Summary:
August 01 2014: Jericho Sara and Mike hit the ground floor of the hospital to secure the hostages, and re-secure Nancy while Partisan mops up. Follow up/companion Scene to 'The Raid: ICU'
North General Hospital
Closed down and abandoned, Hydra has worked hard to make sure it stays that way so they can use it as a base for the N-Series Initiative
Characters
NPCs
- N Series Operatives/Victims
- Hostages
Mood Music:
[* None]
Partisan, Nancy, Bobby and Angelo had gone in up top, as per the plan. However learning that the hostages were in fact being held in the emergency Psych ward on the first floor not far from the regular ER had necessitated a change in the plan. It was easier to get in on ground floor through the back entrance - incidentally the only ground entrance that hadn't been sealed - and also blocked a route for Hydra's staff to escape with any hostages or mutant victims. Jericho has been following the initial piece of action on his earpiece while he hacked the remarkably complex electronic lock on the door.
"Okay. To recap. We go in, break into the psych ER, grab the hostages and load them up. Angelo said they had nine of thirteen, so we need to keep our eyes peeled for four other mutant victims who will probably fight us until they can be restrained. Also Nancy's gone missing in the scrum, so keep an eye out for her too. Once we have our folks, I'll sweep for anyone we haven't found. Questions?"
*
"So they've got nine cooperative ones, and we get the four in the psych ward," Sara summarizes, hopping down out of the bus. "Sounds like the way things usually go."
She's wearing plain black kevlar, though that's more back up than anything else. The Witchblade is fairly quiet on her wrist, just starting to creep along her fingers as she starts toward the building.
*
The light on the lock turns green and the door slides open.
"Oh no, even better. We get the family and friends being used as leverage, and also get to look for four mutants plus Nancy, any of whom may fight us. Plus any surviving security. Probably still a few out there hiding from Partisan." Jericho sighs and draws his gun.
"Sure you don't want a piece?"
Gun is of fairly limited utility here since most folks they're going to want alive, but there you go.
The immediate inside of the ER lobby is dark and empty in keeping with the fiction that the building is abandoned. Jericho waits for the doors to close and then wraps a pair of nylon cargo straps around the handles and secures them.
"There. That'll prevent anyone from sneaking up behind us. Tapping the camera feed now… and done. Okay, Psych ward is ahead and to the left. You want point or you want me to take it?"
*
Nancy is in her weaponized mode, no compassion, do what she's told and that's it. Her last order was to come and join her brothers and sisters here and tell them what they are up against and that is exactly what she did. The N mutants are well prepared.
"Wish we had Jinx with us. She would have made this nice and easy." Nancy grunts, waiting to see who comes in the door.
*
"If I shoot someone, they're not going to walk out of here," Sara shakes her head to Jericho's offer, even if her hands look like they're twitching for a gun. It's one thing to carry one as a police officer, though. It's another when she's doing something she already has some serious doubts about. Off the books. As they step inside, and at that thought, tendrils of Witchblade creep across her features, veiling them from easy sight and granting a low, amber glow to her eyes.
"I'll take point," she nods at his offer. "I get shot, I'll get better."
More and more of the strange metal climbs over her limbs, armoring them.
*
Mike Drakos did not come in his usual "shiny metal human" format. Instead, a much more traditional-looking combat robot, with a much more traditional level of armor and weaponry, standing six and a half feet tall, is moving along … silently, an inch above the ground … having just left May with a single-purpose direct-connect highly secure comm that will reach him instantly. It doesn't actually seem to emit on radio though.
Mike introduced himself as Z-Mech for the purposes of the mission. He scans ahead, sending a series of "bb-pellet" sized bits of metal, moving off like a swarm of insects.
*
Jeri hasn't met Mike personally, but Nancy and Bobby mentioned he might be helpful, so here he is. And here's hoping.
"Alright Sara." Jericho nods. His own traces have flushed amber and his eyes are now a pair of amber pools. Enhanced vision for him as well. Partisan's assault upstairs went about as well as could have been expected under the circumstances, but now their foe will be on alert.
"Okay. Not that I need to tell you this Sara, but watch those corners. I don't doubt they'll be trying to secure the hostages. At your convenience."
Mike gets a nod and a 'please don't kill anyone we're trying to save' look. Ai ya. Okay… here goes.
*
When the little bits of metal come towards her, Nancy stands from her cover. These are likely from one of the people they have with them, and if so, his mutant connection with them will be lost. She focuses on pushing her power forward, towards the other side of the door. It's something that she needs practice with, admittedly, but it's worked before.
