S3VEN - IC

After he had dealt his blow to the cougar's chin, and after wiping the resulting purple liquid from his mouth, Flank brought his weapon to bear at the bleeding creature. He expected it to charge at him again, thus giving him an easy-to-follow-target, but its zig-zag approach proved to be too great a potential waste of ammunition for Flank to risk firing at it.

Once it got close, it exceeded Flank's expectations again by dashing at his feet when he had hoped it would leap at his torso a second time, into the waiting blade of his assault rifle. Flank did what best he could do that time would permit: he unfurled his wings and launched a gust of air at the beast.

With a clang, Flank landed on his back one metre from where he was standing, his gun still in his right hand. The lens in his chest gave him an uninteresting view of the ceiling, but he kept the scope of his cannon trained on the cougar.
It learns fast! he thought, It probably won't attack the same way twice in a row. Wait for it this time.

Cougar 5 took both shots to the chest, one lodging itself in between two ribs, the other fracturing a rib and cutting into an artery. A stream of purple blood began to spew from its side; it was only a matter of time before it bled out, but the cougar wasn't about to give up. Wheeling around, it decided to find another target, its eyes set on something that looked like a hunk of meat, but was actually the form of Slurp. It lept at the small creature, attempting to bite down on wherever it could get a hold of.

Cougar 3 was slowed by the gust of wind from Flank's wings, but it continued its attack, bounding straight for the Ravis. Right before it was about to impact its target, it spun around to the side and clawed at his feet, growling as it did so.


Fem'Nyla jumped out of the way as Flank flew into the air, coming to face her adversarial cougar yet again. Lengthening the blade, she crouched, ready for the beast to pounce. And pounce it did, straight for her stomach. Ready for the attack, she swung her blade upwards, catching the cougar in the center of the jaw. The blade entered and exited, and the cougar dropped to her feet, its skull split open by the impact. The second the cougar hit the floor, a panel opened up, and the body fell through to be disposed of. The panel closed, leaving only a smudge of purple blood and a few scratched to suggest that the cougar had been there.

Satisfied, Fem'Nyla turned around and decided to see what she could do to help Flank.

The Travidian turned around at the sight of cougar 5 retreating, not knowing it was headed for Slurp. He thought, "If I help some of the other people here, if I'm in a pinch later on, I'll probably have a helper." He aimed his gun towards one of the other cougars the mercs were fighting, and, seeing as the Zeteron was in a pinch, decided that he could prove a useful ally. he crouched down, steadied his aim, looked through the scope, aimed towards Cougar 1's head for a few seconds, and whilst holding his breath, fired once.

Slurp wasen't scared by the hybrid's teeth, lashing tail or the eyes. It's the fact that they are immensly strong. "They may be dangerous when together but if there were to be just one.." Slurp didn't need to finish that sentence. She formulated a plan. Since the hybrids can't notice her at all in their line of sight, she'll attack their hind legs where hopefully they'll limp giving the other mercs a *big* help to their advantage. Slurp ran after one of them that is preparing for another assualt.

Cougar 1 was hit in the temple by the bullet, and its head exploded, spraying blood, bits of flesh, and bone shards all over Vandore. The panel beneath it was removed, and the body disapeared.

Seeing its fallen comrade, cougar 4 stopped attacking its target and started charging the Travidian. It zig-zagged towards this new target, pouncing up at his face at the last moment.

Cougar 5 growled as the bag of meat hopped around in front of it, apparently teasing its senses. Shaking its head and growling, the cougar lunged forward and swatted at Slurp with its right paw.

((Cougar status: 1 and 6 dead, 5 wounded, 2, 3, and 4 alive.))

Reeq took a slight and elegant step to the right, avoiding Cougar 4. At the same time did he do a stabbing action towards the predator's neck, putting a lot of strength behind the movement of the stabbing knife.
((Should've read through the thread more carefully. Thanks for your patience Drago!))

The blade produced a long cut on cougar 4's side, but it continued with its attack on the Travidian, seemingly impervious to its new wound.

((To be clear, I'll assume that Isak's post and this one happened before cougar 4 started attacking Ter's character.))

The Travidian saw the cougar zigzag, and chose not to fire at it, rather, he held the gun to the side, as if he were to attack with it like a melee weapon, and when it pounced, he held his gun and batted its head with all his strength with the stock of the gun (the back part that you put on your shoulder).

Slurp is unfortuante that the lucky git swiped her aside as if she was a toy. "Well I did not see that coming but they ani't getting the bleeden chance again! I'll try run up behind them, hit their hind legs while avoiding their sight." Slurp quickly got to her feet and ran after one of the cougars/panther hybrids, attempting to put her plan into action.

