnel... is not a good sight. Members of the cult have been shot and dragged out into the baking sun of the desert, stripped of their armor, as if someone is looking for something, and then just left there. Bloatflies are starting to gather, as shots and crumps of explosions can be heard inside the facility.

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    One of the people that signed on to the mission was one 'Kyra Hyral.' She did her research on this world beforehand, fortunately, learning quite a bit about radiation in the process and taking the steps needed to find and prime herself with the proper medication beforehand. Therefore, when she arrives outside the Vault, she's not instantly killed by the local deadly radiation. She's also taken the precaution of covering up as much skin as possible, opting for a black, white, and red coverall suit. Her lab goggles, which actually resemble aviator goggles in a steam-punky sort of way, are pulled down over her eyes. Belts and bandoliers dangle off her thin form, sporting a variety of ammo and materials. Clutched in both of her hands is a shotgun.

    She lingers for a few moments outside the Vault, checking the discarded bodies of the cult piled around the entrance of the tunnel. She doesn't move on, however, until other Syndicate members arrive, hesitant to enter alone.

Rory White (673) has posed:
    While the Flotilla's core members have those lovely TELEPORTERs and HAMMERSPACE via MATTER MANIPULATOR, Rory White finds herself lagging far behind the group because of her own deployment method. Shuttle.

    A SMALL TAKE OFF AND LANDING (STOLV for short) has disconnected from the Cognizant Odyssey and plunges hard through the atmosphere at an INCREDIBLY steep - almost vertical - angle. As it nears Vault 18's airspace it flips around in the air, fires retro rockets, opens up some ports and spits out a few dog-sized drones. The main ramp extends as soon as it touches down and Rory comes charging out with her foam sprayer in hand! Those drones following her are vaguely humanoid and carry even more gear. One has nothing but a bag full of Nanobandages! And because of that... she heads straight to the cult members. Depending on how far decomposed their brains have gotten, she might be able to revive some of them, after all!

    And in all of this chaos, chances are nobody will notice a little robotic dragonfly-sized bug zip for the Vault 18 entranceway...

    As always, Kotone is granted access to the TACTICAL OVERLAY from Rory's drone surveillance. Many of the ones over the Vault's location are using seismological probing to try and get a feel for the Vault's layout and structure, however rough that will turn out...

    "What happened here?!"

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone Yamakawa helped make this mess even and she's going to help clean it up. The Cola Cult as she refered to it had her really wondering about things and so here she was with Rory as she's become commonly scene iwht. She was very oddly comfortable around Rory and perhaps it was what she needed. Okay she didn't arrive with her. She's not dressed as heavily but she does have a jacket on a duster if you will which she's 3wearing over her normal clothing for the moment. Her braincase is leadlined so she's not got to worry about the space voodo radation or so she hopes. She's waiting there as Rory arrives and she finds that she's got tha tactical overlay from Rory.

"Ah, Rory's here."

She notes, she looks over to Kyra for a moment sizing the woman up she's heard hef on the radio but she thinks this is the first time they have met.

She does however now atch sight o the slaughter.

"This is not good and violence other than that I can't tell."

WShe does however seem very on guard however.

Courier Six (32) has posed:
    @KYRA, RORY:

    The people outside are past 'slightly dead' and 'mostly dead' to 'very dead'.

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    Albert draws his large steel hammer from the Matter Manipulator at his belt, using its huge hammer head to poke at one of the corpses. "Loot-centric corpse abuse. A traditional sign of inhumane battle tactics. Someone who doesn't care about proper warfare." That's an answer to Rory, of course.

    Biteblade, the strange plant-person, handles the corpses a little more brutally. "Meatmen already dead. What happensss after, shouldn't care. Floran need." They remove a hefty, heavy-duty knife and with surprising speed dismember one of the corpse arms. "Floran will take. Needsss." A quick affirming noise.

    Moonfin takes the side of Rory and Kotone. "We can be certain of little. In times when few things are certain, acting on what you know for sure is paramount. We know that it continues, within, and that we want it not to." He draws a katana from the Matter Manipulator at his belt. "And so, let us act." He takes a calm, stylish stride towards the Vault.

    The bird-woman, Pavo, seems to not have any especially great interest here, only really having tagged along. She's sort of lollygagging around the entrance. George, meanwhile, is trying to slip inside just behind Seft, who is marching in immediately, her large steel axe in hand. The entire gang, of course, are armored and armed in their steel. Moonfin in samurai armor, Biteblade in steel plating with bone ornaments, Pavo with a pirate-styled segmented-plate sort of thing, Albert wearing some kind of dystpian commando armor, George with a scavenged spacesuit altered into an armor suit, and Seft wearing full-on medieval soldier wear.

    Speaking of Seft, she's marching in, trying to detect the direction of those noises, and charging with her axe in both hands.

Courier Six (32) has posed:
    @ALL
    Biteblade, upon later review, will find that meat more than a little radioactive, as if all of the fatty tissue has been saturated in higher-than-background radiation for its entire life. Also the blood glows dully.

    There's a similar sight on the way in past the now ruined Vault Door and the Security Room. Bodies of defenders have been shot repeatedly, tossed for loot and left in heaps on the floor. Some have been executed, probably after not quite dying on the first time being shot.

