Androva pops up from cover long enough to draw a bead on the borg before ducking back down.
Androva's blast hits true, but as she probably suspected, armour that can shrug off railguns is unlikely to be damaged by a sidearm. Without any mass behind the attack, you don't even see token reaction to the attack. He might not have noticed it.
While ducking back behind her cover of the wrecked ATV, and the bodies/potential survivors of her scouting parting within it, Androva cranes her neck around for a quick second in order to orient herself concerning the Dragon's present location. She spots it nearby, now standing near the base of the cliff. While doing so she sees something else. A mist of sorts is creeping from the cavern at the base of the rocky outcropping. It catches the eye almost because of the way your eye wants to slide past it; to pretend its not there as nothing quite that unreal looking could possibly actually be there. Even the though the night is relatively dark, you can see every feature of the mist, as it it was illuminated from within; but that's not quite right, because it doesn't look lit up and it casts no light on the surrounding earth. It looks almost like a reflection of what light isn't; if light had an opposite beyond darkness, what it would look like if light could be a negative, cancelling out every scrap of real light it touched. Visible by its nature, but very much a thing of another world.
He runs at full speed towards it, until his first foot touches its leading edge. What happens then is so quick and undramatic that it goes completely missed by anyone who did not happen to be looking at that exact moment. The instant his boot breaks the mist, his foot stops working. There is a flash of confusion on the man's face as he appears to stumble forward, his leading leg limp and dead weight. Having been running top speed, his momentum carries him forward where his second foot reacts just like the first. As he pitches forward, the confusion on his face flashes through anger to fear. Unable to control his fall with his legs, he reaches out a hand to break his fall, but the hand does nothing. His face slaps the ground at full running speed. But for all that, he doesn't even have a chance to scream.
His body hits the ground like a corpse long dead. Not a single muscle used to break his fall or slow his decent. When he hits the ground, his body slaps flat and lies there like it had lain there a week and not a moment. It doesn't bounce, it doesn't twitch. It's just dead.
[dice=Bleeding Out?]1d8-3; 1d6-3
[dice=Reroll]1d8-3; 1d6-3
[dice=Ace..]1d8
"Your name...is Anpetu."
A name. His name. The fragile life stirs within its shell for another moment. Death comes. Slowly. Surely. It creeps with certainty for him, for all of them. The visions come quickly; men and women dying. Strange things in metal suits screaming and twisting with one another. A hungry darkness encroaching on all.
A vision of men with dark skin, dressed in leathers fills his mind. They show Mother how to tend the wounds, how to fight with a blade, and how to pull a trigger. They tell her the myths of the old world, the one they left behind when they traveled through the Rifts. Her knowledge, his knowledge now, it is where his name comes from.
"Anpetu Wi, a spirit of the sun. My son, you will be strong.
Mother is fighting, raging, dying. His instinct is to hide at first, to retreat into the darkness and grow. Yet Death is inevitable that way. It kills all that it touches and it will not spare him.
"The world is not kind to us. You will have to fight Anpetu."
Why should he fight? Death could be kinder, more gentle, more alluring. He could whimper softly into it and let it all go. It'd be easier, so much easier. Yet something churns in anger at that thought, at that weakness. It is her memories, his memories now. He must fight, he must struggle, he cannot die.
"Fight. For you are a dragon."
The power calls to him, reaches to him to take it, and Anpetu reaches out and sinks his claws and fangs into it. He will not die this day or any other day. He is a dragon and he will live forever.
The egg cracks and breaks, the form within rioting and revolting against its restraints. A sharp beak breaks through and the egg collapses under his strength as Anpetu pulls himself free. Yolk and shell sticks to the fiery red scales along his form, golden eyes blearily blinking for a moment.
"There is no time to hesistate. Act or die." His own voice sounds alien in his head, his mother's imprints residing deep inside. A terrible, fierce, and angry roar explodes from his throat and his wings beat this first movements. Whatever that power is, that chance at life, he would seize it. Death can take him another day, today he would be a dragon.
Who the heck is this jerk? Coming in here knocking my weapons around. I don't need weapons.
K-842 drops his remaining weapon and reaches for the nearby leather clad whatever he is.
"Who do you think you are? Jerk? Knocking my weapons around. I don't need weapons to fight the likes of you."
The space around Anpetu is small, or at least contained. A cave, his mother would call it. The space within is also something of a cylinder, with the opening near the bottom, sloping out towards the land outside. The opening is large enough to accommodate a full grown Dragon, but probably only barely. It is probably thrice as wide as it is tall, so she would have had to slither her way in on her belly. The inside is far more spacious, and it would have been a good place to lay her clutch had she not been chased and harried so long.
