strangetrip | Inn-world Combat: The Dread Reign

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Inn-world Combat: The Dread Reign

At the crest of the mountain, Coc'zac sat atop Nazu's head looking through a glass that Hotor held to his eye. Vokva sat beside them, little more than a pile of bones atop a pile of rocks, and Hafur paced behind them, holding the troops in check. They milled in the pre-dawn gloom, skeletons, wights, zombies, wraiths, and all manner of undead creatures. Periodically, Nazu swept the space behind them with their tail bowling over anyone who'd gotten too close.

The first pinpoint of light had Coc'zac's teeth chattering with excitement in his disembodied head. Today was the day he'd been planning for. Soon, soon the Inn and its occupants would be his. Nazu unleashed a heavy sigh tinged with poison and necrosis. Fortunately the troops were all dead already, and Coc'zac didn't have anything in the way of arms to hit them with.

It fell to Hafur to gesture the troops forward as punctuation to Coc'zac's 'rousing' speech, and together they crept through the portal, avoiding its fizzing and popping edges demarcated in what would be neon blue, if they could still see in color. They couldn't properly hear either, but they were aware of the noise and the danger it marked.

Once they were all through, the advance scouts, four bands of skeleton archers swept quietly as they could through the shadows to take up position around the main buildings, prepared to pick off anyone who exited--for example for a pre-sun jog. And once they'd settled into wary, silent waiting, occasionally interrupted by the pop of a joint or the clatter of toe bones on stone, the next wave rolled in finding shadows to hide in until the residents emerged with the wights taking point.The bone naga and three flameskulls slipped through the lobby doors and stealthed toward the offices, assuming to find the command center there.

It wasn't long before the invaders caught the notice of the residents, and then shouts began to echo through the grey light and journals filled with messages and reminders of siege plans. Several strongly worded messages urged the kids and those without weapons or fighting skills to head for the Temple where the Hallow spell would protect them from unholy undead things.

And so the battle for the Madonna Inn began...

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Rocket aimed to exit the buildings as quickly as possible to fight in the open, but he honestly wasn't that worried about the stank dead things.

It was probably a miscalculation, as he'd managed to get himself in the middle of a crowd of things that didn't care if you hopped on their shoulders and broke their necks, and only cared a little more if he filled them full of cannon holes.

It was fun, yeah, but making a hole in the crowd to get out through was tougher than he expected. Not that that stopped him from laughing and yelling, "Come get some, assholes!" among other, more profane, invitations to come at him.

The blasting caught his attention first and when he didn't see who it was - Rocket was short, after all - he knew who it was only when he yelled at the various dead things to attack. He almost, almost didn't advance, but something tugged at him and with an inward eye-roll, Alec closed the distance between him and the horde around Rocket.

"Come on, guys, you're giving me a complex." Some of them seemed to turn with his voice, though it was obvious they didn't actually care what he was saying.

Oh, good, Spider-kid's roomie. Rocket considered 'accidentally' shooting him whenever he came into actual view, but decided against it. There were plenty of things to kill that wouldn't get him in trouble with anybody.

Instead, he headshot any of the things that turned away from him. Brain splatter might get on Spider-roomie, it might not, but he was being an okay distraction. "Good! Give'im a fuckin' complex!"

"Don't make me throw one of these things at you." Maybe he was chopping at the heads of various undead so the heads ended up hurling in Rocket's direction. It was hard to tell, though, with the chaos and everything.

There seemed to be a lot more than Alec had actually realized, though.

Dodging the heads was kind of fun, so suck it Spider-roomie! (Rocket vaguely considered learning his name, sooner or later, and dismissed it for later.) "Hey! I'm tryin' ta get out so's I can really open some shit up! You wanna be useful or you wanna keep playin' teeball?" Quill had referenced teeball once. Apparently it was real insulting.

"Who's the one playing target practice?" Alright, so Rocket had good aim, Alec might give him that.

Alec felt a hit from behind - ow - and he used the momentum to tumble and come to a stand next to Rocket. Training already had his back to Rocket's even if Rocket could potentially be just as much as a threat right now. "Maybe let's deal with this idiots first and you can go be space hero somewhere else."