*
Unfortunately for Nancy and her friends, the Witchblade doesn't have anything to do with the x-gene. So the null field means exactly nothing to Sara as she steps around the corner, armored and armed with an eldritch version of a baton, all the better for subduing recalcitrant young mutants.
*
The mutant connection is in fact lost. The small devices don't fall to the ground, though; they simply revert to micro-swarm format, using tiny ridiculously complex bug-wing structures to fly like insects. They're stupider without Mike's power reminding the metal to be alive, but collectively their system is bug-smart. Mike's smarter than that, and he's connected to them. He sends two of them into her ears, a high pitched distracting whine.
The others move for other people, the ones who act like mutants, to do the same thing.
*
Nancy smiles as it's the Witchblade that comes around the corner.
"I was hoping it was you," she purrs as she lifts up her grenade launcher. But she's not using the lovely non-lethal grenades she got for her birthday. Her pale eyes resemble nothing of the woman that Sara has met before. There is nothing there. No emotion, no concern. Sadly, with the N mutants being in War Mode, they are harder to distract. The grenade is fired.
*
Jericho comes around the corner right after Sara and sees Nancy standing dumbly out of cover with gas mask on. It takes him exactly no time at all to realize what must have happened. And what's probably happened right now.
"Sonofa-NANCY!"
His wings sweep out and snap the grenade out of the air arcs toward Sara. Not willing to bet that it's a nonlethal. And it's not. As the wing curls around it and draws it into a sphere of light near Jeri's torso it detonates in what would have been a shower of fragments had it not been encased in a power field. Instead what it does is send a shower of feedback sparks burning through his shirt and cargo pants. The hacker drops with a cry of pain.
*
Sara lifts her right arm as Nancy fires the grenade, a shield blossoming in front of herself. She's surprised when she doesn't feel the impact of it against her shield, barreling forward toward Nancy with little regard for whatever strike might come next.
"You all right, Trent?" she calls back without looking.
*
"KZZT 1-1, lower level -not- secure. Pushing on-" as the sounds of automatic gunfire ring out in the background audio, "to the final security checkpoint. I've got these bastards all hot'n bothered by little old me, fuck their shit!"
*
The human sense of balance is a wondrous thing, mediated as it is by a combination of optical feedback, kinesthetic sense, and of course, the vestibular system. The three little semicircular canals in each ear that detect movement. The two little bb-bots in Nancy's ears respond to the radio directive from Mike, and begin sending directed vibrations to these canals. Not-synchronized vibrations, regular, fast-slow, basically, in a few seconds she'll feel like she's on a spinning-cups ride that works in three dimensions. Sadly, both ears are not being fed the same distortions.
The other scanbots in the cloud begin building a nice pretty visual of who is where in that ER, that Mike shares with Jericho. By radio, not directly to his cyber. Slow stupid radio. Thanks Deadzone.
*
And that's when the hallway erupts in gunfire. The biggest problem as a young, clean shaven man with a very focused look who seems to have incredible hand-eye coordination. Not the sort of thing one would notice… until you put a gun in his hand.
Bullets ping off Sara's shield and behind her Jericho levers himself into a standing position. Then something pings by his face, leaving a crease below his ear. Cute. His traces flush blue and his wings vanish as a were-wolf construct of light springs into being around him, hulking and clawed.
"2-1. Located Nancy and the missing Victims." His voice is thick until he clears his throat. "Engaging."
The sandy haired, clean shaven man drops his gun as Sara barrels down on Nancy and draws a pair of knives, lunging at her. Mike starts to draw fire as well now, though Jericho is getting some too. And he looks very upset.
*
Nancy looks to the others, waving an errant hand by her ear.
"Aim for the woman, everything you got."
She swaps to the taser rounds, not because they are non-lethal, but because she wants to see how Sara's Witchblade armor holds up to electrical charges. She isn't the only one firing. But it isn't long before Deadzone stumbles. She is trying her best to keep firing, but is suffering from a dizzy spell like nothing she has felt before. She sinks down to one knee, blinking as she tries to focus. Damn. She pats her body, taking out a stingball grenade1. She tosses it into the fray.
*
As Sara barges into the fray, the Witchblade bulks up her form, heavier armor protecting her against the blows of blades and bullets. Taser rounds, on the other hand, are another matter. The kevlar beneath the armor protects her from the worst of the charge, and the Witchblade itself seems to absorb some of the charge. Enough of it gets through to sting, though, which means Sara ignores the young man with the knives in favor of reaching out to try to take that gun from Nancy and crush it.
