"I've hit him but he doesn't seem to be fatally wounded." Laine responds putting his sniper away to use the LAV's turret as ordered.
Not very skilled in the use of the machine gun, he attempt his best to shoot in front of the wagon. "I'll do my best untill we can make a safe switch."
The Vulcan whirs to life and hell descends on the right hand side of the prison wagon. Shells the size of a ladies self pleasuring device roar thunder from the barrels, and then rain down on the area. Two hit armored men directly, punching through their breast plates and then exploding as the High Explosive rounds are detonated by the impact. Blood sprays over the area, and bits of metal and bone spray out, slamming into the other soldiers.
The other shells, that miss their targets, impact on the ground, and penetrate a half a foot or so before detonating, sending up spumes of dirt, rocks, and innocent beetles, spiders, and other insects. One poor field mouse, who was cowering in it's hole, never realizes it's dead as the round blows it's den 20 feet into the air.
The remaining soldiers begin scattering, racing as hard as they can away, dropping their weapons as hell descends on them.
The now unmanned wagon lurches forward as the lizard in front panics from the noise, and then the wagon slams into the rocks, as the lizard doesn't bother sticking to the curve in the road, it just races ahead. The front wheel shatters but the lizard keeps going, and the wagon begins to teeter to the right.
"How close can we get to that wagon?" Hudson shouts out, "We need to cut it free or kill that lizard, fast!"
Daniel keeps driving. Its on the road. We are on the road. I think I can get pretty damn close.
Daniel, about to pull over to let someone else drive, instead floors it, but even as he pushes the LAV up to nearly 50 on the 'road', they see the cage teeter just that one inch too far as the lizard keeps running, and then it crashes down into the dusty road, sending up a plume of dust.
The lizard drags it for another 60 ft before the harness snaps, letting it continue on it's way, terrified of the explosions and free of it's constrictions.
By the time the LAV gets close to the cage, the back door has been removed somehow (exactly how was hidden by the dips in the road over the hills). It lays in the dirt, at the back of the cage.
The figures in white are arrayed around, those who are uninjured helping those who are. Bloody red streaks stain the white shifts, but it becomes quickly apparent that the figures in white are teenage girls. It's hard to tell for sure, but they look to be in the 13 to 16 year old range.
One girl, with dark hair who's naked is busy opening some of the crates that fell off the wagon when it crashed over. Smoke wafts up from one long crate that's spilled open with weapons (a couple of the white shift wearing girls, who aren't tending to the wounded, are holding weapons now). One girl holds a morning star as big as her head but holds it with assurance and a combatative stance. Another smaller girl has a pair of swords that look like tonfa, but with blades pressing out from her arms where the tonfa wood would be.
The naked girl, who looks about 16, stands up from the crate she was dealing with, and part of it falls off, taking the lock with it. Smoke wafts up from the hole in the wood, and then she kicks the lid open. Digging inside, she pulls out a silk body suit and begins stepping into it, eying the charging LAV but not looking scared, unlike the other girls, who look terrified.
Hudson steps off the LAV, opening a medkit to show that it's not a weapon. "Medicine!" he shouts out, in the broken local speech that he's learned. "I am Doctor!"
The two girls with the weapons immediately move into a defensive position, and the one with the mace shouts something.
"No...sorcerer...demon, kill you!" Is what Hudson can sort of understand her to say.
Then the girl slipping into the silk body stocking shouts out something.
"...heal...magic...hurt, I make...dead." Is what Hudson can sort of understand her to say.
The two with weapons look hesitent, but then step to the side, opening a path for Hudson to reach the wounded girls.
Daniel, making sure to do nothing that might be seen as offensive, leaves the engine running but puts the vehicle in park and waits, barely breathing.
As Hudson walked past, he tried to see if he could get a better sense of what the girls were saying to him, though his first priority was seeing how bad the injuries were.
