Thread: Challenging traditional RPG

Edward swore as the dog sunk it's teeth into his thumb. He swung his arm round quickly and the dog impacted with the wall with a sickening crack! before it fell from Edward's hand, blood following it from the tip. The poodle shook it's head as it hit the ground and snarled at Edward. He leveled the gun at it and shot it once through the head. The poodle almost exploded with blood and shards of bone and Edward immediatly wished he'd come up with a better solution to the problem when he looked at the wretching girl. He put his gun in his waistband and turned the girl's head gently to one side, not letting her see the remains of the dog,
"It's okay... you don't want to look at the dog. Don't look at the dog. Now I need you to calm down for a bit..." he put a hand on her shoulder, "Just relax. No one else is here ok? Nothing happened just now. It's just me, Eddie, and you... what was your name again?"
He was making idly conversation, the obvious thing to do when someone was vomiting after a sudden realisation that wasn't exactly good. He was also hoping that the other two realized that he was distracting the girl so that they could get rid of the dog and close the door to the old lady's flat.

"Tracey." she murmered, a second shock when the gun had gone off. Head reeling, Tracey pushed his hand away.

"Fuck." she said. And then, all the horrors and the fear and the sick feeling in the pit of her stomach accumulated and she turned on him.

"Fuck!" she yelled. "What kind of cop are you? What the hell did you do that for? That poor old woman! This is a crime scene dammit, you should be sealing it off not fucking around playing with the evidence! You fucking freak! What the hell is going on out there? You're trained to deal with this shit! God damn!" she was furious in her terror. Getting to her feet she walked away from them all, one hand running through her hair. She was trembling from head to toe. And she was very, very frightened.

She sat down again, suddenly, further up the corridor, closed her eyes and took a few deep heaving breaths to calm herself. She felt tears welling up in her eyes and she screwed them shut angrily, trying to control herself.

At that moment, another explosion rocked the building. Tracey's eyes flew open again and she put her hands down to steady herself as the floor fell from under her and then covered her face and curled up as the windows imploded.

Amid shattering glass, more screaming, more gunfire from the streets below. It was all very real now.

Tracey's voice rang in his ear, not leaving him alone as he stood there,
What kind of a cop are you?
Edward listened and felt the entire building rock with the force of another explosion.
What kind of a cop are you?
He felt the words, still burning away at his mind. He lowered his head despite the flying glass and moving floor. Edward walked over to the remains of the dog and kicked it inside the old lady's room before locking the door.
What kind of a cop are you?
Edward spat on the floor,
"The kind who's had enough of being shouted at and being blamed." he said just loudly enough for everyone to hear. He walked swiftly over to the stairwell door and leveled his gun at the lock. He shot twice and the door slowly moved away from it's frame.
What kind of a cop are you?
Edward shook his head before taking the steps two at a time.

Leila had tried to pull the dog off but Edward's brute force and... methods, proved effective enough. She felt queasy as she looked at the puddle of muck that was once a poodle but an odd calmness had settled in her brain. She had once watched a National Geographic of Health Channel special, whatever the fuck it was, on people who suffer tremendous shock and the different results that can come from it. Some was rage, which she could see Tracey was now exhibiting, but others were disorientation, illness, "shutting down", and finally, shock. In the back of her mind she could identify that she herself was settling into shock but quite frankly, it wasn't a bad place to be. She felt a little cold but at least she could deal, for now.

"Hey Trace--"

The explosion knocked Leila to her knees and she swore. Her ears were ringing but in the midst of it she could discern screams and gunfire. Glass littered the ground and she was seized with a surge of what she assumed to be adrenaline. She grabbed Tracey by the arm and jerked her to her feet.

"Let's fucking move! I don't want any gunfire coming through those windows!"

She ran toward the stairs leading down to the first floor and, for the first time since it had all begun, she remembered there was a basement. David paid a pretty fee to keep his motorcycle down there. Right now it sounded like a good place to be.

"Come on!" she called back and then heard Edward blow the lock off the door. "Good thinking!" she called after him. But he was already in quite a hurry. She looked Tracey in the face, regretting that she had been so rough with her. She let go of her arm.

"Let's go downstairs okay?"

