An Arctic Wolf on the Prowl [Under Planning]

Alec crashed into the station after running through the field of monochrome snow littered with streaks of crimson and yellowed, leathery skin from where Sparks’ explosives had done their grisly work. Inside his armor, the Knight Sergeant was comfortable enough but he noticed that the rest of his companions huddled around the fire.

Coyote, always the outlier, stood off to the side ransacking a dilapidated and dust covered file cabinet filled with mouldering paper files.

Alec picked up a file that Coyote had thrown aside and opened its blandly colored cover. “A certain Luis B. Zegmen lived a storied life. He will keep us warm now, I suppose. No one left to care what he did.”

Alec looked up and saw Coyote staring at him. The Knight shrugged and dropped the file back to the floor. As he moved to walk away Alec said

“Everyone here seems to like being the lone wolf. If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather you be the one watching my back if the need should arise. They apparently do not see the importance of sticking together as a group especially when they are ill equipped to not do so.”

Coyote gave him a look, even in the low light provided by the fire across the room; Alec could see the sniper’s look just fine. Alec waited for Coyote to respond. He didn’t have long to wait.

“You think just because they don’t have a sniper rifle that they ain’t good scouts?”
The Knight Sergeant shook his head. “It’s not that. My problem is that here are our would-be scouts. A doctor who, instead of staying close and keeping his companions alive, takes off and claims to scout ahead. I’ve read a few medical textbooks; long range bandage application and bullet removal skills are not mentioned. Perhaps those skills are listed in the advanced texts.”

Coyote gave him another arch look, an almost imperceptible smile ghosted over the other man’s lips, or so it seemed, for a brief instant and then was gone. Alec couldn’t even be certain he’d seen it. Sparks said

“Humor? From you? Never thought I’d see the day. What about the other one, Mr. Holier than Thou Knight?”

Alec once again let Coyote’s words wash over him, he was unsure if the man was trying to goad him, if so the sniper was “poking his buttons” in the wrong place, so to speak.
“Adan, our used up looking Knight Sergeant, who appears as though he and his armor are in desperate need of a retirement, is our other scout. His gear whirs and rattles incessantly. He would have to move an inch at the time to remain quiet in that wreck. Luckily he did stay nearby but since he didn’t stick with the group, when the mutants all went down, he had to scramble down from his perch and run to catch up. I think he anticipated a firefight. You didn’t let one happen.”

Coyote shrugged and mumbled something about being thorough and went back to his work. The Knight Sergeant set off to explore the station. He looked in a few rooms and saw that Coyote had already taken stock in them. Alec set off to find the downstairs rooms. The Knight Sergeant approached a door at the end of a hallway that wrapped around from the entrance to the far side of the building. He went to the door and took note of the disturbance in the dust in front of it. Someone had knelt here recently. Coyote probably.

Alec wiggled the doorknob and found it to be locked. Alec stood and searched the doorframe’s lintel portion for a key. He knew it was a silly thought that he would find a key there but he searched anyway. His questing fingers didn’t have the luxury of feeling things through his thick gloves so when something hit the floor beside him, he knew he’d hit pay dirt.

The Knight bent over and inspected the item. It was a key. Alec began to wonder what he’d find behind the door. The key slotted home perfectly and the door’s lock.

Alec turned the key and after some experimentation with wiggling the doorknob and turning the key simultaneously he was met with a successful click and the door opened for him. The Knight’s filters let in the wafting scent of decay. He sighed.

“I often wonder why I never go anywhere nice. Then I remember where I live.”

He turned on his helmet lamp and a bright white shaft of illumination pierced the darkness before him. The beam played through the lifeless and eternally drifting motes of ancient dust that swirled out of his way as he disturbed them with his passage. A flight of stairs, fourteen stairs in number, led him down into the bowels of the building. Alec set his air filters to recycle and closed off the intake. He was once more breathing stale metallic tasting air, but it did not smell of death and taste heavy in his mouth.

As the Sergeant descended the stairs he played the light back and forth over the walls and floor, his sidearm at the ready, even in here. He reached the floor and took stock of his surroundings. He was in a long rectangular room, separated into three rooms at equidistant intervals. The room Alec stood in was a conference room. An oblong ovular table dominated the center of the space with sturdy looking wheeled desk chairs standing guard around it.
Alec approached the table and shined the light onto its dust covered surface. Coffee mugs and clipboards with their companion pencils lay around the table as if a meeting had just adjourned the last time people had been here. Alec still had trouble believing that, that time may very well have been over 200 years ago. He turned on of the chairs around and just watched it lazily spin. He didn’t know why, he just did. The Knight imagined people sitting around the table, having a meeting on their next move in their now trivial and snuffed out lives. Alec was struck by the way he felt about these people. He wondered what it must have been like to work and live here before the war, before humanity had left them a desolate and broken world to survive in.

