Scene #34: "WMAT Blackout vs Zeno"

Owner	Pose
Juno Eclipse	One of today's two competitors is already here in this godforsaken, frigid place. The enigmatic Confederate pilot known only as BLACKOUT has arrived a little early to scope out her fighting ground, and maybe earn herself a slight advantage. Lord knows she needs all the help she can get. Sure, she has training as a frontline soldier, but only the bare minimum. She doesn't compare to most of these people and she knows it. Today, the pilot is not wearing her usual nondescript smuggler's gear, nor Imperial uniform; but instead wears full cold-weather gear, the sort of getup one would expect to find on the miserably frigid surfaces of Hoth -- slightly bulky but extremely warm and protective gear, along with snow goggles and a fur-lined hood. Certainly she's armed, too. One would expect no less of a tournament on this scale! At the pilot's left hip is a vibroblade, a sword-like implement that to sensitive hearing seems to hum with some kind of charge. She also wears a holster for a pistol-like laser blaster, one on each hip. She has a data pad of some sort she's fiddling with, leaning against the skeletal ruin of a decomposing building; steel rebar reaching for the sky like bones. The blue glow of the screen illuminates her face, which seesm to be drawn in an expression of concentration. Or maybe displeasure. It's hard to say with the goggles obscuring half her face... but at least they're nice and warm. Considering the beating she's probably going to take today, not having her face freeze is always a nice and appreciated touch. She'll be able to feel every nuance of pain! Sigh. Wonderful.
Juno Eclipse	Oh, hello. Her opponent is here. She's sharp enough to notice the rustling of permafrozen grass a little ways away. Behind her goggles, Juno grins a savage little grin. Maybe this won't be so bad after all. A little payback is always a good thing, as far as she's concerned, and having her eye shot out put her through a little bit of personal hell. So it is that the 'mercenary' pilot in cold weather gear has absolutely no problems aiming her blaster pistol and attempting to shoot Zeno the hell in the face even as she's standing there looking all grim... and immediately turning and sprinting for the cover of the ruined building whose outermost struts she'd been leaning on.
Juno Eclipse	Gah. Suddenly there is laser fire sent in Blackout's general direction aimed from a very miniature Kalashnikov. The energy bolts it's firing may be small in stature, but they're still big in ow, and she can't help but hiss in pain as one or two of them flash past and take a charred bite out of her cold weather gear's sleeve, crisping the skin beneath. The same is done to one of her legs, grazing just past the knee. That's going to hurt like a bitch later on. She simply dives behind a ruined column of concrete, with far more grace than one would expect of somebody wearing bulky cold-weather gear, rolling and coming up with her back to the column. What? She /does/ exercise every day. It's important to maintain a healthy figure, and a generally healthy lifestyle, because her day job pushes her to grueling limits and beyond. Panting through her teeth, sucking in air and letting it go, she's unsurprised to note her breath fogging in front of her. Yunzabit is /cold/. Actually, it's reminiscent of Hoth, only with fewer smelly Tauntauns wandering around. Blackout raises one of those blasters, holding it up like a trained pistol as she waits in silence. Her eyes flick sidelong to regard the last point at which she'd seen Zeno poking about the weeds. After another heartbeat or two of waiting, she risks her cover, leaning around the edge of the column to fire three precise, staccato shots of glowing blue-white energy.