Laine will get out of the car to strech his legs while they are holding still. "How are they duing Andy? Would you like help with binding bandages?" he asks concerned while he looks nervous around for signs of the guards returning.
The first girl he diagnoseses is the unconscious one, who has an arrow sticking into her torso. She's maybe 14, he'd guess. She's losing blood, and needs immediate surgery if she's going to survive.
There is one other immobile girl, she has an arrow in her hip. Two of the mobile girls have obvious wounds, one in the arm, one in the leg. However, they've been bandaged.
There's a couple of arrows on the ground, covered in blood. The heads are wickedly barbed.
While Hudson works on the wounded girls, the one putting the silk body suit on begins digging clothes out of a leather pack she pulls out of the chest she was working with. Leather pants, a black shirt, and then a breast plate that slides over her shoulders and she tugs straps into place.
Daniel keeps alert for the possible return of the wagon guards.
Dawn looks back towards where the old guy was. Anyone see the lightning guy? Let's make sure he's no longer a threat.
Grabbing her rifle from below, Dawn climbs up out of the commander's hatch and jumps down to the ground with Hudson.
Dawn spots the old man, covered in blood, on the ground nearby. Whether it's his blood, or the blood of the two piles of raw hamburger that used to be human beings next to him, is open for debate.
Daniel spots nothing other than the girls, the wagon, the body, Hudson, Dawn, and a lone lizard sitting on the top of the cage looking at the LAV with it's head turned upside down.
"I wonder how tame these lizards is." Laine says as he gets near the girl dressing in armor while he looks up at the lizard in wonderment of it's size.
Unsure how bad the hip injury is, Hudson hesitates for a second, before moving back to the girl with the gut wound. At the least it's bleeding heavily.
Hudson calls out that he needs an assistant, and someone to carry the girl into the LAV, so he can work in a slightly cleaner area.
The weapon holding girls look nervous, looking toward the girl who still putting on her armor. She considers the soldiers, and then makes a pat pat motion, apparently reassuring the other girls.
Finishing putting on her armor, she reaches down to the ground and picks up a yard long sword in a sheath. She straps it on her hip, and then pulls the blade. The sword is a brutally built thing that can't seem to settle on a color, shifting as it moves and the light reflects off it differently. It predominantly is purples and blues. She re-sheaths the sword after a test swing or two.
Hudson (and whoever is helping), begins to operate on the girl...
Hudson (and whoever is helping), will be spending 30 minutes in the LAV on the surgery.
While Hudson is working on the girl in the LAV, the girl with the armor moves over to the other girl, with the arrow in her hip, carrying her pack. She pulls out what looks like a primitive surgery kit. She speaks soothingly to the injured girl, and then pours some liquid on the wound, and the girl visibly relaxes. Then the armored girl begins to carefully cut around the arrow to remove the head, performing field surgery as well.
She gets the arrow out, but it's messy.
Climbing out of the LAV Rainwater responds I have medice training. He moves to help.
Laine! Cover me please. Dawn heads for the old man with her gun drawn and held up, ready to spread lead.
She looks around for the old guys stick and will kick it away from him if it's in arm's reach.
She kicks his foot for a response. Circling around she kneels and puts the gun to his chest before reaching to check for a pulse at his neck.
The 'Old Man' appears in his 60's or 70's, but it's hard to tell. Despite his age, he's built like a football linebacker, or a viking. He's easily 280lbs, and no fat. Under the shirt, when the barrel hits his chest, there's a loud metallic clink, indicating he's wearing some serious chainmail under the robe. On the ground next to him is a disturbingly green colored metal mace with wicked looking spikes. It looks quite heavy, and kicking it might result in damage to Dawn's foot, even through the combat boots.
"How does he look Red? Is he still going to be a threat?"
Glancing over his shoulder Daniel says Hey, isn't that one of those green weapons we are suppose to be on the lookout for?
Laine looks at the weapon and back to Daniel "I think you are right, I also think that this weapon is what the old man used to hit the LAV with. Is it the weapon that does it or a conduit for what the old man can, I wish we understood these better."
