Round 3

Posted on Tue Apr 17th, 2018 @ 4:55am by Commander Bertrand Cuprum & Commander Cor Cordale & Lieutenant Commander Alec Wescott & Lieutenant Ishan Satele & Lieutenant Hel Samedi & Lieutenant Sara'draphia T'eseri & Lieutenant JG Scotty Kayne

Mission: Of Machines and Men
Location: The Arena

Sara, Cor, Wescott and Scotty became aware of their surroundings again. They stood equidistant around the arena in a circle. Val was also there, at least one of her, but she was so huddled it was hard to tell what she was aware of.

"Viewers from around the Galaxy," the voice intoned. "The round we always wait for with anticipation is finally here; the Semi-final. Who is the greatest among these contestants? Only one will continue for the final show down against the reigning champion, Arkelba! If you are the betting sort, now is the time to place you wager. Contestants, begin!"

Val Seran stood. At least, the one single bioform that had made it this far. It was the 'whole' form, that still had both natural arms. GX-80 slung over a shoulder, Type II holstered on her belt. She wavered, looking around with a forlorn expression on her face. She took a staggered step forward, unceremoniously dropping her marksman rifle to the ground with a clatter, seemingly not caring about cover or tactics or fighting.

Seeing Val stumble, Sara thought it would be best to eliminate her first to minimize the stress of being separate from her other half. Pulling out the hand phaser Bertrand had given her, she set it to heavy stun and ran towards Val, hoping to get to her first.

With the good Doctor so occupied, what happened next was an easy mark. Cor took aim, confirmed the setting was one stun, and took a shot at Scotty. Yes, the Doctor was the easy mark, but she was already occupied. Fighting slightly dirty was alright given the circumstances.

Scotty was able to dodge the shot and took his own at the doctor.

The shot hit Sara’s shoulder, sending her rolling to the ground. This changed her priorities, now Scotty was her target. Quickly righting herself, she returned fire with a short spread of shots.

Seeing the weapons fire, seeing the crew - her fellow crew - ducking and weaving, finding cover, peeking out to take a shot, stirred something inside Val Seran. Displeasure. Anger. Seething RAGE. Her mind clouded, not enough of her there to suppress the instincts, her forlorn expression turned to a foaming snarl even as she reached down to pick up her dropped marksman rifle.

Her snarl turned into a growl, her eyes flaring with rage, her fur standing on end, claws on her feet dug into the ground with every step, ignoring all cover, all semblance of tactics. The staccato of rifle shots rang out, emptying the stored power charge, as she hip fired at everything that moved and some things that didn't, her voice howling out with frenzied fury. "GIVE ME BACK MY OTHER HALF!!"

Okay, so now this was happening. A crazed psycho Dala.. Half-Dalacari with a charged rifle and a death wish. Half a death wish? A full... no, not the time to talk. The Thux hit the proverbial deck, sprawled out as rifle fire flung itself this way and that. No tactics, no aiming, but if he made himself a lower target he might survive. Or at least, outlast her charge clip. Did she fire sixteen shots or fifteen? He honestly lost count, but he'd draw a bead on whoever wasn't moving. Either she'd get them, or he would.

Still... most frightening thing he'd seen in a while. He remembered helping the Dalacari by arbitrating their Thinking Engine problems, and they were so passionate about their sciences and studies. So calm, so collected. This.... this was a perversion of everything he remembered, everything he had surmised. This was what kept them awake at nights.

Shit.

Scotty was able to dodge the doc's shots but was still unable to come out of cover at this point, then he remembered what Jaton had done to his phaser, maybe he could do the same here, he went for his tricorder, and whipped it out, singling out the docs phaser, and set it to overload.

Hearing a strange wereing sound coming from her phaser, Sara quickly threw it away from the group “stupid Federation technology” she said before pulling out her Nissari pistol and triggering it to unfold.

Not thinking straight, the mind of a single Dalacari was a minefield of half realism and muddled senses, screaming silence overwhelming all reasonable thought. The mutter of 'stupid Federation technology' drew her attention, and seeing her trauma, her pain, utterly ignored caused her already unreasonable, seething rage to flare up even further.

With a crack like lightning, the last small-caliber, anti-personnel round in Val's GX-80 marksman rifle flew straight at Sara's head, at super-sonic velocity.

Time seemed to slow for Sara for just a moment as she heard the shot, turned her head just enough to see the shot heading straight for her head. Taking a breath in, Sara closed her eyes just before the round hit, killing the Drone and sending it rolling away from Val.

Cordale winced as the sound of the bullet caught up to the moment, a ringing in his ears that felt too real for comfort. He stood quickly, more of a scramble than any controlled stand as he made his way to Val. This whole contest was wearing down on him, what kind of people would demand this level of torment just to see their leader?

