[Open]Night Express

OOC:
I can happily say that Hunter, Alton, and Alex have now seen each other's faces in the Frozen Forest. Let the battle continue here!

IC:
"Fine ev'nin for stroll, eh?" The cable guy said. Hunter froze. That voice... I know that voice. The stowaway's silhouette against Metaruhōku's flame looked familiar as well.

Hunter quickly switched to holding Metaruhōku in a defensive stance, covering as much of his body as possible as he looked at the boy who had his hands raised.

"Alex, take a good look at this guy. Doesn't he look like the one who attacked the convoy three months ago, pulling a stunt that killed two civilians, hospitalized fifteen others, and most importantly, tried to kill us?"

ooc: yeah, I'll make a post tomorrow Myren and take control for this point since Nigrum is the one interacting with him at the moment.

"Surely you're mistaken." Alton paused, considering his options. They were on to him, so might as well get things over with, though Alton was fairly confused as to the comment about "civilian casualties." "As I recall, I explicitly used non-lethal attacks the last time I took on a convoy single-handedly, and all I got in return were fireballs to the face and lots of pointy bits in my personal space. You must be thinking of someone else, perhaps. Especially since I didn't kill anyone... yeah, I'm just gonna say this must be a huge misunderstanding and call it a night."

Diadem's firing chambers clicked as Alton twitched his fingers, selecting a payload. "Too messy, it'll hit me, doesn't work north of the equator... ah, here we go."

Ambassador Greman carefully placed his third (or was that the fourth?) glass of wine down on the table in front of him. He'd sent all his staff to the next car up, [6] and his only security was in the car behind [5]. He was alone. He was defenseless. *click* Well almost defenseless.

the compartment door slid open and the young man steps through. He seems polite enough, but prudence had gotten him this far in life.

"So you're this sleeper agent i've heard so may things about eh?" He says in a tone of practiced nonchalance. "Please, come have a seat, do you drink wine? I have an excellent Malbec here if you're interested. He croons as he indicates the bottle on the table.

"No I don't drink wine" Nigrum replied "I prefer to not ruin my reaction time." He untied the knot keeping the briefcase to him. I'm amazed the guard didn't take the rope from me Nigrum thought. He glanced around quickly, while working the knot, to check and see where the bag was only to be met with the displeasure of seeing it nowhere in site. He finished untieing the knot and dropped the rope on the floor near the chair he was taking.

"So did Mr. Comrance tell you I was coming?" Nigrum asked, dropping the name of his employer who had asked him to get the information about The Opposition. He was curious whether he knew that Nigrum was coming or if that information wasn't shared. "Shall we begin?"

"Hmm, your loss" Greman said as he picked his wine back up. "and to be honest my boy, I had no idea I'd be having such an unusual visitor, no offence of course. I can hardly say i'm very surprised though, these people do so love being dramatic. Tell me, how did you get on this train? I would imagine that Comrance didn't just buy you a ticket."


"This is ridiculous" Myren thought as he paced back and forth in the empty passenger car. "How the Drell am i meant to do my job if this airhead politician insists on having private meetings with random intruders? If he was expecting company, that's something I'd fraggin' well like to know beforehand!"

He paused for a moment, looking at the door to the ambassadors car and the windy landing which linked it to the one in which he stood.

"You're an Aeacres. you took a job. a little cold is nothing." He thought as he grit his teeth and stepped out onto the small platform, letting the chill wind buffet him as he settled against the car, alert for any sound of distress from within.

"Surely you're mistaken. As I recall, I explicitly used non-lethal attacks the last time I took on a convoy single-handedly, and all I got in return were fireballs to the face and lots of pointy bits in my personal space. You must be thinking of someone else, perhaps. Especially since I didn't kill anyone-"

"So it is you. Well guess what? You're wrong. What did you think would happen when you used tire spikes on three buses going 70 on an icy road, and then threw in tow cables and road flares to blind them?" Hunter cut off the boy terrorist. "Two dead, seven paralyzed, three in comas. What do you have to say to that, Alton?" He recalled all the news articles about the attack, which played for two weeks straight. The police were puzzled by what weapons the attacker used, though.

"That is your name, right? Alton Asteras? You left a huge trail of blood for the police to study." Alton just stood there.

"Yeah, I'm just gonna say this must be a huge misunderstanding and call it a night."

"What?" Hunter noticed the train was starting to turn right. He could see the front car where the "Captain Vale" (Seriously, what is that guy's name? Hunter thought) and Chiu were.

Alton's fingers twitched as his arms clicked. "Too messy, it'll hit me, doesn't work north of the equator... ah, here we go."

