RP [Phoenix Team] - Because we Can

Galacta Candy, Outdoors
"I figure we make example of these guys, and drive them out we figure out where their operation's running out of." Luca outlined, figuring that he could leave the specifics up in the air for the moment. If the rest of the gang were as undisciplined as those he saw earlier, he figured it'd be cut-and-dry. "With any luck, we flush out whoever's bankrolling them too, find them via anything the gang's got, or get them to take notice."

Wrapping his hand around the accelerator and kicking the stand up, balancing on his leg."Failing that," Luca mused, quietly confident, "they'll get the message one way or another." With a roar from the motorcycle and speeding off with his passenger, he lead the way for the Phoenix Team to follow.


Hellion Overlook, Cransky and Sons Self-Storage
Sun slowly setting, on a dry day.

♫ Mitch Murder - 84th Precinct ♫

The team followed a highway northwards, ascending the base of the Northern Sargasso mountain. Glancing over the shoulder, Sargasso's sprawl laid bare and visible, with Featherwell's low building heights giving a clear view into the river which separated North Shore from Central View, and the suburb of Delta South, spiderwebbed in canals issuing forth from harbours beneath the Walled City. A plethora of boats, cargo vessels, tugs, and seaworthy spacecraft floated lazily in the bay - providing splotches of colour and light in the dark river waters, while air traffic moved slowly and deliberately - their points of light twinkling against the evening sky as the shadows from the buildings begun to lengthen.

The skyline which provided the backdrop started to light up as if protesting against the coming night. The windows of skyscrapers creating an irregular series of grids composed of white and yellow, while the streets lower and at the feet of the built-up city begun to bloom into a riot of neons, broken up by the silhouettes of palm trees and the glares of billboards selling holiday packages and club deals. Further beyond and in the flatter land of Southern Palms, the lights twinkled in the lazier residential blocs while the Witchwood provided a dark patch rising to the southwest, seguing towards the quiet, verdant fields of Agrary.

Hellion Overlook, by contrast, lacked the greenery or liveliness which found its way amidst most of Sargasso. No ivy nor vines grew, and on the sidewalks, there wasn't a single blade of grass. Trees were only seen in context: as lumber upon massive transport sleepers, or timber from the mills. What provided colour here to break up the dull metals, concrete, and rust were layers of graffiti, ranging from gang tags and crude stencillings to murals and poster jobs. When the wind blew, a distinct after-taste was left in the sinuses: a melange of chemical smells and particles in the air including brine, sawdust, paint, algae, petrol, resin, and depending on proximity, sweat.

Underfoot, concrete, asphalt, gravel, dirt, and sand could be expected, sometimes broken up by a stubborn weed growing through a crack or shards of a broken bottle. The hustle and bustle of Hellion Overlook wasn't staying in the neighbourhood for long, factories shuttered for the day and workers filtering into their vans and utility vehicles to head home for the evening, or heading towards the subways or bus stops. Street lamps begun buzzing to life, providing circles of yellowish light in the industrial district, but providing little comfort to walkers.

The only respectable night-time activity in the Overlook was concentrated around the numerous dive bars dotted around the outskirts of the neighbourhood, clientèle blue collared and ill tempered towards anything smacking of white collar snootiness or weakness. In turn, no self-respecting and narcissistic businessman would be caught dead in Hellion Overlook, nor mingle with its ilk. Getting in with the crowd involved being able to hold your beer down after you'd done your "hard yakka". Anything less was to be ridiculed with prejudice.

The warehouse Luca and company had pulled up in front of blended in with its surroundings, with a slanted roof and metal walls - dotted with rust and Apachopper gang signs, while windows were placed high up on the structure, broken up by vents and fans. At ground level, there was a closed roller door sporting a logo of two arrows crossed over a shield. To the right side of the warehouse, an adjoining office building sat upon I-beams, and had a flat roof which levelled off with the warehouse. Thick black curtains were drawn over all of the visible windows, and the front doors were closed.

