Welcome to Gaia! ::

Blade remained low to the ground as he watched Vashti fire three quick shots over the bar counter. However, he wasn't going to be stupid enough to peak his head out to see what she had hit. Though judging by the subsequent abrupt absence of a significantly heavy patch of suppressive fire that had been rattling their side of the bar counter, Blade estimated that she had dropped a target with each one of her bullets. But he was mostly staring at her form, concluding that he probably liked her outfit a little too much. Damn. She's fast... he thought as he set his pistol on the floor and began to once again pull various shards of glass out of his hand and his side. He winced as he ripped a rather sizely shard from his ribs and tossed the blood-covered glass aside. stressed Oo. Ah! ********! Assholes... caught me off guard... he internalized as he pressed his bloody hand up against his bloody side in a half-assed attempt to stop the bleeding. Sure baked my beans good on that one... Blade swiped his pistol off the floor and looked back up at Vashti as she spoke to him. It wasn't so much that he had questioned her ability with the gun; more so questioning if she was ever going to use it. Still though, her skills had far exceeded his expectations. And so now, Blade felt the need to elevate everything he did in order to impress her, and show that he was superior, or at least on her level... even though he was in no shape to be showing off at all right then.

"Heh. Alright, cowgirl..." he smirked in reply as he holstered his pistol, and drew his assault rifle from the leather covering on his back. "I hate to rain on your parade, ma'am. But blasting our way out is the only option there is. Unless you want to try your luck at talking your way out of here." he replied smugly as he gripped the forearm of the rifle, and pressed himself up against the bar counter. "Watch this." he winked, before quickly raising his rifle slightly over the counter, just enough to get a quick, clean shot. But the moment Blade lifted himself. *KSHH!FWOOOM!* a Molotov Cocktail smashed open on the counter, just above his head. "AhhHOW!" Blade screamed as he dropped right back to the floor on his face and began to roll. The intense flames had singed some of his hair, and he was even more afraid that it had caught to his hand or torso, which was covered with liquor from the smashed bottle -- which was very, very flammable! Luckily for him though, that was not the case.

"s**t! Fall back!" Blade exclaimed as he kept his head tucked low, and pressed himself up against the wall opposite to the counter. Of course, there was absolutely no where to fall back to. The left and right doors were blocked off with armed goons, and on top of the suppressive fire, the bar counter (which was their cover) was now in flames. The heat was so sudden and intense that Blade's dermal implants didn't even have time to regulate his body temperature... It had been a long time since the man had experienced sweating. And the smoke was now so black and arid that he was having trouble breathing. The back door seemed like the only hope for escape, but they would have to dodge a lot bullets to get to it, and there was no doubt that there were more waiting outside. It was at that moment that Blade realized that Vashti was probably right.

*Cough!* *Cough!* " Blade exclaimed in a panicked tone as he turned to the wall in front of him, revved up the diamond-edged chainsaw of his rifle, *NINN-NINN-NINNNNN!!* and began to saw a square in the bottom of the wall. Sawdust splintered and sprayed aimlessly as Blade went to work. He then took the butt of his rifle and smashed out the wooden block in the middle, which was once a section of the wall; creating a hole just large enough for a crawl space. Blade gasped for air as he crawled out slightly, noticing four bounty hunters positioned at the back door just to his left, with their guns aimed and readied. Their attention was fixed on the door, and they had absolutely no knowledge of Blade's presence, or the fact that his assault rifle was aimed for their ankles. *DDLLAMM-VLAM-DLLAM-VAAM-DDDLAAMM!!!* Blade pulled and held down the trigger of his automatic weapon, sending the group of bounty hunters keeling over to the floor and firing blindly as their ankles and feet were torn apart with the heavy slug rounds. Upon landing, Blade's continual gunfire punched through the top of one of the men's scalp, and tore through the rest of their bodies while they lay defenseless on the floor... until they really didn't have any bodies to speak of. Blade then quickly tucked back into the hole, and re-mounted his assault rifle. "Coast is clear, I think! Let's get the hell out of here!" he shouted as he quickly crawled back to his stash of liquor bottles on the floor, and began to round them up, jumbling them in his arms. Blade wasn't prepared to leave empty-handed. He planned on getting very drunk for a very long time if they somehow managed to get out of this alive.

Lillium grinned at the two dead bodies she and her whip had created. Granted it wasn't the most effective weapon in the world but it was sure as s**t fun. Two more decided to take up the challenge of facing her. Good, this would prove to be fun. Her blue eyes narrowed at the weapons as electricity crackled off of them. So that was the game they were decidedly playing. She knew that if her whip were to hit one of those weapons it would send a nasty wave of electricity at her. She had to give them credit, they weren't complete idiots.

There was an explosion inside. Lillium ducked and dodged the two weapon wielding bounty hunters. They were good, she had to admit, but she was small and could easily evade them, glancing towards the, seeing smoke and flame curl and lick to the outside. The sounds of a chain saw rattled her ears as she back bent under a swing from the force pike. What the hell is that? she questioned herself as she bent back onto her feet. There was no time to worry with the sound which was followed by the sound of slugs being fired.