Dawn's brother had played his share of dungeons and dragons when they were younger, so she wasn't going to handle the weapon directly.
Get me something to wrap it in.
Dawn and Laine get an ammo strap from the LAV, and use that to loop around the weapon and drag it off.
When she checks the old man's pulse, she finds a strong steady pulse. So while he's unconscious, he seems to have survived a sniper round to the shoulder without being in immediate danger of dying.
When the dark haired girl in armor is done cutting the arrow out of the younger girl, she reaches into her pack and pours some more liquid in the wound. THe girl again relaxes as the liquid enters the oozing wound.
Then the armored girl dips her fingers into the wound, coating her index and middle finger with the girls blood. She then raises it into the air, and begins to write on the air, as if on glass, leaving smeared bloody letters floating in mid air. Her hair begins to move on it's own, as a small breeze kicks up around her. Her voice begins to chant in a language that sounds something like two cats being drowned in a sack while they try to kill each other. The letters are left floating in air until she draws two bloody fingers through the words, as if striking them out. When she does, the letters burst into pink flames and are consumed. The wounded girl gasps and her body jerks in pain. When the last letter burns up, her body jackknifes like she was gut punched.
Finally, panting, she relaxes, and then slowly stands up with help. The wound on her hip, still visible, has sealed up leaving a scar behind.
Watching this the hair on the back of Daniel's neck stands up. Reflexively he reaches for the medicine bag that hangs from a thong around neck as he whispers Magic.
Laine looks to Daniel "I guess there is no denying magic excist in this world anymore. I wish we understood thier language better, so we could learn something from them."
Done healing the wounded girl, the armored girl walks brazenly over and picks up the mace that Dawn has dragged away from the old man. Then she tosses it over near the other weapons by the caged wagon.
Stepping up to the downed man, showing no fear of Dawn, she opens her mouth and shows off a pair of impressive fangs that would make a vampire groupie back on Earth green with jealousy. She raises her thumb to her teeth, and sinks a fang into it. Bright pink blood wells up out of the thumb, and she uses her thumb to trace a symbol on the old man's forehead. As she does, the skin begins to hiss and burn and bubble, frying away as white bone begins to come into sight. When done, she spits on him and begins tearing his bloody clothes off, so she can start stripping him of the well wrought armor he's wearing underneath.
The girl looks both of you in the eyes, no hostility on display. However, her eyes are bright pink.
She pauses and looks at the group, and clears her throat. "Na Hight Calia Menthara, Ni'Basharan, Basharan Gardran."
"I am Calia Menthara, something something something guardian"
Well damn. Ain't that something to see. She ain't glittering in the sun, but she's got the teeth, Dawn comments out loud.
Watching as she marks the old guy, Dawn asks who's picked up some of the lingo? Ask her what she's doing to the guy.
"She said, I think, her name is Calia Menthara. And she either said she's a guard, or protector, or she's saying something about the old man's armor, I'm not sure which, the words for guard, protector, and armor are very similar, and I'm kind of distracted sewing this girls guts up." He wipes his forehead on his shoulder, and goes back to sewing the incision closed.
When she's done stripping the old man's armor off, she dumps it in a pile with the weapons.
Several of the other girls go over to the old man and start to stomp on his crotch and limbs, breaking bones and likely ensuring he can't donate to the gene pool anytime soon, although none of them appear to go so far as to kill him (although it's obvious they want to).
While that is going on, the woman looks at the group. "Cé atá i gceannas?"
Hudson shakes his head. "Who orders? Who leads? Who commands?"
"I think Hudson did, but I think I should also start to pick up on the language so we can understand the people of this world. I guess the old guy is not a big hit with the ladies."
Keep your panties on Hudson, Dawn looks up and around the area, we need to check if any got away.
Dawn nods her head to Calia, then taps herself on the chest, Dawn Svenssen. She then points to Calia, Calia Menthara?