CLOSED SIGNUPS FALLOUT: RECLAMATION (IC)

[C.T.]

"Miss Mia, if you and Mister Luther can get me my boy back, there's no telling what I'll do to show my thanks."

Loulou left it at that.

"..." She didn't say anything, not a word considering the situation, but damn was she caught mildly off guard by that. Chick clearly didn't mess around when it came to her little pet rat-thing. Not even a bit of hesitation before she let loose with that...implication, as a reward.​

The muted clang as Mia's fist struck flush against the creature's dense hide, unhinging its jaw and indeed depriving its maw of its nightmarish set of teeth, functioned as the gong that woke Luther from his pensive stupor. Mia's question may have been rhetorical, but Luther came bearing an answer regardless—in the form of the glint of the snubnose .357 barrel under his arm, and the faint click of the hammer as he thumbed it back.

"Sounds awfully raider-like."

She was silent then too, so much so it was hard to tell if she even heard that come out of Luther's mouth. She gave no sign of it, anyway, her eyes flickering to the pistol in his hand, and then swiftly over to his target after he fired and there was just a slight nod meant as thanks for covering her ass in turn. But, shit, there was so freaking many of the damn beasts. As evident by while she filled one of them closer ones with some lead outta her shotgun, another came up from a different direction and lunged right for her just like the one she punched had done with Luther seconds earlier. She didn't have time to adjust her aim, her shotgun dropping out of her hands as she relinquished her grip on it, her left arm raising protectively in front of her face, and it worked.

Kind of.

The beast's bite ripped through her sleeve but could not pierce through that limb as it intended to do with her neck. She couldn't say the same thing for the creature, as in the same blink of an eye that its bite snapped down on her, her opposite arm drew the large knife hanging off her hip and plunged it down right through the top of the skull, as deep as it would go before ripping it right back out, and she swung her prosthetic limb wildly out to dislodge the fucker and send it flying back into...that ridiculous amount of beasts swarming them. Mia grimaced at the sight.

This is gonna--​

There was a mantra of profanities being whispered as he kept his back to Mags and swung his rifle more wildly. Not a terrible shot despite it all, but the onslaught demanded better than good, and one clawed hand dug into his forearm and he screamed as he was ripped of the side of the truck and into the dirt. he wrenched his arm with the scent of blood filling the air and his rifle flying to the side, and the human turned monstrosity reared up on both legs with its claws extended, ready to impale the soldier as he fumbled with his belt-

The screech the thing let out was anything but intimidating as it suddenly shielded its eyes, as Poindexter pointed his flashlight right at it. It was a decently powerful one that was made for nights like these, and he swung it around at a creature who'd been coming up behind him to send it staggering back as well while he stumbled to his rifle and gave his own very not-intimidating screech.

"The Headlights THE HEADLIGHTS HITTHEFUCKINGHEADLIGHTSSS!!!!!

Her interrupted thought was proven right almost immediately as one of the troopers got yanked right off the damn car. "Shit." Mia spat, not that she cared too much about the guy himself, kinda seemed like a tool even from just the limited amount of time she'd spent with him, but if he died that was one less gun on their side and their odds dropped. Fortunately, he managed not to die.​

Such was his initial assumption anyways, since with the sheer volume of wildlife currently assailing their position his estimation was the odds of anyone getting back on the car after going off the side were poor. Matter of fact, with just the four of them and in lieu of some convenient ability to freeze time and concentrate on individual targets holding out against these numbers was a fool's errand from the jump. A hiss of frustration escaped through his teeth on dropping his fourth body and seeing the many more yet swarming, and he issued a pitched whistled to signal a retreat, swinging himself down through the sunroof for the driver's seat—

She understood his meaning and prepared to follow suit, eyes briefly shooting downwards to see where her shotgun had landed after her desperate move...it wasn't anywhere on the car from what she could tell, likely landed on the ground somewhere. She let out a curse at that, directing a frustrated glare at the horde of beasts looking to make her their dinner--​

