Ain't that a Kick in the Head?

[MikeRyan]

"Going to be interesting to see how well Jackson is going to be able to carry that load without killing himself. Or atleast breaking a leg or two"

 

 

Morgan looked up at the items Jackson was carrying, rather clumsily, and made sure he had his bag ready for when it was his turn.

[Flipout6]

Versing stopped leaning on the wall. "Well, little runt can carry the weight of that thick skull of his, he can probably handle the weight of some lumber."

 

Jackson laughed. "Oh, it's thick alright. There's a reason that elevator only broke my nose instead of my entire gorgeous face."

 

Versing scoffed. "That was screwed up a while ago, boy-o. Anyway, Morgan, think it's our turn to head in, I don't care if Ferox is out or not. Maybe if we're lucky he betrays us and I get to shoot him, who knows?" He pulled his shotgun into his hands, still relaxed, and began walking into the building, pausing to make sure that he switched from spaced-out to alert and combat-ready. He'd been shot by too many robots already to be clipped by some Protectron's stray laser shot.

 

Jackson put his lumber down for the moment, as well as his weapons and trader's hat. He was abuzz with excess energy (as usual.) that was only accentuated by the still-present adrenaline rush from his scuffle with the Protectron inside.

"Yeah I'm going to burn off some energy now. My mom-" He paused for a second, troubled, and then grinned and spoke again. "-always told me I was too hyper, had to bounce off the walls just to bring myself down to manageable levels. Not a word of a lie." His head twitched a little bit.

 

"Why the pause there, Jackson? Were you finally at a loss for words?" Versing asked.

 

"Nah, I'm an orphan. Like, y'know, everybody. All the cool kids are orphans these days." He sprinted at the wall (ignoring the fact that last time he sprinted towards an inanimate object he went face-first into an elevator.) propelled himself three steps up it, and leaped into the air, pirouetting as he flew, before managing to stick the landing (barely.) "I mean, look at good ol' 101. He had to imitate me, you see. Had to be as intelligent, charismatic, and hilarious as yours truly, and tried his hardest. Really though, it didn't work. I'm just too amazing. A terrible burden, perfection." He spoke in a deadly serious tone and a straight face.

 

Versing snorted and walked into the building. Jackson leaped over a dumpster and did a somersault on the pavement, regretting it rather quickly.

[MikeRyan]

"Now you just hold on there sonny, I trained 101 personaly ok? And if you ever try to say that he is copying you again, I'm going to slap you hard enough to send you to Vegas. Or atleast 2 meters back. The kid is actually a great guy, fast learner. Taught him evertyhing I could about survival and fighting." Morgan swinged his bag up onto his bag and got ready to move out

 

"Alright then Versy, let's see if the ladies left anything for us"

Edited March 19, 2013 by MikeRyan

[Flipout6]

Versing laughed. "Well, there's your answer right there. Morgan trained him! Now we know why the Enclave died." He indicated the interior of the building with the tip of his shotgun. "Come on, Morgan, stop terrifying the youth. We got crap to get done." He walked inside, gun at the ready, not finding much in the way of anything dangerous, although he did get his hands on some stray lumber to bring back. Of course he ignored the fact that Morgan had taken the initiative first. "So what's that Wanderer boy like? Hear he's only around twenty. Last person I heard about that did anything like he did was the Vault Dweller, and that was in the 2100's. Shady Sands was barely a farming community."

 

Jackson purposefully performed a front-flip over Axelle's head, his energy finally coming down to 'manageable levels' as his adrenaline rush died. He poked her head as he went by, cackling like a madman.

 

"Got something on your head there, Elle." He yelped when he heard a "WHAAAAAAT?!" From Versing. Wasn't going to be any nicknames from him, that was for sure. Jackson landed on the opposite side of the doorway, and sat himself down.

 

"Morgan, just remember we're trying to salvage from the factory, not knock it down!" He feinted surprise. "Oh, I seem to have punched this structural support! Now the building is falling over! Please save me, oh mighty Jackson!"