Juno Eclipse	Very carefully, Blackout leans around her support column, squinting into the white glare to see where her pint-sized opponent might have gotten to. She can't afford to watch as she's being fired at, so she hasn't been looking this whole time. Fortunately, she just manages to catch the tail end of Zeno's powerslide... and something very tiny being hucked out from behind the rock. It looks kind of like ball bearing painted black. How strange-- "Oh, /sh/--" Blackout is a little too slow to pull back into cover. It's not that the explosion itself catches her, because it's just a little too far away from her face to do any damage that might catch her snow gear. No, it manages to take out a rock, and she manages to be in the way of very sharp, splintery shrapnel made of stone. Thin trickles of blood weep from the slices cut through the unprotected parts of her face. "Aagh!" It's with an annoyed outcry that Blackout hauls herself back behind the support, her predicament gives her an idea. She stoops, fetching a few smooth, relatively round rocks that look like they have decently aerodynamic properties. Well, for a rock. She pockets most of them, and seizes one. And then she flings the damned thing as hard as she can right for Zeno's position. It's not meant to hit her, because she's behind a rock, but maybe the bone-jarring CLACK of a rock hitting her fortress wall might flush her out of her cover. Blackout will keep on hucking rocks as long as it takes to flush the shinki out, and she'll keep pocketing more. Never know when they'll come in handy. Yep. She has some of the more advanced technology in her galaxy in holsters at her hip, and she's throwing rocks. When and if Zeno finally /does/ come out, there's a blaster waiting for her, and three more precise, staccato shots fired. She'll shoot the damned rock if she has to; that's probably bound to be just as disorienting... and hopefully damaging.
Juno Eclipse	That miniature laser is starting to get really annoying. For the second time today, miniaturised shrapnel pelts the pilot, catching her across the face and ripping into the sleeve of her cold-weather gear. That's great because the sleeve absorbs most of the blow. That's also terrible because now she's starting to feel the cold. Sooner or later it's going to slow her down. Blackout shrinks back against the other side of her support column, clutching her arm and setting her jaw as she considers her next course of action. Having such a small opponent means that it's hellishly difficult to target them accurately, but she herself is painted as a much bigger target. She's going to have to present herself as a less attractive target, then, and level the playing field somehow. She glances up at the ruined structure over her, narrowing her eyes as she considers, very quickly. That might give her the distance she needs, and it'll also give her an eagle's-eye view if that little rustbucket decides to hide in the grass again. Perfect. Blackout launches herself at the nearest ruined strut, little more than a rusted I-beam sticking out from a ruined hunk of concrete. It used to be a big building, but now it's just a skeleton. It does, however, make for a great climbing surface, and the strutted mess does tower pretty high into the sky, with struts jutting out for plenty of promenades to /shoot shinki from/. In a display of truly impressive athleticism, Blackout kicks off and makes a running leap for the nearest horizontal beam, swinging herself up and kicking off from there to vault herself to an even higher horizontal. Shimmying along that, she edges closer to the concrete pillar it all sticks out from, all the while watching down below, and firing warning shots whenever she thinks the shinki might be getting too frisky -- or watching her. Looking up again, she leaps for the nearest beam (doggedly not thinking about how high off the ground she is by now) and swings herself up higher, forced to curl around it and pull herself up from her stomach; placing combat boots flat on the thing as she tests it. The whole thing lurches with a horrible screech of fatigued metal; Blackout abruptly shrinks so she's as low as she can get, frozen as she crouches along the teetering beam. She doesn't move, though her blaster is still pointed down at the shinki. When it seems the mess stabilises itself, she shimmies along the beam, making her way to a more reinforced point from which she can hide behind -- a cluster of concrete pillars, which are in slightly better shape than most of the other pillars.
Zeno	For all she tries to hide in the grass, every shot pelted into the brittle blades results in a frantic scramble. It's probably difficult to hear the tiny grunts of a tinier combatant, amid the howling chill winds, return fire, and rustling of leaves. But rather than turn this into a battle of distant attrition, Zeno suddenly stops somewhere inside a random bush that is apparently hardy enough to weather out the cold. While Juno is maing that precarious perch on beams and pillars, she'll no doubt see the trio of red lenses as Zeno flips her visor down. The gun she holds now, tugged from slipway is... Big. For her. But sleekly designed, two smooth prongs forming an open barrel as she loads what looks like a sewing needle into the breech and takes aim through a high power scope. It starts as a hum as power builds and the prong barrel crackles visibly. Before the rail rifle unleashes a tiny cough. The needle lances out, a thin threading trail of silver light as she aims somewhere non-vital, as per rules. But getting shot with a teeny railgun probably won't be pleasant.