Gauntlets with grappling cables. So that's what he was using. "Alex, he's got gauntlets! Aim for his forearms!" Hunter launched three fireballs. One flew towards Alton's left. Another went directly above. The third passed his right and past the windows of the other train cars.

Chiu. Captain. Please, just look out the windows and help us. It's not easy to miss the giant flares.

((OOC: Nuts, should've clarified that I use italics as "Thinking" notation as opposed to speech. Sorry for the confusion there)).

"FIRE. HO- you know what, enough of that."

It was Pyro, all right, and in true maniacal fashion the old foe from the convoy ambush was opening up with a full fireworks display. Alton was encased in a tunnel of flame right, left, and above, and Pyro had just told his partner to "aim for the gauntlets." "Uh oh."

Surrounded by flame as he was, his opponent seemed to misunderstand basic physics. Alton didn't need to jump or dive to get out of this situation - he was standing on top of a moving train in the full brunt of the wind. As the Pyro's partner brought up his weapon, Alton cut his own feet out from under himself - and flew backwards, carried by the wind over the back of the car as he dropped. His gut dropped as he saw the train sliding to his right - it was turning!

As he dropped over the edge and nearly flew off the side, Alton grappled to the train once again and swung down to the deck. He was in front of the door to the cargo compartment - he could try sneaking through and hiding inside, but he couldn't risk getting stuck in close quarters with Pyro or his partner, both had proven to be too fast to engage, at least last time, and Alton's strength lied in mobility. And with the curve in the track coming up ahead...

Alton had an idea. A crazy, insane, "Oh god why am I doing this" plan. With a quick grapple and a leap, Alton swung back on top of the cargo car.

"Missed!"

With that, Alton "dropped" himself again - this time flying farther back, over the flatbed car, grappling only to slow his descent and keep himself from flying off during the turn. He still had his gauntlets, and he still had his ace in the hole - at the very worst, he could always jump and aim for a pond.

"Well sir I jumped on by extralegal means so that I could deliver the information without having possible Opposition agents seeing me" Nigrum said. He reached over and opened the case. He pulled out a folded up map from inside the case a few papers sliding to the top as they clung to the map.

He put the map on the table and opened it up revealing a map of Vytal with various symbols on it, which to the uninformed could look like nothing special all of which were very similar to one another. "Shall we begin?" Nigrum asked. He looked over the map refreshing himself on the information briefly.

He looked up towards the Ambassador and caught a flash of light through the window. The flash however was in the wrong area to be caused the engine and brighter than that caused by light through the windows. I wonder what that was nigrum thought. Probably nothing he thought.

"Yes, yes if course lets get right to it. Extralegal methods indeed" He chuckled. "Shouldn't have expected a straight answer anyway. Now then, what's all this gibberish?

The light flashed, and while the ambassador took no notice, Myren certainly did.

"Fireballs. Now there are fireballs. Twenty minutes ago I was almost napping, and now somebody is throwing fireballs."

The train began turning to the right, so Myren quickly leaned over the rails just in time to see a pair of figures standing on a roof several cars down.

"Oh son of a Grimm!" Myren yelled into the night. He turned quickly, and unlocked the door to the ambassadors compartment. secret meetings or not, this was just getting out of hand.

"S*. S*. S*." Chiu cursed under her breath as she made her way towards the ambassador's car and his two "guests." She had been staring out the window, watching the world speed by, when a series of lights flashing caught her eye. Moments later, as she watched a tree burst into flames, she was running down the train.

Judging from the looks she got from various passengers, she was likely the most heavily armed girl any of them had seen. Her own swords were strapped to her sides, Hunter's knife tucked into the belt, and the cane/staff/thing belonging to the 1st suspect was clutched in her hands.

A part of her knew she should just toss the thing out the nearest window. Keep it as far away form him as possible. There was something about him though. Something that told her he wasn't an enemy. That the real enemy was the one tossing flames around outside.

Reaching the ambassador's car, Chiu burst in. "Cap! We've got a problem!"

her again? of course she wants to get involved. Myren was already trying to protect one person, why not add another, just to spice things up? though He had to admit, with the panoply of blades she'd acquired she did look somewhat formidable. Fine then, if she can hold her own, He wouldn't stop her. "way ahead of you miss" He said as he moved into the cabin.

Myren quickly assessed the room. Nigrum was sitting quite calmly with the ambassador, pouring over some map. -well at least he wasn't some assassin - He thought.

"Sir, the train is under attack. it seems someone followed your... guest, after all. I'm sorry to interrupt this meeting, but i'm putting your cabin into lockdown, and i'm going to have to ask Him - He gestures to Nigrum - to come with me.


The ambassador, suddenly wearing a mask of pure authority sits up in his chair. "Very well, Mr Aeacres. though you will return him here when this is dealt with. he and I have much to discuss."