*
"2-1, 1-1. Advise if assistance is necessary. All stations this net, going explosive in five." One two…-BKOOM- the ground floor windows of the hospital explode. A lone guard with blood running from his ears stumbles from the front entrance, only to have a series of rounds walked up his spine before his braincase is splattered across the street. Inside, more gunfire sounds.
*
The really frustrating part of this? Those bullets would be really useful if Mike's elemental metal power was still online; he'd be able to add them to his armor. Instead he has to hope the stupid armor trick works, and the layer of foam ceramic will soak them and hold them in place. The Z-Meck begins moving toward the last two mutants, letting them shoot. The pain-grenade doesn't even register. When he gets close to anyone shooting, taser leads fire out and engage.
*
"2-1. The hell was that?!" Jericho snarls, though it seems perhaps there… factors in the way that comes out.
Mike's taser shot spreads past him. One mutant down.
The sandy haired young man gets sized by the shoulder in Jericho’s massive right hand. One twist and contemptuous fling later he’s ten feet away at Mike’s feet. He might… have a few cracked ribs. Then he turns and delivers a right cross to a redheaded young woman that sends her to the opposite wall with an audible smack. She slumps, out. That leaves just Nancy and one blonde young lady for Sara. Speaking of.
"NANCY!" Jericho roars in his best Afghanistan snarl. "KNOCK THIS CRAP THE F—- OFF RIGHT NOW!"
*
Nancy is doing her best not to just sit down and hug her head. Sooo dizzy. No, must fight. Woah, when did Pez Dispenser get right there in her face. Nancy wishes she would stop moving so fast. It's hard to concentrate on her when she's moving like that. Her gun is torn out of her hand as she stumbles, all she can manage is, "Hey… that was for my birthday!" before she hears Jericho.
"Oh.. sure thing Jeri Curl. Gonna lay down now. My head hurts."
*
"Should've come with ‘a don't shoot it at people who can take it away’ class," Sara snaps at Nancy's protest, tossing the gun away in a motion that chucks it right in the face of the blonde girl coming up behind her.
"Sit down and shut up," she mutters, turning to get a glance at Jericho and clenching her jaw at the sounds of violence.
"Time to get out of here before she gets on a real roll."
*
"1-1, that was a tripled up breaching charge shot through the floor. Attention, attention all stations this net. This is 1-1, Site 1 is clear. I repeat, Site 1 is clear. All stations report any further enemy activity immediately. At this time, we have zero I repeat -zero- civilian casualties. Site exploitation and evacuation operations are to begin immediately. All stations, please confirm."
Cue the Partisan, strolling out the front entrance with a huff. Her armor has been shredded, her gear is soaked solid in a mixture of blood and gore and not a single piece of equipment from her boots to that wolf-skull gasmask seems to have survived without being kissed by a bullet. Quietly she peers around, as she lifts the bottom of her gasmask back to let no small amount of blood leak onto the pavement. She takes a moment to sit on the steps, before sourcing a nalgene which..has more bullet holes than water left in it. "Well fuck."
Dust is still settling, hell she's still bleeding but at least for a moment she can catch her breath.
"1-1, anyone got a canteen or whatever I can snag?"
*
Mike stops the vertigo attack on Nancy when she stops being a tool for Hydra. He reaches down with two fingers and stun-guns the remaining N-series, and looks around.
"Could someone turn off that damned suppress field now?" he asks, before applying a zip-strip restraint to the two other hydra-tools.
*
Jericho lets the cell-phone suppressor field drop.
"2-1. Mine's on the bird. You can have it. I need to snag the head doctor." Finding his discarded gun he grabs and holsters it and then digs around right handed in one of his cargo pockets.
"Nancy…" He waits until he has her attention and tosses a king sized candy bar at her. "Eat a snickers."
Turning to Sara he sighs. "Okay. Slight change of plan, I need to go after the staff before they rabbit out a broken window somewhere. I'll leave rounding up these guys and the hostages to you and Mike… and Nan, when she's feeling better. You need anything get Mike or Nancy to radio me."
He grimaces and draws his gun again and looks at Sara seriously.
"And thanks for coming. Really." Mike gets a nod. "Goes for you too."
Then he turns and heads down a hallway at a run, leaving Sara and Mike to get into the Psych Ward and get everyone out.
