Flesh vs Steel (Started)

Mercury

"I have a cybernetic eye, so are you calling me an android?" Koron said.

Mercury went quiet, he had a quick thought that maybe he was being a bit too harsh to Cancer, but the devil in his conscience quickly destroyed that doubt. He's one of them: a murderer, a cold hearted droid. Mercury heard them whispering, telling the beast that he was just misunderstood. Oh how wrong they were, they would see soon, when that 'man' realised his place at the androids' side he would betray them all. Mercury stopped suddenly and pulled Zephyr down to the floor behind a building, the rest of them team following. "Ten SICAD's and a Borg. Holy shit", Mercury warned, pulling his pistol from his pocket then cocking it.

"I've got one charge left", Koron suggested "I'll puncture the cranial armour of the Borg, you just shoot the central processor."

"I won't miss" Mercury laughed, "I'm too damn good". Mercury signalled to the others to sneak around the side of the house and sneak up and disable the SICAD's. The group moved.

"You 'n me Mercury" Koron grinned.

"Yeah yeah, just make sure you get the shot" Mercury replied as he leapt out into the middle of the street.

Zephyr

Zephyr was about to tell Mercury off for knocking her down, but she swallowed the words when she saw why he had done it. He and Koron were making plans to deal with the borg, but that left 10 SICADS for the rest of them to deal.

SHe pulled the pen knife out of the pocket of her jeans. Maybe it wouldn't do any good, but it wasn't like she had anything else with. Flipping the blade open she got ready to spring the moment the moment the borg was gone.

Logan

Cancer had just begun to calm Leah down, something that Logan was jealous of. How could a cyborg calm his daughter down, and he couldn't? Not that it mattered, as long as Leah was happy. Or as happy as she could get in a situation like this anyways.

And then the commotion came. Droids? Droids. Lots of them, apparently. Every ounce of serenity seemed to slip out of Leah in that moment, and she started kicking her legs and squirming, letting out screechy sobs as the sounds got louder. Logan tried to hold her still, to kiss her and be calm for her. To show her that she would be okay. Possibly to lie-- what if she wasn't going to be? What if he lost her, too?

And it would seem that that was exactly what was supposed to happen. Leah made one last, swift jerking movement at a bizarre angle. Logan's arm bent, and Leah was picking herself up off of ye loot and running before he had time to blink.

"Leah!" At the moment, keeping quiet seemed line a bloody stupid idea. What was the point? He took off after her, pausing at the turn that wasn't at behind them. It split into three tunnels. Tunnels. Small, dark and enclosed. The ones that he figured were used for transporting things like laundry and food by droid before the malfunctions starte.

Logan felt himself begin to panic, begging the tears in his eyes and the ringing in his ears to stop for long enough to figure out which one of the entrances Leah had chosen. Ye droids were all well-distracted, and none were within Logan's immediate vicinity, but who knew how long it would take for them to find him?

Or Leah?

She was in one of the tunnels. His baby was in a dark, tiny tunnel in a blasted space colony infested with malfunctioning droids. He felt his knees go weak and then crumble under him.

"Leah!" No response. Not even a droid. "Leah!" He had to go in there. Oh God, he had to find her. Had to.

Koron

Mercury leapt out first, swiftly followed by Koron. Koron fired into the head and cut through the armour. Mercury fired...but the gun didn't.

"Oh fuck, it's jammed" Mercury shouted.

Koron playing for time ran foward, into the robots.

"KORON!" Cancer yelled and also ran forward.

Koron was amazed how fast Cancer could run. One second he was 25 meters away, the next second he was next to him.

"I'll take the borg" Cancer said.

"Okay" replied Koron.

Cancer ran towards the borg while Koron went to deal with the SICAD's. Mercury had gotten his gun working and aimed but stopped. Why not let the beast be killed. Why not rid us of him, Mercury thought. Cancer was on the ground and in a bad shape.

"Shoot damnit," Zephyr screamed.

I'll deal with him later, Mercury though again. So he fired.

Mercury

"Fuck, it's jammed!" Mercury shouted, as he pulled the trigger of his pistol. He checked the safety catch and everything, while Cancer and Koron exchanged ideas.

"Organic matter detected, entering offensive battle stage one" The Borg said, in a cold voice, devoid of all emotion.

"Shit! Work you stupid piece of...". Mercury was interupted by a gunshot aimed at him, but something he never expected had happened. Cancer was lying on the floor, in pain.

"Friendly fire detected" the droid said.