    More telling is the scene in the large Common Chamber that serves as the main entry/advertising point once inside the Vault. It would appear that there was some resistance here, as two gruff, rough looking men wearing leather armor lie at the main doors of the chamber, along with a curious pile of ash that's splattered across a wall and floor in the shape of a man.

    The people in here are less dead than upstairs in the security room, though few are in any condition to do more than breathe and bleed.
    The cheery, happy, lovely advertising jingle for Nuka-Cola Quartz plays in the background. Did you know Quartz has 18 natural flavors, just like the number of your Vault?

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    Kyra considers pointing out that there was really nothing wrong with looting dead bodies. She decides against it.

    Between Rory, Kotone, and the crew from the Flotilla that hadn't moved on already, Kyra feels confident with this backup, especially given Rory's excellent tactical data. The white mage is inclined to fall in line in the back since it's a good place for her to be (and nowhere near whatever it is that was wrecking everything inside). Having a ranged weapon also helps.

    She pauses to stare at Kotone for a long moment, giving her a funny look.

    "...wow. This looks like a massacre." she says quietly as they delve deeper into the vault itself as she peers at each body they pass. Some, she can tell, had been alive at one point until the assailant inside shot them again to finish the job. As they move onward, she starts to notice some people seem a lot more alive, though she can tell it's not going to be the case for long.

    Though she falls behind the group as she does so, Kyra stops for those that seem to have the most life left in them and offers each a dart from her bandolier. She quietly explains through hand gestures that sticking themselves with the dart should bring relief. For those that cannot seem capable of moving, she'll medicate them herself. While she works, she doesn't ask the rest of the group to wait for her, confident that she can catch up easily. Near as she can tell, the gunshots are much deeper within the vault so once the forward team has swept through, it should be safe.

    ...right?

Courier Six (32) has posed:
    @KYRA:
    YOUR HEALING SPELLS work just fine on the people who are still alive enough to have use for them. Though the only ones that pertains to are those who were 'dead enough' for whoever swept through here.
    Women and children are present though whoever came through here seems only to have beaten the children, not shot them. They've still been tossed for their loot. Someone is looking for something that these people might be carrying.

    Also, curiously, the tangy smell of soda exudes from every person here. Another glace shows... that there are soda fountains along side every regular fountain in the kitchen and dining hall area.

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone Yamakawa says "I scavange myself, there's a ruined city near where I live but I haven't done anything like this."

She notes she watches the Floran take some of the reamisn as food, there's a moment of horror but on the other hand the pragmatic part of her mind is going. He's got a meal where he wasn't resposible for the death. She's as disturbed as she is about it not going to comment.

She looks to Moonfin as she arrives and she thinks for a moment.

"Here we go."
% She'll follow Moon Fin in at this point along with everyone else and she draws her pistol as they go in she keeps it lowered as she looks at the carnge. It's perhaps best her stomach is long gone really as she tries to focus on things ahead.

"We have wounded."

Worry about the living them mourn for the dead. She moves to assist Kyra where she can to help Kyra and also provide cover sould anyone need to be held still for whatever reason Kotone will help and be noticably stronger than she looks.

Kotone is also keeping an eye out for more trouble or anything her eyes might be able to spot, signs of enemies remaining. She also caught the look from Kyra and might have to talk to her about it later. She has a very good idea of what's up there.

Rory White (673) has posed:
    With Biteblade just hacking bits off a corpse, Rory... looks more weirded out than squicked. She blinks a few times, while crouched over one of the fallen. She spends a few moments examining them... but the sensor suites available to her are not giving very promising readings.

    "No chance of revival. You're right, they're just meat now." Rory doesn't sound HAPPY to declare this, but it's true. Is this some attempt on her part to get along with Biteblade? "Not that I'd call it safe to--"

    ANd he just walks off with it. Oh well.

    She's got more important things to worry about, it seems.

    "Agreed. There's no time to waste here." Up she stands again. She's not wearing armor, and her labcoat definitely won't offer much protection... but perhaps, perhaps it doesn't have to so much.

    "Observation. this is the only way in or out. The intruders will HAVE to return this way!" If anyone gets any bright ideas for taking advantage of that tactically, that is... here is a good opportunity.

    As Rory traipses along, she'll assist Kyra with the healing duties. She has small plum-sized blobs with a red cross emblem to splat onto any major wounds. The Nanobandages are a combination of disinfectant and clotting agent that will try to stitch wounds back together. If the wound is mortal, they can place the victim in medical stasis for more proper treatment elsewhere.

    "... It's unbelievable how unhealthily these people lived... but no matter how strange their lifestyle, they do not deserve anything like this."

    The AGI's now getting angr, oh dear. She directs her robots to fall into step while the tiny 'gnat' continues zipping down a corridor ahead and beaming video footage to her. Hopefully, if anyone's lying in wait... they'll not fall into any ambush this way!

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    Biteblade and Albert advance into the Vault now. Pavo will be dawdling a while behind. Seft is working with robotic effeciency. She's disabled several core functions of her personality, including things like "revulsion response" for the corpses, or "fear" to prevent herself from fleeing at the sight of such a potentially dangerous foe. Her axe stays in both hands, but she's got another weapon to draw later... Something maybe more like what made that awful ash pile. She's going to be heading right for the noises of battle. Biteblade is the first to catch up with her, the Floran eager to engage in a hunt.