Arrayed around him on lower tiers are his would be kin. Perhaps a dozen eggs all told. Three on the lowest edge of the cavern floor lie smashed, with only scraps of leathery egg and bits of goo indicating something else was once within. By one of the three lies a sister, dead, her body still and lifeless, pulled from the safety of her shell long before her time. Whatever happened to the bodies in the other two is unclear.
The entire floor of the cavern roils with billows of some strange mist or fog, having no apparent source and adding nothing to the moisture of the chamber. While the cavern is dark, somehow the mist is darker still, as though it pulls at the light. This was the creeping death you felt coming. A cold breeze at your back, eminating from higher up in the chamber as warm air settles upon the rocky crags above, is chilled, and drifts down towards the cavern mouth also has the effect of allowing that unnatural darkness to flow out with unnatural speed. It also seems to be slowing the ascent of the mist. It clings to the walls as if sticking to them, the billowing caused by the wind slowing It, but also allowing it to swirl and reach higher. Once it touches a rock, it never drifts lower.
The lowest tier of eggs were dead before this new predator arrived, but the level above that lie still, whatever life was in them gone, however peaceful they might look. There are four eggs on the next level, and two on the highest, one of the Anpetu's own. Each of them is shaking, the danger coming just as urgent to each denizen within as that felt by Anpetu.
The egg on the rocky shelf next to him rips and cracks, a brother emerging in a similar state to Anpetu, weak of body, but strong of spirit. One of the four just below breaks, and then another, and another, just as the unnatural fog reaches them. Each of the four siblings, in various stages of birth, shudder, screech, thrash, or go still, as the mist steals the life from their bodies. Each inevitably goes still as the mist reaches the level of their heart or their head.
In barely a moment, only Anpetu and one brother, the last of 12 clutchmates, live. Of course, dragon's are not exactly a sentimental bunch, and a brother is just as often as not a rival for mates and territory.
One foe and one rival lie close at hand, but weakness makes confronting either an unwise action. To flee would mean the cavern mouth or the source of that cold breeze. To brave the cavern mouth would require a daring dive within inches of the mist, on wings that have never been tried. Going up risks discovery that the cracks are too small to allow escape, and inevitable death from the life stealing fog.
Brothers and sisters. All gone, life stolen from them. Anpetu studied his brother, his rival, and his possible friend. Endless possibilities laid before them but now was not the moment to perceive which course they would take. Escape was most important, escape from that deathly mist.
"To the exit!" Anpetu shouted to his brother, focusing his energies inward. His native, psychic power began to flex as he focused on the imprints within his mind; his mother soaring over the lands of this world. That strength, that agility, it all resonated within his mind as he let the power flood through him.
Anpetu would feel the steeliness in his body, his mind telling his nerves to calm as those massive wings would flex outwards. Taking off from his place of limited safety, he dived downwards towards the mist and towards his escape.
Ace un-digs-in (digs-out?), and runs to be closer to the action, to see things from a different perspective :
So he moves 13" towards the others.
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The dragon turns, seeing the fog encroaching behind her, coming on rapidly. She takes in the sight of the man running into the fog and its affect on him. She screams, an impossibly loud billowing roar that shakes the stones and makes Androva, the closest living human, feel like she is going to resolve into the ground. The mother dragon slams her massive wings downward and surges into the air. She raked her claws at the rocks halfway up the outcropping, tearing stone and earth apart. Her long sinuous neck disappears into a crevice opened up by her mauling. A mere moment later the first roar is echoed by a horrifically mournful bellow, echoing out of the cave below.
Anpetu wings through the low narrow opening of the cavern. His head scraping the ceiling rocks, and his tail and hind legs hanging precariously close to the mist, he flies out, the mournful call of his mother echoing through the chamber behind him.
= 4 of Diamonds
= 8 Hearts
= King of Clubs
= 5 Spades
= Ace of Hearts
= 5 Clubs
= 6 Hearts
= 10 of Spades
= 4 Hearts
= King of Hearts
= Jack of Hearts
= 9 Hearts
= 6 Spades, 10 Hearts, King of Spades.
The teenage kid in the leotard puts down his bundle and says something under his breath, the word unfamiliar, but the tone unquestionably a curse.
He moves away, almost fading into a blur as he moves. He comes to a stop next to Androva, where she is crouched next to the remains of her unit's APC. She is understandably startled by a strangely dressed youth in skin tight clothing just appearing next to her during a battle. He jabber something to her in what she initially thinks might be a foreign language, until her brain connects a few of the syllables and she realizes that he is actually speaking American, just with an accent as thick as oatmeal. Realizing this, she is able to retroactively understand a bit of it. She picks out the word 'mist' and 'danger' and 'help.' By the time he finishes talking, she thinks she understands the last sentence.
"Come with me if you want to live."
