Village in the Alps [Michel, Meabh and Tony]

Description: A small village located deep in the Alps, the location is rather difficult to reach.  Only a few poorly maintained dirt roads stretch from civilization up to the slightly backwards logging and mining town.  Though no major urban landmark, the central town has all the necessary services including a sheriff's office, post office, general store, and of course a bar.  Most of the buildings are wooden with antique tin roofs.  Due to a nearby mining operation, larger pieces of equipment remain parked around the outskirts of the town.  The village is high enough up for a constant dusting of snow, tough in recent weeks the snowfall has picked up leaving several inches covering just about everything.  As we speak, the village appears deserted.  No figures move among the streets and alleys, no sounds of hustle and bustle can be heard in the dead of night with thick clouds covering any helpful light from the moon and stars.  All is quiet.  Much too quiet even for this deep in the wilderness.  

Town Appearance:  http://www.alaskapublic.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Arctic-Village.png

Enemies:
Sanders (Cat C)- M63 machine gun, two spare magazines. http://www.wallpaperbe.com/wallpapers/2013/02/Gta-4-The-Lost-And-Damned-1200x1600.jpg

Flora (Cat C)- Beretta 92 pistol, one spare magazine. https://2img.net/h/i176.photobucket.com/albums/w169/WrynWinslow/Anime/BikerGirl.jpg

Phil, Bill and Todd (Cat F) - Crowbar, Browning 12 gauge semiautomatic shotgun (ten spare shells), Uzi submachine gun (one spare magazine) http://s1.zerochan.net/Furuya.Triplets.240.1255123.jpg

Enter ----> From Rome, to kick vampire ass.
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The sound of Boeing CH-47 Chinook's double rotors cut through the crisp air as it carried the small team toward their destination. Transportation of this variety made it quicker and much easier than taking a wheeled vehicle along the dirt roads, especially in their current condition. It didn't take much to notice how deep the snow actually was when compared with the surroundings of the area and the approaching town, and the cyborg made a mental note to keep that in mind. The cyborgs gloved hand grasped the handle and pulled the side door open, allowing the cool air to flood inside as he stood near the edge; unfazed by the height of the drop he was about to take.

The helicopter took them directly over the village, where Miles would begin his trademark free fall into enemy territory. First, he turned a glance over his shoulder toward his two partners. He didn't like the fact they were in this condition and sent on such a mission, but that's why he'd be doing the bulk of the fighting. The moment the chopper was about to pass over the center of the tiny village, the cybernetic priest gave his signal.

"Operations commences"

Then, without the slightest hint of fear or hesitation, or checking to see if they even heard him over the sound of the rotor blades, he simply stepped out of the door and plummeted the toward the ground as if it was a normal thing, which kind of was at this point. Impacting the ground that was covered by several inches of snow, the priest landed in a crouched position, unharmed by his artificial body and strength helping to withstand the impact (though he had survived falls from heights drastically higher,) to which a large cloud of snow erupted from around his impact zone and cleared away enough of said snow to allow him better footing in his immediate area in which he landed.

The village might seem quiet and dead, but that was always the case with this job. Miles eyes flashed a crimson red for brief moment before his hands shot into the back of his robes, retrieving both of his hand-cannons as he surveyed the surrounding area for threats in which he'd react to.

The trip had been the usual flight, lots of chop in the thin air surrounding them, the clouds obscuring any view they may have had from the moonlight. It was dark, and cold, and not for the first time she wished she could go out on the field somewhere warm and preferably without undead. So here they were, hovering over a dead village, one just as cold as the surrounding area, and she couldn't help but take note at how quiet everything was, even over the sounds of the rotors.

It was a quiet that came from stillness, from death.

She was bundled for the weather, and her face was wearing a black balaclava, steam from her breath being swept away in the wind produced by the helicopter. She has the UA across her lap, and a bag sits at her feet, filled with extra mags and loos rounds alike. It would be up to the crewman - the only other person aboard that wasn't killing or flying the helo - to reload her spent magazines when they fell; it would take up too much space to carry about all the necessary mags already loaded. Five were in the bag that already held rounds, while the rest of her 100 rounds were in a box, loose and ready to be reloaded when the time came.

That would be the crewman's job. Helping her.

She watches with a bit of indifference as her stoic partner simply drops from the chopper, falling some good distance before landing with no small about of snow dusting up from his impact site. She reaches down the clip herself onto a rig on the deck, which in turn was hooked to a harness around her waist; she didn't want to fall out of the damn thing should things go sideways.

She had the strangest feeling that a bit of fast-roping would be involved on this mission.

The UA was outfitted with a thermal scope, and though most would think this unwise, she knew that from the daytime heat - as little as there may have been - would have been trapped beneath the heavy clothing most likely worn by those inhabiting the village. So, their core temperatures would be slightly higher than the surrounding area, although buildings, machinery, roads, they would all have varying degrees of heat, making them stand out amongst the snow cover, and lending a hand in distinguishing anything moving that was of similar heat.

A night vision scope was laid out for the UA as well.

The Mechem was latched upright next to their bench, already loaded, scope also night vision.

They could both have iron sights should the situation call for it. She would have no need for a scope's zoom at this distance.

She settles herself into a kneeling firing position, rifle barrel not even outside the helicopter's door, but far enough that she could change angle should she need to. Over the headset, and the comm she wore to communicate with Father Miles, she throws back a "ready?" to the crewman, to which he responds "affirmative" and gives a thumb's up signal.

Looking to their newest member to the party, she raises a red eyebrow and speaks.

"You know your job. Do it."

The sniper sets her eyes back onto the village, scouting for any hint of movement, pondering on when she should change to nightvision.

Anthony passed the time on the helicopter with a rosary. He dedicated the last mystery to the mystery of faith. The key mystery involved in an exorcism. He found that would be fitting and proper for such a mission. A mission of faith, for faith, and with faith. Anthony fished up his prayers with a prayer to Saint Michel the Arch Angel.

"Saint Michel the Arch Angel, defend us in battle. Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him. We humbly pray and do thou oh prince of the heavenly that by the power of God cast into hell satin and all evil spirits who prowl about the world for the rune of souls."

He prayed aloud. Then as they neared their target. He pulled out his pistols and set many of the pages to his side for quick and easy access.

When his comrade looked over to him and told him that he do his job he thought at first she meant. Corral the ghouls. But then looking at her and knowing what he did about her. She meant as an Iscariot.

He laughed to himself. It appears that he had not made his unwavering faith clear enough to her. Sure he might be mentally unstable, Emotionally a wreak. Physically not up to par. But he was loyal. Regardless of how hard or how many times he was hit. He would not give up on God. He as his life. His very air that he breathed. Him loved him like no other and like no one else when he called upon him for something Anthony would not rest, would not falter, would not doubt, would not fail until the day that he was finally slain in battle.

He looked to his sister and kissing his cross he said.

"Anything my dear sister. For the one I love above all others."

From the skies above, snow gently began to fall. Fluffy flakes of frozen water as elegant and fragile to the touch as can be. They danced their way from on high like the flights of angels it seemed as the arrival of the clergy was not unnoticed. Silent as the dead, telekinetic messages were passed between various individuals hidden in various places around town.

"Yo Sanders, some hard looking guy just dropped out of a fucking helicopter with guns. What you want us to do?" a young slightly hesitant voice called within their shared mental link.

"Club that commie bastard's skull in son. I ain't got the patience fer this shit tonight. Have " a much older, confident yet uninterested voice replied.

As if on command, which it was, two small groups of ghouls appeared on the street. With one on either side in front of the robotic priest, they had stumbled out of buildings perhaps 15 yards up ahead and numbered five in total. Each of them twitched violently before throwing themselves into dead sprints for the cyborg screaming bloody murder and arms flailing to entwine the priest's limbs and pull him to the ground. As the ghouls appeared from the buildings, another individual crawled out of an second story window in a building at Father Miles' seven o'clock. Timing his appearance as the chopper passed directly overhead so as to evade the fields of vision of the priests looking out the side doors, Phil moved across the rooftop, footsteps silent despite the snow. Sander's training evidently wasn't worthless after all. Good to know there was a reason they followed the old Vietnam vet's orders for a reason. Just as the ghouls began their charge, Phil took his leap, flying over the edge of the roof with his crowbar poised to strike with the dull edged point. With his leap, he'd never even need to take a step on the road before coming within striking range of the priest guy. He'd land almost right on top of him, driving his crowbar right into the back of his skull with inhuman strength and speed.

Movement was picked up by the cyborgs visual sensors, and it wasn't made by the targets Miles had chosen to specifically deal with. His targets were the vampires. Ghouls were dimwitted creatures, proven by the fact that they were trying for a full out sprint in several inches of snow was proof of this fact. It was counter-productive to their goal, and made the already near-useless things even less of a threat to the cybernetic tank that stood before them; but with their movements slowed by the snow they were perfect targets for Sister Meabh, to which he did send a signal to her headset that enemies were present and in the open. However, he knew better than to stay in one spot with possible vampires on the loose, especially since they often liked to use the rotting puppets for distractions or meat-shields.