Immediately ahead, there was a dusty yard with a couple of trucks parked to the left, while a path of concrete lead towards a closed roller door, the office, and around the back. A yellowed light illuminated the courtyard ahead of the office from atop a post on the right side. A battered sign lashed onto the fence out front read 'Cransky and Sons Self Storage - You Got It We Got Room 4 It'. While the other businesses and factories around Hellion Overlook were closing and filtering out, it didn't even look as though Cransky and Sons had opened at all. A cursory glance on the sign's opening times indicated that it was supposed to be closed all day today.

♫ CiniMod - The Rumble ♫

Examining the building and keeping an eye on the roofs nearby for any signs of activity and coming up empty, Luca indicated towards the left of the warehouse. White and yellow lines painted on the concrete indicated towards a back area. "Seems clear, no cameras either. Let's head in around the back. We'll get them from the rear," he said, dismounting his bike and parking it behind the cinderblock wall which separated Cransky and Sons' property from the next place over.

Scurrying over the fence and through the yard, using the parked trucks as cover, Luca begun scouting ahead. Entering the alley, he lifted his pistol from his holster and stayed close to the warehouse wall. At the end of the alley, he could see more trucks parked, light, and the sound of people talking in the distance, difficult to tell. He figured it was the parking lot for the rest of the company fleet. Halfway through the alley, Luca indicated towards his team to move up, as he planned his next moves in shadow, ideas of using grenades coming to mind.

Spoiler: Aside for Osaka

@Osaka
Meanwhile...
Rising from the bathtub in the apartment at Ferros Block after a lengthy napping session, Yttrium groped about her bedside table with snowman-like pseudopod hands, looking for her metallic extremities and helmet. One of her eye-cores surfaced from beneath the membrane of her body as she slipped her headgear on, fluttering the eyelashes as she wiggled the fingers in her gauntlets - noticing a change in the smoothness of the hydraulics, and the fingertips on the inside of her gauntlets had been thoroughly cleaned and sanded, while new holes were present in the index and middle fingers on her right hand.

Grabbing her legs next and moving out of the tub as her form coalesced into her preferred humanoid figure, she stepped out, noticing a similar improvement of motion and flow. Something else was left beside the bathtub she didn't recall seeing before heading to sleep last night. An array of beer-can shaped plastic plumbing tubes arrayed like a six-shooter's cylinder, a piston with a crank, and several empty cans - each with the top shorn off by a tin opener, and the underside of the can pushed out, tipped by a bullet's primer.

A note was attached to the pipe array: 'For when you're ready to take the fight to Tanhauss. I'll show you how it works when I get home, and we'll get some practice in with this on the weekend. -Luca'.

She always found it cute how he did these things for her, even if it wasn't in her nature to fight. Perhaps it was his way of giving a gift in kind after she'd given him the old Ranger Sixer.

 

Galacta Candy, Outdoors
Seiren tethered himself with the gauntlet's pull casually and got a firsthand experience of being dragged along for a ride at high speed. Cosmo, on the other hand, enjoyed the ride in the fresh air with an open mouth and a flapping tongue, as it was the first time in a while the starry dogsynth had been outside in a good while.

Hellion Overlook, Cransky and Sons Self-Storage
"Luca, you dingus, slow down."

Seiren chided the man after they'd arrived and he'd let himself off the gravity tether to coast to a gentle stop. Luca's bloodthirstiness was clear as day, and Seiren wanted none of that hot-headed thinking to leap before they looked.

After all was said and done, Seiren bounced himself onto the roof (after first unequipping his skates) of the building and crouched, surveying the area below while he got his electric slime launcher at the ready.

 

Hellion Overlook, Cransky and Sons Self-Storage
From above, Seiren found his feet on a corrugated roof, finding a solid walkway atop it. Moving along and looking down at the back section of the warehouse, Seiren could spot four individuals who'd dragged a couch and a rug from the office, sitting around a wastepaper basket fire. Two men in biker's leathers and chains were splayed on the couch, watching the burning paper produce flickering lights and plumes of acrid smoke which blended in with the other industrial emissions.

The third target Seiren could identify from his elevated perch was another biker wearing a spiked helmet, sitting on a folding chair facing the back entrance, slouched, they were peering into the heat radiating from the concrete. The fourth target was standing beside the couch, resting upon the filing cabinet the bikers had turned into a bottle-encrusted end table. This skinny, lean guy was carrying a crude rifle - fitted with an impractically large muzzle brake.