    Moonfin and George get in, though George has a quick stop to make elsewhere. Primarily seeking the upper areas he missed in their explorations before, the control center, intending to go loot for higher access codes. Moonfin makes a distasteful noise. "You are quite right, Miss Hyral. If one is to kill many, they should have the dignity to make it clean, and artistic. This is inelegant brutality, with needless collateral damage." He continues on.

    Albert gives an approving nod to Kyra and Rory. "Care for all wounded. A simple rule of the battlefield." He's going to stay with her, keeping his hammer at the ready in both hands, intending to act as a sort of bodyguard to the less capable.

Courier Six (32) has posed:
    MAIN CHAMBER:
    Okay so a bunch of you are in here. Those who aren't dead can be stabilized at least, though it will be a while to get anyone roused and awake to be a witness.
    Someone has left a number of refridgerators open, one even has the door yanked off one of its hinges, bottles of soda casually tossed on the floor, Nuka-Cola turning sticky underfoot.
    Rory makes an excellent point, that between here and the security room, there doesn't appear to be any other egress from the Vault. This would make an awfully good chokepoint, much like these poor folks attempted to do.

    GEORGE: Heading 'up' will put George in a familiar landscape: Shitty Corridor Planning. Garish neon lights flash and blink up here as offices and various maintenance rooms spike off the corridor. Clean, pristine, Nuka-Colabranded corridors. One of the hallways finally branches out over the top of the common area, thick glass allowing whoever it was behind the door that George is standing in front of a chance to look either approvingly or disapprovingly at the Common Rooms. The door is marked OVERSEER, and is locked. There is a convienent Teletype Dos Prompt-like terminal next to the door.

    Deeper down, as Seft and Biteblade charge, the carnage is less concentrated. There are defenders dead in the hallways here and there, less looting and more shooting. Another member of what must be the Sunset Assault lies next to the elevator down along with a defender. The Gunman has a neat perforated hole through his head, made by a laser. The defender has been shot multiple times with a shotgun. Overkill.
    The elevator is active but not moving. Levels on the call board include Residential, Maintainance, NUKA COLA as a level all by itself, and finally Reactor Level. She'll remember that as where they went to get the fusion cores.

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    Albert calls ahead on the radio. "Excess looting of the refridgerators. Something about the Nuka Cola storage facilities here is of interest to the raiders. Breach centralized areas of Nuka Cola storage immediately, and be on-guard. Ballistic firearms are being employed for the most part, by the attackers."

    Seft and Biteblade hear it. Seft is going to double-check, taking just a moment to try to use her more advanced sensors to get some idea of the rough distances of that noise, but lacking any other data, she's going to hit the NUKA COLA button. Biteblade seems to be preparing the arm they're still holding onto for something, but it's not clear what.

    Albert keeps his position with Kotone, Rory, and Kyra, acting as a vanguard for them. Pavo finally reaches them, and passes them on the way to Moonfin, who'll be in the second group down the elevator. Meanwhile, above, George takes the LOCKPICK approach. His experience in space hull engineering extends to airlock wiring, and so his first focus is to see if he can expose the door's wires in any way with the array of tools in his Matter Manipulator, test for various functions, and use a little wiring stimulation tool he has in his Matter Manipulator to pulse an OPEN command through the door.

Courier Six (32) has posed:
    @GEORGE:
    The door is hardened against the sorts of tools one might have here on this world. Even against bobby pins!
    Not so much with direct stimulation of the internal deadbolts. A little electrical fiddling and NO ARC FLASH later, and there's a satisfying CLUNK from inside the door, and it hisses open.
    Inside? There's a large, heavy looking desk. Several dirty young kids are also in here. Also a scared woman with a laser gun, who screams and starts fireing wildly. "HERETIC! LEAVE OUR FOUNDLINGS ALONE HERETIC!"

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    "Hey Rory?" she looks up at her fellow healer, half intrigued by the nanomachines she's using to help the injured with, half interested in something else: "Can you post one of your drones here? These guys clearly can't be moved and I don't think they're going to be getting up and going to somewhere else safer." Her eyes drift away, roaming over the...discarded children.

    Kyra cringes.

    "We need some kind of warning if the thing that did all this manages to somehow get around us. Or something else comes into the vault behind us." Exhausting what healing needs to be done, but not her resources since Rory has also been helping people, she gives Albert a solem nod. "It's what I'm here for. I think we can move on now and catch up with the others."

    With that, Kyra shifts her shotgun to both hands again and moves to catch up with the rest of the group as they move to confront the attacker.

Courier Six (32) has posed:
    @SEFT, BITEBLADE:
    The ride down should be happy time Nuka-Cola jingles and branded music. Instead there's a dead woman with a broken laser rifle and glowing blood pooling on the floor. Also someone ripped out the speaker very recently what with the sparking electronics hanging down.

    THE doors open up on the NUKA-COLA level to the sight of where the gunfire is coming from. Masked men with heavy rifles and handguns pinning a last group of defenders down at the entrance to a fantastically branded Nuka Cola showroom like area with tanks and elaborate showy mixing chambers now shattered and broken from gunfire. The masked men are flat footed to your precense.