[MikeRyan]

"He is a great boy actually, met him over at Moriarity's a few years ago when he was fresh from the vault. Learned fast actually. Met his sister as well actually, sadly didnt have the chance to meet their father. I acutally never expected him to go off and save the capital but then again, we all are full of suprises. I mean, I bet none of you expected me to be an ex-slave and a tribal. Anyways let's see if the girls and Ferox left something for us in there."

 

 

Morgan walked over to Jackson and poked him on the nose

 

"And you know, if you are so confident in your strength, why don't we have a little fistfight later, Tiny."

 

He then left and continued into the building.

[Flipout6]

Versing walked inside the building, holding his shotgun in his hands, intensely glad he'd found that spare suit of combat armor in Boutique Le Chic back at the tower. Staying true to his military training and experience, he advanced slowly, checking every corner and ensuring every room was clear, never lowering his shotgun. It took a while, almost fifteen minutes, but soon he'd scanned and cleared the entire first floor. He wasn't going to gather lumber only to be shot in the back by something he'd been too negligent to look for beforehand.

 

"Morgan, I'm heading upstairs." He said to his friend, and moved up the factory floor through an interconnected series of rafters, staircases and support structures.

 

He repeated the procedure on the second floor, noting a considerably number of long-since-demolished Protectrons, likely from the Wanderer's walkthrough of the place. The building was definitely decaying, and it was plainly obvious from the second floor, where entire sections of the floor had collapsed beneath their own weight, forming great piles of rubble below. Thankfully most of the floor was still accessible, but Versing found himself nervous when he walked on crumbling sections of the floor. A sound caught his ear, a peculiar rumbling sound that echoed throughout the floor, sounding similar to a heavy wind, if a less noisy. He was trying to pin it down.

 

He searched every back room, gap in the walls, and office cubicle he found, until only one section of the second floor remained: The primary computer room. Versing walked inside it, hunched over in a professional military stance that was ready to react in a moment.

 

There was a hulking figure typing furiously into the main computer, a silver, sleek machine blazing with red lights and activity. The rumbling noise that Versing was so concerned about was a Mr. Gutsy robot floating beside what appeared to be its owner: a huge, power-armoured figure with a super sledge on his back and a minigun leaned against the computer beside him.

 

"Detected threat level: Red! Target armed and dangerous! Input order: Weapons free or stand down, sir?!?!" The Mr. Gutsy, painted red and black, gazed at Versing menacingly through lifeless orange electronic eyes that glowed even brighter in the room's otherwise dim lighting.

 

"Our orders stated to leave no witnesses." The man at the computer growled, turning around and hoisting the death machine that served as his primary weapon, pointing it at Versing, while slipping a battered notebook into his belt.

 

"Whoa there! We're just here to salvage some lumber. Not even technology, that's all yours. We just need building supplies." The man was clearly a Brotherhood Outcast, if the armor and attitude were anything to go by.

 

"Your purpose is irrelevant. My orders are clear, and they have good reason behind them. Reports of our activities will serve only to draw unnecessary attention...and every pitiful waster in this land will go scurrying right to our enemies. Bot: Order input: Weapons free."

 

The Mr. Gutsy robot, who had the name "Bug-Eyes" scratched into his metallic armor, suddenly disappeared behind a column of blazing flame that spouted from one of its insect-like arms as the Outcast opened up with his minigun, creating a thundering, repeating staccato of terrifying noise that sent dozens of bullets screaming towards Versing. Without even a chance to get a shot off, Versing ducked and pounded out of the room not even a split-second before the Outcast's bullets would have torn into him, ripping through his combat armor and leaving nothing left but a mangled body.

 

Versing's pulse raced as he rapidly considered a course of action. There was no way he could deal with that kind of firepower while he had a military robot bearing down on him at the same time. "MORGAN!" He shouted, almost panicking.