The end of the rifle impacted cougar 4's face, knocking it to the ground. It was back up quickly, nashing both its rows of teeth. It was irritated enough that it unleashed its barbed tail, lined with several rows of poisonous spines. It fired five such spines in the Travidian's dirrection, giving him little time to react.

The poison contained in the spines is targeted at the reciever's nervous system. When injected, the affected area will suffer spasms and twitching until the poison wears off, generally within five minutes. The after-effects of the poison differ between species; some have headaches for an hour afterwards, some report no effects, and a small percentage have allergical reactions where the effected area swells up.

Meanwhile, cougar 5 searched around the arena for the hunk of meat he had batted at, otherwise known as Slurp. The Hyllien beast's vision was starting to go fuzzy as a direct result of the bullets it had taken to the chest. This gave the little creature a prime opportunity to put her plan into motion.

((Ter, I realized that you spent your 777th post on S3VEN. ))

((That would explain Micaneil's lucky headshot ))

The Travidian felt three of the poison spikes hit him. Two of which hit him in the left leg, and the other on his right arm, his firing arm. He instantly felt the effects of the poison on his leg, making him lose balance and land on his left arm. Not suffering from the poison to his right arm too badly, possibly due to the steadying drug he took before he went into the stasis chamber, He raised his other arm, and fired at the general direction of the cougar 3 times with his carbine.

As she ran up to the creature that swatted her aside, Slurp tackle silde underneath it's belly and attacked the hind legs. Before she moved on, Slurp looked back and said: "Next time pick on someone else of your size or a small thing like me will bite you hard." Slurp proceeded to help one of the mercs. But which one needed help the most?

The cougar's claws found Flank's ankles, but for all the strength of the attack the resulting cuts weren't deep, owing to the dense anatomy of the Ravis. It still hurt, though. Thick, slow-moving, crimson blood oozed out of the cuts like honey.

The cougar was too close for Flank to risk firing a vacuum bullet. Lacking that possibility, he lifted his legs and kicked his feet at the cougar's head, taking care to avoid its mouth. He rolled over to the right and got up again, wielding the rifle like a sword at the animal.

All three shots missed the cougar, who had given up on attacking the Travidian and now was focusing on another target: Fem'Nyla.

Slurp's attack finalized cougar 5's death. It collapsed to the floor, bleeding puddles of blood in two different areas, only to disappear under the panel.

The Ravis' attack knocked cougar 3 back yet again. Agitation only made it more dangerous, and it charged Flank, jumping up onto the side of the wall and then leaping off to gain more momentum. It was aiming for his upper torso.

((Cougar status: 1, 5, and 6 are dead, 4 is wounded, 2 and 3 alive.))

Gotcha.
The cougar had finally done what Flank wanted: jump at his chest.
Flank let go of his assault rifle, he wouldn't need it for what he intended to do. He put his hands together, between himself and the cougar, and when its front paws passed on either side of them, he parted them, pushing the animal's claws off to either side.

Then the cougar landed on him. With his hands in the desired position by the animal's sides, he pulled the it into a tight embrace. He fell back with the impact, but he held on tight to the cougar's body. He snaked his head to the right and around the cougar's to avoid getting bitten, and he wrapped his legs around its hind legs.

Wasting no time, he swung his cannon around and struck the animal on the head with the barrel. The view from his chest was completely obscured by the cougar's underside, so he could only see through his scope. The world twisted around him as he brought his cannon around and beat the animal's head again and again. Hopefully, he could kill it before it wormed out of his grip.

Cougar 3 did not take lightly to being bear-hugged and then beaten over the head by Flank. It flailed around, trying desperately to escape the death-grip inflicted upon him by the Ravis. It finally managed to escape, but only after accumulating five or so blows to the head. The world was seemingly spinning around it, its target in five places at once. It staggered around for a few seconds, giving Flank an obvious advantage.

And take it Flank did. Getting up, recovering his rifle and taking a few steps back, he took aim at the cougar. He took a deep breath to calm himself, and then held it to steady his aim. He fired one vacuum bullet at the creature's head.

"Owowowow! What the heck man?" Vandore said to no one in particular as the cougar jumped onto him, knocking him to the ground. Cougar 1 gave his stomach a rather nice lashing, and as the cougar attempted bite his face, the Travidian shot Cougar 1's head off. "Thanks!" Vandore shouted over his shoulder, and got up, nursing his stomach wound with a gruff sort of behavior.

Grendar readied himself when he saw the couger running at him. He held up his gun, and right when couger 2 thought it had him and pounced, he fired straight at its head and tumbled away.

((Sorry for taking so long to post...I am #2 right?))

The Travidian attempted to stand up, and succeeded. He pointed the gun towards some of the other cougars, but couldn't decide what target to pick. Instead, he made his way to the large door, and decided to wait the poison effects out, the best way, of course would be to stay away from the conflicts at hand and let the other mercs take care of themselves for a while while he removed the poison stingers from him.