"well Ambassador The Opposition will distribute a map like this to their different base of operations to communicate their plans. The bases are located here, here, here and I believe there is one located around here" He said pointing at several different cog wheels each located near a kingdom but not too close or too far.

"Now to indicate an attack and which force is to attack they will mark it with a symbol like this one." He pointed to an almost identical cog where in what seemed like the middle of nowhere, but from his knowledge of working each side Nigrum knew it was a research facility for the Hunters. "Now to the uneducated on the symbols they look the same; however, if you'll notice this has a cog missing on it. Additionally there are 2 horizontal lines in each of the remaining cogs. That means that the 2nd force is to attack this base." He looked over the map looking to see if there were any other vital things to point out.

The door to the cabin slid open. Nigrum turned to look and see the guard standing in the doorway with the girl visible behind him.

"Sir, the train is under attack. it seems someone followed your... guest, after all. I'm sorry to interrupt this meeting, but i'm putting your cabin into lockdown, and i'm going to have to ask Him to come with me." The guard said pointing at Nigrum.

"Very well, Mr Aeacres. though you will return him here when this is dealt with. he and I have much to discuss." the Ambassador replied.

Nigrum stood up from the table, "I'll be back as soon as I can sir" he said "Feel free to look through the case over and see if there is anything you have questions about in it." He turned and walked over to the guard. "So what do you need of me, I have nothing to do with this attack so tieing me up will do nothing."

Myren, looks back at Chiu, and takes Nigrum's cane from her. "First, you'll need this. you didn't attack the ambassador when you had the chance. to me, that means you're on my side." He says, as he hands Nigrum the cane. "second, we need to go meet a few more people who think walking on the roof is a novel way of getting around."

as they exited the ambassador's cabin, leaving him to examine the map, Myren taps a code on a wall mounted display. metal shutters descended over the windows, and a red light appeared over the doors. As they all left the cabin, the door sealed itself shut.

Did he just jump? Hunter thought as Alton disappeared over his shoulder and swung towards the back of the train. No time to lose. Hunter is not going to lose the terrorist again. He looked back towards the front of the train. It seemed like it was turning towards a very long bridge that spanned a ravine.

"Alex, stay here. I'll cover the rear of the train! If anyone comes from inside the train, let them know you're friendly, and that we've got the Forest Hijacker here!" Hunter placed Metaruhōku in closed form onto his back and Aura Jumped straight up 20 feet.

"TRANSFORM!" Metaruhōku instantly spread its wings, which Hunter used as air brakes. Quickly, he flew backwards, and soon Hunter was gliding over the train, using the train's curved path and the Metaruhōku's Dust cores to catch up easily. By the time the train had began crossing the bridge,  Hunter had already landed on top of the second to last car. Now, he waited.

"Show yourself, Alton. You won't get away after what you did." Hunter looked forward past where he last saw Alton. Battle plans. He thought. Alex is in the front, covering Alton's escape from there. Chiu and the cop should be arriving soon. Oh, look, there's three figures moving from the front of the train. My signal flares worked.

Wait a minute. Three? Hunter tried to get a closer look, but his Infinity Lens didn't have an analog zoom, only digital. There's no time to figure out who's the third person. Alton was still somewhere in front of him, and the only way out is to jump down a mile wide and 100 foot deep ravine.

Nigrum took the Panther from the guard. "Thank you, bad guys towards the near of the train I take it" he said rhetorically.

As the guard messed with a panel to the door Nigrum climbed up on to the roof of the train using the Panther as a spike to assist in climbing up. He pulled himself up and looked down the train noticing one person landing back on the train from a flight. "So down there" Nigrum said running across the top of the train towards them the Panther in hand. (currently on car [5])

The suspect kid hadn't tried to kill her or the guard the moment he got his weapon back, so that was a plus. Following him out on to the roof, she climbed up in a similar fashion as she had the first time. Less bending back in to the car this time though.

Jogging down the train she took stock of the weapons she knew about.

Captian Vale: Big Sword
Hunter: Swords
Suspect kid: Stick
Chiu: Swords

That was far too many close combat weapons on a far too small, fast moving, battle site. Granted the others might have additonal forms or dust capabilities, but she couldn't take that chance. Switching to her guns Chiu fell back a few paces before following again.

Myren trudged down the roof of the car, careful of his footing as he jumped to the cargo compartments [4]. Ahead he could see two figures who appeared to be searching around them for something. one, who appeared to be some kind of archer, and further down the train...

"It's that guy from earlier!" Myren yelled over the wind. He'd assumed that He and Chiu were related or something, but the look on her face said otherwise.

not that it really mattered. He'd tried following Myren into the locked cargo car, he was chatting it up with this other armed intruder, judging from the armament of the archer, he was probably the one tossing fireballs around, and somewhere along the line, he'd procured a sword bigger than he was. even if he wasn't some kind of terrorist, he certainly wasn't just some innocent bystander.

