Bratok scooped up his AKS-74U carbine, flicked the selector down one position, and shouldered it. The woman was awake now and searching for her misplaced gun, fear in her voice. Bratok wasn't feeling very heroic himself, even if he did have a gun.
He shuffled forward, apprehensively, moving up to where the tunnel cut right. Behind him, the bandit implored them to head south, a suggestion he had no issue with.
He nodded his head in the darkness, "Alright!" he called out, as much to psyche himself up as to acknowledge the plan, "Help babushka find her gun and her dentures and I'll lead the way."
He took a breath to steady himself and stepped out into the corridor (T3).
_____Geralt licked at Rachel's face. He whined. There was a dull thump, a sound that she knew was an explosion, even in her exhausted stupor. When the sniper blinked herself into consciousness she found herself laying behind some sandbags piled up on the roof, her rifle cradled in her arms, the unconscious woman in camouflage clothing from earlier, her partner, laying splayed out beside her. She had no idea how much time had passed, only that it was still the inky darkness of night.
_____Then, she saw the shapes shuffling in the distance, to the north, where the trash and dirt formed a steady slope of the garbage's namesake, providing a steep, elevated platform for others to hide out on. She could see the shapes of human figures moving around behind sheet metal, old tires, slogging through the mud. A bullet snapped past her head with a crack, but it seemed to have gone wide. Maybe they hadn't found her position quite yet.
After she took a brief stock of their situation, Rachel bit back a curse, not wanting to draw any more attention to their position. She kept low, well beneath the sandbags, like she was trying to merge with her shadow, and crawled over to Val to check her condition. Her partner's pulse was steady, no problems with breathing. Like Rachel, Val didn't seem to have any serious wounds, and her pounding headache was swiftly fading.
"Val wake up," Rachel whispered to her partner. Her hand shook her friend's shoulder. "We've got trouble at the front door."
Then a crack resounded and something whizzed over their heads. Nowhere close to hitting her, but just the idea their position had eyes on it was uncomfortable. Last thing a sniper wanted was enemies alerted to their position.
"Keep your head down," she hissed to the newcomers. "No telling if that was a random shot or if they're baiting us."
Rachel wanted everyone atleast ready before they counterattacked. This situation was a mess already. She had no idea what had knocked them out or if it would happen again. Thankfully, it didn't seem like much time had passed, nor had the enemies broken in, yet.
"If you want what you're truly here for, you're going to have to fight for it." Talon spoke clearly, then smirked. "Besides, I remember being only paid for ammo, with the terms for a contract being discussed, later." She didn't miss a beat. "Dein maschinenpistole will carry you through this. It was favored by the Waffen SS, and I even respect those guys. Now, move out, from your side, and I'll be alongside you, Mädchen. Los!"
"Fuck, fine. I'll cover you until this battle is over," Kraut hissed, bringing the P08 from the holster and aiming it squarely at the advancing mutations. By god, she could see those empty eyes burrowing into her soul, judging her for deeds that she didn't do. Just like every other fucking sheep back then. Quickly gathering her wits about her, she moved to the direction Talon had directed her, taking care to keep the abominations in her line of sight.
"Ich wünschte, diese verdammte Nacht wäre vorbei," She whispered to herself quietly.
Steel rolled her eyes at the two Bandits in the back of her mind, if she weren't stuck in such a predicament she would've made both of them bleed by their throats. Though for now she needed to cooperate with them, survival was her main objective so was theirs, finding her gun she then picked it up with her reaction to it being confusion.
I didn't come in with an AKM, why is this here?' She asked herself, a few seconds she took to look at the markings before she removed the magazine. The weapon was clearly civilian, though it was better than nothing as she then loaded it back into the gun with her thumb pushing the safety down. Pulling the charging handle back by a bit she checked if a round was chambered, one was not so she racked it backwards with a satisfying sound.
"If we are to move now is the time." She said to Bratok who was in front of her whom she quickly followed forward into the dark.
Talon furled her pointed brows as the böse blonde drew an overtly ornate Luger in place of the MP-40 in her hands, a moment before. What the fuck...? The pristine pistol in her hand meant only eight out of the thirty two rounds she hoped would be in the fight, and it was too late to chastise her for it.
"I hope that safe queen's loaded, princess," Talon stated with a little sass of her own as she stood beside her reckless charge, Steyr at the ready.
She had a weird thought, that the woman beside her had probably never had a proper night out in her life. It bothered her, for a split second, that she might lose her life for a woman who never sneaked away from her sheltered life, had a few stiff drinks, and rocked out. I'm so getting this tart plastered... She took aim, and commanded, even to her surprise.
"FEUER FREI!"
Hot lead tore through the night and into the closest invader. The fiend growled in pain as it jerked back and dropped to the gravel beneath it. The second beside it took a few hits from the burst, but wasn't going down, that easily.
