[Ryo]

The Hunter brings his scope up to his eye, taking careful aim down hill towards The Elf, finger on the trigger and ready to fire. Suddenly, a pair of taser darts lance out of the darkness and strike him in the temple. He convulses wildly from the electrical current, firing his rifle from a finger spasm. The bullet goes wide and hits a tree several meters to The Elf's right. The hunter collapses out of the van into the street, incapacitated by the attack.

The Masked Woman and the Human hear screams from inside, and one of the hunters stumbles out the back and fires his shotgun wildly, doing little more than making a lot of noise.

[Tecumseh]

The Masked Woman waits for as long as she can. Once the tasing starts, she springs over the snowbank along the side of the road and advances toward the van's open door. Her gloved fingers slip throwing knives out of concealed pockets on her lined coat. Internally she debates over the merits of leaving the men alive or not. There's not enough room in the van for the team plus any survivors, so any of these chummers that survive what's about to happen are probably getting left outside for the night. Perhaps the knife is merciful. In any event, she doesn't have the time to spin the blade in her hand to throw it hilt-first.

In a few quick steps she is out of the vehicle's headlights. She spots a man fruitlessly looking out into the darkness. Her arm lashes out, sinking a knife deep into his chest. She knows it's a nasty wound, one he won't survive without medical attention. She drops into the cover against the side of the van, feeling the weight of the throwing knives in her hands.

[Ryo]

The hunter catches a knife to the chest and falls backwards into the van, dropping his gun and landing on the restrained animal. It reacts angrily, bucking and thrashing in its net.

The remaining hunter loses his cool, taking his shotgun and shooting the animal in the head. It immediately stops thrashing as he chambers his next round.

Second Pass:

Elf: 14 (VR)
Masked Woman: 10
Human: 7
Crumpled Man: 3
Enemies: -3 (No pass)

Thanks Ryo. Also, GREAT job on the ASCII art!

My actions for the next Action Phase will look like this, then:
CT1, AP2, IS 14
Free Action: Control Device [5] Turn off headlights
13d6t5: 6 [13d6t5=4, 4, 5, 5, 3, 3, 5, 6, 2, 1, 5, 3, 6]

Complex Action: Hack on the Fly [6]: Firewall 4 Commlink
13d6t5: 5 [13d6t5=1, 1, 4, 4, 6, 2, 5, 5, 3, 6, 5, 3, 4]

The headlights go out, leaving only the internal lights in the van for illumination. On the Matrix, the Elf reaches out and discreetly places a mark on one of the commlinks she saw in the rover, unhindered by its defenses.

[Tecumseh]

The Masked Woman hears the shotgun blast inside the van and gives a shudder to the mess that's going to be on the floor. She sighs, her hopes for a clean vehicle dashed. What the hell are these guys doing with a live animal in a net in a luxury vehicle in February? Probably smugglers, or poachers.

Spinning out from cover, she whips her arm through the door into the van, slinging an ornately carved throwing knife into the man. It's a good throw, the best that she can remember. A low threshold, since she can only remember two, but an encouraging trend of improvement.

She trusts that the Human can take care of the other man firing wildly behind the vehicle. The weekend warriors don't seem to pose much of a threat, other than to the interior decor of the Rover.

[Ryo]

This hunter, having already seen two of his buddies taken out, was ready for anything as the Masked Woman peered out of cover and threw her knife. He dodged to the side, taking the knife in the shoulder with a grunt.

"Fuck! Who the fuck are you?!" He screams, holding his wounded shoulder.

[Ren]

The Human grinned - or rather snarled - as he saw one of the men stumble out, firing wildly. As the headlights were killed, thermo in his eyes kicked in to compensate for the lack of lighting. He dashed out of his hiding place in a low crouch, and crossed the intervening 10 meters as if it were nothing, trying to hide the sound of his approaching steps in the commotion. When he reached the guy with the shotgun, he dropped the taser and his right hand crackled with energy, as he swinged it towards him.

[Ryo]

The wild eyed hunter continued to scream, firing wildly into the night with his shotgun.

"COME ON!" BLAM! "COME GET ME!" BLAM! "Who the fuck do you think you are, huh?!" BLAM! "I'll kill all you bastards!" BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! click, click.

He looked down at his weapon in confusion, completely failing to notice the shadow creeping up behind him at a decent clip, hand crackling with electricity. He didn't even get a chance to turn around before the palm connected and thousands of volts poured into his system. He convulsed wildly, collapsing to the ground in a fit of spasms, completely out cold.

The Elf, oblivious to her new found allies wiping out the men in the van, decides to strike out with her matrix blade at one of their comms, slicing the icon to ribbons as it de-rezzed and disappeared from the matrix.

"I...I give up! You can have our shit, take the money, take the car, just don't kill us!" The remaining hunter expresses in terror after his last standing friend went down. He starts emptying his pockets of valuables, ignoring the pain in his arm.

[Tecumseh]

The Masked Woman
<<This is Red Team. Package secure. Four survivors: two conscious, two unconscious. Van's a bit of a mess.>>

After a thought, she adds, <<Let's make sure none of them have DocWagon accounts.>>

She ignores the panicked man while she examines the interior of the van, looking at the remains of the animal and to see if the shotgun blast damaged anything important. The heavy smell of blood and gunpowder makes her head swim for a moment.

She looks over his shoulder to the Human, who is busy electrocuting somebody in the background. She yanks her throwing knife out of the man knocked down on the animal, semi-aware that this is not to his benefit.