I'll deal with him later Mercury thought, as he cocked the weapon again. The Borg looked up, and Mercury fired twice, both rounds hitting the piece of scrap metal in the hole that Koron had made for him. He helped Cancer up but didn't make eye contact with him, or even asked how he was, Mercury just walked past him, shooting down the rest of the droids.

Zephyr

It all happened so fast. She found herself shouting as Cancer went down. As Mercury finally fired, she darted into the fray. A SICAD intercepted her, but she managed to disable it herself, jamming her pen knife into a joint and bashing the thing with her foot. Fortunetly now that the gun was actually working, the rest of droids fell easily.

"Are you alright?" she asked breathlessly, as Cancer was dragged to his feet.

She reached out to try and support him, cursing herself for being so short. SHe really didn't know what else she could do to help.

Cancer

Cancer could feel them inside him. Nanobots. Tiny robots, tuned in to his biometrics, floating around until they were needed.
And were they ever needed.
The things moved through his bloodstream to where he had been shot. Blood coloured the inside of his bodysuit, which even now was tightening, ensuring the wound was kept sterile. Only a small hole had been left by the bullet, yet it had done its work. His stomach hurt when he breathed, and he could feel the amount of blood in his bodysuit steadily increasing.
The nanobots began to work, stemming the bloodflow before they would begin to accelerate the healing process.
Mercury helped him to his feet, an action which Cancer knew came from practicality and not compassion. What would he need to do to prove he wasn't one of them?
"Are you alright?" Zephyr looked worried. She tried to support him, though it was more emotional than physical. He smiled.
"I will live," he replied. She looked as though she wanted to say more, but Cancer was distracted by a voice in the other direction.
"Leah!" It was Logan. Something had gone terribly wrong.
Cancer shook free of Mercury and Zephyr. He could see Logan standing at the opening of three access tunnels.
The pieces fell into place. Action was the only solution.
Cancer began to sprint, covering the distance in a few seconds only. Acting on a gut instinct, he swept past a distraught Logan and into the left-hand tunnel. He had no idea if he was right, but it made things easier for the others having only two tunnels to search.
He ran full-speed into the darkness.

Mercury

Mercury fired all the rounds into the SICADs and stood on their heads just to make sure. The next thing he heard was Logan yelling how his daughter had disappeared down on of the three pitch-black maintenance tunnels. Mercury turned to see Cancer sprinting down one of the tunnels, the left one. "What the hell is the beast doing now?" he yelled, darting after Cancer.

"Organic matter detected" a deep, yet robotic voice boomed.

"Oh shit, no way, we're not ready for this!" Mercury called down the tunnel, hoping Cancer would reply. He notied a pair of orange indicators illuminate a storage room on the right hand side of the tunnel. A digger, large and slow, but close to indestructable. Mercury reloaded his pistol and called for the others to follow hs voice. He yelled at the droid so it didn't go after Cancer, he owed him that much. "Come get me you stupid piece of scrap!" The drone turned and activated its drill.
"
"Restricted premisis has been breached initiating threat termination programming"

"Micah, Koron! The rest of us will distract this thing, you two need to stick to the shadows and disable it."

"Got it" Micah and Koron replied, simultaniously.

Get the kid and make it back here beast. Or we're leaving without you.

Cancer

Cancer ran as fast as he could into the pitch darkness of the service tunnel, hoping and praying to any god that would listen that Leah would be waiting unharmed at the tunnel's end.
He listened out for any sighn of the girl. Air rushed past him, bringing tears to his eyes
"Daddy..."
The voice was barely a whisper caught through the wind, but with his heightened senses, Cancer recognised it as belonging to Leah. He accelerated, pushing himself as hard as he could.
Movement in the corner of his eye caught Cancer's attention. Too late he realised what was happening.
A supply tunnel cut through this one, so small and dark that it had slipped his notice. Only now a supply carriage was emerging from it, jutting out into the tunnel and blocking his path. Cancer tried to stop, but knew there was no real point.
He ran straight into the side of the first hopper, smashing into it at speed. The impact dented the metal hopper and sent Cancer flying straight over the front of the carriage. He bounced off the open engine and landed with a crunch on the tunel floor, smacking his head. He let out a groan and passed out.

Zephyr

Zephyr was feeling a little proud of herself for actually taking out one of the SICADS, but the feeling abandoned her when the new machine appeared. There was no way she could deal with a digger. Instead she turned her attention to Logan.

"Is that where she went? Should we go after them?" She asked him.

She turned around to see what Mercury thought, but he was obviously busy. She wondered how much she would care even if he wasn't distracted.

