Four Kings(IC)

[Ari]

Grabbing hold of the side of the truck bed as the two smashing blows hit the vehicle, Marceau looked despairingly at the riders. Their weapons were truly formidable, they used them so surely and well that there was hardly any real chance of victory, and now the truck was badly damaged!

But for all that, he would have to keep fighting, wouldn't he?

Whipping out two boomerangs he hurled them at the Kings of Spades and Clubs, knowing that in this case they were likely the most dangerous. He watched in agony as one bounced off the armor of the King of Clubs. The one he had sent at the King of Spades seemed to have a bit more effect.

Not allowing the uncertainty he felt into his voice, he called out defiantly in answer of the King of Diamond's challenge "Who am I? I am the master, the King of SUITS! And I shall soon send you creeping back to your overlord the Star Khan, to be punished for your failures as he sees fit!"

[Supercape]

GM

"Yeah man! you tell em!" yelled the second Marine, cocking the shotgun and firing at the King of Diamonds, the pellets whizzing just past him.

Ford shrugged, and fired the blaster pistol too, silent and grim.

"The King of Suits?" replied the King of Diamonds, again sweeping the bright laser from his ruby-tipped staff right at the King, without hitting him. "We bow to no King, knave!" he snarled.

As if to punctuate his point, the King of Clubs again struck the bonnet of the truck with another mighty blow.

Meanwhile, the King of Spades fell back and then zoomed closer again, on the opposite side to the King of Diamonds. Only ten feet or so from the Truck, he pointed his mace, and from it felt rock, dust, and sand, which swarmed over the King of Suits and started to solidify into a stone trap...

[Ari]

...Which swarmed over and around Marceau, sealing him in a coffin of gritty rock!

He attempted to dodge the sudden airborne-avalanche, but evading the current of sand and stone proved to be somewhat beyond him while he was simultaneously trying to keep his balance on a moving truck that was still bucking from the crushing blow given it by the King of Clubs. The sand poured over and around his head, obscuring from his sight the grav-bikes, the crazily-attired aliens, the marine carrying the shotgun and from his hearing the crackling bolts fired from Ford's alien pistol, the roar of the truck's wheels and motor as it sped across the desert sand.

Down into silence, darkness, and stillness.

Down into a black and stifling hell.

Marceau had never been very frightened of small places. He didn't like them, but they held no terror for him on their own. Now that he was in the middle of a coffin of rock and sand, however, he began to be very afraid of them indeed, desperately shoving and wrenching and clawing, a fear of sudden death descending on him like a vast wave on the shore.

He fervently hoped he wouldn't fail in protecting Ford. If only he could get out, he could beat them...

[Supercape]

GM

As the second Marine fired again, the pellets smashing harmlessly against the King of Spades armoured suit, Ford turned his blaster to Marceau.

"Hold, quite still and, dont move I, think, I got this see, an imperfection..." he mumbled, before turning his blaster to the stone prison and firing at full power. The stone heated, cracked, and disintegrated around the King of Suits.

"What?" cried the King of Spades, furiously launching another tirade of stone, dust, and sand at Marceau, but missing in his rage.

"Torr, you should give up now...stop resisting..." shouted the King of Diamonds at Ford, with mounting frustration. He turned his bejeweled sceptre to his quarry, and the pencil thin beam of red light struck Ford on the shoulder.

"Ow" said Ford calmly, as his suit and flesh burned.

Meanwhile, the King of Clubs dealt another furious blow to the engine of the Truck, which was now looking very battered and belching smoke. It did not look like it could last much longer...

[Ari]

As the ray of heat burned the rock and sand into a rapidly-dissipating pile of dust, Marceau lurched against the side of the truck, his head buzzing from the sudden change of temperature and pressure around his ears.

Ford's calm speech of "Ow" arrived at his ears just in time to remind him what he was supposed to be doing.

Whipping out a boomerang he threw it at the King of Spades, the curved metal stick flying unerringly at the alien hunter's head, which it struck with enough severity to give him a painful bruise on its head.The King of Suits straightened, feeling a distant pride in his good marksmanship. Which was when he recalled that the King of Clubs was still at large!

Turning, a hand on a razor card, he saw the King of Clubs get sent from his grav-bike by a flash of light, which clattered on the truck bed. A moment's inspection revealed to Marceau that one of his boomerangs had returned! And had retained enough power to knock out an alien in armor! The 'how' he felt no confidence in asking.

Turning his attention to the King of Diamonds, he pointed at him and thundered "You! Get you gone, and if you continue with this, I'll pull you from your bike and send you into the sands!"