He left the chair behind and moved on, deeper into the looming darkness. Even with his bright globe of light, it was becoming harder to see, as if the shadows themselves were heavier. He felt something brush against his shoulder. He paused and looked around. The thought then occurred to him that nothing could touch his shoulder through his bulky armor’s plates. He shivered a bit, deciding that this place made him uneasy.

Alec ventured onward, always looking at what was around him. His light seemed to be soaked up by the darkness and his field of vision grew smaller. The cone of light emanating from his helm had not diminished, just the distance it allowed him to see. It was a strange phenomenon, not the strangest thing he’d seen in the wasteland, but due to the location of its occurrence as well as the feelings this place gave him, it was steadily rising on his list.

He walked through the doorway into the next room noting that it was some sort of gymnasium, ancient and derelict body building machines lay untouched for many years, building now only layers of dust. He ignored this place, largely just panning his light over the rows of stationary bikes and weight lifting racks dotting the room. Once again, something touched his shoulder and he turned to face whatever it was. He saw in his light a shadow where there was nothing there to cast one. Alec was disturbed, feeling his heart rate increase a bit at this strange scene. He moved and the shadow seemed to move as well. This shadow was different than the once cast by other items in the room, it did not lengthen or shorten when he moved, this one stayed the same size but with no real definite shape.

Alec walked to where he had first seen the strange sight and saw the final room in the place. A room filled with temporary holding cells. He spied in the corner a terminal, with a faintly green glow, signifying that it was still an active terminal. He approached it and sat down in the chair next to the computer, the old springs in the chair creaking under his weight. His light shined on the shadow again, before it could brush his shoulder. He was convinced that it was now some sort of entity, but nothing he’d ever encountered before. Alec kept his light on the shadow and saw that if he and the light source did not move, the shadow did not move. He theorized that just having someone take notice of the phenomenon was enough to keep it stationary.

He glanced down at the screen and saw a list of names. Next to all but one name was the word “Released” in square brackets. The last name was a woman’s “Ashley Westmoore” she had been incarcerated on charges of petty thievery from a local store. She had been scheduled to be released on October 24th, 2077. According to the police report, her husband had died in 2074 during the invasion of china. She had lost her job and in an attempt to feed her child, she had stolen food from a local store. Her incarceration was not meant to be long, just long enough to sort out her affairs with the police, a slap on the wrist really, but it had turned into a life sentence. And an afterlife sentence too, it would seem, thought Alec as he looked at the shadow, flickering on the edge of his field of vision.

The Sergeant knew that if he looked in cell number three he would find the source of the death stench, an old but confined stench that meant it had nowhere to escape so it had stayed down here and concentrated. He arose from his desk, feeling slightly more at ease when the familiar brush against his shoulder happened. He looked into the cell and saw, leaning against the far wall, a skeleton with the remains of a long dress draped around the bones like a funeral shroud. He walked back over to the computer and selected the option to unlock cell number three. He pulled the heavy barred door open and entered. The shadow appeared above the skeleton and then disappeared. Alec was unsure what to do now. Had he shown Ashley that she truly was dead? Had he imagined it all? What was he even doing down here in the first place?

Alec did the only thing he could think of and with extreme care, lifted the old bones, held together by nothing but the dress wrapped around its figure. He placed the bones gently against the desk, sitting up and facing the doorway. At least now, Alec thought, she had been released from captivity. Alec knew that no one would ever believe him, even if he took them to see the bones. He decided to disable the computer and lock the door, leaving the key downstairs. There was nothing in this basement for them anyway, and there were two others just like it.

As Alec left, he went and left the key with the skeleton, its sightless eye sockets staring out into the inky darkness. He placed the key in the hand of the bones and closed the fingers. With nothing to hold them in place, three of the bones snapped off and fell into the seated figure’s lap. The Sergeant grimaced and stood, noticing that two of the fingers still wrapped successfully around the key. He hoped It was a good sign. Now, availed of all his duties to the dead, Knight Sergeant Vasmith walked away, not looking back and seeing the skeleton fall to one side due to his inexpert placement of its limbs. He noticed that the darkness seemed less dark now and noted how strange a thought that was. When Alec ascended the stairs he locked the knob from the inside and closed the door behind him as he left. He would have to explain where he had gone, especially to come back empty handed, but that was ok with him. At least they wouldn’t think he was crazy.

