Thread: The Ruin of Mankind

A second after beginning her questioning, Cali groaned in displeasure as she noticed the way that the collared man had gone limp and silent. Clearly, she wasn't getting answers out of him anytime soon, and there wasn't any time to wait around for him to regain consciousness. Not just because she had no intention of lingering in Bloodridge for much longer, but also because of the way that the metal collar was blinking more rapidly and even beeping. If Cali hadn't been entirely convinced that it was a bomb before, then she certainly was now. Dashing around the corner of the nearby house, she crouched down against the wall and used her arms to cover her head right as the explosion went off. The ground and the house shook and the sound of the blast was loud enough to make her ears ring slightly, but other than that Cali wasn't really any worse for wear. Rising back up to her feet, she peaked back out into the street, seeing exactly what she expected. Bloody guts splattered all around the small crater left in the concrete and a cloud of dust with a pinkish hue to it where the body had been. Disappointment aside, the dead man's ominous warning still lingered in her mind. Cali barely had any time to try piecing together what in the hell was going on before a creepy voice coming from behind pretty much let her know that she'd been ambushed. She couldn't see the barrel of the weapon being pointed at her, but the chill crawling up her spine let her know with absolute certainty that it was there. With an exasperated sigh, she let her shoulders droop and rolled her head back lethargically until she was staring up at the clear blue sky overhead. This would be far from Cali's first time being held up at gunpoint, but it was never an enjoyable experience, and she absolutely abhorred letting anyone get the jump on her. Holding her hands out to the sides, she slowly turned around without making any sudden movements to see who she was dealing with. Another mangy raider, looking somewhat similar to the one who'd just gotten blown up except for the fact that he was carrying a rifle instead of a collar. He also didn't seem to be extremely malnourished, although he was still pretty scrawny. If it was just him, then Cali wasn't too worried, she'd gotten out of worse predicaments plenty of times before. Obeying the growled command to move back onto the road, her mind was already racing, trying to come up with an idea or a plan. That was when she laid eyes upon the second guy. She stopped in her tracks, her eyes widening incredulously as she looked the monster of a man over. It was like an indomitable mountain of muscles walking straight towards her. Standing at five feet and ten inches, Cali wasn't exactly short, but she felt minuscule when the huge man closed the distance, towering over her and blocking out the sun. Even worse, she could tell by the way that he carried himself that he knew how to use the AK-105 that he was carrying as well as the long blade strapped across his back. Definitely not your typical wasteland punk. How thoughtful of you, Cali replied flatly, using her sarcasm to mask the nerves and fear coursing through her lithe body. She needed to do something, and fast , before the pair of raider bastards could disarm and restrain her. She pulled the strap of her M4 rifle up over her head and obeyed Red's command to the letter, lowering it down to the ground extremely slowly in order to buy herself a few more seconds of time. Cali went for her belt next, and that was when she made her move, using a little sleight of hand trick that she'd picked up along her travels to subtly pull the pin out from one of the three flashbang grenades attached to the leather strap. She tossed the belt down at Red's feet, counting the seconds in her head. Three, two, one... Cali twisted her body around suddenly just a moment before the concussive blast went off, tucking her head in and covering her ears as best she could with her hands. The thunderous BANG was still loud enough to leave her temporarily deaf and disoriented, and the bright flash of light affected her vision very briefly, but she wasn't rendered completely blind as she would have been had she been facing towards it. Pulling the shotgun from its holster, Cali fired off two slugs behind her without looking to cover her escape, not even hearing the gunshots although she did feel the recoil. It wasn't easy leaving her rifle behind, but sometimes necessary sacrifices had to be made, she knew that very well. Having memorized the short route from the road to the house where she'd taken cover just a couple of minutes earlier, Cali retraced her steps, sprinting as quickly as her long legs could carry her. Her hope was that she could make it behind the house before her attackers regained their senses. The fence leading into the backyard was already broken and laying on the ground, covered in a thick layer of sand, so she was able to pass through unhindered. As soon as she found cover behind the house, Cali reached for two new shells from her weapon's sidesaddle and cracked the gun open to feed them into the double barrels. By then, she'd gone from being completely deaf to just hearing a constant ringing sound, which wasn't any more helpful. It would still be a few minutes before she regained her hearing, a good deal longer than that before the thudding pain in her head went away, if she was even still alive that long. She was confident, though. Nobody had ever gotten the best of her before, and she wasn't about to start letting it happen now. However, her odds against two men carrying assault rifles while only wielding her shotgun weren't particularly great, so she decided that the best course of immediate action was to get back to her bike which carried plenty of spare weapons and ammo. Running to the opposite corner of the house, she quickly glanced around the corner to make sure that it was clear before dashing across the gap over to the next house. She just needed to keep doing that, making her way further down the inclined slope that Bloodridge was built on until she got close to the entrance where she'd stashed her ride behind a pile of debris, camouflaging it with a large tarp painted in neutral tans and greys.