[rednblack]

Achak's round strikes the instep of the troll's right foot, and the troll lets out a bellow as he falls on his left side.  He lines up a shot on Achak, but his movements are jerky, and the shotgun vibrates in his hands as he lets off with a six round burst.  Most of the slugs fly wide, but one strikes the floor directly in front of Achak sending a burst of fragments and melted carpet particulates in the hunter's face, nothing a wet rag and some time won't buff out, but much too close for comfort.  Sister Rebecca struggles against her fiery prison, and can almost see the clean air on the other side, but the spirit holds on enough to keep her pinned within.

Outside, the situation changes with the Roadmaster.  As the drones close in toward the church and the van, the side door opens again, and a figure emerges running toward the church doors.  Mercer can see that the figure is large, either a large human or an average sized ork, and is female.  She wears an armored jacket and a black matte ballistic mask.  In a sling at her side, she carries a submachine gun.  Mercer also notes that despite her loadout and the determination of her movements, she seems to be moving much slower than the rest of the opposing team has so far. 

[Tecumseh]

High on Jazz, Achak is acutely aware of time. Sister Rebecca is buying me time.

Things move slowly. There's an angry burst of automatic shotgun fire. He's still alive at the end of it.

Two-on-one, he thinks, wondering where the man in the chameleon suit is. Three-on-one if Sister Rebecca falls. Need to put one to bed.

Achak lines up a shot on the demon-masked troll staring at him across the church. He groups his shots tightly, hoping to have the second and the third rounds follow the first through the armor. Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.

He barely registers the result before pushing himself up off the ground. On your feet. Die on your feet. If you don't get them, maybe Rusty's boys will.

[Malevolence]

No sooner had Mercer moved to the back of the van then another runner emerged from the Roadmaster near the church. You have got to be kidding me. Of course, it wasn't much of a surprise - that ballistic mask she was wearing could easily have run of the mill vision magnification that would allow Mercer to be seen clearly even over the distance and he hadn't really made much effort to hide himself. She'd probably watched him move away from the front window and took the chance. Nothing for it now.


He gave a mental command to his Roadmaster to park at the church near the other Roadmaster, noting as he sent the command that his commlink had been granted a mark on some other device. He smiled. This decker's bad day was only beginning. He sent another command to the van, this time to pop open the hidden compartment, then reached in side to toggle the wireless on the jammer. The compartment was large enough to fit an Ork, and thus had plenty of space for his meager belongings, especially since only the valuable or illegal stuff was kept there. His clothes and other low-value, legal items were in duffel bags and suitcases strewn around the rest of the van - secured only enough to keep them from getting shifting during normal driving. So when the compartment opened, his gear inside was laid out with everything immediately accessible - no digging required.


The jammer would take a second or two to bring it's wireless on line, then he could trigger its jamming mode with a thought, so he stood and turned to head back to the front of the car.

[rednblack]

Mercer has lost the approaching gangers behind the Roadmaster from his natural field of vision, but his drones show three approaching who open fire on the fleeing woman.  He can hear the percussive pops of the handguns before the zip of a machine pistol stitches up her left side.  Her gate slows, and she turns to face the approaching BlackJack.  The one with the machine pistol, a combat-booted, synt-leathered troll with a braided mohawk hanging in front of his eyes, stops and rears back, grabbing his head with his free hand as he stumbles backward.

In the church, Achak wheels on the man in the chameleon suit.  Two seemingly disembodied guns prepare to swing on him when he suddenly sees them drop from view, and hears a muffled pop.  Tiny looks away from the sound in disgust, and regards the man's legs on the other side of the sanctuary.  Woozy, bleeding, nearly delirious, he lifts the shotgun up as if he's bench-pressing it, and lines up the barrel with where the man's body should be if his boots are to be trusted.  He pulls the trigger, and round after round of explosive ammunition rips through the pews, sending hymnals flying and splinters of wood laminate smoking into the carpet.  In less than the blink of an eye, he's torn through four rows, and then nothing, just the ticking sound of an empty drum as the firing pin ineffectually strikes air.  "Dib?!  Dib?" he spits out

[Tecumseh]

Achak is on his feet. Jacked on Jazz, he high-steps to his left, pumping his legs to keep his feet off the ground in case the troll decides to return the favor and shoot Achak in the foot.

The troll opts to blast the pews into splinters and shrapnel. The process inadvertently creates a firing lane for Achak, who spies the massive troll through the semicircular gouges in the woodwork. The troll is so big that going prone isn't the advantage that it is for the lean-and-hungry types. Achak raises the Alpha and hammers the trigger, barely registering where the shots go. He doesn't have time for his customary care or precision. Instead, he's dropping his Alpha on its sling and reaching for his warclub slung across his back. He builds momentum as he begins his charge toward the fire spirit entrapping Sister Rebecca, who has gone limp inside.

[rednblack]

With the last round fired, the church is eerily quiet, save for the hissing and popping coming off of the fire spirit. Then Achak hears footsteps approaching, much softer than the troll's but still leaden from combat armor. A shrill voice, charged with emotions, precedes the footfalls. It's a woman's voice, accented in Japanese. "Fatu, down! Parlay parlay?!"