Reacting the moment the walking corpses came into his view, the cyborg's body blurred and distorted, having leapt backwards with inhuman leg power and speed he propelled himself in the opposite direction of the ghouls and their mindless charge, while at the same time bringing his handguns to bear; the targeting lasers on the bottom lining up with the slowed mini-mob now several yards in front of him and sending the signal to Sister Meabh.

"Targets dead ahead."

Any advantage the previously unknown vampire's sneak attack once had was dropped right there, as in the priests maneuver to avoid being a standing target as he once had been caught the vampire in his line of sight as it fell toward where he previously stood, and right into his line of fire. Pulling the triggers back, his guns barked several times; sending three their .50caliber rounds down range into the horde of walking dead, and into the path of where the vampire would land, all at once. Even better, the blessed, .50 caliber armor piercing rounds would punch clean through and continue on into the horde.

They are 100 feet in the snowy air, and she could tell from the large flakes that more might be on its way. Shifting her stance, she moves to the edge of the door as the chopper slows its progress from the speed it was travelling when the Father simply leapt out. It was swinging around, and she lost sight of the buildings to the left of her partner, but she didn't miss the gaggle of ghouls that exited a building forward and to the right of Miles.

So it was beginning.

Finally.

The helo follows around its path to clear the area just as she spies the second group of ghouls and...something was moving on a roof. She barely has time to set the rifle before it leaps from the roof towards the cyborg Father, a...crowbar?...in hand. Taking the time to exhale and immediately slow her heart rate, she pulls the trigger on the UA and feels the recoil hit her already bruised shoulder.

She chambers another round in less than a second, in the time it took the round to find its target: the vampire flying through the air. She knew the bullet would pass through his head, unless she had been off about the wind, temp, and disruption of the rotors. Unlikely. If she was, however, the round would pass through its neck, nearly severing the head from the body regardless. The shot takes place at an angle, one that ensured the HEIAP round - should it, for some strange reason miss entirely - wouldn't travel through and hit her partner.

She calls to the pilot to pull away slightly, to stick to a rotating hover to keep a vast majority of the town in sight. She also calls to the crewman to open the other door, letting in a tremendous amount of cold air, but allowing the crewman to watch out the opposite side, something she instructs him to do while there is nothing needing refilling. They wouldn't miss another attempt. At least she assumed not, however there is always the chance one of these creatures had figured out a way to be invisible. Or fly.

Father Anthony Diem watched the cyborgs fearless drop into this nest of the unholy and seen as all of the ghouls converged on him. He knew that he shouldn't be worried about such pathetic things like ghouls. He also out of the corner of his eye saw the vampire leap of the roof. He heard many shots as the creature did so and knew that more than likely that vampire was done.

He scanned the area for the ghouls and wishing to keep them out of Father Michel's way he unleashed a few of his pages to create barriers around them. He would try and corral them but not allowing them to move from where they previously were. As the ghouls bounced off of the power and were shocked if in fact they would retreat for the slightest moment. He would begin to decrease the size of his barriers. Thus keeping them in smaller packs and in less way than before. When the vampire threats were neutralized this ghouls would be near effortless to take down.

Preparing more pages Anthony already had a strategy in mind for the lower level vampires. If one didn't explode and got near Father Michel he would seal that one off from the rest of his group so that they wouldn't be able to reinforce the vampire striking at him. He didn't know how badly he could affect any of the powerful ones. But he did know that normally powerful vampires liked to keep a few goons near by for grunt work and the like. Putting away his pistols for now he decided to concentrate fully on controlling his pages. His depths of faith would need to be fully reached to ensure he wouldn't mess up this mission. Now it is not that he wanted to screw up any mission. But on one with two such prestigious vampire hunters he wanted to do his absolute best. The only question being why exactly? Perhaps because he wanted to show Meabh that he would not fail her. Perhaps because the better he did the more missions these two might want to go with him on. If truth be told he liked both of these people very much. However Anthony decided within himself. That the main reason he wanted to do his utmost best must be because he cared for all of the people with him.

He did not want them to come to harm and if he had any sort of skill or power within side of him. Then he decided that from now on. He would always do whatever he could to ensure their safety. Although of course he would do that. He had been doing so for his entire career. However there was something else. Something that he would later ponder. What changed? why is this old found thought any more relevant today than it was when he first started? Perhaps later. He would find that answer.

Almost there...almost there...and there went half his neck. Out of nowhere, a massive bullet tore through half of Phil's neck as he landed in a bloody heap before the cyborg. His attack had failed, a final effort to throw his crowbar at the priest failing as the weapon spun off target to merely knock down several of the live power lines stretched down the length of the street. More bullets tore apart Phil's body as well two of the ghouls behind him. One ghouls crumpled into a pile of bloody meat while the other merely lost an arm at the elbow and continued to fling itself onward like a depraved maniac. His three uninjured fellow corpses continued on as well on all fours, dashing across the snow like rabid dogs hungry for their next meal and utterly unaware of the spiritual barrier behind them. Retreat never even crossed their minds.

"Sandy! That fucking chopper killed Phil! What do we do!?" a worried voice called telepathically.

"That's Captain Sanders to you hippie boy! Just keep helping my sweet pea dig that tunnel and let Bill handle that commie boy. I got the whirly bird," the telepathic voice called in response.

Amidst the heavy trees surrounding the small town, a grizzly figure emerged from a patch of shallow dirt covering a the dark entrance to what appeared to be a tunnel. As soon as he left the hold collapsed behind him, obviously lacking the bracers that the rest of the recent construction had. Reaching back into the upturned soil, Sanders found what he was looking for and with a mighty tug yanked the propane tank out of the collapsed section of the tunnel. Resting it over his shoulder, he took off towards the sound of the chopper. With these heavy pines there was no way that those communist pigs up there would be able to see him emerge from the tunnel or leap onto the thick trunk of a massive tree wide enough to hide him from their point of view as he climbed. This little prissies and their choppers. He used to have a chopper back in Nam. Then he grew some balls. One hand holding the propane tank and his rifle slung over one shoulder, Sanders used his inhuman strength to propel himself up the tree. Twenty feet...forty feet...and at 65 feet the vampire reached the top of the mighty tree that the chopper was flying towards.

These punks were so concerned with the town that they hadn't bother to scout out the surrounding area worth a damn. They'd have known better if they had been in Nam like him and not sissy little commies. Sanders hated commies. The vampire exploded upwards with a full force jump, the tree limbs beneath him essentially shattering from the force of his leap. Sanders rose into the air until he was just a bit higher than the chopper and directly in front of it's nose. Having blasted into the air right into it's face, Sanders had the heavy element of surprise on his side, a fact proven by the panic filled face of the pilot and the shudder in the vehicle as his hand twitched. Not giving them time to figure out what was going on, Sanders hurled the propane tank with all his might at the front windows of the vehicle. Supernatural strength carried the makeshift missile right on target, smashing into the sturdy glass and embedding itself there, unable to fully pierce the windshield.

That was fine though. As the tank hit and gravity began to take hold of Sanders, he snatched at his machine gun and yanked it into a firing position, snapping his shoulder strap in half in the process. His vampirc eyesight took over and unleashed a controlled five round burst into the tank, sparks from the bullets impacting the metal of the flammable fuel and chopper itself did the rest. The makeshift explosive erupted into a fireball in the front of the chopper's cabin, shrapnel and flame flaring outward wildly in all directions to cripple the controls and potentially take out the crew if Sanders was lucky. If he wasn't, he might still get his wish when the heli crashed into the trees below. Either way, that was one headache out of the way. Falling back down to the forest below, Sanders landed in a kneeling position and took off back into the trees, disappearing from view as he made his way back towards the town. His girl needed him more than the Vietnamese needed America back in the day. He fought in Nam.

---MEANWHILE AT THE LEGION OF DOOM BACK IN THE TOWN---

As Sanders took dealing with the chopper into his own hands, Bill was holding up his side of the deal. The cyborg had backed up to avoid Phil's diving attack but that was because Phil was a stupid face. Why would you leap at somebody like that? Bill had a better idea. Rather than coming in from above, the second of the weaker vampires approached from the building nearest Michel. Erupting out of a first story window to Michel's immediate left, all that separated the vampire and priest was the still sparking power line that Phil had knocked down. Now there was an idea. Diving through the glass window, Bill immediately fired a 12 guage slug at the priest that had helped kill is buddy. With vampiric strength on his side, Bill was able to pull off the shot with a single hand, his free hand grabbing the high voltage powerline and stabbing forward with it at the priest in an attempt to electrocute him. Upon leaving the window, the distance between Bill and the clergyman was about twenty feet. The window breaking leap itself had cut that distance in half almost instantly. But that was only half the fun. Phil had used the ghouls Sanders loaned him as a distraction. That was some weak ass shit yo. Bill prefered to work alongside the mooks he'd been given. He was a nice guy like that. And so, as the vampire burst out the window, he was joined by three leaping ghouls on either side ready to flank the priest and bring him down in a biting thrashing mob.

OOC: Long post is long. So much to respond to @___@

Reacting to the fallen power line as the crowbar brought it down, Miles' attention turned to his left as it fell to take precautions on avoiding it. He wouldn't be killed by it, but it would shut him down until he had time to repair his internal systems, meaning Meabh and Father Diem would be in an even worse situation for at least a few hours, and he wasn't going to let that happen; this was also the reason why he didn't fret over the chopper being brought down despite Meabh being in her current injured state. If he knew anything at all, it was that the redhead knew how to endure. So, he immediately jumped back toward the other side of the street to gain distance on the electrically charged wire.