Drifter heard not a single reply come back to him, instead finding himself surrounded by bedlam as the gunfire and screams only intensified. He felt painfully alone for a moment, pondering if he should move away from his perch and try to find someone else in all this chaos or stay put. Something crackled in his suit pockets, unzipping and pulling out a Wireless he forgot he had:
"Da! I'm here in the Machine Shop! Get over here so we can stick together!" He replies over the Radio as his eyes roam around the room for any other survivors. Harsh, feminine voices and gunfire quickly drew his attention to the two women who'd been with him earlier, before he had passed out. So they were still alive, at least! Good!
@Galerius@PanzerWaffles
And shooting at the Mutants. Or Zombies, the Rookie thought with a quiet chuckle to himself. They moved slow, moaned creepily, and killed people by eating them alive. Just like in the movies.
"'Ey! You two! Don't just stand there! Get over here!" Drifter hollered over the bedlam for a moment before shouldering his Karabin. So if they're like Zombies, the man thought to himself as both front and rear sight aligned with the head of the Zombie leading the charge...
... Would they drop dead the moment someone shot them in the head?
The Rookie decided that he'd figure that out now, squeezing the trigger.
As she came to, her ears picked out the sounds around her, the dying scream of a helicopter's engine as the smell of jet fuel brought her to wakefulness nearly as fast as the sound of a high velocity round tearing over head did, Rachel's 'Val Wake Up,' drawing her focus. Her hand took hold of her weapon as she looked around, the sound of a body falling to the roof drawing her attention. Rachel's comment to the newcomer, drew enough of her brainpower as she fought her way back to consciousness to keep from immediately firing on the girl.
"Well, whatever the fuck just happened, keep your head down, as good a spot as this may be for looking around, there is no cover to be had, move back towards the center, It will leave the least amount of our bodies exposed" Val says, in crisp English, a quick, "Back to middle if keep head" in Russian, as she started slowly pushing herself away from the exposed roof.
A distant part of her mind was trying to make sense of it all, gaps in memory could mean a concussion. First priority though was escort the squishy new girl out of the fire zone. Turning her mind to that she looked to Rachel. "Got any eyes on who's shooting us?." She asked as she looked towards the depression from the girl's arrival before turning to look at the woman tending to the fallen man. "I know he is probably hurt, but we need to move, I'm worried about damage from that fall. But for the moment, if he hurts, that's good, means he didn't break his neck entirely in the fall, You okay to help move him to a safer place once you check him over?" Val queried the girl as she kept herself down, the distant sound of gunshots, far closer than she liked.
_____A small, egg-shaped green object skittered across the floor, right by the feet of the shambling stalkers. "Granata!" Someone screamed, before the WHAM of the detonation echoed off the walls and showered their heads with dirt and grime, the zing of shrapnel screaming past their ears. Kraut shrieked as the shockwave hit them like a punch in the face, the young stalker crawling back beneath the safety of the Mercedes.
_____Nick squeezed off a well-practiced double-tap that sent one of the shambling ones staggering. They were slightly smoldering from the nearby grenade detonation. He grimaced as his head rung like a bell, and somewhere nearby the burp of a pistol-caliber automatic ripped through the air. He could see the shape of one of those... things, standing in the dim light of portable lamps, twitching and shaking with little inky red impacts, folding the shambler backwards into a limp pile. As the gunfire momentarily subsided, he took off toward the vehicle and grabbed the mercenary — Talon by her shoulder. "We need to get off the ground, there's no cover here. Help me climb onto those machines in the shop!"
_____That was when the young hunter nearby took careful aim and squeezed off a pair of rounds with his carbine, the flash lighting up the darkly lit room as another figure outside slumped into a puddle. Nick gestured frantically toward their position "Over here! Don't stay in the open!"
_____"Oy, fuck, don't tell me, aspirin and new socks?" The soldier blinked once and groaned, rolling onto his stomach. His assault pack had been ripped off in the drop and his night-vision goggles dented and flickering. Vera could see the "BEAR" patch on his black uniform top, which looked faintly damp with blood. He and Rachel exchanged a quick glance, the muzzle of his rifle swinging over before pausing. If they hadn't shot each other already, they could worry about it later. "Where the fuck did that helicopter go?" He muttered.
_____He checked the magazine in his Kalash and blinked once, a trickle of blood running down his forehead. Even in the dim light, Vera could see the man's pupils seeming to shake— a clear sign of a nasty concussion. There seemed to be a brief moment of clarify as he took a kneel and gestured for Vera to lower herself, too. "Gunfire. Get down, doctor."
_____The night dust swirled through Rachel's rifle scope. The primitive night-vision device tinted the entire landscape in a sickly green. From their position they could see the rolling hills of garbage going to the north, and the barren graveyard of train bodies just off the edge of the building. Without a source of infrared light, the range of a scope like this wasn't very far. Much shorter than her rifle, or even a typical Kalash.
_____She saw the scenes hidden by the dark in brief flashes of detonating grenades and muzzle flashes. Beams of handheld flashlights swept across the fields before plunging them back into murky darkness. There were several people in white clothing trudging up the side of a the garbage-mound three hundred meters away, lugging the heavy steel frame of what she immediately recognized as a machine-gun tripod. Another in tow carried the barrel and receiver, while ammunition cans clanged together on their backs as they tried to man-handle the weapon into position.