 

Urien Carkiridon, the Outcast, stomped forwards, movement greatly hindered by his heavy weaponry and the thick layer of metal that protected his body from the horrors of combat. He did not cease firing, instead letting his 5mm bullets rip through the crumbling walls where he estimated his opponent to be hiding. He'd been so focused on his work that he'd allowed this stranger to sneak up on him. He couldn't let it happen again. He would finish this quickly before the man was able to formulate a plan or any coherent thought. He cursed his lack of grenades, as now would be the perfect opportunity to use one, and continued firing through the wall as his bot advanced with his flamethrower.

 

Versing started and covered his head as bullets tore through the walls of the room. This building would barely be able to provide any cover with all the flimsy desks and weakened structure. Cursing, he rolled over and pounced to his feet, keeping himself low to the ground as he retreated towards the stairs. The Outcast wasn't moving fast at all, slowly advancing and carpeting the area with gunfire, but still fast enough that Versing wouldn't be able to stay in any one place too long. A stray bullet was stopped by his shoulder-plate as he sprinted into the offices, taking cover behind an office cubicle and overturning the desk. He fired twice, succeeding in scratching the black menace's armor, the shell fragments only piercing the lightly-armoured areas where there was next to no protection. Searing heat filled the air as the Mr. Gutsy reactivated its flamethrower, forcing Versing from cover, where he was nearly killed by the robot's plasma cannon and a series of minigun rounds, which missed and blew out three windows directly above his friends below, sending shattered glass tumbling down towards them.

 

"Watch it!" Jackson exclaimed, pulling Axelle and Cathy out of the way, feeling a shard nick his hand. "Ow!"

 

"Get to cover, grab your weapons!" Versing shouted. The smell of smoke filled the air.

 

Jackson pointed towards the top of the building, where a black cloud was beginning to form. "The building's on fire! You two need to get out of there!" He grabbed his scoped .308 and retreated to the end of the parking lot, behind an old ruined sedan, intending to use it as a sniping position.

[mythicdawnmaster]

Back at the Tenpenny towers things were calm as could be for Miss De Vere, she had just finished showering, and was mid way through curling her hair after applying the thick makeup she wore (which was no wonder why she had to stock up) when she smelt the distinct odour of burning... and with a keen nose for burning materials, those of the smoked kind in particular, De Vere recognized it not as a a strong smoke, but as the smell of burning debris.

 

Curious, she paced over the the balcony and stood in shock at the sight of the warehouse- said warehouse Versing and the others had travelled to with the intent of bringing back lumber. Rolling her eyes she had figured that they found more than just Lumber, which seemed to always be the trouble- Simple activities these days often turned sour, like going to the fridge to get a bottle of milk, and finding a hungry deathclaw...

 

Another thing De Vere figured was that without her help, they wouldn't survive in a place full of robots and technology, especially if it came to life, which was afterall a possibility. Well... of course they would survive, but not without wasting valuable ammunition and explosives.

 

So, without any further ado, De Vere settled for grabbing the nearest clothing to her, which happened to be a pair of shorts and a simple blouse... coupled with her lingerie, it certainly wasn't an outfit the fashion savvy French woman would have ever thought to have worn, but she wasn't going to run all the way there in her skirt and heels, that was for sure.

 

Slipping on a pair of combat boots, and her large leather hat, De Vere slung her handbag over one shoulder and dashed for the exit.

 

Arriving a panting mess, De Vere crumpled over, hands on her thighs as she attempted some manner of respiration. Her shorts she noticed overlapped the garter belt she was wearing,,, but not the stockings. She stood there in such a strange mix of attire, her blouse all wonky, a short and stocking combo, and a pair of combat boots...

 

As she straightened up, there was already a lit cigarette in her mouth, her cheeks concave as they drew hard, the white of the cigarette rapidly depleting until there was little more than a centimetre left. At that, De Vere exhaled like a furious dragon, the contained smoke of a whole cigarette, taken in one drag, was exhaled from her nostrils.

 

Walking inside the building she noticed her companions. "Well this is nice... Versing gotten you into more trouble eh? No worries." De Vere brushed a stray wisp of hair from her face and dashed for the stairs, taking them down into the basement. Hacking in to the security panel on the maintenance room door, De Vere kicked it open and stepped inside, flinging herself into a chair and getting to work on the systems.