Skorpios held low, he rushed ahead, He needed to close the gap on that archer before he got himself shot, exposed as they all were on the bare rooftops.

(OOC: Room for one more?)

OOC: uh I don't think so. More because entrance at this point wouldn't make much sense, and unlike some of the huge threads there is an ending point for this thread.

OOC: Okay then.

Braving the winds on top of train car [6], Hunter kept looking around for Alton. Maybe i shouldn't have said his name out loud, he thought. I guess it scared him off. He walked towards car [1], wondering why the numbering system for the trains was out of order. It made no sense whatsoever to have the numbers to be [9]-[6]-[1]-[2]-[3]-[4]-[5]-[7]-[6]-[Engine].

Hunter, focus. This is no time for wondering why the train numbers are messed up. Hunter kept looking. There was no way Alton could have jumped off the bridge. Even if he did, there was no way he could survive the 100 foot drop into the water; jumping into water from 50 feet was already deadly. The bridge spanned about a mile. Nowhere to go, Alton.


OOC: Here's the weirdly numbered train so you guys don't have to keep switching tabs between posts.
~~~
[9]-[6]-[1]-[2]-[3]-[4]-[5]-[7]-[6]-[Oo^o>

9:Caboose
6:passengers
1:Alton's "Quarter"
2:Flatcar
3:Cargo
4:Cargo
5:Empty
7:Ambassador
6:passengers
Engine

((Remember - flatbed 2 is covered in oil slick. Try not to metagame-dodge it; only Alton has seen it so far and in these conditions it's practically invisible))

Alton, crouched on the walkway between [1] and [2], saw Pyro silhouetted against the sky on the far cargo car. "That's it, just a little closer."

The wood on this train was old. Several spots on the roof creaked as Hunter walked on it, and some other spots seemed like they were going to give away if he stepped on it. Hunter could't tell where Alton had gone, and was about to give up when his brain kicked him for being an idiot. You bought the tactical variant of the Infinity Lens for 400 Lein. Use them. With two taps on his aTab, Hunter's Infinity Lens now highlighted where any heat was being generated, and the fact that humans have a body temperature of nearly 100 degrees F helped greatly.

There. Right between car 1 and flatbed 2. With Metaruhōku on his back in closed form, Hunter studied the area. Since there was no roof on the mostly-empty flatbed, Hunter had plenty of space to do his little stunt without much collateral damage.

Entering the car through a window, Hunter braced himself at the back end of the car. Activating his aura, he sprinted towards the other side. Once at the door, Hunter jump-punched at it.

As Hunter swung his blazing aero blue hand, he hoped his aura-enhanced hit would send Alton onto the flatbed. After all, Hunter once stopped a bully with an aura hit that sent him halfway across the entire Grifball field in middle school.

((OOC: Crap. I totally misread your position, I thought you started on the *front* passenger car [6], and I jumped *back* over the flatcar. It kinda messes up some of the mechanics of my last few moves; my bad if you guy were in the loop and wondering what the hell I was doing. ...why the hell did we number them by type?))

Alton whirled around just in time to see a glowing pommel flying at his stomach. "Crap."

Alton gasped, the air knocked from his lungs, as he was thrown back. He landed in a thud on the flatcar, sliding a bit before catching a box and ducking behind it. Using Diadem to secure his footing, he leaned out and fired back on his attacker - Pyro - with his other hand. "Come off it, Pyro!"

Ooc: the numbers were more of a code for the key.... Also they are oddly numbered because when I made it up I started from Altron's car went forward... Then to the back.
Also the liquid on the flat car is oil?

Ic: Nigrum leapt onto the Flat car. Two of the teenagers had moved in to another car and were beginning to duke it out as a burst of fire flashed from inside the car. He walked carefully across the car stepping around the crates he had knocked over from his crash landing and also wary of any other attacks there might be hidden in the shadows.

He took a step and his foot hit some strange liquid. He pressed down on the panther driving the spike down and using it to keep his balance as his foot slid. He carefully regained his balance and bent down and swiped his finger though the liquid and sniffed it, "oil" he said wiping his finger on his black coat. "Oy, guard." He called to the guard, "Why is there oil on this train? Seems odd"

((OOC: Yes, it's oil. Or a similar

Spoiler:

lubricant. Also, it's seepage from the boxes you destroyed on landing))

"Oy, guard. Why is there oil on this train? Seems odd."

Alton steadied himself, firing two rounds in Pyro's direction before spinning around towards the voice. "Guards? Yeah, would'ya mind arresting the psycho who just tried to punch me off the train?"