_____The woman's body twitched as the stalkers moved past. Her skull had been split open by the rounds, brains pooling in a slick of dark red, bits of bone crunching beneath their boots. As they moved down the first narrow section of the underground, they caught the odors of sweat-soaked clothing and piss, cheap cigarettes and gunpowder. Bratok held up the right side, Steel the left, the latter's handheld light sweeping dimly across the floor. They came to the next turn, a four-way intersection clogged with maintenance pipes, buckets and discarded scrap. As the ringing in Bratok's ears faded just a little bit, he heard the unnatural, wet-sounding sucking of breath.
_____A rancid green sunrise suit and a slack jaw emerged just ten or so paces away from him, a ghoulish groan escaping the stalker's lips as he swung around a Kalash and squeezed.
_____Click. The faint slap of a hammer on an empty chamber seemed like the loudest thing that Bratok had ever heard in his adult life. And then the ghoul kept trying to pull the dead trigger, marching forward toward him as he could see the shadows and shapes of several more behind.
An explosion tore through the air in front of Drifter just when he was squeezing down on the trigger, making the sheet metal walls of the Warehouse shudder in trepidation. The conflagration threw off his aim, even as far as he was from it, with the brilliant blaze nearly rendered him blind. His ears were ringing too, adding to the barrage of distractions and making the STALKER woefully wish for ear protection. Karabin resting on its perch once more, he waited for lightning to flash...
... And lined up his sights with one of the Shamblers the moment he saw it flicker into his vision. The Simonov bucked, once, twice as Drifter fired and then made a follow-up. A grin flashed through Drifter's lips as one of the darkened figures outside twitched backwards, teetering and then falling into a puddle. Yep, they're definitely Zombies
He took a moment to glance around and get his bearings. Nick had finally caught up with Talon, yanking the Mercenary up on her feet while her posh-looking companion was nowhere in sight. They were trying to get to higher ground, a wise decision, but a flicker of movement to the side had one of the Zombies shambling towards the two. That wouldn't do, Drifter thought, as he took aim...
Attack with Shoot at the remaining Zombie at Grid C4.
_____The fight had stretched into the depth of night. Shell casings littered the station interior, and several portable lights had been shot out or blown up in the opening attacks, plunging them into darkness thick enough to cut with a knife. Most of the bandits had dropped into trenches, passageways, or simply slammed shut the doors of train-cars and laid low, hoping for the best. The newcomers had no choice but to stand their ground and fight the best they could, at least for now.
_____By now, the dimly lit exterior was filled with burning heaps of garbage, ignited by hand-grenades and bullets, and numerous human-shaped forms slumped across the environment, broken by gunfire.
@PanzerWaffles _____Another grenade exploded just inside the station entrance. Shrapnel slammed all around Talon. They punched fist-sized holes through the steel fuel drums she had been using as cover. The bullets flying her way were constant, but haphazard. It was nothing like she had expected as an organized attack from another group of stalkers. Her magazines were running dry at an alarming rate, as it took several bursts to kill their attackers at these ranges.
_____Talon had killed three or four of them when she saw enemy fire splatter across the floor. She ducked as the ricochets sliced through cover, and heard a soft yelp from a row of crates to her front. She heard the slow chatter of the MP-40 follow shortly after, but it was brief, and the silence that followed was oppressive and heavy, as the realization slowly set in that she was alone.
_____A few minutes later, a bandit high up in the control room rung a bell, and hatches, doors unseen started to open as bandits emerged to find the site of battle before them.
@Wizard_Marshall _____Muzzle flashes ignited the top of a pile of garbage tall enough to be a small mountain of waste. Whoever was using the landscape for cover didn't mind jagged metal, broken glass, and the toxic waste buried there... the type of people they were fighting in the Zone were a different breed. Still, they didn't all have night vision like Grey Wolf did. They had to click on their flashlights to see, and in those fleeting moments Rachel saw men in gray hooded suits, dappled in some camouflage pattern, running low, with silenced rifles, gas masks with opaque lenses.
_____Rachel took her chance and pulled the trigger. The SVD sputtered with its silencer-can muzzle and spat a bullet, unseen, into the dark, until it smacked high into one enemy's chest. She saw his arms fly up, a long rifle kicking end over end in the garbage as he fell still. Then, with trained practice, she scanned, sighted a second identical target and fired while the first casing still clattered across the roof.
_____A moment later, a round came hurtling back, at a sharp angle off to her side. The rifle went flying out of her hands in a flash of sparks and Rachel went as flat as she could on the roof as Geralt got even closer to the ground than he had been. The soldier that had dropped from the air, from that helicopter, fired a few rounds into the direction the shot had came from, but after a few moments, it became clear they had already fled. It was quiet again.
