Clusterfrag

Max's fist still throbbing from the landed but ineffectual blow, the elf rears back half a step and lunges forward with his shoulder aimed at the rifleman's midsection.

{{ 7P DAMAGE }}

Max rams into the Legion bruiser and slams him into the ground with a prompt Judo flip.

(( Knockdown. ))

From his wounded vantage on the ground, the Rifleman attempts a sweeping kick to knock Max off his feet and equalize the situation.
{{ 2S DAMAGE! }}

The kick connects with Max's shin, but fails to pull the elf off of his feet.

The sudden explosion of pain in his shin is a shock to Max, and the elf looks down at his opponent with hateful eyes and growls,

"You little fraggin' pissant."

Unwilling to give up his rifle despite the close quarters, Doc maneuvers the barrel toward the Heavy, and fires again.

Doc's first burst is wide.
{{ 8P DAMAGE! }}

Doc's second burst hits the heavy, splattering the corridor wall with blood and killing the soldier.

Pandora dashes to the next Rifleman and brings the wakizashi up in a deadly strike, aiming for the jugular.
{{ 8P DAMAGE! }}

The Legion soldier feints away, but not quickly enough. Though its not the fatal wound she intended for, Pandora's blade cuts a wide gash through the mans' armor.

The Legion Rifleman returns an unsteady backhand.
Pandora bobs and weaves out of harm's way.

(( Sinjin's up. ))

Sinjins counter is lightning fast. Rising from beneath his attackers poorly aimed roundhouse, his hand lashes out with viperous quickness to remove his opponents eye.

((Counter-Strike!!))

{{ 9P DAMAGE! }}

Sinjin's explosive blow shatters the Legion adept's combat visor. The orc yanks back in a motion almost too fast to follow with the naked eye, clutching an eyeball in his hand. A spurt of blood issues from the dark recesses of the broken facemask and the adept tumbles forward, lifeless.

Val, still prone from the slide, tilts his FN HAR and fires a burst at the Legion soldier on the ground.
{{ 8P DAMAGE! }}

Val's first burst riddles the Legion soldier's helmet and earns him a kill.

{{ 5P DAMAGE! }}

Whipping around, Val fires another burst at the second Rifleman, dropping him where he stands.

(( Combat's over! ))

Max instinctively turns his face away as he hears the report of Val's FN HAR, the side of his face getting painted in blood. Max is used to it. The elf collects himself almost immediately-- not forgetting the more dangerous foe lurking somewhere unseen-- and turns to Pandora, shouting,

"Keep us moving!"

Pandora presses on, wakizashi upturned and thrust backwards as her powerful quadriceps propel her down the corridor quickly and silently.

"The armory should be just past here, if we--"

A wall panel dislodges itself from the side of the corridor and crashes against the other side, a very mangled and very dead Legion soldier resting on it. Six is visible for a brief moment in the space where the panel was, face screwed up in an insane hunger and limbs dripping with blood. Before the team can react, or even think, he is gone. Lights begin to flicker and extinguish in the corridor.

Max glances nervously at the rest of the team as the corridor is swallowed in an escalating darkness, beginning in the distance and racing its way steadily toward the haggard personnel of FRSR. Nobody seems to know what to do as the hungry blackness and oppressive cold bear down on the group.

The team rounds the junction corner and finds themselves at a massive, vault-like door. Multiple rows of armored plasteel decorate the the aperture in diagonal stripes. A mag-lock glows in a recess on one side of the door. The entrance to the armory is effectively a dead end on one arm of a four-way junction. Lights seem to be flickering out in each of the three tunnels that collect the at precipice of the armory door.

Pandora rocks on her feet, riding the adrenaline that comes like waves, crashing over her nervous system. Her head swivels as she surveys the three possible approach vectors of the inhuman predator stalking the team. Her complexion seems to have a pallor and perspiration is beginning to well on her forehead. She shakes her head and blinks deliberately.

The elf spots the maglock, but knows that he is more or less useless there. Rather than state the obvious, he turns his back to the door and guards outward. Max spots the signs of distress on the adept's face, and asks over his shoulder as he holds the shotgun high and covers the angles to the best of his ability,

"Pandora-- you alright?"

"I'm fine," she replies--perhaps a bit snappier than necessary. "Just keep that thing from fraggin' flanking us."