This guy noticed their helmeted companion looking towards a source of noise - watching them straightening up in their chair and take notice. "Whassat?" The skinny biker held his rifle towards the alley, pacing warily as the weight of his gun nearly threatened to topple them. Seiren could vaguely hear Luca's movement - to their credit they were trying staying quiet.

The helmeted biker had stood up from his chair, pulling a pistol out of his pants. "I think someone's here - thought I heard some movement." They looked towards the rank of trucks at the back of the lot, eyeing it for a moment before walking ahead warily.

The skinny one shrugged. "Well man, you know the drill - nothing personal," he could be seen fiddling with a large lever safety on the side of his rifle, clicking it into a full-auto position and pulling the bolt back with a clack-clack, "but we gotta intimidate or kneecap anyone trying to interrupt us flipping this place. Boss' orders." He made it sound clinical, but he was looking forward to picking on someone - after arriving early in the morning for maximum shock and getting the place jimmied open and from getting the ram raid organised, the rest of his day's activities had consisted of busywork to destroy this company's data and records.

Seiren couldn't see Luca from where he was looking down on, and had no read on them. The man in Red knew there was company headed his way and had a surprise for them. Unfortunately, both sides had surprises for each other - as Luca was gauging where to roll his bomb, he heard the sound of cinderblock concrete being smashed into irregular, dusty chunks. Looking over his shoulder incredulously, he saw the Raiken had ploughed through the outer fence - and even had time to contemplate the experience.

Rolling with the distraction and looking ahead, Luca found himself face with the helmeted biker and their skinny companion, both rapt by the sight of the Raiken emerging from the dust. The rifle wielding man was keeping their irons focussed on the huge reptilian alien. Luca looked down at the grenade in his hand, drawing attention towards it as he raised it up, a grin spreading across his face as he attempted to diffuse (or stoke) the situation he'd crashed into. "I'm not sure which one to be afraid of - this live explosive in my hand I was meaning to throw at you," he lied - he hadn't even pulled the pin out, but he was selling an interesting proposal to tonight's adversary, "or the big guy behind me. Which would you rather deal with tonight, if you could choose one or the other?"

Who... who even asks questions like that? The helmeted biker gawped, blinking as he put the dots together, peering at Ravnir. "Wait, he's with YOU?! Fuckin' 'ell! Truck 'em!" The helmeted one responded with a squeal, turning around and grabbing his skinny friend by the arm to pull them out of the way.

Luca looked over his shoulder and flashed a thumbs up towards the Raiken - it had gotten them out of the way without too much fuss. As he was pondering what the bikers had meant by 'truck them', he looked ahead to spot one truck in the backlot which was parked in line with the pathway he was standing in. Lights flooded into the alleyway as its engine roared to life - the six wheeled truck sans a bed barrelling towards down the alley. Luca's reaction aside from expletives was go up, leaping up the wall and scampering out of reach with the use of his hook.

With the grenade still in his hand, he looked around the corner from his perch, and saw Seiren crouched on the roof just above him. Looking towards Luca, Seiren noticed his captain figure was especially red faced from the sudden burst of movement to avoid being flattened. Below, Luca and Seiren saw the helmeted and rifle wielding bikers standing back, watching the back of the truck hurtle down the narrow alleyway, cabin mirror clipping the corner in haste. They didn't think to look up - maybe they were expecting to scrape someone off the wall when the truck finished his lap.

The bikers on the couch were up and scrambling with a start too, woken up by the noise of the truck engines and screeching tyres. Meanwhile, Ravnir watched the heavy vehicle coming towards him at approximately sixty kilometres an hour and counting. Its heavy engine with oodles of torque and robust chassis was destined for an impact more than capable of killing a 'squishy human'.

 

Seiren saw Breyja come up to one of the rooftops nearby and waved before aiming down sights at the quickly collapsing scene before him. He pumped the shocker gun once. Seiren fired at the helmeted biker, pumped again, and then fired once more at the rifle user next to him. Who needed tasers when you had electric sludge to jack up somebody's nervous system?