Rory White (673) has posed:
    "An excellent idea, Kyra!" Rory chimes. Her eyes momentarily glaze over as she no doubt assigns a new AI role to one of the tractor-tread drones that's been following her. Since it stops doing so, apparently that's the one she'll be leaving behind. It doesn't appear to be armed, but there are some weird and bulbuous protrusions here and there with holes that have no evident purpose... who knows what it can do?

    "We'll stick with you, Albert! No point splitting up!"

    Although Rory's already feeling like going in this far might be pushing their luck. She casts a worried glance at Kyra. Will SHe be alright?

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone Yamakawa takes a good look Rory's right this is a good spoot to make a stand against invaders. The locals had the right idea here she'll pause at the fridges and stare for a moment.

"Humm if this is soda based maybe they are looking to destroy the supply of Nuka Cola or something related to that?"

She's happy to have Albert on overwatch. He seems straight up from her interactions and doesn't set her alert on like what a hungry biteblade might do.

"Good idea leave a drone here to keep tabs on things..."

She looks at the children and grimaces, they are alive thankfully as vile as the raiders are they seemed to draw the line at killing children.

With everything in order she moves after Kyra to catch up.

"Come on lets get moving Kyra and ... ww're lucky to have both you and Rory along. I'm going to press on head Rory keep in touch over cyber comm could you and call me if you need me."

With that she's going to catch up with Kyra, it looks like Kotone's going ahead so Kyra isn't alone.

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    George is usually joking, upbeat, positive, and maybe a little stupid. This time he's not. His motives for attacking the Overseer aren't immediately clear, so it's good that nobody knows where they are or what they're doing to question them.

    The plan, of course, was simple. Open the door, rush in, take whatever punishment she can dish out, choke her out using the table-focused robusting technique styles, likely beat her to death, and then steal her access for whatever strange purposes George had in mind. It would be quick, quiet, nobody would find out about his strange, insane agendas, and he'd get what he came for.

    But there are children in here.

    George's head snaps to their location, eyes wide under that face-obfuscating helmet. He is an extremely awful human under the jokes and faux-stupidity, but he is just not that awful. One of the lasers slams into his steel-plated ex-EVA-suit, slagging a plate off and punching a blistering burn to the skin of the torso below. And so, he gives a quick affirming wordless salute to the children, and pulses the wire again, hopefully closing the door. If so, he'll pull out a welding tool and deploy his solar shield on the helmet to cover his eyes while he temporarily welds the door shut, ideally making it impossible for the raiders to get in.

    He'll catch up with the main group later.

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    Biteblade chows down on their stolen arm, eating the meat, bone and all. The radiation surges into them and, oddly enough, seems to affect their plant matter much less violently than most. Their black eyes begin to glow a gentle green, and they begin emitting a soft, hissing noise...

    The plant pounces with INCREDIBLE bone-breaking force, drawing a pair of steel knives from their Matter Manipulator and trying to drive them straight into the neck of one unsuspecting masked man. They're going right for throat. Hunts, however, don't mean screaming. Biteblade does this wordlessly and brutally, and attempts to bite chunks of the raiders out of their body. It would seem the Floran is capable of much more high-energy movement when consuming flesh carnivorously.

    Seft is similarly wordless, though perhaps a bit easier to detect. While there's no gunfire on her, she moves into action, with soft robotic noises that you could mistake for an airlock's opening and closing being the only forewarning to her efforts to attack the cluster of foes from the rear, ideally not giving any the chance to scream as she rushes in, attempting to grab one by the scruff of his neck, throw him to the ground, and plant the axe near his neck. "Intimidating. The Spawn of Festus. Current location." She's attempting a battlefield interrogation, hopefully covered by Biteblade or the rest of the Syndicate Network members behind them!

Courier Six (32) has posed:
    @ALL:
    Well Biteblade might not have made anoy noise, and Seft was quiet as a churchmouse. But the unfortunate man who just got pounced by the plant howls and screams and bleeds, until one of those knives pops his larynx, and then he can only gurgle.
    The now very stunned man who's got an axe to the neck squawks and falls to the floor, scrambling backwards and trying to get away from Big Fucking Axe. "WH-What what? Festus? I... spawn of... who?" He shows many of the signs of drug use, eyes wide and dialated, nose red and cracked, lips slightly discolored. Jet maybe? "F-f-festus is the old man... who takes your Stars, man! I just... I just know that Gregory was gonna split the reward qwith us, man, I I I don't know nothin' other than that!" He's keeping well clear of the rifle that lies on the floor.
    The music overhead stops playing, and a voice crackles over the loudspeaker where all can hear it now. "YOU BOYS STOP PLAYIN' WITH THE TRIBALS AND FIND ME MAH DAMN STARS. I KNOW SOME OF THESE HERE FOLKS HAVE EM."

    There's a much larger explosion back in the Nuka-Cola region, like breaching charges. The blast rattles the whole Vault, knocking the lights out.

    Someone just tackled Seft in the dark, attemtping to take her down off her feet. The cultists... are glowing. Like their skin glows a dull blue in the dark, Cherenkov blue. "MOTHER MATRON OF NUKA! YOU CAME TO US!" Lights and torches are lit by all of the cultists, flashing wildly all over the facility as the red emergency lamps come on.
    The bandit is attempting to punch Seft repeatedly in the head.

