Almost Running but not Quite

[Hally]

Panicked shots burst the small window open sending glass everywhere. Two bullets lodged themselves in the robot's torso; another blasted the robot's shoulder. Sadly for the mobians, this robot wasn't a bunch of scrap glued together - it was much more resilent.

A classic Jet Booster was attached to it's back. It used it to hover over quickly towards the stairwell, guns firing.

It reached the door and paused - did Overlord wish to capture specimens?

Searching through programming... Not a chance.

The robot kicked open the door* and floated right in, gun ready.

----------------------------------------

((*Pretend he did something more robotic. >_>))

[Glyph]

"Go!" Banner urged Tara back up the stairs, heart threatening to hammer a hole through his chest--it nearly leaped to his throat when he watched the door below crash open.

But Banner hadn't wasted any time. Ignoring the agony coursing up his leg and the blood dripping from his ear, Banner had hurried back up to the next level after Tara. Now, the fox leaned over the banister, firing on the robot from above as it entered the stairwell.

New apartment buildings like this one generally had some sort of fire escape, or at least a second set of stairs for emergency, but the fox hadn't noticed any the night before. Still climbing and plugging rounds downward, the fox growled under his breath. "Please tell me this place has a back door!"

[Kiwi]

Tara had spent her whole time shooting as she ran up the stairs, her fingers clicking the trigger like crazy. When the robot burst through the door, she almost cried in fright. The pale hedgehog focused her eyes only on the robot, hearing Banner join her side. She took a shaky breath, her wrist throbbing from the recoil from the laser gun.

“Out the window on the second floor.” She finally replied, shooting more shots, her ears pinned back against her head. Damn it! That stupid robot has jets. She thought as she spotted what was keeping the robot up. The thing was creepy too. Just looking into it’s red eyes gave her a chill.

“We can’t outrun it if it has that damn jetpack!” Tara blurted out, aiming more shots towards the jetpack, each shot obviously sloppy, but hopefully one would hit. The pale hedgehog paused. Jets. She stared at her shoes.

For Chaos’ sake! She was wearing air gear! What the hell was she doing?! The hedgehog smacked her ankles together, and felt the familiar humming of skates. Tara gave a grin as she floated up half a inch from the ground. Not high at all, but these skates were a possibly the most unstable skates a rider could ever wear.

[Hally]

Bullets rained down upon the robot, but it was moving fast, and not one hit. Then laser bullets went right toward the robot, aimed at its jet. Sadly, robots were better built for battle nowadays - this robot's jets were positioned to be hidden by its shoulders for the most part. A stray bullet or two blasted through the robot's shoulders and right below the head, but not much more damage than that. It ignored the damage entirely.

It then chased the two mobians almost eagerly. It seemed ready to relish the deaths of the survivors. Ready to stare into their cold dead eyes and report back to the Overlord.

It then stopped as the white hedgehog paused to clack her ankles together. Maybe she wanted to go back home to Kansas? Or was she praying to her make-believe God?

When it stopped trying to process what the hell she was doing - or why she was now floating - it started shooting again.

[Glyph]

"Dammit!" Banner snarled after emptying his clip into the robot's outer armor, only to find most of the bullets had bounced off. It looked like the laser pistol was doing more damage, but the fox reloaded as he ran anyway, figuring that any weapon was better than none.

At the second floor landing, he realized Tara had stopped. He snapped an incredulous stare her way, only to have his eyes widen as he realized that she'd risen an inch or two off the ground. His eyes snapped down, and then he whirled back to send more bullets raining past the rails, the glow of her boots all the explanation he needed.

.:The blasts from the robot were more controlled now, and at a much more unfortunate angle for the pair on the stairs above. The shots rained all around them, exploded the concrete from the walls and the wood from the banister; one caught Banner's shoulder on its flight past, but the blow was glancing; Tara narrowly avoided a similar predicament, lucky enough to be mostly-obscured by the bottom of the next flight of stairs.

Something clipped his left shoulder, and it was all the fox could do to keep from swooning. Gritting his teeth against the burn the graze left behind, Banner leveled his gun toward the advancing robot, hackles bristling and fire blazing in his pale eyes. His gun alone wouldn't down this thing--that much he knew. The angle was wrong, obscuring any potential weak spots, but Banner wasn't going to back down, not when he had someone else depending on him too.

He just hoped that, whatever Tara was going to do, it would be within the next three seconds.

[Kiwi]

What Tara did next, took less then three seconds.