Edward reached the ground floor and stood in the lobby area. He looked directly through the glass doors that separated the appartment building from the rest of the world. He saw the running people outside the building, guns being fired in the air or at people. He walked up to the glass and looked out at the carnage and the destruction of the city he'd sworn to protect. He turned and saw the other three coming down the stairs,
"Alright... get to the basement. Then you'll be safe from bullets- AAARRRH!" his command turning into a scream of pain as the glass behind his left leg shattered inwards as a bullet came flying into the lobby area.
Edward's shin splintered and the skin was torn open on both sides of his leg as the bullet hit the bone, went through the bone, exited through the muscle and skin and stopped in the wall. He screamed as he fell to all fours and slowly began to crawl towards the basement level. He groaned and moaned as he crawled but stopped when the doors burst open and three men walked into the lobby, carrying clubs and blunt objects. One of the clubs slammed into the side of Edward's injured leg and he fell to the floor in agony,
"How does that feel you cop bastard?! HUH?!" the first attacker asked Edward as he kicked the downed cop in the ribs. One of the other men kicked him in the left shin,
"That hurt pig?!" he demanded of Edward as he ground his shoe's heel into the bullet wound. Edward screamed and tried to sit up, only to be put back down again by a kick to the face. The only man not yet to attack Edward walked towards the other three,
"Now this don't concern any of you. We're just teaching this facist pig here who's boss now!"

Tracey was yanked to her feet and hauled downstairs. She came to herself and hurried with the others, taking them two at a time. They got to the lobby in time to see Edward screaming in pain and then the three men come in and begin to give him the beating of a lifetime. As the cop sprawled, his gun came out of its holster and lay so close to him it appeared the men had not yet seen it. But they would.

"Now this don't concern any of you. We're just teaching this facist pig here who's boss now!"
"Hey, hey wait!" Tracey called to them. Amazingly enough, they stopped for a moment, Edward groaning on the floor. Tracey called up her acting skills. She looked at the men, pathetically. A pretty face always grabbed attention when it was on a body like hers. Her sweater was undone as yet and she carefully tweaked the tank top under it to a much more flattering angle. She took a few deep breaths, her heaving cleavage had caught their attention now. She stepped toward them, pleading in her eyes.

"What's going on out there?" she asked, baby blue eyes beginning to swim.

"We dunno, sweetheart." One of the men, the leader it seemed grinned and took another step forward. "One minute we was about our normal day and the next, bang. Cops are out there trying ta order people around. We decided not to take orders no more." he gazed openly at Tracey's chest.

"Oh, well this one is pretty bossy." she agreed, she nodded toward Edward's prone form. "I just want to tell him something first." she said. "Can I?"

"Go ahead, darlin. And then you an me are gonna get to know eachother." the man shrugged, his grin even bigger. What a catch eh?

Tracey knelt down beside Edward and lowered her lips to his ear and whispered something into it, as she carefully used her fingers to find his gun that was almost tucked under him. It was loaded. Her fingers settled on the cool metal as she finished her message. Edward by this time would be getting a face full of cleavage, if that didn't keep him going, Tracey thought, nothing would.

"I'm sorry I yelled at you and be ready to move, these bastards are going to be very unhappy with us in a minute."

Tracey looked up and smiled pathetically at the man and then came up, gun raised. She aimed and shot without another word, first one, then the next and finally the third who had turned to run. Each man went down howling, blood spurting from their wounds. Tracey pointed the gun toward the floor and grabbed at Edward under the armpit.

"Lets go!" she screamed as a torrent of foul language mixed in with their keening screams filled the lobby. Tracey wasn't thinking any more. She didn't want to think. She'd just shot three people. Shock would immobilise her. She had to get out of here, to somewhere safe.

The four of them left the lobby area, the tall guy of greater help carrying the badly wounded Edward. Tracey had the foresight to dive behind the lobby counter to grab the fire extinguisher and the first aid kit that was stationed there. She took one last glance at the three men as she skidded through the door, each of them lying in a pool of agony, clutching at wounds that were pumping blood, trying to stop the flow.

"Well," she thought savagely, "They won't be getting to 'know' any girls any time soon."