[Supercape]

GM

Ford, the Marine, and the King of Diamonds exchanged a brutal volley of fire, with the King of Diamonds coming worse off, a yellow-tinged blood seeping from a tear in his armoured white bodysuit where the shotgun pellets had ripped. His own aim seemed to be shaken by Marceau's roar of defiance.

Seeing his comrade go down, the King of Spades pulled up to a stop on his Grav-sled. "Don't think you can get away with that piece of barbaric locomotion!" he yelled, as he pulled up his brown sceptre and aimed it at a distant boulder. With a flick of his wrist, he sent it flying straight at the truck.

The boulder crashed into the side of the truck, and sent it sliding to one side, crumpled. Its wheels spun and slowed to a halt. The whole truck turned, but did not spin or flip. However, the engine belched forth a final farewell of smoke, and flames started to lick the engine, as the bonnet sprang open. It had put up a good fight, but it wasn't going to any further.

[Ari]

As the rock crashed against the truck, and it gave its last rattle, jolt and belch of smoke, the King of Suits crashed heavily against the cabin of the truck. Growling with frustration, he returned to the well that had been so useful lately and took out a boomerang with the intent of throwing it at the King of Spades in order to do them violence. However, this time he aimed not at the rider of the grav-bike, but at the staff they held!

He had realized(rather belatedly, it must be said) that it would render the assailants practically helpless if he could relieve them of their weaponry. It would have been nice to do so when the truck wasn't a pile of badly-dented scrap, but hey! Never too late to learn!

The smoothly curved weapon made a fine sight as it twirled elegantly through the air, striking the insufficiently-quick hands that wielded the staff with a sharp 'crack!', forcing the alien to drop their geokinetic device in pain. Nodding in satisfaction, Marceau turned his attention to the King of Diamonds. "Should have run when you had the chance!" he bellowed, firing his grapple line at the grav-bike and swinging himself on board, the moonlit desert rushing past his head as he swooped over giving him severe doubts if what he was doing was all that wise. Nonetheless, he landed on the front of the bike as smoothly as could be desired, though his legs trembled a bit at the knowledge of his precipitous situation.

[Supercape]

GM

The King of Diamonds was still at the controls, and veered off, with his new passanger, back down the road on his silent gravitic bike.

"Run, never! and end up like Commander Torr? that coward will deserves death!" he roared. He turned slightly, and pointed the lethal diamond tipped sceptre at the King of Suits.

"From one king to another!" he sneered, firing his weapon. The pencil thin beam burned straight into Marceau's costume.

Meanwhile, Ford and the Marine fired another volley of shot and energy into the King of Spades, who was knocked clean off his bike and tumbled, unconscious into the dusty sand of Morocco.

[Ari]

The burning ray merely charred much of the armor, leaving the King of Suits unscathed. With a grim smile he said "From one King to another" and, raising his fist back, brought it down straight into the alien's face. The blow badly bent the armor born on the King of Diamond's head, and sent him crashing back against the hard metal of the grav-bike. The two-fold strike knocked the King insensible, and after swaying for a moment, eyes wide and staring blankly, he slid from the bike onto the smooth sands.

Swinging neatly into the seat vacated by the King, Marceau set course for the truck, the controls proved much less of a bother than he had feared, and he soon slid the otherworldly vehicle to a stop next to the smoking, ruined truck. Surveying it gloomily, Marceau mentally berated himself for not focusing on the defense of the truck rather than his(in hindsight) rather embarrassing choice of targets. Shaking himself back into the present, he stopped the engine and brought the thing to rest.

Getting off of the bike he then called to Ford "What should we do now Ford? Go on? Take care of these first?" he gestured to the fallen aliens.

[Supercape]

GM

"Commander Torr! Don't think this is anything but a tactical withdrawal!" shouted the last standing King, the King of Hearts.

"Activating emergency recall!" he yelled, pressing a button on his armoured wristband. With a sizzling and shimmering, and a powerful smell of ozone, the four bodies of the Kings, three unconscious, all disappeared.

Ford tucked the blaster pistol into his rather ragged suit with what could only be described as a cold smile of satisfaction.

"Victory" he said, in a calm, modulated voice.

[Ari]

"Victory?" echoed Marceau in confusion. But a moments reflection brought to his mind the basic fact that there were more important things to worry about than the alien hunters. The passengers still needed to be taken care of, the Cercle had to know what had happened, the alien tech needed to be taken in for examination, and he needed to get in on the case he had come out here for in the first place.

