capthepoint | Open RP Thread: Ground Control to Major Tom

Open RP Thread: Ground Control to Major Tom

Who: RED and BLU Soldiers + audience? maybe
When: 5/19, 0600 hours
Where: The Vault

At six AM sharp that morning, however reluctantly, the former RED Engineer trudged across the hard-packed earth toward the Vault. His helmet straps jounced listlessly against his unshaven cheeks. Only half his collar was turned up. The other half sagged listlessly against his shoulder, along with the butt of his rocket launcher. He had to pause periodically to rub his eyes, with the air of somebody who dearly wished he hadn't skipped his morning coffee in his haste to get dressed.

But he was there, he figured, despite the fact that he could barely see the ground in front of him. And at this hour, that was what counted, right?

Letting out an impressive yawn, he rounded the last corner and glanced around for his teacher, all but certain the lunatic BLU had made it there before him.

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Sid nodded and bit his lip, frowning hard at the ground as though it had done him a grave offense. It was probably better not to think about it, he decided, and shot at his feet again. The searing pain hit almost instantaneously. He fell to the ground, dropping the launcher beside him.

A low whine in his throat was the only noise he found he could make when he reached for his ankle and found half of it missing. He looked up reproachfully at Dok for a moment. Then his eyes rolled back in his head and he passed out without much further ceremony.

Being awake bright and early and ever so slightly hung over was not one of Molly's favorite things but one of the base cats had decided to try affectionately clawing her face to get her attention and once she was done swatting it away she was awake enough that trying to fall back asleep would be pointless.

Out of bed and properly dressed for the day there was the faint sound of explosions somewhere off in the distance. Well, shit. It sounded like it was coming from the direction of the vault and if those blasted tin men had gotten that far then they were in trouble. There was little time to think before getting her weapons and going.

There was a suspicious lack of robots around on the way there and when she was close enough to see the vault she ground to a stop and stared. There were the two soldiers and Medic was healing them. Sid looked to be in bad shape but there were no robot remains laying around to be a cause for it. Had they been fighting? That seem detrimental to the whole teamwork thing.

Rubbing at her head she decided to just approach the group and ask what she really wanted to know. "What the bloody hell are you lads doin'?"

"Ach, Sidney..."
He couldn't reach out to catch or break his fall without letting go of his gun, so he made the decision to just let him tip so that he could keep the healing beam on him. He didn't have much father to fall anyway, he'd be fine. But really? Surely he'd seen or experienced worse; combat rounds tended to be pretty brutal before.

He was just kneeling down to balance the handle on the ground so he could reach forward and give the poor RED a shake and keep his hand on the top lever when their Demo joined them. "Giving some... flying lessons. And good morning, Molly."

Soldier knelt down next to Sid as well, and watched Medic shake him gingerly.

"He ain't done any flying yet," Soldier noted for the sake of the added company, though that much was probably obvious. "Maybe having a pretty lady watching will motivate him to shoot between his feet instead of in them."

Sid didn't look anywhere near conscious, and Soldier didn't have all day, so he shunted Medic off. He grabbed Sid by the front of his jacket and gave him a much more vigorous shake. When the only response he got was Sid's head lolling around, Soldier reached back and slapped him.

"Rise and shine, Apollo One!"

Sid snapped back into consciousness moments afterward with a startled groan, tensing in fear of more pain. When it didn't come he eased one eye open and glanced up into Soldier's less-than-reassuring visage. "Christ," he murmured, deciding it was best to keep his eyes shut after all. "How long w's I out?"

"It looks like the poor bastard needs a bit more than just a blast of the medigun." His feet did look to be in utterly terrible condition and she crouched down next to him as well. "You going t' be alright lamb chop?"

Demo had a point. There was no way Sid was going to be balancing out like that.

"Only a few minutes, Yarn Ball." Soldier reached over to retrieved the thermos Medic had set down on the ground. "Here, drink this."

Already a little nauseous, he groaned again at the thought of putting that swill in his mouth. "Naw, 'm fine. Thanks."

Somebody else had been talking, he realized, and eased his eyes open. Oh. "Hey, Miss Molly." He pulled together a little grin for her, despite the odd tingling sensation in his ankle. "You come t'watch the fireworks?"

"I came 'cause I heard the rockets. No' quite what I was expecting this early." She could leave it at that and avoid admitting that she assumed the base was under attack. "Think I'll be stayin' for the show now that I'm here if y' can manage another jump."

Soldier snorted, but otherwise chose to spare Sid's dignity and not point out that he had yet to manage one. Nonetheless, he felt that Sid had had enough time to rest and it was time to continue.

"On your feet, Yarn Ball."

"F'r you? 'Course." Sid smiled dizzily at her before hauling himself to his feet, wobbling a little once he'd made it up but remaining upright. He glanced uncertainly at the ground, then at Soldier. "So I jus' -- I'm s'posed t'fire 'n then jump, right?" he wondered aloud.

"Yeah, but you have to do it quick. Pull the trigger and jump at the same time. You want to be off the ground and still going up when the rocket hits. If you're already falling back down, the explosion will work against you." He could see Sid's eyes glazing over and so, rolling his own, he squatted down and started drawing a diagram with his finger in the dirt.

"When your rocket hits the ground, it makes an explosion and the blast pushes back up from the ground," he said, drawing a crude explosion and an arrow pointing up from it. "And when you jump, you are also pushing up." He drew a stick figure in the dirt next to the explosion with another upward arrow below it. "But if you're already coming back down when the rocket explodes, then you're crashing into the force from the explosion." He drew another explosion and a stickman over it, and between them two arrows pointing at each other, indicating their force in opposing directions.

"When that happens, your feet get caught in the crush."

"What you want is to still be going up so that when your rocket's blast hits and pushes up, it's working with your jump instead of against your fall."

Soldier stood and dusted his hands off.

"You get it now, Knit Needles?"

Edited 2013-06-11 17:25 (UTC)

"I -- think so. Maybe." Sid leaned on his launcher, the better to survey Soldier's drawings without falling flat on his face. He still looked a little pale, but as he studied the drawings his mouth set into a determined line.

Carefully, he gathered the launcher back up and onto his shoulder, pointed it at the ground in a slightly wobbly fashion, and then stopped. An uncertain, embarrassed glance at the Soldier. "Y'think I c'n maybe see you do it jus' one more --?"

"Yeah, all right," Soldier said with a bit of a grumble. He rather thought the maggot was stalling, but one more demonstration wouldn't hurt him. Much, anyway.

Soldier leveled his weight out and then said, "Watch how I time this." He jumped, marking his ascent with an "up!" and his fall with a "down". "Up, down! Up, down!" He did this a few times, to get Sid acclimated to the rhythm. Then he aimed his rocketlauncher at his feet, jumped and fired as he said "Up!"

And up he went.

"Doowwwwnnn!" Soldier shouted as he fell back to earth with the usual cracking noise.

"All right! Your turn, private!" he said with an encouraging boisterity that did not belie the fall damage he'd taken.

The longer he watched, the longer it felt like he was watching someone taking turns with one of those strength games at a carnival; one would give it a try and hardly send the weight up more than a few inches. Then the strongman came along and gave it a whack hard enough to ring the bell at the top.
He sure hope Sid could at least get halfway up to the bell by noon, if they were kept out there for that long.
Either way, he was stuck there with his Medigun and hoping he wouldn't have to sew anything too important back on.

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Open RP Thread: Ground Control to Major Tom

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