_____The soldier and the doctor started to move for the roof-hatch as the firing died down. Rachel heard the clanging of a bell inside. It seemed things were all-clear.
_____Her rifle was somehow intact after being hit by enemy fire, but a solid hit had gutted her silencer like a spoiled fruit. The metal canister was folded out like flower-petals and the baffles inside, ruined.
@Unlucky Bibliophile _____Vera felt her cheek on the cold, corrugated metal roof. Her soldier—patient, as of now, stood up with a bandage half-wrapped around his head and let out a grunt, firing several times, the rifle cracking deafeningly into the night. The big mercenary grabbed Vera by the strap of her backpack and pulled her toward an open hatch in the center of the roof. "Down, down, doctor. They have a sharpshooter. We should go inside."
_____As the soldier—Raven, she remembered, moved first, Vera got her first look at the train-yard where most of the fighting had taken place. Handheld flashlights swept back and forth over the rails, past the car. Just in the north end of the station, she could see more than a dozen bodies, slumped over, still. It was strangely quiet for a battlefield, without even the groaning of wounded. The occasional pop of a pistol firing seemed to denote the men below, dressed in leather coats and black ski masks, finishing off the wounded.
_____Raven glanced to the two strangers on the roof. "Come down. It is not safe here," the big Russian said, before plodding down the rungs of the ladder, into the scaffolding of the station below.
@Yurihime Himeyuri _____Valkyrie's side of the building had remained quiet enough. Without a silencer like Wolf had, it was a risky proposition taking too many rounds at their enemies. Most of the shots she had been forced to take had been down, through gaps in the roof, rounds fired at whatever happened to make it inside and attack her friends below. She had been watching as a helicopter had come plunging through the darkness, spotlight swiveling around, washing the landscape in harsh white. The engine sputtered into flames and the aircraft had almost smashed across the side of the station when the two newcomers had come out. After helping them fight off their attackers, the two of them — a civilian doctor and a soldier of some kind, started to descend the ladder leading into the station proper as a bell sounded a cease-fire.
@DB_Explorer _____It was like one of those bad dreams where you woke up falling, except he seemed to be going higher. It was pitch black. Musty. Something panted with harsh, wet sounds behind him and added adrenaline to his desperate sprint. Dexter's feet beat into the cement and propelled him forward up what seemed like an endless number of stairs. Plunging into the light with his lungs burning, Dexter stumbled in a patch of wet grass and went tumbling out the tunnel entrance.
_____The last thing he had remembered was slumbering in the back of the Mercedes. It wasn't riding coach, but it had been better than whatever the hell this was.
_____Dexter clicked on his flashlight and scanned his surroundings. There was a large gated train-station surrounded by piles of garbage. The hatch behind him was recessed, and marked with symbols that he vaguely recognized indicated hazardous gasses. All of these things stuck out to the man as things studied previously on his maps, and it was fast dawning upon Dexter that this was no dream he had woken up from, and the zone was very much alive and around him.
_____Especially when some people went tripping across his body.
@dryskim _____Bratok's head rung like a bell. He'd been through these tunnels dozens of times, poking through scrap, killing the odd overgrown rat. But he'd never seen so many down here. Raiders? Monolith? It seemed too disorganized to be an attack from a rival faction, but there were too many for random tourists.
_____Tourists that threw grenades at him, at that. That had taken most of his hearing even before he'd pumped most of a magazine into the... thing they had found. That woman with the Kalash had put down one or two before they made a run for it, going down half-memorized turns until they found an exit that wasn't held padlocked or welded or swarmed by people trying to kill them. Steel waited at the bottom while Bratok scaled the ladder. The other two climbed out and kicked the manhole closed. The Russian-speaking woman exchanged a look with Bratok before they both ran back toward the station, but as soon as they tried, some guy with glasses and a big-ass backpack stumbled into their path, and tossed them into a pile.
@CthuluWasRight _____Brother had found himself in the basement of the Station when it all happened. The Garbage was one of the riskier places to do a deal in the zone, not far from the military in Cordon, and dotted with anomalies. It was held by a faction called the "Bandits," devil-may-care types with sawn-offs and Kalash rifles that held up the hapless traveling rookies for money. In a strange way though, they helped enforce a semblance of order in the Garbage, and this hadn't been the first time Brother had made the tip to dabble in his "goods."
_____Gunfire had broken out as he laid in a cot contemplating sleep. Brother hadn't moved to join the fight; after all, it was the bandit headquarters, and there were more than enough of them to handle the usual attacks. What had finally caught his attention had been the chop-chop-chop of rotor blades as a helicopter had gone hurtling ahead... and the absence of explosion or further sound thereafter as the roaring gun battle had died after ten, fifteen minutes of sporadic fire. The bandits were cleaning up, and it was a good time to check up on the situation.
Despite Bratok's rude remarks, Babushka had handled herself well in the tunnels. Almost deaf he crawled out of the damned hole and together they took off running for the sanctuary of the station.
In his haste, Bratok didn't notice a bespectacled man stumbling into his path until they collided in a tangle of limbs.