This action, at the same time, gave him sight on the next target that came blasting through the window; in which the cyborgs right handgun flew into a wide arching motion infront of him as he lowered his left shoulder and tilted his head to the right with his enhanced reaction time, allowing the potentially dangerous 12 gauge slug to skim over and take off his left, steel shoulder pad and send it flying into the distance. A close call, but slow and easily avoided by someone of Miles' speed and skill compared to such a low-level target.  

His right handgun, continuing in its wide arch as this happened in little more than a speeding blur, let off a total of four rounds. The four blessed AP rounds were released with the supernatural speed and guided by the timed precision of his state-of-the-art targeting system, one that had proven countless times to put vampires - even ones somewhat higher on the food chain - to shame. Sent on target toward the heads of the three ghouls and the incoming vampire; all of which would score headshots and take all of them down in the blink of a human eye, negating the threat of the power line in the vampires grasp if they hit by turning him into nothing but dust. Unless, by some means of a miracle, they were able to dodge in mid air.

"Genocide Mode: Activated."

The situation wasn’t going as smoothly as she would have liked. Father Anthony, as talented as he could be, was placing barriers in strange places, and she isn’t sure if he is going to keep up or not. Deciding for the moment that she didn’t need to worry about it, she sets her eyes to the buildings surrounding the cyborg, intent on finding anything that could be a potential leaping threat. The snowfall was growing slightly, but nothing enough to cause a problem with sight. It would be almost beautiful, the village, if it weren’t for the scene below.

And then the co-pilot nearly screamed out a warning.

There is something approaching from the front.

It is in midair.

Jerking around, she unhooks her harness in less than a second, her unnatural speed allowing her the move without it taking any time from her next action, which she had to change on the fly. She was about to move to the cabin when an explosion rocks the chopper, one that caused the flying hunk of machinery to list; the rotors weren’t damaged, but a few of the blades had been caught in the blast, causing the entire thing to wobble in the air. The pilot, as good as he was, couldn’t keep the thing flying, not when he was burnt to nothing; his copilot was desperately attempting to level out, but without luck.

The entire thing was listing down, and falling from the snowy sky, angling towards the fight below. Making up her mind in the time it took to perform the action, she shoulders her rifle while kicking out the black, specialized rope coiled at her feet. It fell away into the night, whispering in the snow on the rooftops of the buildings they were now gliding over. Taking it up with a hand, she rips off the headset and shouts to the younger Father over their comms as she leaps from the helo.

”The Mechem! Take it!’

She assumes he knows what to do next; if he has any control over his pages, he can simply step out of the descending chopper and teleport to the ground. Or wherever he has planned. But she doesn’t think on it, not as she is zipping down the line as the helicopter grows ever closer to the ground, landing on a white rooftop just as the dying chopper sails overhead. She rolls with the momentum, and pops back to her feet, taking in the situation around her, planning her next move.

But it would have to wait.

The helicopter, it had been losing altitude the entire time, and now the burning cockpit finally makes impact with the ground, though not before taking out a small building on its way. It tumbles, leaving the ground for a moment, sailing over the other vampire and the cyborg Paladin, before crashing back down, rolling over a patch of ghouls before coming to a final rest on its side, tail rotor still whipping away. It had taken down a building, but it was not on fire, not yet; the propane explosion took out the fleshy men in the front, but did no real damage to the chopper’s main body, and the fuselage was still intact, meaning there would be no movie-like explosion. At least, not until an AP round hit it.

Anthony looked over at the approaching threat and thought for a moment about having to get Meabh out of this helicopter alive. But as it turned out she was fine on her own. Anthony heard her request. It was simple enough. He as quick as he could grabbed what she wished of him then using his pages he traveled behind her a couple feet. He dropped the rifle to the ground gently and then noticing his strategy of corralling the ghouls and cutting them off from reinforcements didn't really matter when A helicopter hit them. He decided to make himself somewhat useful and created a barrier around the roof. This would at least protect them from physical attack.

He stood up feeling at home here. At home in this waist land of undeath. this is what he was born to do regardless of whether or not he himself was good enough to succeed at such a task.

He did not ponder anything at the moment however. He took stock of there situation and was on the look out for any vampires trying to ambush them or any pesky group of ghouls that might decided to get into someones way. He crouched down a little in order to avoid getting into Meabh's line of site.

"this building is barricaded against the weak undead Sister." He said simply not even looking at her. Just merely informing her of the status of their situation. Or at least a little part of it.

As an after thought when he was doing his scouting and his eyes passed by Father Michel he sent a small group of pages his way. The pages would stick to the cyborg and surround him in a barrier. This would help to soften blows made against considerably.

People have been requesting clarification regarding the current state of enemy npcs so I prepared a little diagram showing the basic layout of the street and the current locations of enemies and their bodies.  Since ghouls supposedly die when their creators due, I added in ten dead ghouls for each of the Cat Fs you've killed. Though I put yellow lines to show the middle of the street, do keep in mind it's a dirt/gravel road. Based on my reading of the posts so far, Meabh and Anthony landed on the roof of building B with the large red X being the destroyed structure that the chopper hit.  If I'm incorrect in that reading, do let me know.  Or don't.  Or even kind of tell me but not really so it'ls like a half-truth, white lie, rhetorical bending of the facts.  Loosey goosey.  ON WITH THE SLAUGHTER!~

Spoiler:

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A shower of blood and a frightened scream as Bill and three of his ghouls were sent on a one way trip to hell. A twitch in the throngs of death sent another slug spewing in the general direction of the cyborg before the weapon fell to the street, barrel first at the cyborg's feet. Oddly enough, the barrel of the weapon penetrated deep into the snow as if the soil beneath it was soft. Then again, the weapon had just been launched from the grip of a supernaturally strong individual in mid flight so it was difficult to say. Though their brethren had been butchered, the three remaining ghouls of Bill's company reached their target as the bloody bodies of the others sank into the snow. Hurling themselves at the priest, they attempted to entangle his arms and waist to drag him to the ground, biting and clawing at what they believed to be human flesh.

As the zombie creatures attacked their prey, another figure had already entered the building that Bill had violently exited via a back window. Sanders crouched low on the first floor, remaining in the back side of the building for a moment to see how events on the roadside would play out. He'd seen good men get cut down by commies for rushing in back in Nam. He wasn't about to make the same mistake. This wasn't Nam afterall. But it could have been...if he wanted it to be. His pause proved to be a Godsend as a massive helicopter tore through the front half of the building without warning, rotors and black metal ripping apart wooden beams like kindling before crashing into some of his ghouls and sliding across the street. A bit of rubble from the upper floors quickly caved in, providing cover for the waiting vampire who would still be out of sight, half buried and have protected by a combination of a remaining wall and ceiling plaster rubble. He could hear heartbeats close by, obviously there were a few survivors left from that chopper and based on that shot that had killed Phil, they were as dangerous as the commie out in the street. He'd need to get them into a frenzy if he wanted to get anything done.

Hey Todd, you still set up in the old bar? Sanders telepathically called to the sole surviving Category F vampire currently in wait in the two story building directly across the street from the red haired sharpshooter and her bodyguard.

Yea Sandy, I was taking stock of supplies in here just like you told me. Todd quickly replied.

Atta boy, yer no good fer nothin commie afterall son. Now listen close, I need ya to round up all those cocktails I had Bill making up the other day and when I give ya the word, you start chuckin em across the street at the Murphy place. There's a couple a commie sons a bitches on the roof over there that need a good barbequeing. Give em all ya got son. Sanders paused just long enough for Todd to acknowledge the order, reporting that Bill had already moved the bottles up to the second floor so they'd have room in the basement to connect to their tunnel den. Though the digging had yet to begin in the basement, the presence of the bottles did make things easier. Alright sweet pea, that just leaves you an me. When I tell ya, I'd like ya to that commie boy out in the street how Bugs Bunny get's his carrots.

You got it boom daddy. The earth spirit guides me soooooo~ was Flora's telepathic response. Shrugging off the liberal nature of his current girlfriend, Sanders prepared himself. This was the big finale afterall. Bracing his legs against the floor, gave the signal to Todd first. Hit em Todd! As ordered, the younger vampire began hurling lit molotov cocktails from his hiding place across the street at high speed. With two crates of highly flammable bottles by his side, Todd let loose an almost rain of fire at the wooden building across the way. Focusing on speed and attention over accuracy, some of the twentysome bottles landed on the tile covered roof where Meabh and Anthony made their perch. Others crashed through the second floor windows of the two story building. More still simply smashed into the side of the building, spreading their flaming substance over the wooden building which quickly began to smoke as the flames lapped and spread through it's interior.