[Poindexter]

The Masked Woman
<<This is Red Team. Package secure. Four survivors: two conscious, two unconscious. Van's a bit of a mess.>>

After a thought, she adds, <<Let's make sure none of them have DocWagon accounts.>>

Even through the cold and even through the tension and pain in his muscles, Uncle Sam was still pleased at the message, managing to grunt out a reply of "Acknowledged." Then, turning his attention back to the Ork working his ass off on the other side of the crate, he grunts "Elf and Mask got us a ride! Just a few... more... HEAVES!" as they both throw every ounce of strength they have left into grinding the massive crate across the ceiling.

[Ryo]

He yelps in pain as you remove the knife, reaching for a medkit under the passenger seat.

"Take it easy, lady! We're cooperating!" The other hunter remarks, pulling the knife out of his arm gently and laying it down slowly before exiting the vehicle with his hands up.

The animal is massive, looking like some kind of paranormal bear, with ram-like horns on its head and easily 4 meters in length. It fills the entire back of the van, which has had the back seats removed to accommodate it. It's bound in a massive, metal net, with its paws restrained in manacles and a muzzle on its face. However, its head has been reduced to unsightly gore from a close ranged shotgun blast. The resulting mess is currently seeping into the carpeting and dripping out the open rear hatch.

[Ravensoracle]

The Crumpled Man shares the info he finds from the Van's GPS.

<<They are poachers from the look of things. What are we gonna do with them?

He's still laying flat over the duffels for the moment. He figures while he is VR he'll start digging through his own deck. He also checks the datachip and credsticks in his pocket.

[Ryo]

"Elf and Mask got us a ride! Just a few... more... HEAVES!" as they both throw every ounce of strength they have left into grinding the massive crate across the ceiling.

Uncle Sam: Body 10 + Strength 8: 18d6t5 7
Ork: Body 5 + Strength 5(9): 14d6t5 3

Total Weight capacity: (8*15)+(9*15)+(10*15) = 405 kg

You heave, and the crate obliges, sliding forward and towards the back of the van. Uncle Sam takes a reflexive step back as the tension in the rope gives, stepping out of the van in the process. Instantly, the van tips and goes over the edge.

The Ork:Reaction 5(6) + Agility 4: 10d6t5 5

The Ork reacts quickly, grabbing hold of the crate and snaking his body around the seats as the full weight of crate and Ork tugs at Uncle Sam. The troll stands his ground, though, and as the van descends away below him, the Ork finds himself and the crate swinging towards the cliff side. He impacts it feet first, and reflexively channels his magic into his feet. He clings to the side, supporting the weight of the crate.

The Ork remembers he has the Improved Reflexes and Hang Time adept powers, both at rating 1.

The Ork pushes and Uncle Sam pulls, and before long, he and the crate are back on flat ground.

The Ork remembers he has the Wall Running adept power.

[Tecumseh]

The Masked Woman stares at the animal with a mix of fascination and horror. Looking at it, she sees beautiful, beautiful regents, but her heart knows that she doesn't have the hour it would take to dig through its internal organs looking for the best magical bits. Maybe I can just chop off the horns and save them for later? No, no. There's more pressing business at hand. Namely, the fact that they're on a mountain highway in the middle of a snowstorm with a very large, very dead animal exsanguinating itself into their ride. Oh, and someone presumably wants them dead, but nobody can remember who or why.

<<Do we have that crate yet?>> she comms. <<Do we have a plan for getting it up the hill? Check to if Brother Dwarf can conjure a spirit of the mountain to help us. That's a big hill and the snow doesn't help.>>

She makes eye contact with the Human, also wondering if anyone has any bright ideas what to do with these guys. If more of them were upright she'd make them drag the beast out of the van. As it is, they'll probably have to wait for the Ork and the Troll unless the Human's cyberarm is awesome. In the meantime, the beast is still bleeding.

She wonders how busy this road is at midnight, and how many cars might pass in the time it takes to get everyone up the hill with the crate. Nothing suspicious about this. Nothing to see here, move along, move along.

[Poindexter]

Dripping with rapidly cooling sweat underneath his insulated jacket, Sam finally lets the line go slack and lets go. Triumphant, he slouches over with his massive hands resting on his knees, breathing heavily. Looking up at the Ork on the other side of the crate, he says with a giant tusky grin, "Nice work, Omae. Nice work." He allows himself another few moments to catch his breath before motioning over his shoulder with one hand, toward the rover up the hill. Now, we just gotta haul this motherfucker the hundred or so meters up this hill in the snow. No sweat, right?"

[martinchaen]

I smile to myself as I confirm my findings; no outbound comms, job well done. The cold blast of air hitting my face jolts me wide awake as I slip out of the sweet embrace of VR. I instantly wish my damned teeth would stop chattering.

I spend a minute gathering up my things while rebooting. Good think I checked, too; all that business had the local demi-GOD on my tail like a skiptrace after a hard target. Wait... The frak is a skiptrace?

The troll and the ork look like they've gotten that box out of the car, at the expense of sending the van over the cliff. Oh well, not like it was much use anyway.

"Hey! Get that thing up on the road ASAP, ladies; we're Oscar Mike yesterday". I smile sweetly as the troll just stares at me for a brief moment, getting more than just a little satisfaction from drawing a rise out of him. I'm under no illusion that they'll make it up the hill faster than I can, so I take my time and run through my digital devices on the way.