Here's something else ... this happens after Espirit de Corpse, as a direct result of it in fact. Unambitious, with little by ways of plot, its as much a filler as Espirit will be ... but I think it's a fun one. It's still incomplete, and needs to be ran through a spellchecker, but I'd appreciate a first impression from whoever cares to throw in a cent or five. Have a poke.



"Going, going ... gone!"
"Well, that was interesting."
"It paid well enough, didn't it."
"Yeah, okay, that's one. And only one good point of it all."
"So negative so early in the morning. What, did you miss your coffee or something?"
"Watch it, musclehead."
"Sticks and stones, Ashley."
"... Right, now I know I haven't had my morning coffee and that I need it pretty badly."

------------------------------------
Demonbane Ltd
presents

Panzerfaust: It has to start somewhere.

a work of the shining spiral
set in the Ten Years period

written by Griever
Copyright 2003(c)
------------------------------------

The two men who checked into Farside Inn that night didn't cause much of a stir. The Rim was a place of oddities, harbor of scum of all descriptions, mercenaries, assassins, lawyers. You name it, we can find it for you, for a price - that was the motto of most independant Rimworlds.
As far as the inn's owner was concerned, the two were trouble, but so was about every second or third customer of his establishment. It was left unsaid that the Inn had to stay intact after all was said and done, a rule nobody ever voiced but one known well enough and followed dilligently enough ... after all, it was easier to take animosities elsewhere and come back for a cold one than getting them off your chest right now and having to look for a new place to spend the night, and a new wardrobe or whatever one had stashed in the room. Not to mention the gross of other customers, most of which were packing enough to make one feel slight pangs of envy and wonder wether one had come underdressed. Brawls in places like that often escalated to somewhat dramatic proportions.
One was tallish, with slightly wild coal-black hair, piercing eyes, and a smirk that said more about the owner than his garb or how he moved. Clad as he was in a pair of bluejeans and worn looking hiking boots, an equally worn leather jacket that was so obviously enforced it was clear the person wearing it was expecting trouble ... the long wooden stock protrouding over one of his shoulders, from the back of the weapon hanging in a holster sewn into the rear of the jacket, was an indication that if trouble came looking he'd actually be the one to welcome it with open arms and a smirk on his face. Well, no. He looked like he took everything with a smirk on his face.
Where the first one was merely tallish, the second stood at about six foot four of pure muscle, and muscle looking like it was there to be used instead of just for show. This one had his hair cropped short and a face that looked like you could use it to break bricks without it taking a scratch. One of his eyes was obviously cybertech, as was the left arm - down from slightly above his elbow. He wore armor too, an archaic breastplate and a bracer on the right - non-cybernetic - arm. And on his back was about the biggest m******ucking sword the inn's common room's occupants had seen in their lives. It was actually a little longer than the man was tall, and as broad at the widest point as his waist. The upper part of the hilt was wrapped in leather, for better grip, while the lower was unadorned steel.
They paid for two rooms, a week's rent in advance, ate ravenously and left to get some sleep.
The inn's owner was discreetly inquiring as to insurance rates, and looking into possible holiday destinations as soon as they were out of sight.

The building looked for all the world like a run-o'-the-mill factory, fence and all, some guards, heavy machines standing around within the peremiter and so on and so forth.
She was fooled for all of three seconds. Actually, this was made easier due to the fact that she _knew_ damn well this was no plain old factory. Roland335 was a fairly sparsely populated system, even for its kind, with one inhabited planet and only one city on that planet that could be called such. Loosely defined 'trade' was the life blood of the system, and manufacture was resticted to some construction vehicles, cheap weapons rigs, and even cheaper weapons. Whatever this was, it was no 'construction goods manfacturing plant'. She could bet her life savings on the fact that the rigs supposedly being 'manufactured' there were actually being brought in during one or two of the weekly transport drops a month. The facility wasn't close enough to the city's airspace not to be allowed to have their own landing pads and approach vectors.
And traffic had picked up lately too.
She was a thief, if the need arose, and an information broker otherwise. Sometimes a mercenary. And she could just _feel_ that the money that would come to her from what she would gather within the compound would be very well worth it.
Stealthily, the sneak-suit clad woman prepared her gear and steeled herself for, if not the most difficult, then certainly the most stressful part of the infiltration - the wait.