As the first bottles impacted the building, Sanders would be on the move, bursting from the rubble at full speed for the priest in the street. As he approached with his weapon shouldered, he would let loose a burst of five rounds (about all he would have time for before reaching the priest) and from there it would be a melee between himself and the clergyman. What then was Flora's role in all this some may be asking? What is the meaning of this "Bugs Bunny" strategy? As Sanders burst from the rubble, Flora herself erupted from underneath the snow just behind the Paladin. The vampires had spent days digging their tunnel hideaway beneath town and out into the woods surrounding it. Just bit below the surface of the main street, it was supported by many wooden beams to keep from collapsing due to forces pushing down but for forces pushing upwards such as Flora who had been digging at the tunnel's roof since receiving Sanders' order, it was a simple measure to breach the surface. Between the constant report of the priest's massive handguns against Flora's sensitive hearing and the small puff of dirt from Bill's shotgun barrel falling just a bit short of piercing the tunnel, she had enough of an idea of where the priest was to land such a surprise attack.

As Sanders charged, his mate would attempt to latch onto the priest from behind, helping to bind his arms and waist if the ghouls had not done so already and pulling the likely surprised clergyman back down into the tunnel where Flora and her loyal fan club of twenty five ghouls awaited him. The distraction was timed perfectly with Sanders' approach, intended to throw the priest off long enough to Sanders to descend upon him and take the fight to the enclosed tunnel where the mob of ghouls and vampiric lovers could pick him apart starting with a point blank burst of automatic gunfire courtesy of Sanders.

Todd, being the ever helpful sort, would struggle to find a way to assist his boss once the molotov bottles ran dry. Not quite the brightest off all combatants, he settled on spraying and praying, ducking out from behind cover to let loose an extended salvo of bullets from his uzi in the general direction of the other two clergymen. This wasn't good at all. The dozen ghouls that he had left in the basement of the Murphy place to prepare for the tunnel connection wouldn't be happy at all. If only they were fast like Sanders' they might be able to help but sadly they were the less than impressive creations of Todd himself. Unsure of what to do, he did the only thing that made sense. He ordered them to head for the roof for a snack.

The threat he was aiming for was eliminated, as well as three of his escorting ghouls. This was going more smoothly than he had expected it to be, and he had plenty of ammunition left to deal with the remaining three; though it would be close even for someone of his caliber. Throwing his arms out wide and leaning to the left, he managed to avoid the stray slug that was fired from the death twitch of the vampire - the heavy round tearing off the skin above and to the side of his left eye before sparking off into the distance behind him. The ghouls managed to ensnare his arms with their decaying hands, though they held little say in the matter on how they were moved given the metal mans strength compared to their own, but needless to say he did feel their weight bearing down on his limbs.

Bending his wrists inward so the barrel of his guns took aim, he let off a single round into each of the ghouls before quickly bringing his knee up in a sudden uplift toward the remaining ghouls chin who made a dive at his waist, sending it stumbling back with a broken bottom jaw. A blur of his right hand followed, now free from the grasp of it undead captor as it fell into a bloody heap, stepping forward as he forced the large barrel of his handgun into the mindless husks already deformed features before pulling the trigger, sending the .50 caliber AP round blasting out the back of its skull and directly into Sanders line of approach; the ghouls body also acting as a type of meat shield against the five round burst, though the fact that the 5.56x45mm NATO rounds the vampires weapon fired wouldn't of done anything other than mushroom against his reinforced steel body - even at point blank - made the use of such a shield rather pointless.

The cyborg was, however, caught off guard by what erupted from the snow behind him. Another vampire, hidden beneath in what seemed like a tunnel system. It was a clever tactic he'd never seen a vampire implement before, but his main objective was accomplished by drawing in the vast majority to his location, sparing both Meabh - and to a lesser extent Diem - any more trouble in their current condition. Not having enough time to fully turn to meet the new threat, the woman's hand managed to wrap around the wrist of his left hand to hold it firmly in place, much to the cyborgs monotone expression of surprise. Luckily, his right hand managed to avoid being grabbed due to its position from previously blasting out the back of a ghouls skull, but the woman's other arm wrapping around his waist to pull him into the tunnel fully succeeded in its goal.

The sound of ghouls below gave the cyborg a decent idea of what awaited him, though they weren't what worried him. Try as they might, ghouls could tear away at him for as long as they pleased without any success of getting by his reinforced frame, the thing that worried him was taking on two possible vampires that could match him in physical ability - though even they wouldn't have much luck penetrating his armor head on. Using his free right hand as they fell, the cyborg brought it around his waist to position his handgun barrel in line with the female vampires stomach, or what he hoped was her stomach, before letting off a few of his last rounds at point blank range before they would impact the tunnel floor - whether all or any of them would hit was an unknown even for the cybernetics the priest had calculating the tactic, so as a precaution the cyborg threw his head back with all his might to headbutt his captor with a dose of reinforced steel backed up by strength rivaling her own.

The thought of another vampire descending on him might've made anyone else show signs of fear or distress, but Miles remained expressionless; calm and tactical, planning out how he would get out of this situation even in his current predicament. From what he had gathered, the woman's strength was roughly about the same as his own, meaning he could potentially break free of her hold if his gunshots missed, but with an entourage of several ghouls below adding on to the strength of her hold, he calculated the chances of that working were very slim, not to mention the vampire that came rushing toward him as he fell. He had no choice but to rely on his reinforced frame to take the bulk of the punishment, something he was used to.

Things were happening in rapid succession, which meant the fight was well and truly on. All the lead up, all the play with ghouls, the helo crashing, all of these things were just precursors to an event that was beginning now

She had missed the abomination running into town, and that meant it could give  out its orders to the remaining creatures without hindrance. Thankfully, the one taking orders was an idiot. She had time only to spot movement in the bar before fire began to rain down on them, exploding on every surface it hit. Waves of heat plumed off the growing patches of orange and yellow, instantly melting the snow, both dampening and burning the pages below.

Not caring in the least to find out what would happen should she hang about, the sniper – upon spying the creature across the road – immediately stands and bolts to the edge of the roof.

Then she simply leaps into the cold air.

Her gloved hands find the window edge of the building beside their burning one, catching hold of it for the slightest of moments before dropping down into a mound of snow that covers her to her knees. She doesn’t bother moving – the snow provided good cover from the obviously poor aim of the thing in the bar – and instead chooses to set up a snap shot to the vampire popping off rounds in their direction. He would duck, then raise up to fire, then duck again.

Just to be certain of her shot, she waits until he ducks again to pull the trigger, knowing he wouldn’t have had time to adjust his firing position from her actions; the target is the wooden siding supposedly protecting the creature from any retaliation.

The bullet impacted the wood and shards exploded outward, a hole the size of a baseball already torn through. The vampire, as slow to catch on as he was, would be caught through the chest, or neck with a bullet designed to take down armored men from much farther away. The throw-back, the jump in his body the round would cause would toss him slightly above his cover, would give her clearance and without thinking, she sends another round of silver through the air, pinpointed on the spot his head would be thrown to.

She doesn’t watch to see if it hits.

Her attention is turned to her partner, and his sudden, overwhelming odds. A vampire was closing in on him, and just as she adjusts her aim, another bursts from the ground, latching onto him and attempting to drag him down. As bad as the situation seemed to be, she didn’t so much as frown at his predicament. He could take care of himself, and worse to worse, all she needed was his head. But it was the principle of the thing. The ghouls…she would rely on Father Diem for those. They were just an annoyance that she didn’t have time to play with.

But this male vampire, the one running full out towards her partner, this one was going to feel what it was like to garner Iscariot attention.

He is met with gunfire from Father Miles, as the bullet shreds through a ghoul’s body and makes its way towards the abomination. She wouldn’t let it be the only thing fired at him. Instantly the rifle is up, and before she loses sight of him through the angle of the building, she shoots once, twice, both aimed for center mass, and almost sure to hit, as he was less than a hundred meters away, and at that distance, she was more than deadly.

If they didn’t hit, if he somehow managed to dodge, if God was having a sense of humor today, if anything prevented her rounds from meeting their mark, then she would…reload. Simple. She was down to one round anyway. Her finger thumbed the release, and the nearly spent mag feel to the snow, her hand already reaching for another, her eyes not watching - not needing to watch - as she performed this act, for the need to watch this vampire, to watch the outcome of her entrance to this three-player drama.

Anthony seeing the flames building and hearing the clash of the missile against the stone decided that moving was a requirement. His pages were already on fire and he would not be able to use them. Anthony dived off building b and he waited only a moment to put up barriers around Meabh's position making sure not to get in her sniping way in any way at all.Then he put up barriers on the roof of building a as well right before he teleported there. then Anthony was whisked away in the flurry of pages he would use to take himself to the roof of building A. He was going to offer fire on the pyromaniac who had started throwing the flaming projectiles but hearing a couple shots and then some terrible cover fire stop right before he teleported he decided to concentrate on the category c who had just killed two of his allies.

As Anthony landed on the building he turned to face the vampire charging at the cyborg and pulling out one pistol he decided to unload into the beast. His current angle would allow for him to shoot as Sanders and not hit his ally. Although his 1911 bullets probably wouldn't do much.

He was very surprised at the out burst of the second vampire but wouldn't stop his fire on Sanders until he ran out of ammo, he died, or he got to close to Mikey.

Although seeing as how Meabh's shots would get there before any of his it was possible he would be riddling a dead body.

OOC:  Sanders began his sprint as the first bottles began hitting the building.  While it would not take long for Meabh and Tony to reach their new positions and deal with Todd, with Sanders' speed and the given distance he should have no trouble reaching Mikey before the shots would come into play.  