Dexter's world was sent tumbling as he collided with the Russian in a tangle of limbs and bilingual cursing.
The researcher picked himself off the ground, flashing his light over the man that had bowled him over. The man looked...familiar... then again it seemed like years since they had entered into the zone. Dexter's free hand still drifted toward his gun as the man cursed out, in English oddly enough.
"Where the hell are we?" Dexter asked before their radios squawked to live in off tune stereo and their mysterious guide revealed she had also survived...whatever the hell just occurred. Dexter looked at the radio then back to the man. "So... you wouldn't happen to know where the Mercedes is would you?"
@DB_Explorer@dryskim _____Steel slammed into the back of the hapless bandit and went flipping over both men, doing a full inversion before thudding into the mud. The resultant swears that came tearing out of the woman's lips was both rapid-fire and a ear-burning type of profane. She sat up with dried leaves wedged in her hair, looking like some bog monster with a Kalashnikov - not even her Kalashnikov as it turned out. Her head ached like a cracked bell, there were spots in her eyes from dumping an entire mag inside that little dungeon... "Put the gun down, you fucking tourist," she barked, smacking Dexter's short-barreled Kalash aside. Somehow, even the American egghead had gotten himself a proper rifle. Steel examined the battered, smooth-barreled abomination of a carbine in her hands and sighed.
_____What a weird day. It took a few moments for her to notice the fighting had at last died down, and black-suited bandits were picking through bodies - looting them, probably. The veteran fighter pointed right at the bandit sitting beside Dexter - Bratok, she remembered. "He is good. He helped. Not like you. Where the hell did you go to?"
_____Before she could finish the thought, a heavy thump against the hatch beside them made the woman jump. "Fuck, no time to talk. Mercedes - it is at the station, north side. Go. I will cover." Steel smacked the hatch open with her rifle's buttstock and fired several rounds into the dark, and low, keening wail echoed from below, giving the trio momentary pause. Steel pointed at the large structure dominating the fenced off area they were in, and fished a round green object out of her coat pocket. "Is no joke. Fucking go."
_____Steel ripped out the pin and shot the grenade straight down the hatch before kicking the heavy cover closed. She joined the two men already booking it for the station as the muted thump of the grenade shook the dirt beneath their feet.
Talon slammed a partially loaded magazine from a tactical reload into her sub gun. The motions were reflexive, like a hand that shrunk back from a hot stove, except she was the stove for the latter half of the fight. The mercenary breathed, hard, and recollected herself as she realized the battle was over. The occasional pistol round cracked off as a bandit was sure the uninvited entourage stayed dead, and dead was the word the Belgian feared her Aryan heiress was.
She walked up to where she knew Kraut was, last, and blood spatter glistened in the dimmed light of the train station. Talon knew better than to go alone, anywhere, and found the detective and the loner she had seen, earlier.
"Bloodhound, Drifter. Come with me, please. Need to find one of our teammates...for better or worse."
The two men had separated, Bratok and Dexter both rolling to their feet and going for their guns. Realization dawned on Bratok - it was one of the outsiders - and he let rifle sag a bit.
Babushka charged onto the scene a second later, swatting the glasses man's muzzle towards the dirt and berating him. Bratok did the same with the utmost haste lest she turn that Barnes tongue upon him.
The mafia thug opened his mouth to reply, perhaps something poetic like, "The Garbage, a dumping ground for refuse both human and otherwise." But radios on both Dexter and Steel's belts crackled with Journalist's words, cutting Bratok off before he could speak his own.
A few moments later they were running towards the station, the detonation of Steel's grenade punctuating their retreat.
Bratok was moving like SOBR thugs were hot on his heels, but he still stole the opportunity to ask of his new compatriots, "So, this car - you have spare seat, maybe?"
@PanzerWaffles ____"Great," Nick grunted. He stepped in front of Talon with his long arm held low, placing a lit cigarette between his lips. "You too, Drifter. You're not hit, are you?" Their hunter gave a vigorous shake of his head and followed them, if slightly unsteady upon his feet. His softly uttered words followed in the uneasy wake of their firefight. Brass casings bounced off their boots, something liquid dropped from crevices unseen.
_____ "You said it was here, Talon?" Bloodhound exhaled a stream of smoke and clicked on a small flashlight. In the beam, they saw fresh, artery-red blood streaking the wall, smeared sharply toward the door as if someone had hit the wall and been dragged. He dropped to a squat and peered beneath the body of the Mercedes. The yellow-white beam of light swept from left to right, until settling upon several bloody bootprints leading out from the station floor into the mud, and the mud outside. "Nothing here, merc. Your friend has gone."
@Unlucky Bibliophile _____Raven - or "Voron" in Russian, as it went, let out a little grunt as Vera got the pressure dressing tight on his arm. He was stocky, tough, weathered like a trusty old pair of leather shoes. His gaze was keen, if showing the tell-tale signs of a heavy knock to the head on landing. They were seated in the corner, on some empty wooden crates that had once held ammunition and grenades. The men around them, dressed in black trench coats, leather jackets and motorcycle suits; these were the "bandits" the UN advisors had briefed her about. Despite the rumors of their murderous, cut-throat nature, they seemed so distracted and aimless as to be near-inconsequential to the duo, even if the doc's bag was heavy with humanitarian aid and rare goods.