Rocket had been made to fight, and not always as a solo act. Before the Guardians, before his partnership with Groot, he'd signed on with various mercenary outfits as a freelancer. When someone moved in concert with him, he moved to match.

In this case, back to back with a controlling prick who thought he wasn't a person and who he'd been on-and-off annoying/torturing pretty much since they met.

Life was fucking weird. "Sure, princess, sounds good. Then you can go get your nails painted or whatever shit while I handle the big stuff."

"You make it really hard -" He punched a skeleton in its face and his face crumbled. "-To help -" A roundhouse kick to another bad guy sent it flying into the bushes. "-your furry ass." A zombie arm fell off from a swing of his sword.

"Oh, boo hoo! Nobody asked you to!" Technically true, even if it was also probably true that it'd be a way tougher spot for Rocket if he didn't have backup. Backup that even knew how to shift to avoid getting hit by cannon recoil. (There wasn't a lot, but there was some. Couldn't get rid of the kick altogether, Lylla'd said.)

Headshots seemed to work, so Rocket ratcheted the cannon down to three-round bursts and started laying them into foreheads. Including one off to the side that seemed to be aiming for Dickhead's shoulder. "I'm just fuckin' floored y'ain't followin' Spider-Kid around makin' sure he's not havin' any fun with this shit."

Thankfully he could roll his eyes while fighting. "It's not about fun." You idiot was implied in the tone as he took down another undead. Alec was having fun - fun wasn't a bad this in and of itself, but then Alec was of the opinion his death wouldn't necessarily be a big deal. He didn't leave much of a mark on most people, unless you counted bloody noses and black eyes. "It's about being realistic."

He was suddenly lifted up and thrown into the air, though he was able to use that to his advantage and come down hard on a zombie. Still, it separated him from Rocket again, leaving them both at a tactical disadvantage.

"Sure, tell yourself that, ya fuckin' control freak." Rocket dodged a few grabs, taking advantage of being low to the ground. Then he bunched up and jumped onto the shoulders of a zombie between him and Alec, blew its head off, and used the vantage point to take out another on the way down. "But I'll tell ya I am havin' a fuckin' ball right now, an' reality can go fuck itself just like it has every goddamn day of my life."

God, he hated this raccoon.

"You're charming, you know that?" His tone implied the exact opposite, of course. Alec ducked a bunch and then managed to catch a flying arrow in his hand, using it to stab a zombie in the head. Really, who the hell wanted this inn so bad they brought so many troops?

It was easy to keep track of Rocket while they fought, despite his stature. Alec's instincts as a soldier were so ingrained that even though he hadn't been in many fights since showing up to the Inn. As they fought, it looked like they were finally making a dent.

Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a skeleton that had somehow gotten higher ground. The arrow was already headed in Rocket's direction and he reached out to try to grab it, but it ended up piercing right through his hand. He swore as he began to pull it out. That was one way to stop an arrow.

"Oh yeah, I'm a fuckin' delight." When Alec's hand got pierced, Rocket spun and blasted the skeleton archer. "I hear it all the time."

And hey, it looked like two was better than one even when the two hated each other. There was light at the end of the tunnel, so to speak: the dead crowd was definitely thinner. "An' hey, y'ain't so bad yourself. Professional shit at least."

"What can I say?" He tossed the arrow aside. Even with a injured hand, he would be able to fight well. "Manticore really knows how to make 'em."

He swung his sword and took off two heads in one swing. It was about that time there was definitely some sort of flying dragon in the air. A flying dragon. Alec could do a lot of things, but aerial combat without a helicopter or jet or something was pretty much off the table.

"Can you do something about whatever the hell that is?" Because with the amount of undead left in the area, Alec could probably take them on himself.

GIANT FLYING BONE LIZARD.

Even though it was Alec pointing it out, Rocket wanted nothing more in the universe than to fly up and punch (metaphorically, he intended to use his cannon) a GIANT FLYING BONE LIZARD. "Oh yeah."

Some programmed instinct held him back, though. You didn't just up and leave your combat buddies. Even if you hated them. "You cool?"

"Yeah, yeah." He punched something in the face with the butt of his sword. "Don't worry, if I die, you'll be the first one I come back to haunt."

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Inn-world Combat: The Dread Reign

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