*
Nancy does what she's told, because it just makes sense. Eating would be good. She eats the candy bar, and as her blood sugar rises she starts looking around her with a bit of shock and dismay.
"Oh… man. I'm sorry."
*
"Forgive me if I don't buy it," Sara snorts to Nancy's apology, picking up an N-series by the cuffs in each hand. Maybe Nancy isn't the only one who needs a Snickers. Either that, or Sara's wrestling with the Witchblade's desires again.
"Let's get moving, people, that was a lot of noise, and I love you all, but I'm pretty sure I just passed the psych eval to get back to work, and I don't want to have to do another one."
*
Partisan rolls onto her boots with a waver, before lifting that AK for a brass check. Magazine extracted to frown at the bullet wedged firmly in the side of the mag body, which she discards before producing it's replac-…fuck that ones shot to hell too. Finally she sources a fresh one and jacks it into her carbine, before walking forward to the edge of the sidewalk and peers down the roadway.
"1-1, front entrance secure. Holding security here until we're ready to roll, can exfil with 4-1 if necessary. Not feeling so hot," frowning at the rips and tears of those brand fucking new gloves, chrissakes can't she have any nice things? Even that Suchka has had the upper handguard shot away, luckily the action was strong enough to shear the jacket wedged in the gas tube off and it still runs alright albeit at a notably lower cyclic rate. Why does she even bother with anything other than AKs again?
*
Rising to her feet, Nancy continues to eat the candy bar. Her head hurts and she's still feeling dizzy, and this time it's not Mike's little toys. She smirks at Sara as she claims to not buy Nancy's apology, the smirk growing when Sara says she loves them all.
"Okay, I'm not buying that one either."
*
The Z-Mech assists with the movement of prisoners. He isn't going to go to bat for Nancy with Sara at the moment because there really isn't time for it, but if time permits later he'll try to explain what he's learned about these stupid mutants with their stupid "blood sugar slave button".
When he sees the damage to the Partisan's lovely guns, even though he doesn't like guns as guns, you know, it's like not being a dog person and seeing injured puppies, you just have to be upset. When he's out of reach of Nancy's dead-zone, he starts making subtle, slow repairs to them, fixing a bit here, a bit there…
*
"You're right," Sara replies to Nancy as she drags the unconscious mutants toward the bus. "I probably didn't pass."
Because clearly, that's the part that was hard to believe.
"I never pass the first round, though. I keep waiting for them to figure out they're going to put me back to work anyhow."
*
Nancy is dragging the unconscious mutants and hostages out with Sara, getting them into the bus.
"They'll let you in. Yer a good cop. Better than any I've ever had to meet before. At least you give a damn. But, if you ever repeat that I said that, I'm totally denying it."
*
Partisan lifts her mask for a coughing hack, before she spits out a juicy chunk of..lung probably? "Hey girls. "As Part pulls that mask back down with a huff, and looking every bit like a zombie movie extra.
"3-2, go get with 3-1. We don't want folks too mixed up, or we're liable to leave someone behind. I'm in no condition for stairs anyhow." Slinging that beat up Krinker, before she gets to grabbing folks and dragging them on with an actual honest to god grunt of effort.
*
Z-Mike mutters, "why do you have a perfectly good robot along if you're going to haul the fleshies around by yourself before you heal up?" and assists where he can, and the rest of the time moves people. That Krinker is looking less and less beaten up. As are any other guns she hasn't just abandoned or used as projectile weapons.
*
"2-1," Jericho's voice breaks in after the psych door has been opened and the 'incentives program' hostages secured. "Found the head doctor and his aides. Stuffed them on the birds with their files. Police response is going to be slow because of that comms blackout I did, but it's not going to be that slow. I'm sure Sara can give you a more accurate guess than mine. I suggest heading out soon. I'll meet up with you later. I've got to pick up some ice cream for the interrogation."
*
Nancy shakes her head.
"We don't have time for me to join up with 3-2."
She speaks over the headset, "3-2? 3-1 is back to normal. Meet you at the debriefing."
That tone in her voice… she's not… yeah, she probably is.
"Let's go. I have a long hot soak in a tub waiting for me."
*
"That's exactly why they'll bring me back on. That, and no one else is willing to take the weird cases. So."
Sara loads up the bus, taking a quick head count and keeping an eye out for police presence. Once everyone is aboard, she'll head off, moving at the comfortable, easy pace of someone who's just driving a bunch of kids on a field trip.
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