The fog billowing rapidly forward, she feels little apprehension about taking the chance. Instead of taking her hand however, he crouched down in the unmistakable 'Piggy-Back' mounting posture that everyone remembers from childhood. She tentatively climbs aboard, and then the world blurs. The sudden acceleration makes her feel as though she might just lose everything she has ever eaten, but then the notion stops just as quickly as it began. She realizes she is standing on the other side of the battlefield, close to the smoke grenade cover of that other Tomorrow Legion APC.
Looking back accross the combat zone, the mist starts billowing forward even faster, conspicuously covering only the two to three feet above the earth and refusing to move higher, unlike any real mist ever commonly seen. However, it does climb the rocky outcropping, toward the mother Dragon, moving nearly straight up but at the same speed, as if it too was level ground.
The mother Dragon withdraws her head from the narrow crevice into which she had reached, and looking back sees the mist just barely shy of her tail. She takes a breath and then spews forth fire, as many dragons are want to do. The mist reacts not a bit to the blast, moving as undisturbed as an illusion. Frustrated, the Dragon launches into the air lest the mist overtake her.
As Anpetu burst forth from the low wide entrance of the cave, his brother attempts to make the same maneuver. He is more or less successful, but whether for lack of his Brother's talent, a shift in the wind, or a chance movement of the mist, the dragon's rear legs and part of its tail swipe through the mist. Like the merc than team into it, only the body parts within the mist are affected, and here he has a Dragon's fierce spirit to rely upon.
The young Dragon screams, but unlike with the mercenary, he is borne aloft by wings, and not held up by the legs that were robbed of strength.
Although obviously injured, the young Dragon keeps its head, its strength, and the power of its wings. It catches a gust of air and soars up a few dozen yards higher into the sky, and out of the further reaches of the mist. Its hind legs and perhaps the last third of its tail dangle oddly.
Arsenio sees things start to go to hell in a handbasket fast. He experimentally tries burning the fog away, but regardless of the result:
"Fall back to the APC! Looks like some weird Rift shit is going on!"
Staying only long enough to note the results, he starts drifting back toward the vehicle.
Arsenio's flames burst up along the ground, igniting all the shrubs and plants. While not as impressive as a exploding flame blast, the ability to call flames out of nowhere is impressive all the same. As with the Dragon's breath however, the mist might as well be a projection on a screen for all the fire disturbs it.
The Borg shoulders his sword, bringing up a fully automatic grenade launcher (a GI-20 to be exact). He brings it up to shoulder, pointing directly at K-842.
"Ok, Tin-head, I keep this puppy loaded with AP Grenades for stuff Matilda can't handle. I suggest you let my buddy go real quick. Oh, and if you're thinking about collateral damage, I'm pretty sure I could nuke both of us with this thing before he even got singed, so save your breath!"
Grunting with the effort of holding off K8's crushing arms, the guy in the hides says, "I don't know what the hell that mist is, but I'm pretty sure it's got nothing to do with my hunt, or your rescue. I suggest we call this a draw and get the hell out of here."
I'm not really sure what that mist is either, but I'm pretty sure it will frak you up if I stick you in there.
Therun pauses in his run when he sees Jace go down, the big swordsman lurking, and then redoubles his speed to his fallen comrade when the man moves to confront K8. Not knowing any reliable medical procedures to address the issue, he grabs Jace's severed arm, stuffing it through his belt. He then picks up the fallen Juicer in a fireman carry, and begins moving as quick as he can back to the APC.
The man in the Hide Armour starts flexing and moving, trying to break free of K842's grip. Feeling that the borg is not lightening up his grip he says, "Alright; you asked for it."
He grunts with increased force and his strength seems to surge.
Breaking free with a shout of triumph, the man in hides spins to bring his blade up between himself and his recent captor.
"I'll remember this, insect. Grease, let's get out of here."
He moves off, backing up a bit, before turning to run, using Thumper's smokescreen as cover (keeping it between him and Ace, not entering it, if that wan't clear) to get to rocks he can follow to provide cover from the Glitterboy.
As the boy drops Androva off near the APC, she nods a greeting to the others. "If that mist is what it seems to be, we're up the proverbial creek sans paddle! Anyone have any ideas?"
Jace mutters something in his stupor about.. "F..get.. kill... sword... compensa.. shole.."
”The bad guys have the rite of it, Loading up and running seems like a good idea Boss”
As as he is moving towards Jace, the Psy-Stalker grabs the juicer and starts Thumpers direction. Great, now to see if I can supercharge that Juicer IRC…. He holds out a hand to Therun, ”Hold up for a second” He plugs what looks like it was once a transistor radio into the Juicers harness and whispers to it.
Bennie re-roll
"Clear"
Bennie re-roll
Bennie re-roll
Bennie add 1d6