"So, what did this Takizawa character have to say, exactly?"
"Some pretty interesting stuff, that's what. A pair of his acquaintances apparently hit Rae'kn some three months ago. Bounty hunters, one side looking for some place to relax and the other chasing a mark. Got more than either bargained for. So much that the planet was quarantined and the city ... well, the city ain't there anymore. Word is that a Edo-native Corp has its hand in the game there."
"And what did this Takizawa character have to say about what word says?"
"That there was more than one Corp involved. The one that came in and that everyone's talking about was just there to mop up. Apparently, one of his bounty hunter friends has friends in high places. And those friends of a friend are the ones paying out bills for the next few months."
"Having a profit margin is a nice thing. Nearly forgot how damn good it felt. Not just this vagabonding around. Why did your explosives' merchant friend point them our way, anyway?"
"The job description."
"Oh. I was afraid of that. What'd these suits do, wake up the Hand or something?"
"Something called mutagenic manipulation of neural tissue, leading to mutation of the body and loss of any but the basest of urges."
"Say that again in a language I can understand."
"They brewed up some shit that turns people into zombies. Or close enough at least."
...
...
...
"He was right, it _is_ right up out alley."

The camera clicked near-noiselessly as the figure crept between rows of what looked like cryo tanks. What the hell were these things, anyway? And why did her stomach start trying to tie itself into knots as soon as she'd made her entry?
Well, one thing was certain. There was no _way_ this was a construction plant. It looked more like some sort of warehouse-slash-research lab. She'd passed through a cluster of rooms that had some pretty seriously bad vibes going, not to mention the biohazard markers on more than one door. But everything looked pretty new, really. Recent construction, at least on most of the lab area. Weird. But a good weird, in a money-making sense. She could already smell the cash rolling in after this was done.
Carefully sliding another door open just enough to peek through, she survayed the next section of the building.
Great, just great. More labs.
Silent as a cat, she slipped inside and closed the door behind her.

"Looks like a happenin' place, doesn't it?"
"No."
"Spoilsport."
"Do we try to be quiet about it and take them by surprise, or do we just walk down there, bust in the front gate and go in shooting?"
"Can't say I see anything wrong about doing it either way. If we do the second there's more chance of not trashing it up and releasing the virus. The first has a better chance of us getting to the virus without them making off with it."
"Half-half in both cases. Oh, what the hell. I'll just distract them and you get in and get the virus taken care of."
"Right, the usual plan then. Let's ..."
The sirens going off in the compound below broke that train of thought pretty much immediately.
"... Well, looks like someone else made the choice for us this time. Auxillary plan then."
"Right. Auxillary plan? What auxillary plan?"
"Go in, kill things, blow shit up. You know, _the_ auxillary plan."
"Oh. _That_ auxillary plan. Okay, that'll work."
"After you, big guy."