The fighting had gone into full force now, bullets and flames flying across the town.  Todd, to his credit, only wanted to help.  Laying down shoddy suppression fire whenever he could, the young vampire desperately tried to kill the red headed woman and strange dark haired man with automatic gunfire as they descended from the burning rooftop.  However, Todd had never been to Nam.  Dropping back behind his cover, Todd's world turned upside down as Meabh's large caliber round punched through his chest like tissue paper to leave a baseball sized tunnel where his solar plexus had once been.  Violently thrown through the air, he barely even had time to register the shock of it all before the second shot turned his skull into a thin red mist.  Amidst the burning building, Todd's 12 ghouls twitched and dropped to the burning floorboards, dying along with their creator.  

Though the boy was dead, the veteran of Nam was far from it.  His years in the fighting, in Nam, had hardened him to watch for the movements of his commie enemies and that hand cannon the priest was packing was easy enough to follow.  A swift juke to the right brought him out of the bullets path.  A few of the rounds from his gun impacted the ghoul, others the priest but to Sanders' surprise,they did nothing.  No way in hell that priest was a normal guy.  Well since his gun wasn't even worth a commie's hat in Nam, where he'd fought, to hell with it!  Sanders abandoned his rifle in the snow, diving after the priest as his sweet pea dragged him down into the tunnel and out of the field of visions offered by either of vantage points of the other two Iscariots.  

As Flora dragged the priest down into the dark tunnel, she dug in and attempted to wrap her legs around the man's hips (getting the hooks in for you MMA buffs out there) to strengthen her grip even further.  Only managing to secure his left arm, she cried out in pain as his blessed bullet scraped along her hip to take a chunk of flesh.  Sanders, having drilled his underlings and girlfriend with the same intensity of a drill instructor in Nam, had taught her how to handle a bit of pain and rather than loosen her grip, she squeezes the priest that much harder.  Some of the ghouls in the tunnel immediately came to her aid.  With the blessed pages protecting the priest's torso, the ghouls were driven towards secondary targets. Two tried to latch onto the priest's left arm, two more on each of his legs and a final two grabbed at his head.  Alone, none of these creatures would be able to exert enough force to truly overcome the strength of the cyborg's frame, but all of them working together with their feet braced against the cyborg's torso or the tunnel floor might be able to do something.  

Lastly, there was the Nam vet himself to worry about, descending upon the priest as he was pulled into the tunnel by Flora.  Landing squarely on the priest's chest in a mount position, Sanders capitalized on the commie's attack on Flora, using his left hand to pin Michel's right arm down across the cyborg's chest.  Their strength was comparable to begin with but with his arm in that position the priest would have next to no leverage to exert that strength compared to Sanders' nearly ideal position.  With his own right arm still free, the scruffy Nam vet brought his fist back and drove it down on the cyborg's face in a full power right hook, avoiding strikes to the chest due to the presence of those damned pages.  Throwing punch after brutal punch, Sanders intentin was clear: ideally beat the strange metal man to death or damage his head and neck badly enough so that his ghouls would be able to tear it off.   Though angry at the priest for slaughtering his boys, Sanders was not foolish enough to throw his punches wildly.  A careless punch slipped by the priest may accidently hit his precious sweet pea.  He wasn't about to go and do something foolish like that.  "You in Nam now bitch!"

While he attempted to to rip apart this metal bastard, there were still the other two priests to worry about.  Eight ghouls were tied up assissting Flora in holding the cyborg still.  That left twelve to deal with the two priests top side and only half of those were Sanders own runners.  The other six were created by Flora and could only manage a trot at top speed.  Those six were ordered to climb up to the surface first to rush the red headed woman.  Chances were they'd be ripped apart by her gunfire but that was fine.  They were sacrificial pawns to drain the priest's ammo so that the six runners could advance upon the redhead while she was reloading.  The dark haired guy with the weird papers would need to be easy enough to deal with once she was taken care of.  He'd spent his ammo trying to take down Sanders himself afterall.  Assuming the redhead picked off the easy ghoul targets as Sanders expected, the final runners would have essentially a clear route to mob her and tear the sharpshooter limb from limb.

OOC: Forgot to take into account of Mikey tossing a headbutt toward the Flower Child as they fell, which is essentially a reinforced steel skull backed with the strength of a cat.C; so unlike Sanders and Flora who are still flesh, Mikey's essentially a mini-wrecking ball. BOOM! (Headshot) Broke nose~

Also, Mikey is covered in Tony's pages via back and torso/stomach as per Tony's previous post since it is a "vest" of sorts, so Sanders isn't going to be functioning (if ya know what I mean *raises eyebrow and lifts wine glass*) for a while and Flora's torso and stomach are going to look absolutely horrible with those burns~

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This situation was quite possibly one of the worst anyone would want to find themselves in, but to the cyborg it was just another day at the office. The crack of cartilage gave no comfort to the priest as they landed, having broken the nose of the woman with his previous headbutt, which seemed all for naught since she had obviously been put through training to withstand pain; even having a good chunk of her hip blown off by a .50caliber round only gave birth to a scream and a tightened grip - though not like it mattered. He wondered how long she would be able to keep this hold of hers going, however, since the blessed pages Father Diem had applied to him earlier began to burn away at any undead who made contact with his torso and back - including the woman who so gracefully trapped herself under the cyborgs weight with Sanders quickly adding to it in his mounted position.

His right handgun was pinned to his chest as the Nam Vet began hammering away, the ghouls also tried to put their uselessness aside and pull at his head. Death is what this spelled for anyone, except for Miles, cause he was a badass cyborg with reinforced steel, lexan and kevlar holding him together in a combination that withstood attacks from a monstrosity that could level streets in Rome. He had been thrown through buildings, gutted by titanium claws, and rended into near oblivion by the enemy cyborg during the knights attack; this alone acted testament to his durability and it was completely shown through the cyborgs still emotionless expression even as Sanders began the tedious task of pounding away with what this "Nam-Vet" thought were punches.

Honestly, compared to what the priest had gone through in the past; Nam, the ghouls, - or Sanders punches for that matter - weren't shit compared to either of the three enemies Miles could cite for reference; one being the No Life King himself, the other two being on par with or slightly above Category B's in every aspect, so they could continue to hammer away until they tired themselves out; he didn't care. The most he'd likely receive is minor denting from someone of similar strength, the undead could pull all they wanted, the most they'd tear off is artificial skin.

The fact that Sanders also positioned himself directly on the pages in a mounting position which would begin burning at his crotch also gave the cyborg an idea. He would hope these burns would give him the small opening he needed to free himself from this trap they set, but if he was going to keep Miles trapped like this and help Flora get burnt until she popped into ash, then that was fine to. Either way, he wasn't going to lay there and wait to be saved. His right handgun still had some ammo left in it, about four rounds if he recalled, and he was going to put them to use. His right hand was pinned to his chest, meaning the barrel was pointing to the left the entire time. Directly in line with the ghouls restraining his left arm. As fun as a vacation seemed, he might as well deal with the enemies the only way he knew how - blow their brains out.

Pulling the trigger, his gun let out two of its four rounds toward the group restraining his left arm, hoping to get rid of them so he could have more of a chance to free it and empty one of the last rounds into the mans stomach; but also to block out any sound his comrades made should they be approaching. The left arm was restrained, but the gun itself wasn't; which left the cyborg open for another one of his tricks. Lifting his hand upward by bending his wrist, he angled the handcannon as close as it possibly could come to a lined up shot toward Sanders and fired once, letting the .50 cal round speak for itself as it left the barrel.

[[Not my best work. I am assuming here that the ghouls aren't simply hopping out of the hole full sprint, and that it is deep enough they need to claw their way up. This means it would take time for them to emerge, which means Meabh would have time to react (as she was already in the middle of reloading in her previous post) and kill some of them before the runners even made it out of the hole]]


And then that happened. Her partner was being drug down into some incredibly well-placed hole in the earth, and not by a ghoul. From what she could see, it was yet another vampire, and it was latched on like a leech, something that surprisingly irked the red haired woman. Her shots – well placed but seemingly out of time – missed, but she didn’t both worrying about the outcome of her actions.

The male abomination rushed head-long into the hole her partner had disappeared into, and she could guess how the whole lot of them ended up; a dogpile would be the most likely scenario, however, should the female release him on the way down – unlikely – she could be free to maneuver anywhere she pleased.

It took only a split second for the sniper to finish reloading, having already drawn the mag from her pocket and had it well on its way before Saunders dove into the hole. But was she moved from her covered space between the two buildings, she saw a sight that peeved her more than anything else: more ghouls. And these appeared to be a slight bit faster than normal, not like the ones who could run, no, but able to make their way out of the gash in the earth with some small amount of alacrity.

So that’s how this was going to play out.

She slings the rifle, allowing it to fall against her chest, and snap-draws her SIG .357, immediately aiming for the ghouls shuffling out of the hole. She begins to walk straight at them, firing at heads as they appeared over the rim, ignoring for the moment the few that had already managed to crawl out.

One.

Two.

Three.

The rounds were popped off at inhuman speed, dropping down three of the ghouls back into the hole, not giving them the chance to rise up and cause more problems. Most likely than not, they would land on top of whatever mess was already being created down there, which could potentially be a good thing in the long run; the fallen could block the exit for whatever was left down there, or force them to crawl over the bodies and slow them down.