Shrugging it off, he took stock of their surroundings. Desert. Immensely vast desert, with what he believed to be city lights in the distance. He could fit two people on the bike, there were four bikes...well, they wouldn't wrangle themselves.

Jumping back onto the bike he called out to Ford "Hop on, I'll need your help to get another bike, then we can get the rest back here!" re-activating the device's engine, he carefully lifted it a half foot off the ground.

[Supercape]

GM

GM

Ford had been his consulting his not-mobile phone. "They, won't be, back soon!" smiled Ford in that characteristically odd way of his. Tucking his mobile phone away he clambered aboard the bike.

The bikes were indeed fast, silent, and reliable. Only one, having taken a few pellets from shotgun fire, showed any signs of damage - evidences by a slight whining and tendency to veer slightly to the left if one didn't pay attention. But otherwise, the technology was impressive. They could outpace all but the fastest car's, and handled better than any.

The controls were unfamiliar, but instinctive, and between them, the convoy soon made it too the nearest town, Ait-Baha.

It was getting to the early hours of the morning, and the whole town was asleep. However, it was easy enough to rouse the local law, and alert them to the crash - and within hours, the emergency services had swung into action...

[Ari]

After alerting the local authorities to the situation and making the needed arrangements for the rescue of the passengers, Marceau approached the bartender and Ford. He spoke to the bartender first "<Thank you for your help. Your losses will be reimbursed within the week. I'll make sure of that personally, I have ties to the Cercle>". To Ford he said "Thank you for the help you've given, can I do anything else for you, or do you wish to part ways for now? If you want my help again, you can find me at the Monkey Towers apartment complex in the Fens district of Freedom City"

He glanced over at the line of grav-bikes that were being readied for transport to A.S.T.R.O. Labs for inspection, the staves that had been recovered he hadn't learned the fate of. He wondered if he could get his hands on one of them. They were a wonder to ride.

[Supercape]

GM

"Thank, you I own you, my life and am, in your debt my, number" replied Ford, giving Marceau what was the most human smiled he had given the hero in the last twenty four exhausting, action-packed hours.

He scribbled down a long number for Marceau. Oddly enough it seemed his "mobile phone" worked as a mobile phone, alongside all its other functions.

"I fear I must remain, undercover for some, time, and strengthen, my defences, lest the four kings find me, and attack once more, they do not give, up easily..." he said solemnly.

"However in my, estimation, they will not return to, the Star Khan for, fear of his punishment for, failure. No, they must too be running..." he trailed off, with a wry smile on his lips. The odds had shifted in his favour.

"So for now farewell" he said, giving Marceau a long, unblinking look, before walking off into the crowds.

[Ari]

Taking the piece of paper, Marceau put it in one of the pockets of his coveralls(he was carrying them in a backpack), and bowed slightly when Ford gave his farewell "To you as well Ford! May you fare well" he called after the alien's retreating form.

Turning on his heel, he strode off to find a suitable hotel, taking the two Marines and the Olympic sharpshooter along with him, in preparation for meeting with the Cercle and getting them up to speed on what had happened, not to mention finally getting started on the case he had been called in for!

As he walked down the street, through the busy crowd, Marceau was surprised at how comfortable he was here, rather than in the more temperate Atlantic coast. The warm breeze from the Mediterranean, the light bands of revelers, petty thieves and nervous visitors, the clear sky with the just-rising sun, it all seemed..right.

Snapping his fingers next to his ears, Marceau turned his attention back to the task at hand. If he wasn't sharp, he would be hard-pressed to get a good deal.

[Supercape]

GM

Meanwhile, in a star system far, far away...

The armoured general knelt before the magnificent figure of the Star Kahn.

"The Four Kings failed, my Kahn. The coward Torr is at large on Earth."

The Kahn sat on his throne, his head on one hand, the other tapping.

"I see. I take it the four kings have seen wise not to return with news of their...failure..."

"As you foresaw. Your tactical genius is undisputed..." replied the general.

"Then...it has all gone to plan!" said the Kahn with a smile. He stood up and walked to his enormous holographic desk, full of displays of planets, suns, armies, and key players, fashioned as ornate artistic representations - like chess pieces.

He picked up a virtual hologram of Commander Torr.

"Even Torr does not know the role he shall play. It was a calculated gamble. But his ignorance shall serve us well. The traitor and coward may yet be our finest asset. "

He slammed down Ford onto a holographic display of Earth and laughed.

"Go Ford and Conquer!" came the tyrannical laugh.

~ Fin ~