Mei Ling was not having a good day. Nope, she was not having a good day at all. All because of one pesky guard who actually decided to be thorough for a change. She didn't manage to take him down before he triggered the intruder alert and started firing, hitting everything but her in the process, and that had in turn opened up a whole new can of worms. Or whatever these things were, anyway. Construction plant her firm little posterior. This was some sort of bioweapons facility!
And some of those bioweapons had some seriously bad attitude going; currently it was going right after her. And if the bad attitude happened to be nearly two meters in height, nearly as wide, scale walls as easily as it walked on terra firma, and have fangs and teeth which had the length of the average knife you did best to get the hell away from said attitude.
Which she was currently trying to do.
The woman slammed her shoulder into one of the heavy doors that led into the lab, slammed said door closed behind her as she continued running. The heavy impact that sounded behind her - flesh on metal - was enough of a motivation to spur her on. As if she needed any _more_ motivation.
Even over the din that was her blood pounding in her ears could she hear the running footfalls from the corridor before her. She stopped, looked around wildly, finally looked up and figured it was the best she could do on such short notice. One foot on a chair. Step forward, both feet on a lab desk. Jump. Arms upwards. Grab the pipes and pull yourself up. Cling and hope as hell they don't look up.
The armed security types that passed below her did indeed forego the inspection of the ceiling in favor of blindly rushing in where she doubted even angels dared tread. Fools. She nimbly came down again, landing in a crouch and breaking off into a run again. A scream came from somewhere behind her as a series of shots rang out. The ugly sound of flesh being torn into, first by bullets, then by something _else_.
She did quite admantly _not_ look back. Another door was put between herself and whatever those things behind her were. Almost outside!
Unfortunately, there had been one little detail she'd forgotten to take into account during her somewhat forced choice of escape route.
Coming through the next door she was grabbed by one arm, and bodily thrown into the room. And faced with more than a handful of muzzles. _Now_ she remembered why this route didn't seem right to her. It led right through the guard room. Taking into account that she'd been rightly terrified by those _creatures_ back there, she could forgive herself the oversight. In a purely academic manner that is. As it was doubtful that the four thugs would.
"Well well well, what do we 'ave 'ere." tall, dark and chromed said, grinning ... leering?
A set of detonations from _outside_ shook the ground and let her regain her footing in the following confusion. The four thugs in security guard uniforms took a little longer. All she could ask for.
The mercenary bolted, shouldering one of the foursome aside, throwing open the door and starting through the corridor leading to the outer door of the complex.
Then her muscles seized up as shock coursed through her limbs, erupting from a point in the small of her back. She just barely managed to arrest her fall and not und up sprawled on her face. Behind her one of the guards, on legs that were still a little wobbly, stepped into the corridor, a Glock NLW electro-pistol in one hand. Stunners.
As he reached her shaking form the only thoughts that were on her mind were that she didn't want to die like this. The screams that came from behind the man's back a second before his outstretched hand reached her were enough to make him turn around, take a step forward.
Mei Ling's hand reached for the Seburo in her back holster, drawing the shortarm over one shoulder and letting the clip drop to the ground. Her other hand, shaking just as badly as the first, fumbled at the belt pouches for a painful second or two, before grabbing the properly marked clip and slotting it into the weapon's back.
The C-25 was one of the finest submachineguns ever made. The weapon was small, a little larger than a handcannon, could be hidden easily and outfitted with a number of attachments that did anything from doubling the effective range and power to making it a non-lethal enforcement tool. The clip that now lay on the ground was filled with gel ammo from exactly such a conversion. But it was, originally and still, something that was meant primarily for killing things. And it did this with a surprising efficiency for a slugthrower.
The guard recoiled from something, shook for a second as he stepped back ... and was bowled over as something the size of a Manticoran hexapuma crashed into its front. The size was about the only part of it that was even remotely similar to that of a hexapuma. Where the Manticoran animal was sleek and deadly, much like the Terran predator it had been named after, this was a gnarled and almost reptilian thing of naked, pulsing flesh and bone that pierced it along the spine as well as at the paws where it formed claws. The head was a naked skull, covered in a thin layer of flesh that was crisscrossed with blue veins. But the most frightening part were not the bone claws on its limbs, not the grotesque skull; the eyes, blue and surprisingly human that peered from the sockets in the skull, filled with a boundless hatered and glee for slaughter.