This left her with the ones ambling rather swiftly in her direction.

Out comes a wicked blade.

SIG in one hand, blade in the other, she doesn’t wait for the to get any closer; she simply wades into them, taking off heads as she goes. They may be a touch faster than the normal ghoul, but she was a touch faster than a normal human. These were nothing to her, merely annoyances in her way to the final goal, one that was now entombed below the street. She is ready for the next wave, and her mind is split between finishing off the ghouls around her and what could be coming out of the tunnel next; should it be more ghouls, they would be met with a hail of well placed, blessed-silver, .357 rounds to the head, as they would be poking their decomposing faces above the ground first.

She could hear the report of the massive handguns of her cyborg partner, so for now, at least she knew he was still kicking. And most likely damaging.

(Don't know if I can do this with my pages but I can't see why not. If I am unable to please let me know. But the way I see it. If I can move the page I can keep them easily enough in one spot.)

Father Anthony Diem had an idea. Most likely it wouldn't work. At all. But trial and error is what makes humans, human. Father Anthony Diem Summoned forth a wall of pages near the hole. It was at an angle that would allow it to funnel anything that hit it into the hole. These pages held no other purpose than to serve as a soft page like barrier pulled taunt.

Father Anthony Diem threw his two vials each one and a half quarts of holy water at the page wall. As the vial hit the wall it slid down it towards the middle of the hole with some guidance from Father Anthony. Meaning that he would bend or curve the pages a bit to get the vial where wanted. This all happened rather fast and as the vial hit the pages he pulled out his second pistol and as the vial neared the hole he shot it with a bullet. The vial exploded and holy water rained down all around the hole. Along with se pieces of glass. Father Anthony did this again as swiftly as he could with his second vial of holy water. The water should burn and at least distract anything unholy it hit. When the priest was done with this he turned his attention to the hole e would shoot if anything unholy came out of it. All the while he was alert and aware of his surroundings not wanting to be surprised by anything.

His page wall let it noted did not block Mabh's view of the hole.

The first wave of ghouls was decimated in almost an instant, the red headed sniper shooting or cutting them down with an obviously practiced ease. Slowed significantly by the bodies knocked back into the hole, Sanders' runners were delayed from reaching the surface and forced to work their way around the mangled bodies of their fellow ghouls. The vials of holy water splattering down into the tunnel was a further annoyance, much of it hitting the deceased ghouls falling back into the tunnel but some of it did find its' intended mark on the remaining runners. Their decaying flesh sizzled and burned at the touch of the holy liquid, driving their mad forms into a frenzy as they climbed to the surface at an even more frantic rate to carry out their master's orders. Reaching the surface, the second wave was met with yet another onslaught of holy ammunition into their ranks as they made a desperate charge for the red haired woman that had caused so much destruction already.

Sanders would never know how far his minions made it. The thumps of bodies back into the tunnel had startled him, causing him to turn at the shoulders to glance back at the source of it and inadvertently evade the blast fired from the priest's left hand gun. He had never let his control over the priest's right hand diminish, the clergyman was simply too damn dangerous. However, he was running out of time. With one of the ghouls holding down the priest's left arm blasted into shredded beef, Sanders had one of the two ghouls holding the priest's head quickly shift over to pick up the slack making sure to latch on at the wrist this time to prevent any more surprises.

"Hurry Sandy! I can't hang on much longer!" Flora screamed, blood smeared across her face from her broken nose as the pages on the priest's back continued to burn her terribly. By now the girl had to be suffering first or second degree burns on much of her chest but there was little that could be done. Between Sanders' weight and the cyborg she couldn't have crawled free if Sanders had permitted her. The Nam vet himself was experiencing his own share of burns to the sections of his thighs brushing up against the blessed pages but unlike his sweet pea he could channel that pain into anger. This was nothing compared to the napalm back in Nam.

The strange metal man's skull had yet to break. That was frustrating but it didn't mean all was lost. Somewhere in there, the priest had to have something close to a brain controlling him and that was the weak spot. Boxers in the ring didn't die from crushed skulls afterall. It was the trauma caused by the brain bouncing against the skull that led to death. This priest was tough as sweaty American balls in the jungles of Nam but he was still a commie and all these full powered shots directly to his head must be rattling his brain by now. If there were metal parts in their as well all the better to squish the brain with. However, that would take to long. He needed this guy dead now to save Flora. Moving his right hand to grab the priest's still trapped right arm by the wrist, Sanders flexed his full supernatural might to try and move the priest's gun up under the holy man's own chin. With two hands on the priest's wrist and his index fingers on the trigger guard, Sanders was confident he had the advantage in strength. This commie was about as strong as he was but now it was one arm against two, how could ole Sandy lose with a stacked deck? Sanders would call forth all the strength he could muster to push the end of that gun up against the underside of the priest's chin and empty the damn thing into the metal freak's head. Just in case the robotic commie decided to get cute, Sanders called in the ghoul holding onto Michel's head as backup to help control the right arm and keep the barrel from ever being pointed directly at one of the remaining ghouls, Sanders, or his precious sweet pea as it moved towards the priest's head and eventually fired.

OOC: The first six ghouls that climbed out of the hole are very very dead. The second wave will be walking right into the attacks described by Meabh and Anthony. I leave their fates up to you guys but they should also be very very dead. That leaves the 7 ghouls still in the hole assisting Sanders and Flora in holding down Michel.

OOC: You never said it was "inside" the trigger guard~.
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The cyborgs frame held strong, taking blow after blow from the Nam Vet with a blank expression on his face, the skin on his cheek and nose tearing bit by bit with what this vampires idea of what punches were. He felt the effects, that much was true, as his vision did begin to blur on and off as his visual sensors took damage from the repeated pounding and the cybernetics getting shifted repeatedly by the strikes; something very few people had ever managed to do, but his frame held - as did he and his 'health'. His left arm, still refrained from movement by the female vampire that held her grip, was unable to move very far before the ghouls once attacking his head replaced the one blasted away, this time making sure to restrain his wrist.

Bothersome, but nothing to really worry about

Miles chance to save himself came when Sanders attempted to move his right handgun to the cyborgs own chin, which was something he wouldn't allow. Fighting to keep his arm down with the full force of Genocide mode aiding in his effort even while one armed - rivaling a C-vampire at the peak of its physical, evolutionary prime - he managed to postpone the act long enough to eject the final two shots by pulling the trigger early, blindly letting them loose in a direction that would neither hit any of the ghouls (thanks to Sanders and his ghouls slightly impressive effort to keep that from happening) but also wouldn't hit himself or fly up out of the hole in the direction his allies might be coming through.

Sanders had lost even with a stacked deck, how he would react to this was unknown, but the fact that the pages were still burning into the flesh of the vampire under him and into his own thighs should add up to something; hopefully either with the woman popping into an ash cloud or her releasing him so he could teach this vampire what a real fight was. Either way there were no more bullets left to fire, and once the mag was empty the resistance the cyborg put up halted and the barrel being moved to his chin was a pointless task he allowed to happen, letting the trigger be pulled again only to give off a "click" sound in response.

There was suddenly a barrier up around the tunnel entrance, and just as suddenly there was a rain of holy water from above.

It seemed Father Diem had joined the fight after all.

She can hear the sizzle as the remaining ghouls’ bodies were burned by the Grace of God funneled through the water. But that didn’t stop them from their climb. Now standing at the mouth of the hole, she can see the mass of writing undead bodies as they teamed out of the tunnel, clawing their way over their comrades and making rather quick work of exiting.

More .357 rounds find their homes in these new targets, the repeated pop of her sidearm filling the air over the sounds of moans and flesh hitting metal. Each of the crawling things went down, but not before something happened that actually caused her to wince.

She is being stabbed.

A creature had slide past her sight in the dim light, past the other mass of bodies, to work its way up to her leg, cutting her calf open with a shard of helo that had skidded across the earth not moments before. It is a black thing, jagged and sharp, and the pain should have caused her to shout out.

She simply stares at if for a second.

The sniper lowers her SIG to its face, eyes flat as she pulls the trigger in its decomposing face. Its head is thrown back as the blessed silver round is fired from point blank, causing it to release its hold on the shrapnel and tumble back down with its truly dead mates. The dark, improvised weapon is still stuck in her calf, but her boot is tight and the wound is secondary to the completion of the mission.

She drops the mag and reloads in the time it takes to blink, but her face is strangely calm now, eerily so. Fire from the burning chopper, and the building that was now up in flames cast shadow over her features, illuminating her from behind, but only leaving a silhouette of something dangerous coming to play in this game. If one could see her face, the only thing to be perceived would be nothing; no emotion, no projected feelings on the situation, as though she’d come to some sort of deadly peace.

She takes aim now at those holding down her partner.

The blessed bullets find their marks, aimed with deadly precision at each one’s head, intending to free her partner from these fleshy bonds. They are only a couple of meters away; this was deadly territory for anything in her path, and she never missed, never missed at this range, particularly at such hideous things as those that currently swarmed Father Miles. There was the possibility of using the rifle, sure, as the thing on top of the cyborg was laying on the punches with fury, but with the rounds she was using, it was likely the shot would tear through all three of them, and she wasn’t going to put her partner’s life in jeopardy for a kill they could get in other ways.