Edward tried not to scream in agony from his various wounds as he limped away, being supported by two of the three people he'd only just met. Edward slowly managed to untangle himself from the other two and began to limp under his own power,
"Thank you for the help... I needed to get out of there." his left foot hit the wall and Edward's eyes opened wider and watered, "Let's get down to the basement."

Leila had already footed it to the heavy metal door that led down to the basement and storage area. The attack had seemed to happen in slow motion and even her footsteps seemed suspended in time. It took forever to get there but once she touched the handle, everything snapped back into place.

"Over here! Hurry!"

In her mind, questions were pitching about like a dark ocean, filled with thoughts and regrets. How long had it been since she had pushed David out the window? How long had it been since she had stepped on that elevator? It seemed like days ago.

Her hand slipped on the handle, as it was slick with some sort of condensation. She fumbled about looking for a lock and she saw one, with the key still inside of it. Strange it was but it didn't matter. What was important was getting down to the basement ASAP. She turned the key in the lock and heard it click. The heavy door inched opened, revealing a small sliver of darkness that led into the bowels of the apartment building.

As soon as Edward was through the door, Tracey locked it behind the group and all but pounced on the injured man. She had her penlight out, which didn't give them much but it was something.

"Sit down!" she told him, ignoring feeble protests and helped him lower himself painfully to the ground.

"We need to stop you losing blood right now or you won't make it to see morning." She told him as she rifled through the first aid kit, and found what she was looking for, a great roll of gauze and cotton wool. She pulled out great handfuls of the cotton wool and used the gauze to create a thick wad. She looked down at the torn and badly stained jeans. They had to come off in a hurry. She fumbled back into the first aid box and after a few seconds of frantic searching found a scalpel blade. She pulled up the fabric of his pants and ripped through, effectively and raggedly cutting off the entire trouser leg. It was then she realised the bullet had gone all the way through. A small mercy at least. And the blood was flowing out but not pumping in such a way that indicated an artery was hit. Thank god. He might live.

In a trice she had gathered the cotton wool and made a second thick pad.

"Here, hold it there, hold it tight." She instructed him, placing one wad in place and his hand over it. Soon she was binding both wads in place, one to the back and one to the front of the leg. It was good and tight, and would last him about half an hour before she'd have to redress the injury again.

"There, you'll live but I can't say more than that. Here's an asprin, I know it isn't much but it'll take the edge off so have it anyway." she shoved the asprin aggressively in his face, two tablets in the palm of her hand. Determined to shove them down his throat herself if she had to.

She looked up at the other two.

"He has to rest. And we have to get him to a Doctor as soon as we can." she told them. Is there somewhere we can hole up down here for the time being until we can work out what's happening out there?" the penlight flashed in her hand. It wouldn't last indefinately.

Leila watched Tracey for a moment but then began groping in the looming darkness beyond the halo of the penlight. There had to be a flashlight... some kind of... her hand touched something webby.

"UGH!" She recoiled and wiped her hand on her jeans, shuddering. Cobwebs and god knows what else...

But still. She moved her hand more carefully along the wall and she felt shelves, various unknown utensils, and a metal drum of something. Nothing that she was looking for.

"Tracey can you shine the light over here when you get a chance?"

The darkness was all consuming.

Obligingly, Tracey hurried over to the other girl whos name she still didn't know, taking her penlight with her.

Its tiny illumination revealed a couple of dusty shelves. She passed the light over to the other girl, murmuring "God I hope we get out of this."

Groping in the darkness, Tracey followed the sounds of heavy breathing back to Edward's prone form and the door. She realised she'd dropped the key to the door. Damn! She began to carefully slide her hands around on the concrete floor, searching for it. It must be near the kit somewhere, she thought.

Oh if only they had more light!

Edward took the two pills from Tracey and looked at them in his hand. They would stop the pain. But on the other hand if he took them then he knew he wouldn't stop taking them. He waited until Tracey was looking away before throwing the pills across the dark room. He let out a deep sigh. The first good thing he'd done in awhile.
He tried to look around but saw nothing but a tiny ray of light. He reached into his pocket and produced a box of matches. He fumbled with the packet before he managed to pull out a match. He struck the match against the box and it caught, letting the tiny fire give off as much light as it could,
"I've got some matches if anyone needs some."