Facing the spirit, Achak can see the wisps of fire peeling away from Sister Rebecca's unconscious form as the spirit obeys.

Outside, Mercer sees the mojo-flinger go invisible as she approaches the church's doors with her faint limp.

[Tecumseh]

Achak, ripped on amphetamines, is two steps into his charge at the fire spirit. He hears something and his ears say "wait, what?" but the rest of his body says "GO GO GO!!!" Sprinting at full speed, Achak lets out a war cry and swings his gunstock wildly.

[rednblack]

The spirit's face disappears into a wisp of smoke, and Achak's club strikes only air.  In the next second the spirit finishes expelling Sister Rebecca, who collapses on the church floor, unconscious and smoking, but not on fire at least.  Free from its prisoner, the spirit floats up a few meters and holds its position.

Outside, Mercer's keen eyes can pick out the invisible magician, as she carefully approaches the church doors.

Achak hears the woman speak out again.  "Parlay, ok?  We're beat.  I'm calling the spirit off, and I'm coming in, ok?  Don't shoot."

[Tecumseh]

Achak swings the gunstock warclub down like an axe but the spirit simply bobs upward out of reach.

A red haze descends over Achak, or maybe it's the drugs, or the fact that his cone of vision doesn't extend beyond the flaming entity. His thoughts bouncing around like gas molecules.

HARD TO HIT
SHOULD SHOOT
CAN'T DROP THE CLUB
REALLY NEED THIRD ARM
BUY TIME FOR RUSTY'S BOYS
PROTECT SISTER REBECCA

His pupils wide as dinner plates, he moves to stand over Sister Rebecca's collapsed form. He swings again, trying to knock the fire spirit out of existence.

[Malevolence]

<<New device on PAN: Ares Ion Storm 5000 series Wide Spectrum Jammer>>


Jam! He thinks as he sends the mental command for the device to engage. The device begins jamming and dutifully reports that fact.


With cyber security covered - well, as covered as can be without a proper decker of his own - Mercer continued to the front of the Ares Roadmaster. One of the Fly-Spy drones closing in on the church flagged some information from its sensors as noteworthy, and so he listened in to the audio coming from its directional mic. The drone could no longer see the mage, but she was close enough to the door of the church that at this distance the coverage of the directional mic could pick her up. She was asking for parley. Apparently the other Hunters had given the runners a good thrashing, and the mage was looking to set terms of surrender.


This was good news! It meant that there would be prisoners to "interview", and it also meant that the Hunters were more than half competent. Hopefully this meant that they were more of the "the Lord helps those that help themselves" sort of crazy and not the "the Lord is my crutch" or shepherd or whatever type. "Fear no evil" got you ate. Fear was good, healthy. Thinking you were invincible was the quickest way to meet your maker.


Taking a secure position in the driver's seat and using the door to shield him from incoming fire, he positioned Vera on the window sill and readied her to fire if the parley went south. The mage had cast something that made her invisible to his drones, but after a brief effort to focus, Mercer had been able to see her clear as day. She continued talking, asking for parley, saying they were beat. And it occurred to Mercer that this wasn't entirely good news - how beat were they? Certainly some of the combatants were out of the fight if the runners were admitting defeat, but were they dead? Was Ikiryo dead, unconscious, or just outnumbered? Dammit, get your ass to the church! he thought at the drone that was providing him the audio feed, though he stopped short of making it an actual command. He knew that speed could mean losing stealth and he didn't want to risk that just yet - the drones were expensive, and he couldn't afford to replace one presently.

[rednblack]

Achak feels his gunstock club connect with the spirit and deal a mighty blow.  Strong and solid as his hit was, he's convinced that it wasn't quite enough to disrupt the spirit.  Still, it de-materializes, and the woman outside continues speaking.

"Look, chummer, you know the game.  Nothing personal, just biz, and on this biz you got us beat.  I ain't keen on dying for no Johnson, and I got two friends in there I've been running with for a long time.  So what's it gonna take?  Creds?  Info?  I got nothing against you, or the lady, and I certainly didn't have anything against the older guy, that elf, Stake I think."

[Tecumseh]

Achak sees the spirit retreat back into the astral. He tries to get a sense for if it is still nearby - waiting to reappear and ambush him - or if it is truly gone. He feels good about the strike he landed, although it's small payback for what Sister Rebecca endured.

He leans down to look for breathing and to establish if she has a pulse or not. At first glance it appears that her armor saved her from the worst ravages of the fire. Then he checks to see if Llewellyn is still alive, albeit traumatized.

Then there's the matter of this runner jabbering at him. Safest thing to do is geek her!!! Can she not see her crew is down??? Why didn't she just drive off??? But then she explains that the fallen are friends. That resonates with Dog and Achak's canine sense of loyalty. Blood was thicker than business. That helps to suppress the forward momentum of the Jazz, if only for a few moments.

There will still practical matters to consider. Is she going to freak and geek when she sees the condition of her amigos??? he wonders. He slowly returns his club to his back while readying his Ares Alpha.

"Where's Stake??? What happened to him???" he calls out.