The scene ensconced in the cone of light cast by its beams' glow would've made a fitting subject for a Renaissance painting. Poindexter's shout had come just in the nick of time to save him from a mauling, the four abominations surrounding him rearing back in unison with a panicked screech as the headlamps seared their retinas. They, along with the dozen or so others that had surfaced in rapid succession, all went scrambling back for the safety of the dirt, whilst in the same instant Job ramped up out of the station's interior with pigrat nestled in its appendages and no less than three tunnelers clinging to its frame, which shrieked in turn and were dislodged when they came within the radius of the beams.

--and in the next moment, thanked lady luck itself for coming through as the hungry things rushed back down into the dirt. She wasted no time, poking her head over the side and grabbing up her shotgun.​

Luther let the snarl of the Atomic V8 engine speak for itself, and ideally within a few moments all involved were squashed back inside the car (or in Job's case, tailing it) and bugging the fuck out, barreling back around the canyon and up the dirt road to the relative safety of the ridge. The spot in question was less than a five minute drive, sequestered on the far side of the valley the station was in, a windmill built on the overlook with a ladder leading down to a sniper's nest carved in the rock.

She dropped right in there after that, grateful she hadn't lost a gun to those fuckers. While their driver put the pedal to the metal to get them the fuck outta there, she took a second to get her bearings. Checked over her gun to make sure it wasn't damaged, wiped the blood off her bowie knife with her duster, and finally, glanced at where the monstrosity had ripped a hole in her sleeve and nigh immediately clapped a hand over it, trying to cover it, however vainly.​

"Place could use some attention," he eventually commented more than halfway through the drive, mostly to break the tense silence that came with constantly scanning the perimeter for signs of pursuit. "Y'all ever come across critters like that before?"

"Not me." ​

 

[Schnee Corp Lawyer]

Luther let the snarl of the Atomic V8 engine speak for itself, and ideally within a few moments all involved were squashed back inside the car (or in Job's case, tailing it) and bugging the fuck out, barreling back around the canyon and up the dirt road to the relative safety of the ridge. The spot in question was less than a five minute drive, sequestered on the far side of the valley the station was in, a windmill built on the overlook with a ladder leading down to a sniper's nest carved in the rock.

"Place could use some attention," he eventually commented more than halfway through the drive, mostly to break the tense silence that came with constantly scanning the perimeter for signs of pursuit. "Y'all ever come across critters like that before?"

"Mole people? No, I don't think they've ever come up in our field reports- ow!" He was jolted out of his miserable sarcasm as mags used the braking to thread the first suture into his arm, the backseat commandeered and whoever didn't get shotgun being banished to the truckbed so Mags could give the private some basic first aide to accompany the stim she'd jammed into his back once they'd started moving. It had cut the bleeding off, but the wounds still needed to be sealed, and the pupils behind his glasses were a little wide and his breath a little heavy from the combination of an adrenaline high that still hadn't quite kicked and the stimulants in the medicine.

"Don't whine" Mags murmured, face otherwise taut with concentration and a little guilt.

"I've radioed it in. They're sending a team in the morning to flatten the station and get one or two of the corpses to OSI, unless these things do something with their dead." Maeve's voice crackled over the radio, Mags insistent to the point of putting a hand to her rifle of having it on and putting the ranger back in the loop. Their voice was even despite the faint sound of their equipment thumping with their jog coming over the sound

"Can't say I appreciate one of mine getting wounded for a rat. Already putting them in harms way for a robot, and this thing still hasn't slowed down. Maybe 4 minutes till it catches up. Mags, if you four don't have a plan of action in 1 then you and poindexter are out of there."

Mags glanced at wherever Job for a moment before she gave a curt nod and finished stitching the last cut up. "yes, sir." The bandage job over the sutures was quick, and she left him in the car to rub at his arm as she stepped out the door as gave the new local a quick once over.

"Not as clean of an ambush site as the gas station." She commented