aaaaaaaagh_sky | Grayditch

The scene that presents itself to the people arriving from Milliways is one of devastation old and new. The shattered, weathered remains of what had once been a city street spill out to either side, and half-standing, half-slumping outer walls are all that remain of most of the buildings. There are no people here, no animals, no life to be seen...

Well, no. That's not necessarily true. Here and there, fires burn merrily, and the occasional scratching scuttling sound can be heard on the sullen August winds that wind through the empty streets.

"This is it," Ellen says. "Welcome to Grayditch."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

bprd_agent_red

Red's just going to stand his ground and keep firing.

Ellen might want to hurry. The Samaritan only holds four shots, when the bullets are out he's not going to bother with reloading. He'll take the hands on approach instead.

From:

aaaaaaaagh_sky

Fortunately, she's pretty quick with that thing, and the ant isn't trying especially hard to change position. She can't get off a headshot- looking at the fire through the telescopic sight would be bad- but the midsection's got enough vital organs in it that between the Samaritan's bullets and two of Ellen's, the ant lets out a peculiarly screechy noise, twitches, and falls down dead.

Ellen looks up, eyes wide. "Yuuno said there were how many of those?"

From:

bprd_agent_red

Watching to make sure it's not going to get up again Red lifts his flesh hand up and sticks a finger in his ear that's ringing after the screeching.

"Five? Fifteen? Somewhere in there."

He reloads and keeps the gun out.

"Which ain't bad. The other big ants I went up against once were in a forrest. Thousands of 'em. They were about the size of your finger but had these huge jaws and liked to swarm. Didn't breath fire though."

From:

aaaaaaaagh_sky

"Ew." Ellen wrinkles her nose, scanning the area for more movement. "We have some other giant bugs here, but nothing like that. Radroaches are about the size of my calf, and the bloatflies are, um-" She glances sidelong at Hellboy. "I think about the size of your fist. Nasty little-"

She stops; something's scrabbling out of one of the alleys up ahead.

"Can you draw its fire?" Ellen murmurs as she reloads the rifle and kneels down to get a better line of fire on the spot where it's about to emerge.

From:

bprd_agent_red

He's about to ask if they have giant rats, because he's handled those before, when she stops and he looks towards the movement.

"Sure."

Holstering the Samaritan he reaches down and picks up a big chunk of rubble and starts walking away from her with it.

Eyes fixed on the spot the sounds coming from he hefts the hunk of concrete up, ready to chuck it once the ant is visible.

From:

aaaaaaaagh_sky

The ant that emerges is somewhat larger than the last one, with more angular lines and bristly spines on its head. And, unfortunately, it's not alone; a slightly smaller ant darts out alongside it, mandibles chittering.

The big one turns Hellboy's way first, antennae twitching wildly.

From:

bprd_agent_red

When it turns the slab is already gone, sailing through the air in an arc towards the bug.

He's reaching down to pick up something to sling at the smaller one while he calls out, "Hey! Bugs!"

He'll try and buy Ellen time to get off shots to take care of them both, but if they start towards her before that happens he'll run to intercept.

From:

aaaaaaaagh_sky

Yeah, bad day to be a bug. The big one starts to let loose with a flame burst, but between the slab and Ellen's gunfire...

Hm. That's interesting. It's not dead, but between the two of them, Ellen and Hellboy have managed to take both its antennae off. And now it's going crazy. No, seriously, how else would you describe a giant screaming ant that suddenly turns from attacking two outsiders to start tearing into the giant ant next to it with all its might?

"... I think we might have to remember that," Ellen murmurs, watching the battle for a moment. "I was going for a headshot."

From:

bprd_agent_red

The rock he picked up is still in his hand as he watches the two ants.

"Damn."

Turning to Ellen he nods.

"Yeah, sure it'll come in handy."

From:

aaaaaaaagh_sky

Ellen gives a small smile and raises the rifle's scope to her eye again. Not that she wants to interrupt the combat or turn both ants their way, but she has no guarantee that they're going to kill each other. Might as well make her own contribution. Besides, locking onto each other like that, they make a bigger target. She's bound to hit something.

From:

bprd_agent_red

He realizes that they are a better target and draws his own gun.

Sighting on the tangled mass he waits for her to take her shot and then he'll run clean-up.

From:

aaaaaaaagh_sky

There's a crack! and one of the ants screams and thrashes. The other staggers back, shaking its head frantically, and turns to face the two figures at the end of the street. Whether it can muster another firebreath or not is unclear, but it can still sure as hell charge.

From:

bprd_agent_red

Blam! Blam! Blam!

Lousy shot or not, Red took his time aiming and the Samaritan has Really big bullets.