The red head readies herself for another onslaught, unsure if there was anything more in the tunnel, and decides against reloading for the moment, as she didn’t want to be caught unaware should yet one more thing show its face over the rim.


((She fired at the first six to exit, using only three rounds as she took out the rest with the knife. She then shoots at the next six, leaving her only four rounds in the mag (There was already one in the chamber, so there were 13 rounds in the first shooting). She changes that one out for a fresh one, then fires at the ones remaining on Father Miles. This should take out another six, leaving her with only six rounds remaining. She has one full magazine left of 12 rounds total. Oh, and two swords that never need reloading.))

His holy water showered upon the ghouls and burnt them. His bullets took from them their unholy mockery of a life. He saw Meabh's shooting of these creatures become rather eery as the flames of the buildings rose and accented the shadows around her. He saw her walking up to the hole where gun fire could still be heard. Hopefully that meant Father Miles was still fighting. He paused a moment to reload both of his guns and when he did he holstered one and jumping off the building into a flurry of pages he appeared behind Meabh to the left a couple feet. Gun in his hand he made his way carefully along these unholy grounds around these ghoulish creatures.

He was now around eight feet from the hole which was as close as his quick but careful walk would get him before Meabh started firing into it. He now to the left of her raised his gun and aimed it at the open entrance. His shots would have to be very precise if he wanted to hit anything that jumped out before it got to Meabh. At Anthony's current angle he would be able to at least try and shoot anything that wasn't Miles if it popped out of the hole without hitting Meabh.

This...commie..bastard!  Rage filled the still burning Nam vet as he once again switched tactics.  Leaving the right arm to the ghoul, Sanders gripped the priest's head with both hands, his thumbs digging into the clergyman's eyes to try and gouge them out but even if that was not possible the gunman's vision would be temporarily blocked.  Pulling the priest towards himself in his rage, Sanders was finally able to create enough room for Flora to move, or rather forced her to move as her hold on the priest's waist was broken.  Ghouls still held fast to the priest's limbs to keep him still, she herself adding her strength to keep the left arm down, but she now also had her right hand free.  Suddenly, the ghouls fell under attack as well, ammunition from above raining down upon them.  Tears running down her face, the injured, frantic Flora did the only thing that she could in this situation.  She attacked the nearest thing to her; the priest.  

Moving her left hand to the priest's upper left arm to allow herself a bit of space to move, she stabbed at the back of the robot man's neck with her supernaturally strong fingers, aiming right for the spinal cord at the base of the skull just like Sandy always taught her.  At this range, even an injured hippie like herself wouldn't miss.  Or rather, it didn't seem as if she could miss.  She had started her attack as soon as the first of the ghouls (those holding the priest's legs) felt the wrath of those blessed bullets.  By the time her attack landed, the ghouls restraining the clergyman's arms would be dead but it would already be too late.  She was simply too close in such an ideal position to attack the vital point from behind.  Adding to this, the rage filled Sanders was now holding the cyborg's head with both hands, keeping it dead steady with his full power and blocking the cyborg's vision.  The priests would need to register the death of the ghouls on his legs and then arms by touch alone before having the time to properly respond and even then, Sanders was drawing all the attention to himself.  Though the Nam vet may very well suffer a violent and painful response from the cyborg once his arms were free, the time required for such an attack was more than enough for Flora to finish hers.

If this abomination thought Miles wasn't going to put his right hand to use the moment Sanders took his strength away from restraining it - which was really the only thing restraining it due to their strength rivaling each others, as a mere ghoul was outmatched by leagues upon leagues in scale - then he was sorely mistaken. Rising up just a bit, his fingers slid out of his empty gun's custom grip in the moment it took Sanders to switch tactics, meaning the second the weight was taken off of his arm it launched straight up, ghoul still latched on to his wrist, and sent his open palm flying straight toward the vampires throat to force his Adam's apple inward with as much force as he could, as he did this he .

Though, the strike was slowed down by the dead weight of the ghoul being forcibly pulled along like a child, meaning it would take a moment after Sanders hand's latched onto the cyborgs head to strike. By this time the cyborgs left eye was dug into by the vet's thumb, utterly crushing it and any visual sensors along with it; though the mess was halted as it piled into the back of the eye socket, blinding him in that eye. His right eye managed to close just before the thumbs impact which allowed the reinforced material to soak up some of the damage, though the eye was still damaged in the process - now to the point of where, if he had his eye open, he would only be able to see blurs and outlines with random flashes of what was infront of him.

Hopefully, by the time the flower child's fingers dug into his neck, Sanders would be coughing on his own Adam's apple and be wide open for a kill shot; but Miles would be paralyzed from the neck down; not dead. A very unpleasant situation to be in either way, and utterly useless one at that as with him in such a state the two C's would have no-one else to focus on but his two outmatched comrades, so hopefully Meabh and Diem could catch the female in her weakened state along with Sanders and end this mess.

------

OOC: I believe this will likely fit the next few posts....

Too much was happening too fast. She could watch, but she couldn’t react to everything that was transpiring down in that cursed tunnel. They were all so fast, and though she’d trained her eye to follow the actions of vampires much faster than herself, it was still a challenge to keep up with them physically.

The ghouls all but fell away as her bullets found their targets, but this did little to help her partner, who was now under attack from both sides. Before, the woman had simply held down the cyborg; now it looked as though she was getting in on the fight.

This was not a good thing.

Time to change their minds on attacking her partner.

The red head knows her next action would be dangerous, and if not placed correctly, could kill all involved. She catches the beaten, dented Father Miles rear back and slam his hand into the male abomination’s neck, and the sniper knew it was now or never.

Her hands go into swift motion, left hand rotating the SIG by the trigger guard, holding it with a single finger only, while her right places the bloodied blade between her teeth, not having time to sheath either weapon. The remaining fingers of her left hand raise the rifle, and her right brings it to bear, settling it with one smooth motion to her shoulder.

There were three targets in the tunnel, and one of them was friendly. But they were all neatly lined up with one another, each one slightly off-set so as to give her a clear shot to everyone’s torso. Their angle meant one thing to her: her partner would live.

It was then that the female buried her fingers in Michel’s neck.

The sniper’s breathing leveled.

Her heartbeat slowed.

Her fingers smoothly pulled the trigger.

At this range, only a couple of feet from the edge, there was no escaping the .338 HEIAP Lapua round that came bursting from the barrel with a crack that echoed in the surrounding area. It was near enough to point blank that the kinetic energy of the bullet would be enough to rend a hole the size of a baseball in anything it hit.

It was aimed at the male vampire’s heart.

The white-hot phosphorous and silver nitrate would explode as soon as it punched though his heart and ribs, leaving the round to shatter and tumble out the rest of the way to exit, then impact Father Miles on his right side, as the two grappled men were facing one another.

But it wouldn’t stop with her partner.

The pieces would plow through him and finally come to a stop within the female vampire, somewhere in her torso, as they would have encountered too much resistance to be accurate anymore. But all three would feel the pain of the exploding bullet, though Saunders would feel the sting of phosphorous and silver the most.

She chambers another round, and is set to fire immediately, should the male abomination still be up and moving.

It would be his head the next time.

Nothing popped out of the hole at Meabh as he continued his forward walk. He pulled out his other gun as Meabh shot once. Many sounds were heard as the bullet made its way through three people. Father Diem sped up his approach and as Meabh's second shot was about to possibly be fired Anthony unloaded his guns into the female vampire. The range was short and she did not look good in any way. He had twenty four bullets all silver and blessed aimed towards her. He fired at her unafraid of hitting miles as he was immune to his 1911 bullets.

He imagined that Meabh's shot had ended sanders and was sure that his would end Flora.

As Flora's fingers sank into the priest's neck, the clergyman's metallic hand crushed Sanders' throat, causing the grizzled vet to cough several mouthfuls of blood onto Michel a fraction of a second before his chest exploded from the impact of a high caliber round. His heart and much of his torso was reduced to hamburger in the blink of an eye as the armor piercing bullet punched through him before ripping through the right side of the priest's chest to finally slam into Flora's right breast. Fingers broken from the impact of piercing the cyborg, a lung destroyed by the holy bullet in her chest, Flora didn't even have time to scream before Father Diem's final salvo peppered the visible portions of her chest and head. The hippie flopped to the ground with a wet thwack as Sanders' corpse settle atop Father Miles, both of them still smoldering as the blessed pages continued to burn against their unholy remains.

-MISSION OBJECTIVES: COMPLETED-

OOC: All enemies have been eliminated. The final strike at the back of Michel Miles head (aimed at his spine just below the skull) would sever the spine at around C3 leading to loss of breathing control and eventual death due to a lack of oxygen to the heart and brain. Since Michel moved upwards a bit to attack Sanders I can accept that the stab from Flora landed lower on the spinal cord than intended, leading to paralysis in his limbs rather than almost instant death. That being said, the man took a serious stab wound to the spine and had a high caliber round punch through own of his lungs. I highly recommend finding a way to get him immediate medical attention.

Contact was made with the vampires throat, then all function he had in his limbs was lost, then he was impacted with an AP round whom he could only guess belonged to his redheaded partner before he was caked in the vampires remains. His arm fell limply across his chest as the vampires corpse slumped over his own, continuing to be scorched by the pages.