It looked at her as it pinned the guard to the ground and bit deeply into the joint of his neck and shoulder, and Mei Ling saw the sides of its neck flatten, something coursing from the thing into the now trashing body of the man. The creature released its hold, stepping forward, over the suddenly still body of the felled guard, and tensed ...
The trigger had been regulated for her specifically, the pressure required being very faint because of her deft fingers. In the span of no more than three seconds the entire clip of the C-25, all fifty high velocity bullets, were emptied into the beast as Mei Ling backed away. The clip fell to the ground, her hands moving seemingly on their own and slotting a fresh one.
The creature had been caught in mid leap, the force of impact as the rounds slammed into it nearly stopping its forward motion. That the six millimeter ammunition had sufficient power to do this, even taking into account the number of bullets that had been fired, was an indicator of just why the little gun was so favored by those who could appreciate such things. Some of the shots had struck the shoulders and chest, some the stomach, a few the head. Those lattermost had done, controversely, the least damage. Somehow the thing's skull had proven to be sturdy enough not to buckle under the impacts. It was still covered with blood from where the alloy jacketed projectiles had torn the skin. The rest of the creature hadn't fared as well. It's back was a mess, littered with torn, bleeding holes.
And still, it mover. The eyes glared at her as its hands reached forward, claws biting into the floor and pulling it forward.
She emptied another clip.
The thing, what was left of it, was still.
A wonder if it had still been able to move, since head and shoulders had been turned into a messy, bloody pulp. She'd slotted hollow points.
And as her hand made to grab another clip she was frozen by the image of the guard, throat damn near torn out and all of his blood on the floor, move ... raise his head ... and stand. The man's flesh was gray, lifeless, his jaw slack ... but his eyes, bloodshot as they were, focused on her immediately. And she could almost feel the sheer hunger of that stare.
Then the door behind her slammed open, and a rough voice shouted:
"Down!"
It was enough for her to snap out of shock and hit the dirt, figuratively speaking. The air above her suddenly came alive, rushed forward with the characteristic whine that accompanied high powered kinetic weapons. The invisible fist slammed into the onetime guard's torso. It lifted him into the air, carried him with it, slammed him into the wall opposite the corridor's exit leaving a deep dent in it. The man's chest and head had been crushed, flattened, broken bone protrouding through bloodied flesh here and there. He didn't move.
A booted foot came down next to her head, a knee was planted in the middle of her back, something fell beside her with a metallic tinkle. Something round. She could see a canister of some sort being lobbed forward, felt the pressure on her back ebb. A cold hand grasped he collar and damn near threw her through the ouside door. The door itself was slammed shut moments later, and a loud, dull thump sounded from within. The door buckled, nearly gave, and then all was still.
"Did they cut you?" two cold round things were pressed into the back of her neck.
"Wha ..." she replied less than eloquently, still shaken up.
"Those things in there, did they cut you? Scratch you?" the voice insisted.
"N .. no."
Another cold circle, smaller this time, was pressed into the side of her neck. A short pain coursed through her as she felt something cold expand from the spot. A hypo!
The pressure let off again, and she turned around, hand fumbling for her gun ... she'd left it back in the corridor, it dawned on her.
Then she stopped that trail of thought. She saw whoever it was that had hauled her out of there. He was average in height, maybe slightly tallish, and built like someone who took care of himself. Coal black hair, dark eyes, an angular face. And he was definitely not one of the compound's secforce enforcers. For one thing, he was geared towards a war more than anything else. His torso was covered by an armored jacket of some sort, with a belt loped across the chest with cardridges for the disruptor rifle he was currently reloading on it. A double-barreled slugthrower was in a holster on one hip. And his right hand was some sort of cyber, but she had no idea what exactly.
"What the hell was that?"
He looked at her. She noted the smirk on his otherwise grim face.
"The injection was to stop the virus from spreading. Far as we can tell, it can spread through the air as well, but blood contact makes it move a helluva lot faster."
"Virus? We? What virus, and who the hell are you?!"
The man slotted a fresh cardridge into the disruptor weapon, and grinned.
"Didn't figure you for one of the security. And the virus is something these assholes made as a terror weapon for whoever pays most. We're here to blow shit to kingdom come."
"I don't know about any virus, but there was _something_ in there. Hell, there were dozens of the things. Like something from a bad horror flick, all skin and claws. It bit the guy you blew away back there before I filled it with bullet holes."
"Shit." the man swore heartily. "That's what I thought that big fucker was. You said there were more of the things in there?"
No real answer was needed when the door was ripped from its hinges and a trio of blistered, howling beasts like the one Mei Ling had put down shot from the inferno the incidentary grenade had left within the guard room and the corridor leading from it to the outside.