Courier Six (32) has posed:
    @SECOND TEAM:
    The power is knocked out, and the whole Vault goes dark, systems and ventilation turning off. Red lights come on just in time for a trio of gunmen to come out of the Residential section of the Vault, heading back up towards the exit and the Vault Door.
     One of them has his arms loaded with dark bottles that AREN'T Nuka-Cola. Rootbeer of some sort. The other two look up and see people Who Aren't Cultists, and draw rifles. "HEY! THESE ARE OUR CAPS!" Bang bang bang go the guns!

Courier Six (32) has posed:
    @GEORGE: George is able to lock the door in his own way just in time for the Power to go out and seal all the powered doors anyways. Hope those people have enough air to hold out in there.
    He's also got a bird's eye view of the shooting starting up in the common area. The gunmen aren't looking up.

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    Kyra examines the drone Rory left behind from afar. It didn't look like it had weapons but the bulbous sections...maybe they contained a knockout gas of some kind? At least that's the route Kyra would take on a sentry drone too small to effectively carry any kind of firearm. She'd have to ask about that later.

    Once the lights go off, Kyra stops and reaches for a small flashlight latched to her belt. She flicks it on jsut in time for the gunmen to come storming out, guns blasing and root beer being stolen. Not questioning this, her immediate action is to seek cover-around a corner, in a doorway-anything. She attempts to set up so she can return fire with her shotgun.

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    A bandit tries to punch Seft. Punching metal! It is extremely stupid. While it will dent her head and rattle her braincase in a stunning way, it's liable to shatter the attacker's hand because she locks up her neck joint and then suddenly it's like he's punching the floor.

    He won't have time to change his tune because Biteblade just fired an arrow at his head, quickly swapped from dual knives to their bow. And then right back again! Using ROBOT STRENGTH, Seft heaves the man on top of her up and attempts to heave-bludgeon the man was interrogating on the ground using either the living or the dead body of the man who was just punching her, just in case he's going for his rifle again. "Angry." She says, in a perfect monotone, but with a harsh buzz under it. "Immediately provide me the location of the one called 'Gregory' to ensure your continued survival."

    The Floran takes another biting chomp of the fresh corpse that was recently screaming. They'll be using it to fuel regeneration, this time, instead of speed, so that the Floran can eagerly and happily rush forward towards the show area, hissing and shouting, "Meat, call Fessstusss ssspawn help, ssstupid! Will ssstab!" With superhuman bounds, it tries to crash through the forces in the direction of the noise of those breaching charges, wherever they are. The showroom's defense will be handled by Seft, soon.

    Meanwhile, Moonfin and Pavo have no opposition, so they're in search of emergency access points, stairs, and other similar things, past the residential area and down below. Both have enough engineering savvy to get the lights back on if they can get to the Fusion level, and enough combat savvy to realize that having a glow-in-the-dark combat force against one that doesn't glow in the dark is a problem. They'll be heading DOWN if they can, to the REACTOR, where ideally they'll be doing ENGINEERING THINGS to get the lights back up for a moment. Or, potentially, finding out more about the power situation.

    George, having finished up his brief scrape with revealing his true behavior, reverts immediately back to dumb comedy, and so he takes a quick running LEAP from the upper floor onto the lower one, hopefully landing square on third of the trio in a goomba stomp, the one heading for the entrance. "What's up, stooges! It was actually me." He says rather casually, trying to slam another off his feet with a sudden, mighty shove from behind, ideally putting him prone on the ground and easy pickings for Kyra! He then attempts to wrestle violently with the third, to pull his gun away, but in this scenario they're likely too aware of his presence to get properly caught off guard enough. It's more to keep George from getting shot again.

    Of course, shortly before this, Albert leapt in front of the crew he was helping, attempting to make sure he took whatever beams or bullets were sent their way and likely winding up with many wounds or severe burns. He'll take that just long enough for them to get properly into cover and then likely take cover himself to nurse his wounds.

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone is moving at a good clip with Kyra as they decend into the Vault some more and shes moving at a good clip. She does however pause as thelights go off Kotone does the same ith her off hand as the gunmen start coming out blasting. They are also yelling about caps, which is this world's money if she recall's Johnny's crash course on things. Then the shooting starts, and that's when she picks up speed, she snaps off a shot as she goes but then she moves at a speed that isn't normal for a human as she tries to get in closer before they can fire more shots.

She's also wearing gloves and she has her off hand as she gets closer she'll try to stop shooting and punch the cloest bandit. On inpact it will give off a charge much like a taser.

She takes note Albert is hit there's a sense of panic but she has to keep fighting.

Courier Six (32) has posed:
    BASEMENT LEVEL:
    The man being 'interrogated' is named Snake or at least he was at one poin before he was swung into another motherfucker and had his brains rattled along with an arrow in the chest. Now he is named 'sucking chest wound', and gasps raggedly, frantically trying to fish around in his chest rig for-
    A red stim. This even the Flotbonds will recognize as the universal HEAL ME jab. He tries to talk and breath but gets no where with the arrow stuck in him.
    Biteblade meanwhile barrells past the people 'defending' the cola stores to reach a massive fucking fault door, marked with a sign that says SECRET NUKA RECIPE INSIDE DO NOT OPEN. Suprisingly, none of them have. Well, the cultists haven't, but someone is inside there, if the noise and machinery noises therein can be trusted.