He scrambled to move to a new position since camping was the number one cause of sniper death (Or so he believed) and skidded to a new corner of the roof, keeping an eye on the captain figure to make sure he didn't get away.

 

Hellion Overlook, Cransky and Sons Self-Storage
Breyja's visor was flipping through spectrums, and it picked up the aforementioned laser security system Snuffles had spotted earlier - and it had very likely been tripped - but no activity was happening from the building as a result - there were signs of life inside moving frantically. Her two tracked targets were heading towards the couch that'd been dragged out. Sarn could also see Luca and Seiren watching them - and the kid taking shots with his glob rifle.

The two gangers were too busy focussing on what had happened just near them to look up until it was too late. The helmed biker tried to claw the stuff off his chest before falling to the ground in convulsions, while the gun-wielding man fell backwards with his finger on the trigger, firing accidental shots into the air before he fell and dropped the rifle. Deed done, the Sentai hero was able to scurry along the roof, getting to the flat top of the adjacent building. From here he could see a roof access hatch, and a ladder leading towards the parking lot below. In addition, one of the parked trucks was a close enough height to the adjacent building to walk on.

Luca meanwhile hopped down to deal with the two men on the couch - who had stood up with a start to examine the splotches of shocking material that'd ended up on their companions. The man in red landed behind them, grabbed them both by the head and smashed their melons together. One of them fell flat on his back, while the other tried to make a kung-fu pose and raised his hands in an attempt to box Luca before falling on the ground.

Stepping over the two downed men and towards the targets Seiren had dealt with, Luca kicked the rifle on the ground away from its previous owner. "Seiren, stay up there - I think I'm gonna have company down here very soon." He said, looking towards the warehouse's roller doors - the back entrance to the storage facility was open, but all he could see inside was darkness and the silhouettes of cargo racks.

"I'm thinking they'll come investigate all the racket, and we can pick them off." Luca tried to figure out. There were four directions of attack the team was covering: Breyja on the opposite building with her eyes on the parking lot, Seiren on the office roof, Luca down on the ground and hiding by the couch the Apachoppers had dragged out, and the two alien crew members yet to join the fray from behind.


In the alley, ground rose up to meet the truck and Ravnir and Snuffles bore witness to the sound of screeching tyres - followed by the truck slamming against the walls to either side of it. A chorus of metal shrieks from the warehouse walls cried out as they were accordioned and shorn asunder by the weight and speed of the truck to the left, and shattering cinderblocks crumbling into concrete and pushed out of shape to the right.

Accompanying the din of brake pads and the roaring engine was stone dust and sparks, punctuated by a cluster of explosions from the grenade bouquet Snuffles had launched at the vehicle's bonnet, shattering the glass. The charred truck came to a stop halfway upon the ramp as the undercarriage scraped against the incline, tipping forwards with momentum and meeting the ground below.

The truck stood on its chassis connected bull-bars, wheels on the back spinning in the air and flecking specks of dirt and asphalt skywards as the engine choked out from impact and angle. An incredulous, wide-eyed driver was smushed against the windscreen, looking up at the Raiken and the Chelti through a spiderwebbing of windscreen cracks, lashed with blood and glass fragments. Unsecured junk in the cabin had also followed the driver, including a few empties, a risqué magazine, a few bottles of pills, and a plastic jug full of yellow - contents leaking. In conclusion, Ravnir could handily deduce that the truck was not a jet, and Snuffles had stopped the truck.

Even in an heavily industrialised zone, a truck flipping was not a common sight, and the noises caused by such events (with explosive punctuations) were a disruption to the concrete and steel instrumented orchestra of heavy production. By now, anything smacking of subtlety regarding the investigation of Cransky and Sons had been shown the door and would not return for the duration of this outing. Film at eleven!


Unable to break his current position unless he wanted to be running out in the open, Luca glanced over his shoulder to get a visual on what had taken place behind him. "Crikey - truck you indeed!" He glibbed, before snapping his attention back towards the building in anticipation, candy-spike rifle raised.

♫ Ninja Gaiden 3 - Return Of Foster ♫

Something grabbed Breyja's attention on the heat and energy signals - something inside the warehouse had woken up, and it was huge.