It was like it had always been ... at least as far back as he could remember. He would fight, and they would fall. His arms strained with the repeated effort as the huge blade he wielded with seemingly casual strength sliced through flesh and bone, often cutting his foes in half.
His blood boiled with anger, and he let it roar through him, giving him even more strength. Some would say that it was impossible for him to move as nimbly and quickly as he did. They'd say he wasn't human, was a psyker of some sort or had cybered his body to put that sort of power to bear. They'd be wrong. The only thing that was cybernetic about him were his right eye and the lower part of his left arm. Maybe they were right in that he wasn't entirely human. Not anmore anyway. He could feel it inside of himself. The man didn't get sick, didn't age. He recoved from any, even the most grievous injury. He was sacrifice, therefore he had to be kept until he could be offered up to the Hand. A curse.
But above and beyond all that, he was, had been, and would always be one thing.
As the creatures fell around him, coming down on bony claws and sneering with skull faces and hateful eyes, the Black Swordsman crossed his arms and readied himself.
The first attack came from both forward and from behind. The others followed closely behind. There was no way of escape from this gauntlet ... he didn't want one. Didn't _need_ one.
The huge blade cut in an arc as he turned, catching the one in front in the head with the very tip, which was still enough for the heavy weapon to cut and, more than that, smash its way cleanly through the mutant's head. The corpse was pulled along the path of the swing, leaving the ground and flying until it hit he wall of the mostly empty warehouse with a sickening series of snaps. The next closest one had nearly reached his back when the man turned, bringing the heavy weapon down and across, tearing cleanly through the being's torso and continuing on. He moved, stepping over the corpse and giving himself more room, going through with the slash and turning with it. Planting a heel behind himself he arrested the blade's motion ... no mean feat that with the sort of momentum it had built up ... and reversed it. It went cleanly through a duo of beasts that had only turned to face him.
Six left.
He let it continue its arc, the creatures in its way ducking. All save one, and that was shorn in half as the ones before it had been.
Five.
One was in the air, coming down on top of him. He let it come, let go of the sword with his left arm and let it carry him into a spin as the right strained to hold the heavy blade in check during the motion. He timed it just right, and came out of the spin with his left facing the beast, putting all the momentum into a swing of his left arm. It connected with the attacker's skull, the composite fist striking his opponent right smack in the middle of its head. There was a sickening crack and a wet noise followed immediately.
Four.
He grabbed the sword with both hands again, and turned to face the remaining four. They split, circling wearily, claws clacking on the bloodied floor. For him, it made little difference. He was used to fighting in much worse conditions. He crossed his arms again, the blade held in his right, over one shoulder and horizontally to the ground.
They spread and came at him from four sides at once, and he swung wide. The one to the left hit the ground with a heavy smack as it's head was seperated from its shoulders. The one in front ducked, going under the swing. The one to the right was caught low, the weapon going through its middle. He almost felt the breath of the one behind him on his neck, and ducked down on his knees, letting it sail through the air above him and crash into the one that was leaping for him from the front. His left arm came up again as the blade clattered to the floor, the right one steadying it. He opened the palm of the left hand.
The whine of compensators was loud, shrieking. The hand curled into a claw as arcs of power briefly flared along the surface, through the fingers and formed a ball of blinding white light floating in the cradle of the palm. Then the whine stopped and the projectile rocketed forward, into the two beasts, searing through them with the heat of a miniature sun.
A few exhaust vanes, hidden along the length of the artificial arm, spat steam as the arm cooled.
He stood, dusted himself off - still a little mindful of the now only scalding palm of his left hand - and picked up his sword.
What he was, had been, and would always remain.
Berserker.