Courier Six (32) has posed:
    BIRD AND FISH:
    The emergency stairs proove easy enough to transverse. The cultists seem to use them quite often, what with the doors being propped open. The Reactor Level door is closed howerver. No heavy lock in the way though. Past that... Someone has been down here. That's clear with the massive hole in the ceiling over the top of a hastily constructed Box Staircase. Rad levels are picking up down here, Geiger Counters clicking. Three more dead cultists litter the floor, but appear to have been blow into corners from the force of whatever it was that blew open the cieling. The sound of machinery can be heard up through the hole

Rory White (673) has posed:
    "What?!" Rory did have her drones out and was immediately alerted to the presence of an UNFAMILIAR INDIVIDUAL or two entering moments before an ordinary human might be. But she wasn't expecting them to be part of the enemy group. A stupid thing on second thought - the invaders are the only armed people about. Tactical mishap, oops!

    "I'm not here for--" BANG BANG! "Eeek!"

    Rory leaps awkwardly to the side, thanks to having a very strong body and really poor skill at using it. But she dives behind one of the refrigerators.

    However, her tactical software has now pegged these people as HOSTILES.

    The linked drone that's now patrolling this corridor has picked up on this! It zooms over on its treads without her even thinking about it and now those strange openings are put to use.

    Flickers of violetish light are all that can be seen... and not on the drone.

    On the assailant's weapons.

    See, lasers are invisible EXCEPT for where the light's reflecting off. And these lasers are likely going to quickly wreck that gun's ability to fire!

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    Seft is perhaps the only truly morally upright member of the Starbound Flotilla. She knows the Heal Jab when she sees one, regen stimpacks are something known to her race. As such, she slams the axe down near Snake's head, lodging it in the steel floor. However, this is a raider, so while she helps, she doesn't do it gently. With a quick and EXTREMELY painful motion, the arrow is removed.

    Seft's eye-visor is, for a moment, filled with inhuman static. "Murderous. Mouthe it if you must. Tell the location now." This time she pulls the gun Courier Six provided her, planting its barrel on Snake's head. Even as the 'heroic' one of the group, Seft is still a little bit... Horribly inhuman about this. She intends to read his lips, if his lungs don't get together fast enough.

Courier Six (32) has posed:
    COMMON ROOM:
    WELL NOW. George jumps on a motherfucker, Kyra Starts Shooting, Rory starts SCIENCING and Albert tanks it like a champ.
    Let's break this down. George opens up with A Goomba Stomp on the Rootbeer Man, who crumples the same way any person who just got literally jumped would. Bottles and glass and sticky rootbeer goes everywhere. George is now in robusting position.
    Too bad there's a lot of return fire from the two heavier combatants, as Kyra and Kotone lash out punching and tasing and shooting and then the lasering from Rory. If these men were expecting anything else to happen, it's not going to.

    Two of them are NOT DEAD! CONGRATULATIONS.

Courier Six (32) has posed:
    The words are clear, despite the bloody spittle flecking the now healing man's lips.
    <COLA VAULT HAS SUNSET STARS>
    Snake flinches as the plasma rifle is placed against his head.

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    Pavo and Moonfin reach the Reactor level. More dead people. They have a brief discussion on the subject of what to handle on which ends, and agree that Pavo, being the laziest about this mission, should just hang back and handle the fusion matter. She has a great deal of FTL ENGINEERING experience, which is barely related but which should ideally help her deal with the radiation leak and the reactors at the very least!

    She gets to work. She'll get cleaned of her rads shortly.

    Moonfin, on the other hand, ascends, katana at his side but with a rather peaceful mannerism.

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    Biteblade leaps into action. "Fine, Floran killsss until ssstupid ssspawn come fight himself." It calls out, eyes glowing ominously in the darkness. There's a quick thumbs up to the glowing defenders though, to make sure there's no misunderstanding. "Matron nuka isss friend! Hello metal friend!" Oh shit, here comes Seft. She left the man to his gaping chest wound and is charging in.

    "Warning. Someone has invaded the area behind you." She says, simply. Dragging her huge battle-axe along the ground in one hand like a horror-game villain as she runs, the sparks light up the dark area, her gun out and ready. "Cautioning. Permit me and my ally to breach the area."

    Finishing off the last of her arm-snack, the Floran powers up properly but realizes the nature of the vault door. She quickly gets on the radio. "Friend fuzzy monkey, door clossssed! Power off! Can't move it!"
    "Urgent. We require access to this area. We need the vault opened."

    Albert, from behind his cover, is BLEEDING HEAVILY, but coordinates the group. "George, go back upstairs, tell the overseer to open the vault. Pavo, get the power back on /now/. Seft, Biteblade, breach as soon as you can."