Underfoot, Seiren could feel something rumbling hard enough to shake the rooftop, and Luca was face to face with a vehicle he saw on the news a while back. It was a lot more intimidating to look at in person, as it split at seams and morphed into a standing war machine, hunched inside the storage house. A speaker crackled to life on the machine as it stared down Luca: "I knew you couldn't resist chasing the leads left behind." The pilot inside said - voice recognisable but distorted by a giddy rage. "Don't you realise I've got you exactly where I want you, now?!"

There was no choice now - Luca had to put as much distance between himself and The Driver as possible, running across the empty lot as the machine came stomping after him, smashing through the walls of the warehouse and crushing one of the downed men underfoot. From the office building, a group of ten or twelve Apachopper bikers emerged, gats in hand - firing in Luca's direction and peppering the parking lot with bullets as he disappeared into the lot of stationary trucks and trailers.

A misplaced sense of theatrics made the Driver stop in the middle of the lot to bask in the size of his mecha, now standing upright at a monstrous eight metres tall with its arms akimbo, and sonic weapons platforms moving into a forward facing position. "Let me make it abundantly clear - he's mine!" Driver roared, instructing his underlings as a group of four broke off to start weaving between the trucks - Breyja was able to tag their positions and movement. "Flush him out, kneecap him, and bring him to me! I'll show Sargasso how a 'hero' dies."

The other six Apachoppers were unaware of other threats in the vicinity, staying close to the Driver's mecha and keeping an eye on the surroundings for Luca - and being mindful of where the humongous mecha stepped.

Their target had a back against a wall, sandwiched between a pair of trucks. Tingles shot up Luca's spine and his aim was spoiled by the adrenaline surging through his nervous system - only settling into a rhythm after the implant in his neck steadied his hand and cleared the mind. There could be time for fear later - for now, there was only a colossus to dismantle. All in a day's work, really. Luca smiled - this was just like old times.

 

Seiren flicked his gauntlet off his arm and let it freeze itself in midair, pointed at the mecha. He reached to his backpack's edge, drawing a cable from it to the gauntlet. A swipe of his hand over the gauntlet's back activated it twice over, causing a hum.

"The mecha's gonna have a hard time moving for. . . mass times volume, carry the one. . . give or take three seconds before my power goes out. Make it count!" Seiren barked, taking aim at the unwitting targets below and splatting two of the mooks with electro-gel. Admittedly, he'd never tried to double-lock like this before, though the capability was there. But, there was good reason as running both halves of the gravitic centrifuge giving it the powers would likely short-circuit it in little time flat.

 

Hellion Overlook, Cransky and Sons Self-Storage, Carpark!
The blast of Railgun fire rung out across the truck depot - the sound echoing off all the hard surfaces throughout Hellion Overlook and into the evening sky. The bolt went through one side of the head and out the other. This was followed by another shot ringing out and piercing the thing's leg joint - bursting through and striking the pavement with a large cloud of dust getting struck upwards.

The robot's head sparked and crackled after the strike, but it didn't stop moving overall. There must've been additional sensors. But the shock of a sudden strike gave it little time to react to the shot to the knee, attempting to jet out and copping the round in the thigh upon a tougher section of the armour to the articulate joint. Still, a hit was a hit, and they had to count.

"You're not alone either, then!" Driver called out, pointing a shoulder-mounted laser defence system towards the opposite building Breyja had been firing from. A spray of red rays barraged the building, melting holes in the metal portions of the roof. Staying low was a priority. Breyja's tactical senses told her what to do: retreat and reposition to strike again with more preparation. Along the way, she had her PDW if anyone wanted to get in the way of that goal, and her motorcycle parked securely if she needed to make it quick.

A break for the Maidenhand came as the mecha suddenly froze in place, boxed in by a strong field of gravimetric pushing and containment. Seiren was using both of his gravimetric centrifuges to lock Driver into place. Something this big, and capable of such pushback was no mean feat for the backpack mounted generator and power core - it bought enough time to give Breyja a chance to make a break down the ladder she'd taken to get up.