((OOC: Unit, this thread is labeled as fast, and you have not posted in the 24 hour time limit. As it is the holidays, it can be assumed you are busy. You have 3 days to post, after which you will be skipped and the thread will resume it's normal pace.))

Atop a building, masked by the radioactive snow and it's grey tinge, two bodies lay prone in the snow, concealed by brown armor riddled with tans. The camouflage was not as effective in the strange weather, but the blended in nonetheless. The rifle however, black as night and nearly as long as the woman grasping it, was well hidden against the ugly greys of the powdered water. Slow as the tick of the clock, she exhaled, her breath frosting in the air as a slow burst of steam rose and vanished into the air. The scope magnified a building below, and the figures within. A broken sign read police, half buried in a snow drift, and a second burst of steam rose into the air as she exhaled again. The buildings barred windows did well at holding out unwanted guests. However, they did not do so well at restricting vision.

A whisper broke the silence, loud enough for only the focused sniper to hear. "How many do you see Ghost?"

A sigh escaped the woman's lips, and she broke her eye from the scope to look across. Jessica had been paired with the Private for their trip to the wasteland, and she wished it was over by now. Between the cold and her eager spotter, she was ready to be back home, soaking in a warm bath and sipping whiskey while listening to music on her record player. There was a bottle of shampoo waiting for her back home, and she fingered her dark blonde hair passively with her free hand. The other stayed right where it was on the trigger.

"Five. Maybe six. Doesn't matter, don't see anything that dangerous at the moment. What do you expect Private? They don't have anyone on watch, and what traps they might've had are blown." She looked away from the scope, down to the strewn corpses of mutants below. All in all, it was a simple operation. Jessica was just providing over watch in case they wouldn't surrender peaceful. She focused back on the scope, using her free hand to press the button of the radio attached to her ear. Static came up for a moment, and she spoke. "Ghost, reporting in. Over watch is green Eagle. I repeat. Over watch is green. Standing by." She tensed her finger on the trigger, taking deep breathes. One wrong move, and someone would be losing their brains to help pain the walls....


John nodded to Winters and the massive Thomnas. He watched his motion tracker as he activated his radio, responding to Jessica's affirmation of her stance. "Ghost, this is Eagle One. Assault squad is prepped and ready. Moving out." He cocked his rifle and Winters did the same before exciting the alley and moving quietly across the street to the police station. Thomnas took point with his minigun, and their boots crunched quietly as the weight of their power armored compacted the snow beneath them.

John had restricted the use of grenades, since they didn't know what the police station would have inside. When they'd heard of the building, it had supposedly been abandoned. But whatever these people were - raiders, scavengers, - it didn't matter. They'd come this far to check it, and he wasn't going to back down just because some strangers had moved in. He didn't particularly feel like killing any of the six dots appearing on his motion tracker... Seven? No just six. At least, only six that were moving. It didn't matter. Jessica had scouted them. Both he and Winters had hollow points loaded into their rifles, though he didn't think that'd be necessary.

Thomnas, the hulking man at six and a half feet made only bigger by the armor, was almost as big as the seven foot man named Titan back at Fort Halifax. He had point with a minigun, and anyone with half a brain would surrender with those barrels spinning and pointing in their general direction. It didn't help that he was clad in the T-51b intimidating power armor with a skull painted over the helmet and browns and tans in patches across the armor. The green lenses of their bulletproof visors was bad enough without them appearing to be the eye sockets of a grinning skull. Still it would serve them well, since intimidation was needed.

John had gone over the plan with both his sergeants several time, and they moved forward like the well oiled machine they were. Reaching the building in short order, John and Winters slowly pressed themselves against either side of the door, while Thomnas held his minigun barrels straight to the sky. With one hand, John held up three fingers, lowering one, a second then closing his fist.

Hell broke loose in a matter of seconds, as Thomnas raised a boot and the humming of spinning barrels began. With a swift motion, the mans foot crashed into the bolted door with all the force of a battering ram. With the strength of the power armor behind the strike, the three bolt locks were torn out by the screws, ripping the door open and slamming it against the side of the wall as one of the hinges bent from the force. The Minigun spun faster as the power armored man moved into the room, flanked by John and Winters on either side as their shouldered rifles found targets in the room. The whirl of of the minigun's spinning engine grew louder, and at the first sign of trouble all the sergeant would need to do was press the trigger and the pleasant whirl would become a screaming cyclone of death that would shred whichever moron thought it wise to test the might of the hurricane into bloody pieces.