 

"Hmm... what can go boom?" Checking over the power systems, De Vere disabled all power to the top, middle, and upper floors, shutting off power to lights, electrics and any generators that were stationed on the floors, anything that could, if active, explode under the heat of the fire, only thing she couldn't shut down was the Robco storage facility, and the main control room... great, one full of robots and parts, the other a giant supercomputer... oh they weren't flammable in the slightest...

 

Wondering if there was another way up other than the stairs, De Vere re-routed power to the lift, and left the room as quickly as she entered,

 

Reaching the lift, De Vere sauntered inside and pressed delicately the button for the top floor. Taking the liberty to sort out her hair as the elevator was pulled up, she softly hummed in tune with the intercom's static-infested music. Placing a cigarette to her fingers, she was about to light it when the door to the flaming top floor opened. Raising an eyebrow to the intense flame as she walked down the hall, De Vere lit her cigarette on one of the gouts of flame as a pipe exploded, ducking down low and holding the paper roll upwards.

 

Smiling as she took in the smoke, De Vere got to work on opening up the storage room door, and stealthily making her way inside.

 

Looking around at the husks of formerly active units, De Vere scanned for a control panel. Exclaiming her joy as she spotted the console, De Vere ran over and sat herself at the console. Pulling from her handbag a little device with antenna, De Vere attached it to a loose port, and integrated the device.

 

Drumming her fingers on the desk as it 'Searched for available units in range' De Vere's eyes shone as the screen illuminated with a command screen, a single unit having popped up. it's registry code was "Bug-Eyes" and after checking the model number, she could only assume it was the same piece of metal that was so gleefully spewing flames at Versing... Well, she'd certainly enjoy watching how it's owner took his own medicine...

 

Overwriting controls, De Vere altered it's friend-foe systems to detect it's former mini-gun wielding master as the intruder that needed to be eliminated...

[Flipout6]

"Agh!"

 

Urien felt a searing pain wrack his body as Bug-Eyes exclaimed that his targeting parameters had been adjusted, and turned his flamethrower on his master. Urien stumbled backwards in the face of the roaring flames, using up the last of the casing of ammo on his minigun when he failed to take his finger off the trigger. Clearing his mind, Urien stalked forwards through the flames and unplugged several wires from the robot's circuit board, shutting it down until it was re-wired. His armor was in some places superheated and therefore glowing with a hellish orange light, giving him the appearance of a demon, and while that may be a powerful psychological effect on the superstitious and the less intelligent, it did nothing but harm as the armor was warped and even melded to other parts of itself, which would require extensive repairs or even a replacement suit later down the road.

 

The power completely cut from the facility, preventing many future electrical fires and shutting down any kind of the remaining automated defenses such as turrets and robots. The lights shut off and flooded the structure in darkness, tipping the scales in favor of those whose weapons relied on overkill instead of precision to eliminate a target. Essentially, Versing and Carkiridon. However, one was out of ammo and the other lacked the power to penetrate its target's armor.

 

Unable to see his target through fire or darkness, one of Jackson's .308 rounds whizzed right by the Outcast's head and flew through two more walls before being stopped harmlessly by a third. "Damn!"

 

Urien got to work reloading his minigun when Versing took the opportunity to pop out from behind cover and fire, resulting in several pellets piercing the thicker pieces of his weakened armor. None of them got through to actually injure him, but it was enough to send him stumbling backwards. Versing, realizing that hit shotgun was useless against such a heavily-armoured target, drew his gladius and charged. Defender Carkiridon stopped him in his tracks with a snapping-kick that nearly knocked him off of his feet, before switching his minigun for the super sledge on his back and swung it right from the get-go.

 

Versing leaped sideways and out of the way of the downward swing, which cracked the mouldy floors with the force of the impact, and in turn brought the gladius up for an upwards-diagonal slash that Urien parried with the hilt of the hammer. After successfully doing so twice, Urien swung the super sledge horizontally, throwing all of his considerable weight and strength into the blow, and when he missed, he did so again, bringing the hammer back the other way, backing Versing up towards one of the broken windows, a sizeable pane of what used to be glass that was more than large enough to walk through. Urien missed again, taking a quick slash to his stomach that inflicted a sizeable, if shallow, gash across his upper waist. Another blow, this one leaving Versing pinned in the corner, slammed into Versing's gladius, not damaging the man or the weapon, but hitting with another force to send Versing tumbling out the window.