He didn't know, he didn't want to know. He just wanted to at least set one thing right. With that thought in his mind, he came up behind Val and brought his prosthetic limb around her shoulders. The ancient limb's articulators clamping down on her shoulder as the cool metal limb reached across her collar. "Val Seran, let me set you free. Tell Sil and Cal I miss them." the Thux whispered, in a hush meant only for the two of them before the bright light of a phaser to the back flared between them.

Val winced as she was grabbed from behind. The instinct to struggle dulled as half of her was missing, she simply dropped her now empty GX-80 to the ground with a clatter, closed her eyes and a soft smile played across Dalacari lips even before the flash claimed the drone's life.

He knelt down with her as the pair came down. He wasn't sure what would happen to her now, but to save one friend from suffering was enough for him. With that, he simply closed his eyes and muttered to himself. "I promised to be a better Thux. I promised to solve my problems rather than run away from them." he took a shaky breath, "I .. I promised to forgive. I promised to be free. F... Free enough for ... for everyone who I ... I carried with me."

Scotty looked up from behind his cover, looked around, saw that Sara was dead, along with Val, he didn't know what to do, What kind of messed up world is this He thought to himself, and adjusted his phaser, No way was he gonna lose, he aimed his phaser at Cor, who was immobilized, "Forgive me, commander," he said, then pushed the trigger,

Cor didn't even feel the phaser. Technically he did, but it was over in a flash, and the Thux's lifeless body collapsed in a heap. Execution via phaser... Now, he was like his brothers.

Scotty then looked around the Arena, seeing as how the announcer hadn't called out his Victory, so he moved around the Arena, and saw Wescott hiding behind some cover on the edge of the Arena

Alec stood, with a slight look of surprise. He hadn't expected to be seen. He quickly drew his phaser and pointed it at Scotty.

Scotty ducked behind cover and let off a few shots, then thought to himself, maybe he could overload Wescott's phaser. A worn out trick, sure, but hey, If it ain't broke, why fix it? He then pulled out his tricorder again, singling out Wescott's phaser.

Alec started to hear a high pitched whine coming from his phaser, and realised that Scotty was trying to overload his phaser. He stood up straight, and using all his years of training and experience, threw the weapon towards Scotty's hiding position, using it, effectively, as a grenade. He ducked back down and waited for the inevitable explosion.

Scotty saw the phaser coming at him and ran as fast as he could, jumping away right before the explosion. (KABOOM) He then stood after the explosion Shooting at Wescott's lat known position.

Having used the throwing of the phaser as a distraction, Alec had skirted his way around cover, and behind his opponent. He came silently up behind Scotty, and got him in a choke hold, making him drop his phaser.

Scotty struggled for a little while before he was able to wiggle free of Wescott's choke hold, he ran over to the phaser, threw it against the wall, breaking it into several pieces. "Let's do this," he said before removing his uniform jacket.

"You wanna dance, we'll dance!" Alec shouted back, removing his uniform jacket, revealing a tank top and a six pack. What Alec didn't have in speed, he made up for with muscle. Training as a Security Officer had made him muscly, and he had knowledge of many different kinds of martial arts/self defence.

"You know, we could just refuse to fight each other," Scotty said, "God knows I'm gonna get a court-martial for 'killing' my superior officers," he said, and used finger quotes around killing.

Alec nodded thoughtfully. It would be to their advantage to have two of them seeing this leader, and would help if things went south to. "Sounds like a plan Lieutenant." Alec replied, smiling softly.

"You hear that, you damned maniacs, we won't do it! We won't kill each other!" Scotty yelled at the announcer and audience.

The announcer's voice rang over the audience, "Well, this is disappointing, but we have seen participants act like this before. As our audience will remember, the rules are quite clear about admittance to the Leadership. Only one-on-one meetings are allowed. In the last conflict of this type, the contestants nominated one of them to go through while the other forfeited, while the time before that both contestants waited till one of them dropped from dehydration. It has to be said it was a most unsatisfying semi-final. We can only hope that these two make a decision so we can all move forward."

"Alright," he then grabbed his combadge, and put his hands behind his back for a few seconds, then put out two of his closed fists, "Pick the one with the badge," Scotty said.

"Left!" Alec said, picking the first option that came into his head. He had no idea what Scotty had planned, but hoped he'd picked right.

Scotty then swung his left hand, knocking Wescott in the head, knocking him out. The badge had been in his rear pocket.

Alec had an instant of surprise before he felt himself falling, landing slumped on the floor.

"I'll be the one going, Announcer!" Kayne shouted up

"Nice surprise move there. So it is Lieutenant Scotty Kane who goes straight through to meet the current leader and the reigning champion, Arkelba!"