Juno Eclipse	Clinging to a vertical length of rusted rebar, Blackout squints against the howling wind, loosely clutching her pistol in the other hand. She looks for all the world like a lookout clutching the mast; except her ship is a rusted hulk of building and she's got a weapon in her hand. She watches the shinki run and scramble about, until-- Aww, what a cute little railgun. --Wait. Shit. That's a railgun. The impact lances cleanly through Blackout's shoulder; with a cry of pain she's knocked from her perch, and she falls a good distance before she manages to catch herself on a horizontal bar like a monkey on a branch. Forced to shimmy back up by curling double over it, she quickly climbs back to her similar vantage point, and proceeds to cling to the rebar pole like it's a lifesaver. Blackout also reaches into her pocket and proceeds to pelt Zeno's location with at least four or five rocks. She's got a really good fastball arm, by the way. And she's aiming for that railgun, to try and compromise it through blunt trauma.
Zeno	Throwing rocks is a tactic handed down from humanity's ancestors in the before time, from the long long ago. And with a good arm... It is -still- a viable tactic. Blackout seems to have a very good arm. The bush rustles and Zeno is beset with an incoming swarm of- Smack! SMACK! /SMACK!!!/ Curiously, that little piece of hardware is sturdier than it looks. In fact it might be sturdier than the shinki herself considering the pelting impacts batter her around, but the worst of it connects solidly with her head. A tiny yelp and Zeno is flung off her perch on one tiny branch and clatters to the ground, a crack running down her helmet, which she slogs off with a breathless grunt, letting it lay where she drops it. NOW the world is nothing but a blur. Simply plopping her toy back into Slipway, she totters out. Stunned, dizzy, out in the open and in terrible cover as she suffers from a nasty case of rock-induced punch drunk confusion. It takes her a second, and the first thing she tries to get out of further harm's way might not be the best as she keys up the activation rune for the tiny space marine jump pack attached to her back. Which launches her wholly for Juno in a sudden rocket propelled use of her own body as a projectile.
Juno Eclipse	While the shinki is momentarily stunned down below, Blackout takes the opportunity to check over her wounds as she clings to her rusted mast. So far, everything still seems to be within acceptable ranges, but she's going to need to cauterise those wounds. The railgun shot through her shoulder is literally through it, and it hurts like the dickens. There's blood staining the points of entry and exit, and the other places she'd been hit. And suddenly there is a tiny rocket-powered shinki headed right for her. For the second time, Juno squawks and loses her grip, knocked backward by the power of tiny rockets; falling again for the second time as she makes a desperate grab for another beam. She catches herself, fortunately. As she does, she aims a vicious kick for the shinki; if she can get away with it, straight for the shinki's head.
Zeno	/BAMF/. For all those guts- or sheer drunken bad idea making- poured into that rocket-propelled slam, Zeno eats a boot to the head for her troubles. Without her helmet it's even worse as her jetpack cuts out and she's sent veering into a pillar with a tinny CLANG of impact. By now her armor is cracked in places, and the grit of teeth says she's suffering as much Juno right now, if not more. Instead of trying to fly again she intends a different tactic, a new gun in hand, she aims it for Blackout mid-fall and squeezes the trigger. It's a grappling gun. And her intent is to latch right onto the pilot and reel herself in. Because she has a tiny knife in hand. Juno will recognize this one. It's the same one the shinki introduced her to on the Rogue Shadow. And now she's trying to peck at her with it all over again.