 

He let out a cry of alarm as he felt the floor disappear from beneath him until he slammed into the pavement below, gasping for breath. He scampered as fast as he could behind the nearest vehicle to use as cover. Urien took a .308 round to his forearm from Jackson's rifle, who still couldn't see him properly, and stumbled backwards into the by-now blazing building, where he fitted his super sledge back into its place on his back and grabbed his minigun once again, finishing his reloading.

 

Versing tucked his gladius into his belt and tugged his shotgun into his hands, feeling awfully battered for a combatant in a fight that had lasted a total of perhaps thirty seconds at the most. How the building caught fire so fast he had no idea, but he supposed that a military-model robot would be designed to do just such a thing.

[tokyobiohazard]

Axelle coughed as she inhaled nothing but smoke, realizing that the building was catching fire more quickly than it should have on its own. Pulling her crowbar out of the ankle of her steel-toed boot, she yelled out, "Is everyone okay?"

 

She quickly rushed through the doorways in her path and found the front doors, keeping herself pressed against the hot walls of the building to avoid fire of a different kind from the Outcast above. She'd done what she figured was the smartest thing to do and slid along the wall until she was on the side of the building, where the Outcast couldn't see, let alone fire, at her.

 

"Yeah, I'm fine!" Ferox answered a little too late from an adjacent room. His path to the main room had been blocked by glass and fallen metal, so it looked like the only way to go for him was up. Taking off up the stairs, he hopped over a few piles of debris, finding the stairs much more intact than he would have expected them to be.

 

As he cleared the doorway to the second floor, he stopped in his tracks. Stroking his zap glove, he stared at the Outcast from behind. His footsteps were light as he took advantage of the rapid sound of gunshots piercing his eardrums.

 

Finally close enough, after what seemed like several minutes, Ferox wound back his fist and rammed it into the middle of the Outcast's back with as much force as a Praetorian could muster. What he wouldn't do for his old ballistic fist at a time like this...

[nethgros]

It was so difficult to control his body at the moment, and he still wasn't sure exactly how he had managed to make it this far. In actuality he had no idea how far he had came, or from where, or where he was currently. Realizing he was lost he stopped and finally looked up from the ground to have his sight graced by a large tower directly in front of him, surrounded by (pretty much) nothing. The light was so bright he wasn't sure if what he was seeing was real, so he asked his robobrain to confirm,

 

"H-hey, HEY! Skybot! You seein' that too? Looks preeeetty... fancy, yeah?"

 

The robot was a short distance behind him and responded rather quickly to his questions, "If you are referring to the tower, yes, it is real. You don't need to worry about this being like the time with the elephant. As for it being "fancy", it would appear so."

 

There was a wall surrounding the tower, but luckily the front gate was wide open, and no one seemed to be around. The place did look like it had been through some rough stuff too, and rather recently. Though that observation was only made by the robot, as Skyman was too busy staggering his way straight into the building.

 

"Looks like we got the place all to ourselves buddy. You can look around if you want, I need a nap, this Med-X is hittin' me pretty hard now that we're out of that damn sun. How many did I have anyway?"

 

"Five in the past twelve hours."

 

"Five?! How long have I been awake?!"

 

"Thirty seven hours."

 

His mouth hung agape in shock at the revelation of the reality of his current condition, and the numb sensation he had been feeling intensified at this truth being revealed. He barely managed to make his way over to the counter before collapsing to his knees in a sudden lethargy that felt much like his sleep deprivation and his med-x binge had both collapsed on top of him. He crawled behind the counter and rolled over to his back before falling asleep.

 

Skybot rolled up to the counter and stopped right in front of it, prepared to wait for his human companion to wake back up from his deactivation cycle.