[rednblack]

@Mercer

The mage woman steps through the church doors and slips inside, followed by Mercer's drone.  The feed from inside the church is exactly what Mercer expected, but that doesn't make it any less shocking.  The pews are destroyed, the carpet singed or burned out completely.  On the north wall, Mercer sees that the invisible man has bled out, his body inert and face down.  Near the door, he sees Ikiryo, unconscious or dead, though he leans more toward dead based on the blood gently seeping  from the back of his head.  Tiny is likewise still, a few holes in his body armor, though Mercer knows it often takes more than that to take down a troll, especially one who took an anti-material shot to the back and kept going.  The mage woman appears in the view-finder of his drone as she drops her invisibility spell, and then Mercer sees her cover her eyes.

Outside, gangers start to stack up outside the church doors, and pile into the Roadmaster just behind his other drone.  The decker is inside, and conscious, and his hands fly up as he begins pleading for his life.  "Don't shoot, don't shoot," the young human man calls out before being filled with automatic pistol fire and slumping back against the back wall of the van.  The gangers next take a hard look at Mercer's drone buzzing around the interior.

@Achak

"Where's Stake??? What happened to him???" he calls out.

Achak sees through an invisibility spell as an armored woman slips inside and drops her spell as well as a submachine gun.  Seeing that Achak is only carrying a melee weapon, she puts one hand in front of her eyes, obscuring her vision -- leveling the playing field, he figures.  He senses the spirit is still present, though it leaves his immediate vicinity.

"I'll tell you about 'Stake' if you'll insure my safety.  Your buddy out back has you covered, and you have my word I won't cast offensively.  I just want to take care of, oh Jesus, Tiny?  What the fuck?  Where's Dib?  Dib?!  Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck."  Collecting herself, she continues, "How bad off's your teammate?  You let me heal my guys, I'll bring her back first, ok?  I'm going to step forward now."  She takes a few tentative steps among the debris.

Before she can continue, Achak gets a comm from Rusty.

<<@Achak [Rusty] You alive in there, chummer?  We're backed up outside the church.  Also, we got a guy in a separate van approaching.  He with you, or should we geek his ass?  Looks like he was gunning for the guys gunning for you.>>

As she approaches, the magician takes off her ballistic mask, revealing a darker-skinned ork woman, Aztlan and Japanese by her looks.  "Like I said, you got us beat.  Give me your word you'll let us walk out of here, and I'll do everything I can to make it worth your while, wiz?"

[Malevolence]

Stake? This is ol' Stake's crew? That sure explains why the runners have had their fill. Stake wouldn't be caught dead with a pack of ninnys. But she's speaking about Stake as if he's gone, so apparently he was caught dead somewhere. He was tempted to geek her right there for what she'd been a part of, but he'd seen dozens of good hunters die - men and women he'd known like family - and one thing he'd learned to do was keep his emotions in check when on the job. He needed information and it would be harder to get from a dead woman. So he swallowed his loss and focused again on the conversation, keeping the mage no more than a thought away from a peck on the cheek from Vera.


But he also knew better than to drop his guard - where there was a mage, there was almost always spirits. And there was still a decker lurking in the Matrix, and there was always the unexpected to worry about - an unknown party, a hidden enemy, a well laid trap. Situational awareness was key to surviving a tactical encounter. He'd learned that when he'd taken HTR training at the police academy all those years ago, and had taken it to heart. It had kept him alive for over twenty years. He surveyed his surroundings using the sensors on the Roadmaster and whatever he could pick out from the drones, noting what the gangers were doing and looking for anything out of place.


What he sees shocks him. He'd expected it, sure, and he'd seen many more horrific scenes in his time hunting the Infected, but he'd half expected more survivors. The Invisible Man was surely dead, Tiny was out and if he did pull through, it'd only be by virtue of his being a troll. And his fears were confirmed when he found that Ikiryo was down and bleeding from the head. The blood flow had already slowed to a seep, which strongly indicated that the heart was no longer pumping. He also watched as the decker was slaughtered where he sat as he pleaded for his life. That meant that the mage was his only remaining lead. He took note of the gangers eyeing his drone and commanded it to display an ARO of a white flag and slowly settle to rest on a seat in the van. He commanded the drone in the church to broadcast an ARO containing the text "Spare her. Need info. - Mercer". If they were Stake's team, they'd likely know who he was and hopefully his words would carry weight.


He also set Vera down on the floor. The gangers were worrisome, but if they didn't shoot his drone, it stood to reason he could make peace with them, and that began by adopting a less threatening posture. A sniper rifle hanging out the window was certainly not that posture. Of course, he didn't want to come up on the other Roadmaster unannounced either, so he mentally commanded the Roadmaster's pilot to have it park across the street from the church entrance well away from any of the groups of gangers, giving him a view of the situation but enough distance to "tactically regroup" if need be. He kept his hands where they could be seen, but kept his body largely covered by the protective body of the well armored van.

[rednblack]

A handful of shoots ring out in the parking lot, and the ork woman cocks her head backward.  "Ranier?!"  A string of words inappropriate to the locale is next issued from her mouth, and she levels a cold gaze at Achak.  "Your word, or I go down swinging."