The gun roared, louder than Mei Ling felt any chemical propellant using slugthrower hand any right to. Both barrels spat fire at the first one, and she watched in amazement as the creature screamed when two holes the size of her head just _appeared_ in the middle of its torso. It fell to the ground in two pieces, and didn't move.
The sardonic looking man was moving though, bringing his left arm around as his right one slid the dual barreled monster into its holster. The disruptor weapon roared again, air rushing forward with the pressure of thousands of atmospheres concentrated in an area no larger than a man's fist. The shot hit the second one in the head, snapping it back with a dry sound of bone breaking and being crushed, and the creature landed on the ground no more than a few feet from them, twitching and shaking but not able to do anything more.
And the last one closed.
Mei Ling backpedalled as the man actually stepped _forward_, holstering the disruptor on his back and raising his right hand.
The beast jumped. The man ducked to the side and punched it in the face. For a moment, it looked as if it had done nothing but irritated the creature, but the arm stayed up, and a moment later it lowered ...
There was a long, glinting blade coming from where the man's cyber-hand had been, disappearing through the attacker's open maw and into its guts. The blade's owner braced his foot against the fallen, twitching monster and pulled, his weapon coming up through the thing's chest in a spray of gore, dissecting it in the process. The metal began to shift, flow, and receeded to form back into the cybernetic hand she's seen before.
"Great, just great." the man hissed as he retrieved a small cylinder from his jacket, popped the top, and dropped it into the corpse. He proceeded to do this with all the others as well. The cylinders just lay there for a few seconds before bursting into searing flame. "Now we'll have to blow this place up no matter what happens."
"Umm ... I hate to pry but ... WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE?!"
"Ouch, lower the volume already." the ma winced. "What's going on is that the morons here played with something they shouldn't have been playing with and if that something gets out we're going to get a whole cityload of people making like your shambling friend inside."
"My shambling wha ... oh." Mei Ling's eyes widened. "But ... but those things ... you killed them, right? Without them there isn't any more of that virus thing? Right? _Right_?"
"Wrong."
Mei Ling 'eeped' at the deep voice behind her, and whirred around faster than she even thought possible. Then she almost wished she hadn't. The man in front of her was tall, very tall in fact, and built like a combat cyborg. But it wasn't that, nor his black and battered attire, nor the fact that he had what could possibly be the biggest sword she'd seen in her life strapped to his back that made her recoil. It was his face. Despite the fact that it could be judged as ruggedly handsome in a certain light, right at that moment it was more demonic than anything she'd seen in the past fifteen minutes. And that was saying a lot. There was simply an aura of unavoidable death hanging in the air around him, and he ... he looked like he _reveled_ in it!
"'Bout time you showed up. Seen the uglies?" came from behind her.
"Ten of them. And a score of the usual shamblers all through the goddamned place." the swordsman snorted. "Do we blow?"
"We're blowing. Too much of a risk otherwise. Charge placing?"
"Tricky. Part of the place is empty warehouse space, part is labs, part is some sort of storage where I think _these_" here the larger man indicated the still burning corpses of the creatures. "Where these things were being kept. Nicely riddled with bullet holes."
"So we can bring the place down, but we can't really get the charges set up in a way that gets rid of everything with certainity."
"But ... but you can't _do_ that!" Mei Ling shouted. "No matter what they did, they're still people, for goodness sake! You have that serum thing right?! The thing you injected me with!"