There was a sharp blast of wind by Banner’s side, and Tara was gone with it. The only sound being the sudden dramatic increase in power output from her skates. The hedgehog skidded across the stairs, a vortex of wind after her. The pale hedgehog grimaced slightly, her stomach lurking in her throat from such fast speeds. The hedgehog was heading right towards the robot. Moments before she would have rammed into it, the hedgehog jumped over head. “Tell your master I said Hello.” She whispered, guessing that his audio receptor was right by her face. The white hedgehog landed behind the metal monster.

She whipped around, laser pistol in hand, and fired right at the back of it’s head. Tara would have smirked, if she didn’t painfully crash into the wall behind the robot. She had been moving to fast to stop. Her thud echoed through the stairwell. The hedgehog blinked several times, her shoulder now sore and bleeding, but nothing broke, that much she knew for sure.

She fired several shots again from behind, in case her first shot missed.

[Hally]

The risky trick worked. There were now bullet holes scattered throughout the robot's body - one was right between its then glowing eyes. Wires could be seen through the hole if you looked close enough - might not want to since said wires were flailing about with electricity.

The robot twitched a bit before it's jets died down. The robot fell back immediately from the angle of the stairs. When it stopped clanking against the stairs, it simply laid there. Dead, you could say.

Little did they know, this robot had extracted at much information from this small chase as it could and sent it to its Master. These fools were going to be hunted.

[Glyph]

Banner ducked when he heard the roar of air next to him; when he looked up again, Tara had vanished from his side and was instead busy firing rounds into the back of the short circuiting robot. The fox scrambled backwards as quickly as his ankle would allow to avoid any laser blasts that strayed from their mark, then peeked over the rail when everything fell silent.

He was just in time to see the giant mech skid down the stairs, coughing sparks and spluttering a final time before falling still.

Banner's brows rose steadily, almost disappearing under the tattered fedora he'd managed to hang onto all this time. Eyes making their way back to Tara, who was half-buried in the wall, the fox finally shook his head and limped back down the stairs.

"... Does "doing something" always have involve bodily harm with you?" Heart still hammering with the roar of adrenaline, the detective gave what appeared to be an exasperated sigh, and offered her a hand. "... We should go before that thing decides to come back to life and blow up on us or something."

[Kiwi]

The white hedgehog reached forward, grasping the fox’s hand as she pulled herself out of the wall, glancing at the dent she left behind. She gave a nervous chuckle, rubbing the back of her head. Her air gears had already shut down, leaving the hedgehog at her normal height. She gave the robot a kick for good measure.

“Pretty much. Once you start these things, you can’t stop.” Tara pointed down towards her shoes. “I hardly use them because of it.” She glanced at Banner, nodding at his comment. She had already had a robot self destruct on her already. She didn’t want it to happen twice now. She frowned.

“Yeah. These things do like to blow up and stuff.” Her gaze went to his tattered clothes and new injuries she sighed.

“I hope we don’t run into more of those guys.” She pointed at the fallen robot. “We’ll look like Swiss cheese by the time we do get to your place.”

[Glyph]

The fox looked at Tara as he pulled her from the wall, taking in the dent and the sparking carcass, and simply shook his head, partly amazed, partly dismissive. "Let's keep it that way, huh? We don't want to do their work for them."

At her words, the wound in his shoulder gave a throb, and he fought back a grimace. Swiss cheese? There wouldn't be anything left of them if things continued like this--they had to get out of the city. Banner finally rolled his eyes, giving a weary half-grunt, "Hoping doesn't do much around here, by my reckoning."

Straightening suddenly, he glanced down at the crackling mech and scowled, dearly wishing he knew where to find the wise-guy behind this B-movie made real.

"We ought to get out of here before its friends show up." Jerking his head toward the next level, the fox started forward, then must have thought better of it, because he paused, setting the dead robot with a deep glare. Following Tara's example, he dealt it a swift kick with his good leg--only his put a dent in the crumpled metal. The fox spat angrily, then started off once again, shoving the broken body out of his mind.

"Which way did you say it was to the fire escape?"

[Kiwi]

Tara flinched as she looked at the dent. Dang. He had a good kick. She reminded herself to never get on Banner’s bad side. The white hedgehog rubbed at her shoulder were the cut was. Her fingers covered in small blood spots. The wound wasn’t bad obviously. That much she was thankful for. Her gaze returned to Banner, watching him move up the stairs. Tara followed after. Her thoughts started racing again. Just who was in charge of all of this?