_____"Doc," Raven said. "I am concussed, but that is not important. Bleeding is stopped. The helicopter went down. Should have emergency beacon, will show on our GPS." His eyes scanned the place - a train station of sorts, in the middle of the "garbage." The briefing had said the area was some cold-war era dump for irradiated machines and vehicles too severe to be cut down for scrap. Most of it had been buried in the eighties. The bandits held the region in an uneasy, wild-west sort of peace. Their mission had been to shed light on the status of the influx of so-called "stalkers" to the Exclusion Zone lately, and the general state of health resultant from the unusual conditions.
_____The problem was their lack of consistent communicate with HQ. Their portable radios were choked by the unusual weather. "The helicopter," Raven said. "We must find it. Survivors, or no survivors, will have long-range radios. Or we contact Ukrainian army. Somehow. It will be better than these bandits, no? We cannot go alone."
@Unlucky Bibliophile _____Raven - or "Voron" in Russian, as it went, let out a little grunt as Vera got the pressure dressing tight on his arm. He was stocky, tough, weathered like a trusty old pair of leather shoes. His gaze was keen, if showing the tell-tale signs of a heavy knock to the head on landing. They were seated in the corner, on some empty wooden crates that had once held ammunition and grenades. The men around them, dressed in black trench coats, leather jackets and motorcycle suits; these were the "bandits" the UN advisors had briefed her about. Despite the rumors of their murderous, cut-throat nature, they seemed so distracted and aimless as to be near-inconsequential to the duo, even if the doc's bag was heavy with humanitarian aid and rare goods.
_____"Doc," Raven said. "I am concussed, but that is not important. Bleeding is stopped. The helicopter went down. Should have emergency beacon, will show on our GPS." His eyes scanned the place - a train station of sorts, in the middle of the "garbage." The briefing had said the area was some cold-war era dump for irradiated machines and vehicles too severe to be cut down for scrap. Most of it had been buried in the eighties. The bandits held the region in an uneasy, wild-west sort of peace. Their mission had been to shed light on the status of the influx of so-called "stalkers" to the Exclusion Zone lately, and the general state of health resultant from the unusual conditions.
_____The problem was their lack of consistent communicate with HQ. Their portable radios were choked by the unusual weather. "The helicopter," Raven said. "We must find it. Survivors, or no survivors, will have long-range radios. Or we contact Ukrainian army. Somehow. It will be better than these bandits, no? We cannot go alone."
After a few moments of fussing over herself and her patient, both of them remarkably healthy despite the helicopter crash, Vera considered Raven's words. "A concussion is important, Mister Tough Military Man. Your health aside, it will affect your combat performance. And between the two of us, you're the only one willing to defend themselves," chided Vera mildly. "Still, you've got a point. A radio is important."
Vera looked towards the direction of the crash, nervously fingering the holster of her pistol. She wasn't ready to use it on another person. Not at all. She just hoped to God that she would only use it on wild animals. "We may not be the only survivors of the crash. It's worth looking," she agreed.
Vera only hoped that the recent battle had distracted these bandits enough to stop them from checking the crash site.
@Wizard_Marshall _____"Wolf, is that you? We lost you in that storm. The weather patterns have been unpredictable out here. We've got word that a humanitarian aid operation went wrong in your area and a helicopter went off the radar. Check it out. Let us know what happened. We had a drone deliver some extra equipment for you, should be a nice backup weapon for those mutants. Keep us posted."
_____Her suppressor getting shot out wasn't an ideal start to their operation, but her enemies had worse to contend with than broken gear. She'd have to investigate their bodies properly; it'd help to know what factions wanted her dead so badly on her first day in the zone. As the others went for the roof-access hatch, she'd found the simple cardboard package tucked between several caved-in sections of the metal roofing, marked by a small orange smoke trail. Inside, there was little, save for some ammunition, maps, and a small machine-pistol with a folding stock. Compared to an automatci rifle, it wasn't much, but at least a lightweight sidearm for the challenges ahead.
@Yurihime Himeyuri _____A long firefight, several mags expended, grenades raining like hail... all things considered, Val had gotten off lightly. It seemed like the team had thinned out some by the time they returned to the ground level of the station, where odd handfuls of loners were gathering for a chat by their vehicles.
_____Now if only the radio would work. The team hadn't been in touch since that helicopter had gone down. Bad weather? Perhaps, but Val couldn't be sure...