"Guess it's time for me to stop playing around. And we were having fun, oh well let's make this fast." She cracks whip and grins. The whip swings over her head and flicks low, catching the one with the pike around the ankle and yanks him to the ground. In a fluid motion the whip swung over and tripped up the other man. Then she sighed, "I'm bored...you guys are no fun." She grabs her gun and swings it around, firing two silenced shot, one in each of their heads. "A bit quick but...eh you two are dull. Now I hope those wolves are alive..." Not all was over. Lillium heard a noise she easily recognized, the sound of a mech. Looking up she saw one appear and shoot down a section of wall. Shortly after she ran around where the wolves were filing out. "Well looks like you're all ok...who's beasty?" she asked as she jerked her thumb at the mech.

CD had followed Blade out on the hole he had created in the wall. She blinked in the bright outdoors light and shaded her eyes, then took a few steps away from the cheerily burning bar. Good riddance. Shouldn't drink that much anyways, bad for your liver. Her eyess changed, to match the flames reflecting in them, and CD found herself hoping that Lillium ended up trapped under a beam and roasted, the other woman was giving her some serious bad feelings.

Blade had been busy gathering up all the liquor bottles as everyone filed out of the new exit he had created. When he finally had as much alcohol that he could jumble in his arms, he took his leave through the crawlspace, being as careful as he could not to shatter any of the glass bottles. Blade emerged from the hole as the bar began to explode behind him. "All in a day's work, eh?" Blade said, addressing all his comrades as he lifted himself to his feet. James was lying on the dirt, clutching his right arm and pleading with CD for some medical assistance, while she just stood there, staring at the burning bar. It seemed that she was thoroughly absorbed in her own thoughts. Blade didn't know whether he wanted to tell James to suck it up and quit being a baby, because they had more pressing issues at hand... or snap CD out of her daze and tell her to do her job. Well, it really wasn't his place to be giving CD orders, so... "Aw, James. Quit cryin', will ya?" Blade said as he handed James a bottle of Vodka. "Here. Alcohol will help... disinfect it or something. Right, CD?" Blade said to their female cook in passing, trying half-heartedly to snap her out of her daze. He passed Valco and Lillium, overhearing her inquiry about "beasty". It was then that Blade turned his attention to the city wall, noticing Valco's Opressor Mech (Fenrir) standing in a giant hole that had been carved into the wall. Great. Valco had paved their way out of this dump, and they could make their escape. But first...

Blade's eyes fixed upon Vashti as she observed the dead bodies of the fallen Bounty Hunters he had dispatched just moments earlier. Slowly, almost hesitantly, Blade began to walk towards her. Now, it was obvious that the Bounty Hunters had mistaken her for a Crimson Wolf. At least that was the explanation that Blade used to convince himself that this mysterious blonde woman just had to come along with them. Blade slowly approached Vashti from behind, taking his stance next to her as he stared at the mutilated corpses he had just blown to bits. He slowly turned his head to look at her for a moment, but quickly snapped his attention back towards the bloody corpses before she could return him any kind of look. Now, Blade hadn't known this woman long... Hell, he didn't even know her name. But one thing he knew for sure, was that this woman; this situation required tact. "You know... it's perfectly natural when surrounded by death to have these sudden... urges." Blade said as he stared upon the mutilated corpses.

Yeeaahh... tactful. That was Blade's middle name. What's worse is that he didn't even realize that he was probably coming across as more of a necrophiliac than anything else he may have been trying to imply.

CD shook her head, pulling herself from her morbid day dreams and turned to look at the bleeding James. "Don't drink any more then you already have dummy." She said, digging into her bag -it was unharmed, still hung over her shoulder- for some antiseptic and bandages. "Blade, go see a shrink, before I turn you a dead body." CD was still half lost in her own head, so she was being quite mild in her comments as she took a look at James' arm, carefully cleaning and wrapping it. "Don't use this arm to much for a few days. We want it to heal up without any complications."

Blade kind of scratched the back of his head nervously as he came under ridicule from both James and CD over his botched attempt at an ice breaker. It was then that the woman placed her hand on his shoulder... and retorted with yet another comment along the same lines, before walking away. "Wait, NO! That's not..." Blade paused in mid-sentence, deciding that he'd just drop it here and now. He was pretty sure they knew what he had really meant. But the true meaning behind his words really didn't make him much less of an idiot. So there was no point in trying to offer up an explanation. "Whoa, whoa, whoa... hold on a second there!" Blade said as he turned and dashed towards the blonde woman. "Calm down, Miss. You saw the way we neutralized that whole Bounty Hunter situation back there. No problem. Me and my group - we're a band of bad a** mercenaries. We'll protect you." Blade replied smugly. He would have went through with a full introduction of the whole team here, but he figured he'd leave that to Valco. He was the Captain, after all. Blade pointed towards the big man, who was in the middle of a little chat with Lillium. "That's our Captain; Valco Ansgar... and that's Red. I believe you two have already met...."

“Well for now you stopped the bounty hunters, but they will be back. I can see the bounty over your head is big enough to have many bounty hunters come after you. There will be more, I do not believe you have gotten rid of them all.” After she spoke She looked over to the two that Blade pointed out. She gave the man a look over then looked towards the smaller girl.
“I don’t really need you to like me, I just wan to get out of this trouble. Being picked in with you lot is very troublesome.” she gave a heavy sigh, seeing as there was no way she was going to be able to walk away now. “Anyway, The name is Vashti I suppose to it nice to meet you all.”

“So maybe it is best that we move along. Seeing as an explosion will attract more attention more than bounty hunters will be crawling after us.” She ran a hand through her hair, her body language showing that she was aggravated. ”Oh man after this I could use a warm bath” she mumbled.