Logan

He nodded slowly, swallowing the lump in his throat. Clausterphobic was already settin on and he hadn't even set foot in the tunnel yet. But Leah was in there. How could he even be thinking about his fear of small spaces right now? He had to go. Cancer was already in there, Mercury was preoccupied an seemingly indifferent... Leah was his daughter.

He would go.

"If I start having a panic attack, smack me upside the head and tell me to get a grip," he muttered. It was only half a joke.

He stepped in first, swallowing and forcing his breathing to remain even. Dont panic. Don't panic don't panic. Breathing was getting harder- like the oxygen was thinning and the walls were squeezing the remainders of it out. Logan felt his ears start to ring- a distant buzz that did nothing to distract him. It wasn't even that small in here.

He tried to focus on that. There was room. There was air. Leah was probably scared to death. And where was Cancer?

"Daddy?"

Logan froze. And then came a yelp, sharp and cutting. The echoes were making it hard to place how far away she was, but that hardly mattered. They were in the right tunnel.

"Canure?!" Cancer. She was saying Cancer.

"We found them," he muttered to Zephyr, hand latching around her wrist. The moment of courage was over. His head was spinning and the walls were closing in all over again, suffocating him. "God, I hate clausterphobia."

Zephyr

Logan was freaking out. Obviously he had some problem with small spaces, but Zephyr was finally in her element. Creeping around in the dark was something she could deal with.

"Hey, kiddo!" She said. "Can you go to daddy? He was so worried!"

Feeling around on the ground, she gasped when her fingers touched metal. She recoiled before she realized what she felt was simply Cancer's augmented body. Sure enough, by moving her hands slightly she could brush the rouch surface of his cheek. For the first time, it occured to her to wonder how much of his body was comprised of these implants.

"Cancer? Cancer, can you hear me?"

Cancer

It was Zephyr's voice which roused Cancer from the dark void of unconciousness. With effort, he opened his eyes. At first he thought he hadn't, so dark was the tunnel, but slowly the outline of Zephyr's face came into clarity. He swallowed on a dry throat, and thought better of speaking.
He didn't want to sit up just yet. He knew running into a train would have its side-effects.
"Are you alright?" at least he could still hear. His ears were ringing, and he thought he could see stars.
Two red stars above Zephyr's head.
No, not stars.
Eyes.
"Move!" Cancer grabbed Zephyr and pulled her down out of the way, just as a SICAD threw a powerful punch at her head. Instead, it connected with Cancer's cheek, throwing him back down to the floor. He felt his cheekbone crack under the metal fist.
The SICAD grabbed him and threw him up against the roof of the tunnel. The floor was quick to greet him as gravity drew him back down. The SICAD loomed over him.
Something smashed against the back of the SICAD's neck. Cancer could hear Logan shouting and Leah screaming. The SICAD turned around.
Cancer sat up, roaring in a combination of pain and fury. He struck the inside of the SICAD's knee with his palm, smashing it apart. Shards of metal cut his palm. The SICAD toppled.
Logan finished it off as Cancer pulled himself upright against the tunnel wall. The lights went out of the SICAD's eyes.
"...and don't touch my daughter again!" Logan shouted, obviously free from claustorphobia, if only for a moment.
Zephyr took hold of Cancer's arm to steady him as they walked to the end of the tunnel. He definitely appreciated her help- how much more could he have put his body through in a few short minutes?
'I'm too old for this crap,' he thought 'and I don't even remember getting there,'

Zephyr

"Wait," said Zephyr, as they approached to tunnel entrance. "Is the digger still there?"

Carefully, she help Cancer slide down against the wall so he could sit for a moment out of sight. She motioned for Logan to do the same before creeping closer to the light. Her heart pounded as she glanced around the corner.

Koron, Micah, and Mercury were all still moving, but unfortunetly so was the machine. Obviously they needed help, but what could she do?

She flinched as something touched her back, but turning she saw that it was only Cancer, still looking ragged from the fight in the tunnel.

"I should go out there," he said.

She shook her head. "No, you're still hurt. You can't keep running into danger without letting yourself heal."

She could see he had already survived things that would have killed the rest of them. But what was their next move? Could they really hide here while the others fought?

Mercury

Koron and Micah looked at Mercury, obviously in a state of panic. "What, the hell are you waiting for?!" Mercury yelled at them. He heard Koron whispering to Micah something about moving behind the Digger and rewiring it to drill into the wall and make the tunnel collapse. No doubt a risky move, but if it would save them from any future ambushes from droids in the other half of the city. Mercury noticed the droid standing completely still. It detected something. Crying. Leah.

Mercury needed to get her to Logan as soon as possible. Droids don't discriminate, that kid's in just as much danger as we are. He needed a plan to get her on the other side of the Digger, but how?