    And so, George leaves the remaining two combatants to Kyra, Rory, and Kotone. "Hey, I gotta go have a really awkward conversation, I'm gonna see you guys later!" He rushes back upstairs, intending to knock on the shut Overseer's office. "Heyyyy! Lady, can you do me and the Mother Matron of Nuka a solid? The Sunset dudes violated your scripture or something and got into the recipes, can you open up that door, let her on in to take righteous vengeance on heretics?" Ideally, since he didn't speak last time he was here, she won't recognize that's his voice. And it's very convincing and charismatic, of course.

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    Cover attained, thanks to Albert. Although Kyra would certainly like to jump in and heal Albert, a shotgun requires too hands and Rory has drones on her side. Leaving Rory to focus on patching Albert up, Kyra selects one of the unfortunate gunmen, waiting just a second so she's sure that George is definitely out of her way.

    "Hey!" she hisses out, trying to catch the man's attention for just a second to distract him. Once she has that attention, she fires.

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone Yamakawa slows down now as she sees the fight ocmes to an end and she moves to pick up thier weapons to make sure they don't get any ideas when they come to and she starts looking for some Zip ties in her pockets.

"Rory? Kyra can you help Albert I'm afraid there nothing much I can do to help."

She make sure to try and check the bottles they were carrying with them.

"...You know this kinda puts people lust for money into stark perspective."

She notes while doing what she can.

"Tch what a mess."

She too has all the faith in the world with Rory's ability to patch up Albert.

"Maybe this might shead light on why they did this.

Courier Six (32) has posed:
    GEORGE:
    WELL NOW. The room isn't opening any time soon, really, thanks to the power being out and also a little bit welded. But there's a shuffle behind the door, and a tinny voice calls out. "Mother Matron of Nuka? She is with you? Why did you come like a theif? Like those murderers?"
    An anxious few moments... and then...

    Down below, the door to the vault starts opening.

Rory White (673) has posed:
    "It's... like the actions of a mad man, to me..." Rory offers meekly as she crawls out of cover and heads for Albert, Nanobandages in hand. She's not sure how well they'll take, but Primate ain't much different from Human-derivative anything so it SHOULD work, and shouldn't cause any weird side-effects to speak of...

    She FROWNS HEAVILY at the fallen, downed, disabled, or stupified assailants as she slaps a Nanobandage over one of Albert's wounds. It will sting slightly but then THE PAIN GOES AWAY. It's great at killing pain!

    "Got it, Kotone! ... Are you okay? You didn't need to cover me... a few bullets won't damage my Morph too much! But that was very brave. Thank you."

Courier Six (32) has posed:
    NUKA LEVEL:

    Moonfin acends at around the same time that the door starts to open, and all will get to see... the surreal situation.

    The room, floor to cieling, lined to the gills... with Sunset Sarsparilla. Enough to choke an army on sugary sweetness. Palletts upon palletts and crates of rootbeer. And in front of all of them is a man carrying a shortwave radio sitting in a pile of opened bottles, poking at bottle caps. He is frantically trying to stuff all of them into his jacket as the Flotsam enter in both directions.

    He is a tall, reedy looking man in a tweed coat and a heavy leather jacket over the top of that for protection, it would seem. A too-heavy pistol riases up at the 'intruders', and the man's Texan accent drawls. "Ya'll get away now, I just came for the caps. We can share those, there's gotta be enough stars in this for three whole treasures! All of them, we can take em and turn em in!"
    The pistol points from Biteblade to Moonfin and then to the Mother Matron of Nuka. "Just... just step away, I mean it!"

Courier Six (32) has posed:
    UPSTAIRS:
    The downed gunfighters are still downed. The one George jumped on clearly has a broken shoulder.
    The one Kotone tased is also down.

    The one Kyra shot in the first place is Very Dead.

    People are starting to rouse in the darkness, glowing humans coming awake in the darkness of the common room. No one seems inclinded to move all that much.

Courier Six (32) has posed:
    THE BOTTLES:
    Thebottles are Sunset Sarsparilla! THE BEVERAGE OF THE WEST COAST! This tasty beverage is a staple of the Southwest! BUILD MASS WITH SASS!
    The rest of the labels are ruined with soda stains.

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    George quickly hotswaps his outfit using his Matter Manipulator, keeping his familiar jumpsuit while the door's still closed. Given that they only saw him with the EVA suit on, and it obfuscated his face, he can claim that was someone else! "Huh? You mean, what was it, a week ago? Nah, that was a big misunderstanding. Like a mistake, you make those sometimes right?"

    George is okay with kids. Huh. Must come from an old job.

    Albert makes a very, VERY relieved noise as the bandages go over him. Nanowraps heal a ton, after all! "It is my role." He says, simply. "Better that you remain at peak medical efficacy to do what's necessary here." He's getting up though! The pain's definitely killed, and his body is surprisingly resilient on its own, what with the armor and ape biology.

    Meanwhile, Moonfin, Biteblade, and Seft reach the vault. Pavo's still at work below, so these three confront the boss of this. Seft and Biteblade keep quiet, but Moonfin is the one who speaks, as always. "No lack of artistic irony. A man who seeks the stars, he finds himself confronted by those who descend from them. In reaching to the heavens, he became a demon, and so from above were sent champions to slay him. He desired only to touch the celestial, and yet, a mountain of bodies must be scaled to reach it. Unfortunately, this is not my story. I will serve only as the stylish voice of my robotic companion. And their blade."