"Yea, about four more doses, and you need a few weeks to get the thing made with the proper equipment which we do not _have_. Time or equipment." the gunman replied. "Not enough for all the sods in there, even if we were going to prove that we're good little humanitarians. Which we're not, in case you hadn't noticed."
"But then why did you help me?"
"What we have isn't a serum, exactly," the swordsman answered. "The real serum's easier to make, but it's got a 70% chance of doing the offing itself if the person it's applied to isn't strong enough. What we have is something that doesn't kill the patient but only works in the early stages of infection, which isn't saying much."It's a quick fix for combat solutions that prevents getting the bug or gets it out of your system if you apply it early enough. I have my doubts as to whether we're going to find a whole lot of survivors. You were lucky. And all things aside, if it spreads onto the local fauna or flora we're going to have a fuckup on our hands that'll make Scayra seem a nice little vacation spot in comparison."
That shut her up. Scayra had been a disaster from the onset. A world where the mild animals had been turned into raging monsters through the introduction of a human disease ... the common cold. The human population had been nearly butchered in the process of native takeover. Even now it was considered a hazard spot, and there was only one heavily staffed and armed 'research' station dirtside, manned with Humanx expeditionary force marines. There had been a huge city there before the plague took effect, but that was now part of the jungle that covered a vast majority of the planet's surface. A steel and concrete part, but a part nonetheless, with its own predators and dangers. And all that aside, Scayra was ... personal.
"Alright," the gunman sighed. "We'll have to _try_ at least. The stuff we have would have been enough for the labs, but this is a little bigger scale-wise."
It wasn't even much of a debate anymore, not to Mei Ling anyway. The two men would go through with it regardless, and their methods aside, a rational part of her mind could see that they were _right_ in their evaluation of the threat. If this thing ripped loose ...
"My god ... Rae'kn," she whispered as the pieces fell into place. "Umbrella had a seat there, didn't they? It was quarantined three weeks ago, as contaminated due to terrorist strikes ... but there were no terrorist strikes, were there?"
The tall man shook his head in a silent 'no'. That was enough for her. A choice was made.
"This place ..." she began. "It has an old fusion plant in the sub-level. From what plans I could get my hands on its still in operational readiness as an auxillary. The readings I sneaked inside said it was being kept on standby ..."
"So that containment failure due to power outage isn't possible. Makes sense." the gunman nodded. "What happened to 'moral objections' all of a sudden."
"They died with my parents." the woman replied, steel in her gaze as she turned to look him in the eyes. "When the plague broke out on Scayra."
A soft humm told that the disruptor weapon was online again, and fully charged from the power cell. The gunman nodded at her.
"Here," he handed her the rifle, and the ammo belt. His hand went to his hip and retrieved the dual barreled slugthrower, which he proceeded to reload. "You know where the plant is, you take us there. Know how to use that thing?"
"Point and click. Disruptors aren't exactly demanding weapons. Recoil is about nonexistent since the actual projectile forms a foot before the barrel." she said.
"Piece of advice," the gunman told her. "Headshots is what you're going for. Bust the brain. And feel luck they're just muties."
"Lucky?" Mei Ling asked increduosly. "I'm about to go into a bioweapons research center where a virus is turning people into zombies and monsters from b-rated holovids run around biting people doing the same, to try and blow up a damn _fusion plant_ and get out alive and you tell me to consider myself lucky?!"
"Yes," the swordsman told her flatly. "They're just muties. Alive, and the brain is a weak point. You're lucky they're not real undead."
The female mercenary gave him a look, and turned to give another to the gunman.
"I'd believe him if I were you," he said. "Trust us, we do this sort of shit for a living."