From where Luca was looking, it was time to strike while the iron was hot. He started running down the way, hopping between the trucks and kicking himself up with each jump until he was running along the roofs of the cabins. He had the Cryo grenade Seiren had given him in his right hand, pin removed and hand down on the lever as he kept his eyes down - Driver wasn't going away while Breyja had his attention. Leaping between the roofs of two trucks, Luca tossed the bomb downwards, over the heads of the motorcyclists who had run between the trucks to try and nab him.

Below, a cloud of ultracooled liquids carried by an explosive propellant showered the four Apachoppers, causing them to stumble and fall down. They didn't shatter into a million pieces, but exposed skin was freeze burnt and clothing stiffened considerably. Stung like a thousand needles - one poor bastard watched it fall in front of him and got it in the eyes.

Looking back ahead, Luca was going to take those three seconds Seiren had promised him as he grapplegunned towards the mecha's head, reeling himself straight towards the thing. "Like it or not, Driver!" Luca called out as he released the line he was coming in on, now flying free towards the head and lining up a concussive haymaker. "I've got friends where it counts!" Releasing the line with his fist in hand, he suddenly found his target dipping, and Luca flying well over the head of Driver's Mecha and missing entirely. Luca's head followed the head of the Mecha in surprise, as it looked up, arms flailing and shoulder cannon still firing ahead - striking the building further below Breyja instead of its roof.

The hole Ravnir had called forth beneath the Mecha with the slamming of HIS much larger, less squishier fist ended up dropping the Mecha about four and a half metres downwards - there wasn't just asphalt and soil beneath Ravnir's smashing contribution, there were layers and layers of pipes and infrastructure. All the while, the feat had left Ravnir mentally tapped out, drained, winded - anything further would do lasting damage to the Raiken. For weapons, the Raiken saw something useful through a hole the truck had torn as it had smashed through the alleyway. There were long, thick metal pipes intended for plumbing on loading palets. Bunched together by hand and his last remaining fraction of willpower, they'd serve an adequate bludgeon with minimal effort.

The sudden drop created caused Seiren's gravimetric centrifuges to fail, as it suddenly had to support the weight of the now falling mecha and shorted out with a bang. The mecha meanwhile landed upon its feet in the hole, but found itself up to its waist in the carpark, eye level with the roof Seiren was standing on - and Luca landed on, rolling on the ground and twirling as his punch swung him in a circle - there was too much momentum left unspent.

When he stopped, hopping on one foot to turn around and look down towards the lot, he now noticed his enemy was stationary, rather than moving, and he had ample access to its head and shoulders. Luca's intuition and recall of the Driver's preferred mecha and Seiren's sentai intuition told them both that the pilot was more likely to be in the chest, under all the armour and mechanisms. Raising the candy spiker, Luca started firing at the head some more, following up from where Breyja had struck it and given it a weak location he could 'work'.

"Thigh's damaged! Damn you!" Driver called out - the sudden drop had turned the strike Breyja had made on the Mecha's thigh into a much larger problem. Not landing correctly and unevenly had busted some of the hydraulics, and backup systems had to activate and take over. For the time being, it wasn't getting out of the hole immediately - and it had its primary target not far away and in plain view. Guns on the shoulders and chest could be heard whirring up. On the left shoulder, the laser defences reoriented themselves, while on the right, a rocket pod was present.

"Kid, get clear!" Luca bellowed as the Mecha's head turned towards him with its arms raised, shoulder weapons aimed at Luca as man in red backpedalled across the roof and fired, giving himself all the distance he could get. More meant more time to evade Driver's point defence lasers, the cluster explosives and swinging arms. Getting out of that thing's reach was a bigger priority - Luca recalled Driver pulling enemy pilots he got grudges on apart at his worst.

Down below, the Chelti was able to watch Luca's ungraceful flight from the truck park to the roof, after regaining their balance from the slam Ravnir had caused. Around the corner at ground level, The Chelti had view of four Apachoppers who were staying by the trapped Mecha as cover - aware that there was something big and heavy around the corner, but not game to investigate what. They were hanging back - they didn't see their buddies come back from the trucks either, and splitting off would mean certain death or incapacitation. With its arms up, the Mecha was exposing a vulnerable underarm.