    He holds his blade horizontally next to his head very suddenly. "You lived with inelegant brutality. Die with grace." He intends to rush forward, as soon as the Spawn of Festus goes to pull that trigger! Seft walks forward, sparks flying from her axe's edge against the ground, and beginning to level her own weapon at him, and Biteblade is practically salivating, flipping their knives into a reverse grip and beginning to break into a run at Gregory.

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone Yamakawa looks over at Rory for a moment and calls out.

"Thanks Rory."

<<I guess in a way we are savages huh by your world's standards.>>

Her world is not so far removed fromt his, heck she got this could have been her worlds future could have gone. She pauses as she looks over the bottle.

"...IT's Sunset Sarsparilla...They were murdering people over SODA?!"

Very much <Goosehonk> you Vault-Tech seriously <Goosehonk>

Kotone has this utterly disgusted look on her face as she moves to zip tie one of the killers and moves to the next.

Courier Six (32) has posed:
    SODA JERKS:
    Gregory's eyes go wide, and he slaps at his belt as all three Starbound travellers come in for the kill. There's a clattering SNAP POP and then...
    He's gone. Vanished. Poof, not there. His voice echoes in the room though. "Oh ho ho, thought you'd get my caps that easy, did you? Get my treasure? MY TREASURE! AIN'T YOURS. NOT EVER YOURS."
    There's a running noise in the room, and a leather jacket goes flying, a flash of... motion of some sort out of the vault door. A cloaking device?

    The man's voice then crackles on the overhead. <YOU AIN'T OUTSMARTED OLD GREGORY GHOST! I ALREADY GOT WHAT AH CAME HERE FOR! YOU AIN'T SMART ENOUGH TO STOP ME!>
    Stairwell clattering. But not the emergency star. Does he know another way out?

Rory White (673) has posed:
    Rory might not be a very good fighter. Even a paltry medic. Her science and programming skills aren't much help... but if there's one thing she's good at, it's thinking calmly and responding to situations with a clear head.

    Which is one of her drones suddenly ZOOMS OFF as she jams its controls, basically 'possessing' it.

    The treads strangely retrect and a set of wheels unfolds from the side and ZOOM off it goes, heading for the vault door to hit 'close.'

    A Saucer hovers in the corridor... bringing ultrasound, infrared, and other sensors to bear. Visual spectrum? Who needs it!

Starbound Flotilla has posed:
    Moonfin grins, closing his eyes and going in for the DRAMATIC BLIND SAMURAI SINGLE-SLICE KILL! His intent is to use his superior sword technique to flash-step by the invisible man on his way out, dramatically slicing a lethal cut through his body!He even confidently does that thing where he sheathes his sword dramatically, intending for the corpse of the man to dramatically appear when the handle clicks into the Matter Manipulator.

    Unfortunately, while he does go through all the motions, his ego has caused him to vastly overestimate his own ability to detect, you know, an INVISIBLE person, especially one who makes a point of using his own invisibility often and with great potency. So no body appears. Gregory gets away without a scratch, despite Seft immediately trying to open fire in various directions trying to hit him, and Biteblade... Biteblade pounces the jacket. Hmmm.

Courier Six (32) has posed:
    REACTOR:
    SCIENCE: <60>
    And right on queue, Pavo will properly massage the fusion cores back to life. The whole facility rumbles and shudders as power is restored, the ventilation, lights, cameras computers all turning on.

    And all the doors cycle exactly once.

Kyra Hyral (626) has posed:
    SODA?!?!?!

    Kyra is quiet in her no longer useful spot of cover. For those long moments, she stares blankly at nothing in particular-okay, sure, the soda caps were 'money' to them but all these people, casually shot and discarded like rubbish. Executed when the first shot didn't kill, piled aside, all these people died over /soda/?

    Mechanically, Kyra pulls another one of her darts free of her bandoliers and walks over to Albert. Oh, Albert, sweet Albert, not a member of this shitstain of a world. Kyra lovingly, sticks the hipootion dart into his skin before she turns back towards the hallway that eventually leads to the entrance. She pumps her shotgun, slotting in a new set of ammo but curiously not discharging shells and starts to walk to the Vault entrance.

Courier Six (32) has posed:
    BITEBLADE:
    Something falls from the jacket as the Floran ravages the leather. Om nom nom.

    It's a map. Well, really a pamphlet for 'TOUR YOUR LOCAL SUNSET SARPARILLA BOTTLER IN SUNNY LAS VEGAS NEVADA!'

    There is a Sunset Blue Star over a location west of the city.

Courier Six (32) has posed:
    Gregory has circled this repeatedly, and scribbled in red pen. I FOUND HIM

Courier Six (32) has posed:
    NEXT TIME ON STARBOUND ADVENTURES

    A dusty old factory with a cheerful root beer bottle for an entrance lies in ruins, a tumbleweed rolls past as Seft and her band approach the facility.
    Gregory Ghost laughs and cackles, while underlit by a Glowing Red Light, the tinkle of caps uncountable filling the room.
    An old man robot rouses from its slumber and excitedly greets someone. "HOWDY PARTNER! WELCOME TO SUNSET SARSAPARILLA!"

    NEXT TIME: OLD WORLD BREWS