Juno Eclipse	The mysterious pilot Blackout takes a moment to le-e-ean over on her beam, towards the desolate and lonely stand the commentators are using, which is quite a ways away from her current position. Fortunately it's really desolate out here and Blackout can be /really loud/ when she wants to be. "OH, PUSH OFF!" Blackout calls, cupping a hand around the side of her mouth. "/YOU/ TRY GETTING IN HERE AND FIGHTING A BLOODY SIX-INCH-TALL DROID!" Hmph. That done, she turns with blaster in hand to greet her opponent. She's clinging tenaciously to the rusty I-beam as she does, as that piece of wreckage is her only real defense against gravity. Suddenly there is a shinki hurtling for her again, this time on the end of a grappling hook, which is... stuck into her jacket. Blackout frowns as she observes this, as though detached from the situation, considering what to do. While she could yank the grappling hook out, that would also tear a pretty significant chunk of her cold-weather gear with it. And that would be bad. She's not sure how long she's going to have to put up with things out here, and the cold here is intense enough to take an unprepared warrior down. "Oh, fuck me," Blackout spits sourly, once she sees the tiny glint of that tiny knife. Oh, yes, she is well acquainted with that knife. It's the same goddamn thing that /carved her left eye out/. Protip, kiddies at home: Having one's eye replaced is an incredibly disconcerting, excruciatingly painful experience! Especially when performed by Nurse Medusa Gorgon. So she does the first thing that comes to mind. She reaches into her pocket and attempts to crush the goddamn shinki with a rock, just as one would crush a particularly bothersome bug. "What /is it/ with you and bloody /knives/?!"
Zeno	Yes. It is that knife. Juno remembers it well, it would seem, as Zeno flings herself on that nigh-suicidal course towards her foe. Her grapple is rapidly reeling her in, and this means there's little time to react as she raises the blade, ready to re-introduce it to Blackout once more. It is a simple case of the fact that Blackout is able to react quicker than the old soldier shinki could have anticipated. Faster, with more force, and a much larger, if improvised, weapon. The dull -crack- of tiny armor plating hitting against stone resounds with a carrying echo that seems to float all across the Yunzabit Heights as Juno smashes Zeno down. For a moment. The Shinki remains motionless where she lays in the permafrost, sprawled and splayed in a bad way like a crushed bug. Her armor is cracked and dented, scorched from blaster fire, and she's not moving. It takes a few seconds. A soft buzzing whirr of a jittery struggle to move before blue eyes peek open, leaving the little Zelnogrard biting on her lip as if in pain. And it takes some work for her to hoist her arms up, palms out. She just stays like that for a moment. Several silent beats. "...I give."
Juno Eclipse	The shinki goes spinning off, and it's all Blackout can do to stare after the tiny robot. She'd hit hard, but she hadn't expect to hit quite that hard. Well, not that it's done any permanent or crippling damage. It's still a surprise. She slides down her post a bit, carefully craning her neck to see whether this turns out to be a fluke or not. Nope. No fluke. Zeno manages to collect herself and offer up her surrender. At exactly the same time, the rusted-out beam Juno had been clinging to emits a tremendous CRACK and begins teetering to one side. She manages to ride it down a short distance, apparently having anticipated this breakage; once it leans over at approximately forty-five degrees, she kicks off it, flailing a bit as she catches herself on another beam; from there shimmying down and making her way back to terra firma. Yeah, maybe she's in shape, but it's still unnerving to be up there. Blackout lands heavily in a three-point crouch, but the way she has her teeth bared suggests it's less cool than the movies, and more bone-jarringly painful in reality. It takes her a second or two before she can stand up again, wincing as she does. Shit, those wounds hurt. "Nicely done," she affords the shinki, grinning and reaching up to sweep her hood back and pop off the goggles. She's pretty -- pale skin, pale blonde hair, pale blue eyes; hair frizzy from the hood. Her cheeks are red from the cold; wind-burnt. She'd shake hands but the whole of the shinki could probably /fit/ in one hand. She crouches down, slinging the goggles around her wrist to carry them more easily, squinting against the wind. "You need any help getting back to the medics?"
Zeno	There is such a thing as pride. Every soldier has it. Some moreso than others. Despite Zeno's own pride in her absolute professionalism, she is not a fool. Panting and doing her best to keep from moving too much, it looks like that rock -really- put her down hard. Though for all her experience and combat knowledge, she also knows when to give. Yes, she easily would fit in Blackout's hand and... "... Yes please."