“2nd floor, out the window.” She repeated. A thought struck her. “Damn. We should have left through it in the first place.” She muttered under her breath. That would have saved them so much time and effort. The hedgehog sighed. She should keep her mind open. If she kept all of her thoughts and idea of basic, she’d be outsmarted by a robot in no time.

The hedgehog paused as they reached the 2nd floor on the stairwell. She moved over to the window and unlatched it, sliding it up. The pale hedgehog climbed through and glanced at the outside world.

It looked even worse then yesterday. Tara gulped, and grasped onto a latter and started climbing down. The smell of dried blood and something else hung in the air. The smell of the dead maybe? The hedgehog found herself feeling sick at that thought. Of course, she had every right to feel bile rise in her chest. Thankfully, she pushed it back down, and forced herself to stomach the thought. She had something more important to do then throw up in a trash can. Like breathing.

[Glyph]

The fox started to shrug at the sentiment--it wasn't like they could do anything about it now--but fell short when the outside air hit him full in the face. Banner's ears pinned slowly, his nose wrinkling in equal parts dismay and anger. That smell was familiar--he'd experienced it every time he'd made a bust, every time he'd patrolled the slums and back alleys after dark, every time he'd walked into a crime scene.

It was pain. It was death. It was a city without hope.

Gritting his teeth, the fox followed after Tara, gripping the rusted metal railing with tattered gloves. He might as well chuck them after this--it wasn't like they were going to hold up for much longer anyway.

"Hopefully they didn't kill the car," he muttered to himself, forcing his eyes away from the low, smoky clouds clinging to the shattered remains of his home, "We need to get out of here now."

[Kiwi]

She could see the pained expression that flicked across Banner’s face. The white hedgehog grimaced, and looked away from him. He was a cop, so that meant that he worked to protect this city. Seeing it in this condition must be…horrendous. She nodded slowly at his next statement. She hoped that they didn’t destroy the car as well. If the car was wrecked…well…things would get a lot harder.

Tara paused, peering around the corner of the building, and relief filled her quickly. The car. It was still there! She praised what ever god was up in the sky, and then glanced around for robots. She saw none. “The car is still in one piece!” Tara whispered loud enough for him to hear. She turned around and gave him a grin. To think she was so happy just to see a vehicle still in one piece. “The coast is clear too.” She whispered again.

She walked out from cover slowly, her ears perked up, and her back hunched over slightly as she moved, careful to not make any noise. Then, with a sudden jump, the hedgehog crouched behind the hover car and opened the door. What she didn’t notice were the recent bloodstains that dotted across the ground around the car. Probably from last night. She turned her head and signaled for him to come over.

[Glyph]

"That's something, at least." He grunted in reply as he slid down the last few feet after the clearly relieved hedgehog. Banner managed a smirk and a shake of his head in reply to her smile, then drew his gun again, covering her as she headed toward the car.

The fox slunk after her slowly, partly because his ankle was slowing him down, and partly because he didn't trust their luck to hold out. Something always had to go wrong.

As if defying his logic, Murphy's Law took that moment to ignore the detective, and he made it to the car door without incident. The street was silent--nothing stirred. Banner couldn't decide if he liked this new silence, or if he preferred the explosions from last night. At least then he hadn't felt like he was being stalked--pursued, maybe, but not actively hunted.

On an impulse, the fox looked down, and was suddenly glad that Tara had gone around the other side of the car. Banner quietly opened the door and slid inside, shutting it on the sight of the clumps of blood streaked fur matted to the ground.

Keeping his expression even, the fox looked over at her, his voice barely a whisper, as if all the world were listening. "You ready for another driving lesson?"

[Kiwi]

The hedgehog climbed into the car after Banner, not seeing the blood, or the fur. Which was a good thing. Who knows how this young hedgehog would react to seeing something like that? Just the smell that hung in the air almost made her sick. Anything more then that might throw this young hedgehog into pure fright.

She sat herself down into a leather beat and bucked her seatbelt. Unlike last time, she was able to lean back against the seat, her back only stung slightly from the pressure but it was easy to ignore. The hedgehog sighed slowly. At Banner’s next question, she perked up and gave a smirk. “Hell yeah.” She responded and slowly twisted the ignition and heard the car start up. Good. Nothing damaged the engine or anything. Tara grasped her hands onto the stirring wheel, and set the car into reverse as she pulled away from the apartment building. Switching back into drive, she was driving on the road again.

“What’s the fastest way to get to your house from here?” She asked. Her voice normal now. They were in a car, if the robots didn’t hear the engine, how could they possibly hope to hear them speak?