The resulting mess Flank made of cougar 3's face was gruesome and spectacular to the highest degree. The aftermath found the Ravis covered with all kinds of liquids, fleshy bits, and bone shards. Several panels opened to dispose of the bits, as they were wide-spread across the whole arena.

The plasma shot hit cougar 2 in the throat, burning a sizable hole into its windpipe. It landed on the ground, flailing and kicking its legs about in every direction. The panel beneath it was removed as the spasms slowly lessened.


Fem'Nyla had been struggling with cougar 4 for a few seconds now, finally managing to lop off one of its limbs. It limped around her, still attempting to claw at her feet, so she kicked the maimed beast in the stomach, and it slid over to where Vandore was standing. Even though the cougar was hurt and likely to bleed out at any second, as a dying gesture, it flicked its tail and sent three barbs flying towards the Zeteron.

((Cougar status: 1, 2, 3, 5, 6 are dead, 4 is maimed and wounded. Almost to wave 2!))

Vandore saw the cougar flick 3 barbs at him, and he dived into the wall, not on purpose, in his haste to get of the way. His nose banged the wall, causing it to start bleeding, and he began to see stars in his eyes. He fell over in pain and dizziness, and blacked out for a moment.

The night was very starry, and full of life and energy. Birds whistled in song, crickets chirped their calming music. Vandore was enjoying a walk with his parents, moving through the park.
"Isn't this wonderful?" Vandore's mother asked, looking around at Vandore himself. "Vandore? Are you-" But her sentence was cut off by a terrible slicing of flesh from Vandore's sharp fingernails. Vandore then tore out his mother's throat. He then killed his father in just a bloody manner. "Wha-wha-NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

Vandore awoke suddenly, breathing very hard. He had just relived the night he had killed his parents. He looked down at his hands, expecting to see his parent's blood there. The only blood that was there was Cougar 1's head entrails. Why did I have to kill them? he thought miserably. He then realized he was on Live TV.

Flank panted with excitement and out of shortness of breath. The effect of the bullet was most spectacular: everything within one foot of the bullet as it struck the cougar rushed in to fulfill the vacuum within. The head, for starters, was nothing more than a tiny, crumpled mess. The shoulders, further away from the bullet, were broken from the involuntary movement. Other, less dense matter was also affected: purple blood had erupted from the arteries of the neck. Even the metal floor bulged a bit.

Flank caught his breath and looked about himself. The final cougar lay on the floor, dying. Vandore was close to it, but he seemed preoccupied, so Flank walked over to the cougar and cleaved at its head with his rifle to end both the creature and the first wave.

The effect of Flank's attack was immediate; the panel waa removed and the final cougar disappeared.


Alyn Drenic unclasped his hands and fiddled with a few switches. He opened up the comms unit and spoke to the mercinaries. "My assistants tell me that Room 4 was accidentally started up, so we may be hard pressed for time. For that reason, I will be shortening the challenge in this room to five waves. Medical supplies will be provided during the break time you are alloted afterwards." He paused, messing with a few more nobs. "Ah yes, I felt you might want to see this..."


The holoscreen in the arena flickered on, and on it appeared two O'onthos reporters.

"...has really outdone himself this time, and we've only just seen the first round! I must say though, I think we've got some real contenders with that Ravis, Flank I believe it was, and the Travidian, Micaneil."

"We've just now checked the polls on our website, and it looks like Micaneil is currently holding the top spot with 29% of the votes, and boy, does he deserve it! Let's take another look at that amazing headshot again..." The screen changed to show several angles of the Travidian's headshot on cougar 1, but quickly returned to the reporters "Fem'Nyla comes in second with 23% of the votes, and Flank has 18%."

"But you've gotta remember, we've only seen wave one of Room one! Voters' opinions are very likely to change at any time..."

The voices faded out, and with little warning, the doors on opposite sides of the arena opened, signalling the beginning of wave two.

Behind each door were five GU-9 sparring bots, produced by BuzKil. They stood on a single, hub-less wheel and weilded a plasma blaster in one hand, a circular saw in the other. They were designed to be easy to destroy, but also easy to fix. A good slice to the middle or a well-aimed bullet would do the trick in putting it out of commission.

The bots scattered across the arena, each of their sensory systems struggling to pick out a single target. Soon the area was filled with plasma bolts flying in every direction.

((Alright, this time around, don't refer to the bot as 'bot 1', 'bot 2', etc. When you post your attacks, simply mention that you attack 'a bot' or 'multiple bots', and when they are destroyed, I'll modify the amount with an annotation in my next post.))

Reeq had mostly stayed out of the conflicts of the first wave. He would repeat himself this round. Therefore he tried to stay out of sight of the droids.