John yelled at the group standing in the police station, only noting five in the room when six still appeared on the motion sensor. His filtered voice behind the power helmet added to the effect of his shout and made it echo across the room. There was no mistaking the threat behind his words.

"GET ON THE GROUND! NOW! WEAPONS DOWN!" It was clear that anyone unwilling to comply would not be walking away with their body parts in tact.

Coyote, hearing the armored man’s command from his back, reacted as someone with combat experience and glanced, noting the figure in power armor and lugging a minigun, then beat feet to behind a doorway, using the wall as cover.

Shit. Where the fuck did this asshole come from?

Reacting with flashbacks from the war, he grabbed his ten millimeter and his combat knife, entering a close-quarters combat stance, backtracking to an adjacent hall, that’ll give him a suitable flank. Crouching and using the shadows to his advantage, plus the trademark whir of the minigun masking his footsteps, he moved like a ghost, being just out of sight of the armored titian, ready to subdue if necessary.

Coyote sat in that darkness, knowing that at least one of them wouldn’t let some schmuck kick the door in and give orders. And if things got too ugly, well, he wasn’t above slitting the figure’s throat from behind.

However, his concentration was broken by a thunderous crash into the basement for a split second, knowing someone had gone and busted their ass. He knew that he had to best protect those who are in immediate danger, then save whoever got hurt. He aimed the pistol, lining up the sight on the softer neck of the armored opponent. No sense shooting now. Best to wait for confirmation of threat.

Banjo awoke suddenly when the door was kicked in, and then the deafening sound of a minigun cutting through the building. Takes a fierce guy to wield a minigun, Banjo had met a similar guy once, for a moment he thought of where he would've gone, but then his mind focused on the matter at hand.

Banjo went to jump out of the bed, and forgot he was in a sleeping bag, and ended up falling onto the ground. While laying there, he slipped out of it, and threw it back on the bed, and then he grabbed his rifle, which was upright in the corner, like all of his belongings, and then he forwarded out of the cell, intending to figure out what was going on.

He rounded the entryway corner, and his expression turned puzzical, then to shock, as he saw the man in power armor. Banjo laid his weapon down slowly, and raised his hands, surrendering.

"Ah dam, Rivvit City sounds mighty fine at this 'pecific moment."

---

James, like Banjo, was also alarmed by the sudden noise. Unlike Banjo however, he was ready for combat. James sprung into action, rose out of bed, grabbed his helmet, put it on, and then grabbed his Plasma rifle, turning the safety off, and making sure it was loaded. He slowly opened the gate, and moved quitely to eliminate noise.

Once reaching the main hall, he saw Banjo with his hands up, something big was obviously there, and sentient, and intelligent. No Raider would take someone for surrendering. James peeked around the corner, but he was already spotted by the power armored man, as his helmet was quite large.

James contemplated running further into the station, but no man should leave his brothers to die, and James couldn't match the warrior in combat, so James simply slid his rifle across the ground, and walked out of cover with his hands up. It was procedure to tell his captives his name, rank and branch, but nothing more.

"Paladin James Masterson of the Capital Wasteland Brotherhood of Steel."

As they had moved into the police station, John watched the hostiles scatter and hide. One slipped away into the darkness, and another further into a room, but as the triangles on his motion tracker moved, he was glad to see the surprised wasters come to their senses. None of them actually got on the ground, except for their knees, but it was good enough. Surprisingly, they were better equipped then he had imagined. A plasma defender, a plasma rifle. He had serious plans to relieve them of their weaponry, were it not for the man claiming to be a member of the Brotherhood of Steel.

The Reapers has just fought with them, side by side at the GNR plaza, so he could find some answers. He had not expected to make such an uneasy truce with them, but they were even more selfish about their tech then the Reapers themselves. With such draconian entry rules, he was surprised the Brotherhood lasted as long as it had. Still though, the truce had included returning tech that was an obvious possession of the brotherhood, and vice versa, so there would be no taking their equipment today at least.

A fourth member of the rag tag group came up the stairs, also claiming to be brotherhood. These two had not been people John had directly met at the plaza, but the truce extended to both of them, and by extension their companions. The problem was, he didn't know if they knew, he held his fire though as the man had asked. They could sort this out once it was impossible for anyone to get shot, and right now there were still two people unwilling to give themselves up. They clearly had not all received brotherhood training, and they definitely were not a cohesive group.