_____It was dark as a cave when the lights had been shot out. Only the pearlescent paint of the Mercedes caught the spill of handheld lights, reflecting back into the space. Felix sat up inside the vehicle and peered through barred glass. Nick, Talon, and Drifter were just across the station behind a row of train-cars. Journalist had made her return unseen and unnoticed save for that cherry red cigarette tip burning in the shadow of the Merc. As Journalist stepped into light, the hard-set of her jaw became visible first, then the creases on that faded army-style jacket and a backpack that had once been brown. She had that hungry, nearly gaunt look about her, and eyes so blue they seemed toxic with the color, bright and shining with that glint of barely-restrained curiosity at everything she saw. With just her bag, a gas mask and a camera on her hip, Journalist was naked by the standards of the zone. But here she was, like a ghost at homecoming.
_____She watched Steel and Bratok arrive first at a dead run. The Russian woman with the AK stopped and dropped onto a crate for a well-earned rest. "Yuck. Reeking of gunpowder and explosives. Sounds about right for some rich-ass rookies." She took a long drag of her smoke and exhaled into the cool air. "Your yakuza friend at base has been in touch with me. I'm afraid I need to split up the old team to care care of some 'surprises,' but the good news is I got a solid mission for you. Money. Artifacts... so, where the rest of y'all at?"
The man in glasses did not follow as Babushka - and then Bratok - took off at a sprint before whatever damnable beast came crawling out that hatch after them.
Perhaps he was still fighting off confusion and effects of being bowled over by Bratok's bulk. The thief had heard other, more experienced bandits tell how the Zone could effect the mind in strange and unsettling ways. Perhaps that was happening here.
"You want to find your car?!" Bratok bellowed, "Is this way! Now try and keep up!"
@Unlucky Bibliophile _____"Doctor, my wife gives harder strike to skull than helicopter crash. Is no challenge. But the bandits? There are so many, they must have seen the crash." The soldier named "Raven" shook his head vigorously, as if the gesture would somehow dislodge the ache and distraction of that heavy clout to the skull. The weathered soldier stared into the thin, fading trail of smoke that was the only remaining evidence of the crash they had just seen. "Ten kilometers? It is not close, not on foot. We cannot go alone."
_____Vera's experience told her that Raven - or Voron, she remembered, was definitely dizzy, slower on his feet... but the bleeding was light, and his pupils weren't shaking with every turn of gaze. Like many things on her short journey to Chernobyl, things looked bleak, though not hopeless yet. "Doctor, I need your help. The people," he said, "they are outsiders, too. They can help, but I am not so good with people. You will have to ask them." Raven gently waved the muzzle of his Kalashnikov at the small crowd forming by a dark green Mercedes. As he'd said, they weren't dressed in the same worn, dark longcoats as the bandits, nor carrying any standarized weaponry. The distance between them and the bandits at their posts around them spoke enough about any trust between the two groups.
_____The grizzled soldier grabbed the hem of Vera's shirt and pulled it down over her holster, masking the Glock from prying eyes. "... keep your shooter hidden. Pistol is for saving life, not scaring stranger."
@PanzerWaffles _____A few minutes after the last of the fighting had passed, the edge had come off the adrenaline rush. Once the feeling came back to her fingers and Talon was reasonably sure she hadn't been shot. The rushing sound of blood in her ears gave way. Her eardrums ached from the thump of grenades, but bit by bit, the utterances of bandit men standing around, talking, and the snap of twigs came back. From time to time a rifle would crack in the distance as the patrols mobbed up any stragglers of... whatever those things were.
_____Then she heard it. The distinctive chatter. It had to be Kraut's antique burp-gun. Bloodhound heard it too, with the way his head turned at the same time as hers.
_____"Don't," Bloodhound said. "Too far."
_____And too late, by the sound of it. The gunfire was faint, swallowed up by the miles and miles of woods around them. Just as quickly as Kraut had wandered into their party, she had all but vanished from reach. Ukranian Max Payne shook his head. "Come on, merc. The others need you."
@DB_Explorer@dryskim _____Dexter's shoes beat into the dirt as they sprinted the rest of the way over. Steel kept a few paces behind them, covering their backs. When they did reach the train station, it was on short breath and with low magazines. Dexter recognized the surroundings as one of those eighties-era dumps for dilapidated vehicles and equipment left after the initial Chernobyl cleanup, and the adjacent train station had to be how most of the "junk" had arrived to their final resting place. The station was one of several along the long ride from Slavutych to the Chernobyl powerplant itself.
_____All of this was perfectly fine, save for the fact he didn't remember having ever been at the station, being in a fight, and certainly not fighting for his goddamn life in an underground tunnel swarming with mutant-cannibal fucks, losing half his equipment in the process.
_____But here they were, playing whack-a-mole with fragmentation grenades and asking bandits in trenchcoats for shelter.
_____"What's the deal, Journalist?" Bloodhound's frown was severe as he exhaled a stream of smoke. "You leave us to die in the woods and come back in the nick of time, is that it?" Just a few steps behind him, the grizzled veteran "Steel" glowered in Journalist's general direction, her cheeks matted with soot, clothes muddy, equipment in total disarray.
_____Journalist smirked. "I wasn't expecting you to die on a milk run to the Garbage, mister Bloodhound. And I'm only here on behest of your friends back in the Cordon."