TBC. When? Umm ... I'm on it. Aside from all the other things I'm supposedly working on. *sigh*


--
-Griever
'Still of a winter's night, they say, when the wind is in the trees
When the moon is a ghostly galleon, tossed upon the cloudy seas,
When the road is a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,
A highwayman comes riding,
Riding, riding,
A highwayman comes riding, up to the old inn-door.'

>And still, it mover. -> And still, it moved.

>she'd left it back in the corridor, it dawned on her. -> then it dawned on her, she left it in the corridor.

> using slugthrower hand any right to. -> using slugthrower had any right to.

Very nice, didn't read over it carefully for mistakes, but this feels like the plot of most FPS rehashed. hmm, is the swordguy from Record of Loddoss War or from Beserk?

I'm working on a review for the other tw storie posts, but I just have so little time.

I have written a bit of the NuPari stuff, but it's still only fragments and not many of those either. and tomorrow I'm leaving my comp again for a few weeks.

RE: manticorian Hexpuma

I believe it's native to Sphinx, meaning it'd be a Sphinxian Hexpuma.

Never, under any circumstances, take a sleeping pill and a laxative on the same night.

looks nice.

you might want to cut back on Guts dialogue back. He's not generally talkative and when he does talk it tends to be short sentences. It would also help identify him during long conversations between him and Ash. I'm assuming I got who was who in the following conversation, I might be wrong.


Ash: "So, what did this Takizawa character have to say, exactly?"
Guts: "Two of his 'friends' hit Rae'kn some three months back. Bounty hunters, one looking to relax and the other chasing a mark. Afterwards the planet was quarantined and the city ain't there anymore. Word is a Corp from Edo was had a hand in it."
Ash: "And what did this Takizawa character have to say about what word says?"
Guts: "Word says more than one Corp was playing. The one that everyone's talking about was just there to mop up. One of his friends has friends in high places who'll be paying our bills for the next few months."
Ash: "Having a profit margin is a nice thing. Nearly forgot how damn good it felt. Not just this vagabonding around. Why did your explosives' merchant friend point them our way, anyway?"
Guts: "The job description."
Ash: "Oh. I was afraid of that. What'd these suits do, wake up the Hand or something?"
Guts: "'Mutagenic manipulation of neural tissue, leading to mutation of the body and loss of any but the basest of urges.'"
Ash: "Say that again in a language I can understand."
Guts: "They made some shit that makes people zombies. Or close enough."
...
...
...
Ash: "He was right, it _is_ right up out alley."


drakensis

"I believe that forgiving the enemy is God's function. Ours is simply to arrange the meeting." - General H Norman Schwarzkopf

Catty - yup. He's from Berserk. He's the lead, in fact. Guts. Or Gatsu, if you got the right fansub. Heh.

Norgarth - yeah, I know. About the hexapuma that is. I was going to change that but I kinda ran with the story, my fingers got away from me, and it slipped my mind. Thanks for catching that one.

Drake - you got it wrong. Ash is the one usually going for high yield explosives and big guns, so he's in contact with Takizawa (for those of you who're wondering, Ken Takizawa is an immortal drifter, your basic highlander style one, and one of those rare individuals out there who could disarm pretty much any sort of explosives with a set of pliers and a pocket-knife. There's more to him than that, aside from the fact that he's Minnie May's SO, but that is another story for another day). That aside, one of them mentions the Hand in that dialogue - that's Guts doing the talking. The God Hand is, basically, a conclave of hyperbeings who enjoy doing the demon thing and ruling over an Outer Rim medieval tech-level planet. They're actually minor anchors for Khorne into the Spiral, keeping tabs on the dimensional shift for the Chaos God. They actually strenghten the God's ties to the Spiral whenever they initiate a new member, allowing more of his power to flow into the galaxy, giving him more leverage to climb out of the Eye ... well, you get the picture. Now if we could come up with something suitable for Slaanesh, Nurgle and Tzeenetch(sp?) along those lines.
That aside, I do need to rehash Guts' dialogue a bit, yeah.

--
-Griever
'Still of a winter's night, they say, when the wind is in the trees
When the moon is a ghostly galleon, tossed upon the cloudy seas,
When the road is a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,
A highwayman comes riding,
Riding, riding,
A highwayman comes riding, up to the old inn-door.'

>Now if we could come up with something suitable for Slaanesh, Nurgle and Tzeenetch(sp?) along those lines.

Well you could say that the creator(s) of the T-Virus worship Nurgle, or possibly Tzeenetch.