Miles was paralyzed. Odd, no one had ever managed to find that weak spot before so he had never felt like this. He tried, but couldn't move any parts of his body aside from his head. A frightening realization for anyone else, but Mile's face was still void of any expression, both artificial and real blood dripping out the corners of his mouth from the large wound he had just suffered.

Through his damaged cybernetics in his remaining eye, the pictures fading in and out of a static, he checked his systems.

"Cal..culating specs..

Damage: Maximum; limbs inoperable.... damage to right lung, breathing complicated. Immediate repairs....highly..advised.

Excellent shot, Meabh, Father Diem.

And that was that. He couldn't do much more than speak.
--------------------------------

OOC: Feel free to do whatever with Mikey now, he'll exit when you guys do considering..

She doesn’t think before her next move; the ghouls, the vampires, they were gone. Now she focused on her partner, her very injured and paralyzed partner. Unhooking the rifle from its sling, she allows it to drop to the snow before re-sheathing her blade. The SIG is holstered as she slides down into the pit filled with death and decay. Already the bodies were beginning to smell, though it was an odor she’d long since become immune to.

Crawling over body parts and bloody heads, she reaches the cyborg Father after a more than slight struggle. Shifting the bodies around, she heaves them off of him, her white camouflage painted red for her efforts. Once he was cleared, she places a hand on the wound she created, attempting to stem the blood loss at least a bit. Her other goes to his face, determining damage, before falling back to aid in compression.

”Don’t flatter me, Michel. I shot you.”

Her words are reserved and quiet, her mind on other things but her heart, it was being tugged at by an emotion she’d not felt in a while: worry. Worry for the life of another human being. Certainly, he was competent and good at his job – excellent at his job – but that didn’t mean she’d lost sight of how easily he could succumb to damage as the rest of them.

Well, perhaps not too easily.

It was then that her comm crackled, and there was a man on the other end telling her the evac was on its way; it had been called in the moment the other chopper had gone down. Ten minutes. They would need to wait out ten minutes before the medical team could reach them. She looks back down to her partner, and frowns.

”Think you have ten minutes left in you?”

Her tone was slightly jesting, though the question was laced with worry. However, she didn’t have time to wait for his answer as the sounds of muffled footsteps in the snow reached her ears. With a snap move, the .357 was drawn and pointed at the opening to the hole, trained to take the shot when a familiar face peered over the edge.

The crewman.

He’d survived.

He looked confused, slightly injured, and more than a little jumpy, but he was still a man who knew his job, and that had been to assist her.

”What do I do?”

He was falling back on training, asking for orders, hoping to have something to do that wouldn’t require too much thought. Thought equaled understanding of the situation, and he wasn’t so sure he wanted to understand just yet.

”Keep a watch for anything else unfriendly.”

Her words are now even and smooth, her role as a commanding officer coming back to her without hesitation. She holsters the SIG once again, then turns to Father Diem.

”Your pages, they can get him out, yes?”

Her hands are stained red, and her face is smudged from pulling down her balaclava, but she seems utterly calm. Externally, at least. She knows how perilous the situation is, and just how little time he has.

She will not let him die.

Father Anthony Surveyed the scene with the death of these two vampires and looked around to make sure all of their targets were in fact killed. He did not see any surviving ghouls or vampires and decided that it was.

But then there was movement. So of course he turned to greet this new comer with his guns. It appeared that they would not be necessary however as the movement had been caused by their crewman. Anthony lowered his guns and smiling he waved him forward to continue towards the hole. He looked at Father Miles and then at Meabh who were both injured. He quickly used his pages to take him to the police station where he sure that within there must be a medical kit they would use for injured officers. Arriving inside the building he had only to look around a counter and below it to find the kit. He checked it for only a moment. Something to clean the wound and gauze and some other stuff he didn't care about. Transporting himself back to the hole in the ground he for a moment wrapped the medical kit and a barrier and seeing no sparks or any other signs knew for a fact this medical kit was clean or would be made clean as his barrier set in from the presence of anything unholy.

He was just in time to hear Meahb's question to him.

"Your pages, they can get him out, yes?”

Father Diem responded as he slid into the hole.

"Yes Sister. They can."

Father Anthony Diem handed her the medical kit which he had found and checked and told her almost pleadingly.

"Please use this Sister. You are injured as well."

Father Diem knelled beside Michel and pages began to flow forth from him and cover himself and the other priest. They took them above and out of the hole. Anthony was when they landed carrying Michel in his arms around the same position that he had been in before being moved from the hole. He attempted to move his body as little as he could for fear of further damaging the priest.

Then he turned his head to him for a moment and said.

"Don't sell yourself short now father. Your shots were far more well placed than mine."

He was shot, beaten, and otherwise made into a total mess in every regard, so it was different day with the same outcome. He wouldn't hold the shot against her. She did the smart thing in that situation, even he wasn't sure how much longer he would have survived being hammered away at by the vampire and his counterparts, so she may have just saved him from certain death - then again, its not like he could die, could he? No, he was a machine, he was just...damaged...very severely. This just about topped the Rome incident, simply for the fact that he couldn't move on his own now - though nearly being bisected rated both this and that incident nearly on par with one another.

Ten minutes? Why not. He didn't respond to either of them at this point. It was getting harder to breath with just a single lung, he'd have to make sure he kept as much air in as he could. Oxygen intake decreased by 50%...action must be taken.. Miles inhaled as much as he could before the valves in his throat closed off, sealing the air inside. It was something that was originally built in to allow him to operate underwater, holding in air for up to 72 hours if he was forced to; though with only one lung functional that time was most likely cut in half, if not more - but it should last him long enough to return to the Vatican.

Ignoring the position he was now in after being teleported from the hole, the priest's vision fazed in and out of his one still functioning eyes; logging various warning pop-ups and damage specs. The evac that was mentioned would arrive on scene, then all of them could go home. Not having much more to do or say without losing what little air he now had stored, the cyborg would wait for the helicopter - which soon appeared in the distance, likely carrying medical supplies and various other equipment needed to prolong his activation until they got to the Vatican; he needed to get to his room to be fully repaired. The helicopter would land, the door already flung open ready to received the three priests and give what medical attention they could on the way back to Rome.

--------

OOC: Mikey'll exit with the other two once they post to get this damn hole in his chest looked at...

She watches as her partner inhales as much air as he could before locking off his airways, effectively buying him time until they were back in Rome. The sniper doesn’t pay attention to much else as she waits for the other Father to return, instead focusing on the steady loss of blood the seeped out under her fingers; she had done this, she had caused him pain. Not that he looked at all in discomfort, however. His face was a mess, true, but nothing indicated that he felt anything close to pain.

She envies him sometimes.

The younger priest reappears with a medical kit in hand, and with surprising sincerity, he begs her to use it for herself. Until now, she hadn’t taken notice to the throbbing pain stemming from her leg, but when he mentions her needing the aid, the full brunt of the dull, leaking ache hits her, and a frown crosses her blood-smeared features. Taking the proffered bag, she shifts off her partner and watches as both men are fluttered away in a flurry of holy pages. She follows after them, though not quite so gracefully. She struggles over the mounds of bodies, clawing her way up until a hand reaches out and grasps her wrist, aiding her up with a steady pull.

The crewman had seen her rather difficult situation, and was knelt down, tugging her out of the tunnel with much appreciated concentration.

Now topside, she can hear the rotors of the coming evac over the soft brushing of the wind around them, telling her they were well on their way to getting out of this miserable place. Both her and the crewman stumble a bit as she leans on him to release pressure from the injury, an attempt to lessen damage not pain.

She takes a knee next to the young Father just as the snow whips up around them in a fury, driven to waves of white by the evac as it settled down only a dozen or so yards from them. Three men instantly burst forth from the helo as the large door rolls open, hurrying along in practiced form; these men were trained to move in a quick, efficient manner, fast but not so rapid that it hinders ability to perform their duties.

Two break off and begin looking over Father Miles as he and Father Diem are ushered into the chopper, while the remaining officer helps the sniper off the ground, instructing the frazzled crewman to retrieve anything left behind before they depart.

Limping along with the medic’s help, she takes note of the crewman scurrying along to pick up her two rifles before she is shepherded into the helicopter, taking a seat next to the gurney Father Miles had already been placed on.

Once the crewman hopped on board, they were dusting off and making their way back to Rome, where they could all use a little reprieve.

Glad to finally have some people here who knew how to help the priest he quickly deposited him where they had requested.

But still worrying about his ally he looked back towards Meabh and was glad to see that she had used the medical kit to try and stop the bleeding in her leg. Although he did not look for long as she already had help walking and e knew that time was scarce at the moment.

Going where he was told in the chopper he pulled out his cross once more and kissing it he gave thanks t the lord that his friends had managed to survive. Not that had honestly surprise him. As these two had both went toe to toe with Alucard and survived. Something that he would never forget they did as it rather impressed him.

During the flight home Anthony would be silent unless asked a question. He wanted to be able to hear every detail about his friends wounds and make sure that they survived. However with Rosary clutched in hand and him looking off rather blankly into space it did look very much like he was praying the entire time they rode back to rome.

------> Exit. Thankfully all three of us. To Rome! Or at least I've been told.