"Ant, you just bought the farm."

Holstering the still smoking gun he smirks. Along with the antennae thing he's totally going to have to remember that line, too.

From:

aaaaaaaagh_sky

"Oh, very nice," Ellen says as she lowers the rifle and looks at all that remains of the two ants. "Wow. I don't think that thing even has a head any more. Who makes that gun, anyway?"

From:

bprd_agent_red

"It's custom. They made it for me back at the Bureau. I make the bullets. Got another one I'm tryin' to get them to make for me, that one's going to pack a real punch."

Starting to walk again he nods at the rifle in her hands.

"You're a pretty good shot."

From:

aaaaaaaagh_sky

"Thank you," says Ellen. "Dad gave me a BB gun when I was ten years old. I practiced with it just about every day, as long as I could round up all of the beebees afterwards. The supply was a little limited. This-" She nods to the gun. "This came from a man in Minefield who was trying to kill me. A friend of mine took him down, but she said I could have the rifle."

She thinks a minute, then nods to the alley the ants came out of.

"We should see if Mr. Wilks' body is in there somewhere," she says. "I kinda don't think we're going to have good news for Bryan, but he deserves an answer, at least."

From:

bprd_agent_red

"At first my father didn't want me messin' with guns, but I grew up on a base so they were everywhere. Eventually he decided it was good for me to at least know how to handle one an' I was taught by some of the guys around. Never was good at aiming, though."

He gives her a smile and follows her lead.

"With all these bugs running around you're probably right."

From:

aaaaaaaagh_sky

"Did they check which eye was the dominant one?" Ellen asks curiously. "Officer Gomez told me once that his son Freddy had a horrible time learning to shoot because he was right-handed but not right-eyed, and he couldn't deal with switching the hand he had to use to shoot. Sometimes that happens."

The alley is trash and ashes, for the most part, with the slumping, half-disintegrated remains of houses' back walls having long since sloughed down to street level. One or two of the buildings have dumpsters behind them. The majority of the dumpsters are open, but there's one with its lid firmly shut. Tongue in her cheek for a moment, Ellen considers.

"Think someone could hide in one of those?"

From:

bprd_agent_red

He pauses in his step a moment then resumes walking.

"You know... I don't think they ever did. Huh, maybe that's it."

He examines the alley, eyes settling on the closed dumpster.

"Could be, I'll check it out."

From:

aaaaaaaagh_sky

Ellen nods and returns the sniper rifle to its sling on her back. At this range she couldn't really use it, so she's switching back to the laser pistol she got off the Talon Company men and hoping for the best. Anything could come at them while Red's checking in there, after all.

From:

bprd_agent_red

He reaches for the lid with his flesh hand, the stone one drawn back so he can swing at anything that might come out. The lid doesn't budge though and he looks at it and sees a lock.

Figuring that's kind of weird, and hoping he's not going to find ancient garbage when he gets it open, he starts trying to pry it up.

A few swift hits with his stone hand dents the lid and he gets his fingers underneath and with a hard pull breaks it open.

"Hey!" Turning over his shoulder he waves over Ellen. "There's some stuff in here."

A gun and ammo and, Ooo, those look like some kind of grenades.

From:

aaaaaaaagh_sky

Ellen clambers over a nearby pile of rubble to get a good look inside. "Oh my," she says as she drops in to pick up the weaponry. "I don't think I've ever seen one of those before- I'd offer it to you, but it looks a little small for you... did you want the grenades?"

From:

bprd_agent_red

He watches her, offering a hand down to help pull her out.

"Sure, I'll take a couple." He's found that grenades can be handy for certain, special occasions.

From:

aaaaaaaagh_sky

Ellen hands four of them over, clipping the remainder onto her belt. "I haven't used these very much," she says, "but I have a good throwing arm, and I can put a baseball where I need it to be without much trying, so if worst comes to worst at least it won't come bouncing back at us." The gun gets checked for ammunition- you don't want to tote an unfamiliar firearm around when it might go off straight at your foot- and then stuck into her belt, and the bullets go into one of her pockets. "All right, I'm good... this must've been somebody's supply cache once."

With Hellboy's help, she scrambles out of the dumpster.

"Doubt they'll be coming back for it, though. Whoever they were."

From:

bprd_agent_red

Hellboy's method of grenade deployment sometimes involves him letting something big and nasty swallow him and blow the thing up from the inside, but he has no problem with Ellen's way of doing it.

The grenades she gives him gets tucked into his coat pockets and he shuts the lid after she's out again.

"Yeah, with these ants running around if someone didn't get this stuff by now I'm sure they aren't going to any time soon."