-------

Jessica was keeping on on the situation through her scope, keeping tabs on the location of the 6 individuals as best she could through the windows. One had disappeared into what looked to be an elevator on the second floor, and another had snuck into the shadows. She could three others that had surrendered, and knew a fourth had fell off his bed in a sleeping bag. Calhoun had laughed at that, and she shot him a fierce luck. God was she ready to be rid of babysitting the private.

Her rifle lingered on a shrouded individual, mostly invisible to John and the others. Jessica's crosshairs lingered directly over the mans cheek. He had a 10mm pistol out, not that the rounds would do anything to to the Reapers armor. The plates were thicker then 45b models, which reinforced curves at the neck and bulletproof glass for the visor. Anywhere else would only be enough to slow her friends down, an the man wasn't nearly armored enough to stop the weapons her friends carried. Not that she'd even give him a chance to get more then a single round off. At the first sound of gunfire, she'd be removing his skull from his torso. Better to try and keep him alive for now. John hadn't wanted anyone dead if necessary. She activated her radio, to relay the information.

--------

John motioned to the other two to move up slowly, keeping their weapons up, when Jessica's voice came over his helmet. "Eagle One, Ghost, reporting. On your 11, hostile. Small caliber pistol, hiding it shadows. Second in the elevator shaft somewhere."

John nodded subconsciously, moving his rifle to point at the triangle on his right. He couldn't see the man directly, not with the light cast over the room drawing long shadows over everything, but there were other options for that. With one hand, he tapped the dials on his wrist, and his visor went blank for a second before heat signatures lit up the room. Sure enough, Jessica had been right, and the outline of a man with his weapon up was clear, the oranges outlining his torso with a swirl of colors inside. John moved up slowly, training his iron sights over the mans head. The hollow points would obliterate the resistor in short order if it came to it.

"YOU IN THE SHADOWS. WEAPON DOWN, ON YOUR STOMACH, OR WE KILL YOU." He'd been lenient with the others, but if this one was going to be difficult, he needed to make sure he wasn't going to be able to try anything even if he wanted.

On the other side of the room, Thomnas was keeping an eye on the people with their hands up, while Winters lowered her rifle and pulled out a zip tie. She let the m16 hang on its strap, moving up to the Brotherhood member who had come out of the stairway. He was the closest of the bunch, so it was best not to leave anyone unaccounted for behind them. "Hands Out," she ordered him, holding up the zip tie to bind his hands.

The knight started talking as he put out his hands, and she titled her head in curiosity.

"Not that I feel like exploding. But there is a grenade on my belt. You seem to have a few. Add another to your collection, my treat."

Winters rolled her eyes under her helmet with a smirk, putting the zip tie over his hands. First, she pulled off the grenade and stuck it on her own belt. She didn't need it, but equipment was equipment and she didn't want to give anyone else access to it. The man continued to speak as she began patting him down, making sure he had no more weapons.

"Oh. And when you tie up mark, the one with the magazine, put one around his mouth too. Especially tight. Then kick him over. Bastard claims to be a doctor. Do no harm doesn't apply to him though. I'd rather hear him thrash around then drone on about the value of life."

Winters raised an eyebrow, at this, and thought that sounded like a vendetta if she'd ever heard one. Fortunately for Mark, she didn't have any intentions of following the strangers advice. In fact, she had a better idea. Pulling out another zip tie, she stuck it in the knights hands. "In that case, you can tie him up." She put her rifle in her hands once more, and motioned towards Mark with the barrel. "Move it."

“So, you called my bluff.”

John interrupts Coyote's statement

"SHUT THE HELL UP AND GET DOWN ON THE GROUND!"

Coyote sighs, audibly dropping the pistol and knife to the ground, then undoing the buckles on his vest and removing his sunglasses, then looks out to the three of the Reapers

"I'm coming out. My rifle's on the back wall, and my gear's off. I am unarmed and not a threat"

Coyote steps out from the darkness, lowering to his knees and placing his hands behind his head, as John and Sgt. Winters can see him kneel, then lay on his stomach, placing his hands behind his back.

"Y'all are a bunch of fuckin' assholes..."

Once again, John interrupts Coyote.

"I SAID SHUT THE HELL UP"

Coyote Glares at John, then sighs.

"Ya know what? Fuck you, Tin Man."