She extends her fist across her body, drawing the wakizashi up in a parallel line. The tip of the blade tremors a bit.

Max looks doubtfully at the adept and glances at Doc, before saying,

"You're trembling."

Pandora whirls on Max, an uncharacteristic anger evident in her facial expression. Her lips part as she begins to speak, but it's clear that something is wrong. The adept's eyes are glassy and she seems to be looking past Doc. The wakizashi clatters to the floor and she falls to a single knee.

It's at that same moment that the rest of the lights in the corridor snuff out.

Sinjin lights a match, more for dramatic effect than anything else as the team's eyes begin to adjust to the gloom. The FRSR squad impulsively take a small step toward one another, as though relying on the proximity of friends to ease their nerves in the small sphere of light that has become their tangible world amid a sea of blackness. The dark is a suffocating presence around them, feeding their sense of vulnerability as the image of Six preys upon their imaginations. Strobes of violent imagery play through their minds like a malefic slideshow starring an elusive killer, witnessing but never really seeing the beastly horror.

The shrieking of tormented metal resonates down the passageway from somewhere, the direction of sound lost among the echoes and reverberations of the cave vaults. A sudden draft of warm air flits through the passageway, snuffing Sinjin's tiny torch and plunging the corridor back into thick blackness. A barrage of sparks spasm briefly from a damaged conduit along the low ceiling.

"We need to move....now..."

The moment is held for a moment in a place where nobody seems to dare move. The dry, cold air in the corridors burns Max's lungs as he inhales it, the raspy sound of his breath grating against his ears and seeming to hang in the darkness, stirring its thick, soupy expanse and deadening the rest of his senses. For a moment, nothing exists in the entire world. Sinjin's struck match and subsequent voice are a relief, and the elf is reminded of how going to sleep in a dark room as a child was always better with a friend there.

Val swallows his fear. His fellow comrades all utilize their specific skill-sets to keep each other alive and now is his time. He throws his pack down and rummages through it, producing a tool-kit.

"Cover me," he states simply.

Adams turns his back to the door and the decker, and aims his rifle down the corridor. His vision is a cacophony of inputs; thermal vision overlays a monochrome low-light while an ultrasound wireframe ferrets out the finer details and gives them depth. Audio enhancement piped in through his helmet tells him that a water pipe in the wall has sprung a pin leak, and that the environmental heating unit is probably on its last legs.

"Come on, you bastard."

Pandora's breath comes in ragged, irregular rasps. She mumbles something about poison and collapses on to her stomach.

Max fights the impulse to kneel down next to the woman to see if he can help her, knowing full well that her best chance at recovery rests in either the combat-weathered hands of Doc, or the invisible, over-sized hands of Tyros.

The sound of the adept hitting the floor snaps Doc back to the present.

"Frag! Pandora?"

He lets the rifle fall on its sling at his side, and rushes up to her crumpled form.

"What happened?" He queries her, grabbing the medical bag out of his pack. "Stay on me, keep listening to my voice. Can you speak?"

He pulls a thumb-sized antidote patch from the bag, and presses it against her neck.

"Hope you weren't kidding about the poison. This cocktail is pretty rough if it doesn't have anything to react with," He says, glancing down the corridor.

Val inserts a pair of metal shims underneath the face-plate of the mag-lock and pries it free. He produces the sequencer and clips it into place, trying to ignore the blood-thirsty threat lurking somewhere behind him.

A flicker of something register on IR at the end of the center tunnel.

The dance of IR across his field of vision-- almost too obviously painted in red-- sends up a warning flare in Max's mind; he has no idea what this weapon's ammo capacity is. The elf pulls the shotgun off his shoulder and checks the magazine. Fifteen rounds. A healthy upgrade from the late Marlowe's payload, that's for sure. Max loads another three rounds of armor piercing shells and slaps the magazine back home, his eyes flitting between his work and the dark hallway all the while.

The screech of claws on steel echoes sharply down the corridor and Six's heat signature blasts into view. It starts moving very, very quickly down the corridor, towards the team.

Max yanks the shotgun back to his shoulder, uses his smartlink to switch to semi-auto, and fires at the monster.

Adams spares one last glance at Pandora.

Nothing left to do right now but let the patch do its job

He raises his rifle down the hallway.