_____"What?"
_____"They ran into some trouble," She said. "Your yakuza friend picked a fight with the wrong bandit, it sounds like. They lost track of you all during the storm last night, so they asked me to find you all; all I did was follow your tracks to the gunfire," Journalist said cheerily. "I get that you don't like it. I'll stick around to make up for your losses. I might have some extra supplies and an art or two to sweeten the deal. But right now I need volunteers to head back to yur campsite."
_____Steel and Drifter raised their hands in near unison, and Felix came stumbling from the cabin of the Mercedes. After what seemed like a long span of soul-searching, Valkyrie moved in, without "Wolf" in tow. The quartet of stalkers talked amongst themselves in hushed tones, until Valkyrie nodded her head in the quiet that followed. "I'll go, if you need me to."
_____There was no tearful good-bye, or even a curt exchange of supplies. The fight had seen their stalkers exhausted. The four of them moved to a guide waiting by the main entrance, feeling the gazes of the bandits on them. The others stayed.
_____"Talon" : The remaining group had a mercenary among them, a stern-faced woman in a western-made helmet and expensive combat gear, face dotted with shiny piercings and hair buzzed down to skin on the sides. Her western-made machine pistol and body armor stood in stark contrast to the post-Soviet scraps that armed most of the locals. She held her tongue for most of the conversation and seemed to keep mostly from herself, other than a certain proximity toward her companion...
_____"Dexter" : A man with straw-blond hair and coke-bottle glasses lingered by Talon's side. He was laden with a large pack and equipment most of them hadn't seen before, wearing a modified "sunrise suit" typical of the loner stalkers. His clothes were singed and his face still caked with bloody mud. Dexter did not seem like a happy man that day, with a look on his face like he were waking up from a bad dream called the zone.
_____"Grey Wolf" : A woman with a long rifle had descended the stairs on Valkyrie's coat-tails, with a large wolf-dog in tow. Her camouflague half-cape and meticulously maintained rifle spoke for some significant experience in the zone — that, or very deep pockets for a loner stalker. While Valkyrie volunteered for the trip back to base, Grey Wolf had remained silent on the matter, marking a separation between the two military-looking women. Wolf didn't seem concerned about that, with her mind far elsewhere as she took long gazes out the station doors...
_____"Bratok" : There was only one bandit standing close enough to Bloodhound to properly converse, a clean-headed man wearing the earth-tone garb of the locals. He was big, burly, and packed one of the shortened Kalashnikov rifles police in the region favored. He was roughshod and marked by hardship, like most of the other bandits, but the fact he hadn't asked for a ransom was a good start for the group.
_____"You, you keep staring my way," Journalist said. She raised her hand to point a single finger at the two individuals lurking on the far end of the chamber; a grizzled old soldier wearing some kind of contractor's uniform, and a young doctor with a backpack heavily laden with what looked like medical supplies and equipment. "Why don't you come and join us, strangers? I happen to need everyone here for a job..."
_____"There's a place not far from here called the 'Agroprom.' Was a sort of research place in the old days," Journalist said. The smug blond woman didn't seem to wear armor or carry a weapon with her like all the other stalkers, but the veterans present paid her a good ear. "A few good stalkers went missing in the area just a few days ago, and the loners in the area are offering good money to anyone who can help investigate what happened. I have business in the Agroprom, but you're all rookies. Doing a job like this will give you all some street cred and some freedom to move around in the Agroprom. I understand you had a rough first night, so I'll guide you there and stick around till the gig is done. Fair 'nuf?"
"Well Agroprom was the old soviet farming agency," Dexter said aloud as he leaned against a dilapidated soviet car, it's rusted body a stark contrast to the sleek Mercedes sitting next to it. "Be interesting to see what they have for research there," Dexter continued as some eagerness crept into his voice. "Given this is the Soviet Union we're talking about good chances they might have more than farming notes. Street cred with the locals would be nice too, I try to ask about shit here and I just get hearsay, or nothing at all - other than told to go home. So yeah, that sounds fair." Dexter turned toward Journalist. "Though could we get some heads up next time before we wander off into never never land? I still don't know what day it is."
@DB_Explorer _____"Solid," Journalist said. "... you checked that Lada before leaning on it, right? Or not, mutant superpowers can be pretty ninja." The blond smirked before tapping away at something that looked much like a ruggedized palm pilot, something that should have gone extinct a decade ago with the Walkman and the car ashtray. "The Agroprom is well settled. Relatively — a lot of the warehouses and basements haven't been cracked by stalkers due to the hazardous conditions, but we know where the danger spots are."
_____After adding to her notes, Journalist's brows knitted. She checked her calendar. "Yeah, I meant to ask about that. You guys have been gone for two days, and you said this gun battle happened right after I split off? It's September third; we entered on the first, so that's a day unaccounted for." She gave a helpless shrug, and the flat look she gave Dexter seemed to say that it was both unnerving, but not entirely surprising given where they were.
