tesla_bot | Tesladyne: Every Formation's a Rectangular Thingy

Current Location: woods in the middle of nowhere

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Tesladyne: Every Formation's a Rectangular Thingy

The bunker has a pair of generators and a pile of gear in one of the corners. The whole arrangement is fenced off with yellow caution tape and blast shields. One of the downsides of making your own way to Milliways is that you have to keep making your own way. The rest of the space is full of other support gear: paramedics, radio operators, stocks of food and water and plenty of video feeds. Most of those cameras seem attached to be on balloons or something else flying given the way they look down at the woods, but a few others target larger clearings and trails.

"Sorry about the lack of space," says Robo, "This was the best place in the area to get through. You mind waiting while I give the trainees one last talk before I bring you out?"

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"Sure thing." Sort of like the obstacle course again, except the grouping off is deliberately putting Clarkson with the guy who said 'what is the big deal'.

"I'll run into the grounds and light the bottle rockets when I'm ready to start." Tyler calls back, jogging into the forest.

"I hate you. Just want to make that clear," come Clarkson's voice before Tyler moves out of ear shot.

The grounds are temperate forest, with the fairly thick undergrowth that signals that there's been a lack of forest fires in the last few years. Given that there have been Action Scientists dragging themselves over the area there also isn't much by way of wildlife. Birds are plentiful though and so are the smaller, more daring, land creatures.

And apparently soggy lowlands. Good thing Tyler wasn't running flat out.

Fairly thick undergrowth means moving carefully to not leave a trail, which kind of goes to pot when the kid hits the soggy wet lowlands because that just means leaving tracks...

Okay if he's going to be leaving tracks, he might as well make them confusing as ALL HELL right now. And it's a good while before he finds just what he'd like for a place to wait to be found. A big old tree.

Now, he's got some climbing gear, his usual utility belt and a pump paintball gun with plenty of ammo, and just in case, his gauntlet. Gear stashed, it's a quick bit of fiddling to get the flare-gun set up, tiny keypad and all but soon rockets burst out from under the trees into the sky.

GO!!

At the rocket's launch birds scatter. Less from the rocket and more from the way the trainees are plowing through the undergrowth. Ah well, subtly is a completely different course.

Which means there are some folks going flat out when they come to the soggy bits. Some people just won't learn the easy way.

Not that all the teams are headed quite that way if the birds being startled are any indication. At least one team seems to think the rocket has been launched as part of a ploy to mislead.

And THEY would be the smart ones, and if Tyler were able to watch, he'd be betting money on that team having the three who won the obstacle course challenge being in that group. Meanwhile, he's bunkering up in the tree branches to watch the wildlife and see where the birds are leaving from.

Birds and the sound of people interacting with nature.

"Have I mentioned how much I hate nature? Because I do. With a passion!"
THWACK
"And stop hitting me!"

So that's one group (with Clarkson) going straight along the paths that Tyler's left in the soggy parts hoping to get lucky and two around the edges looking for points where Tyler might have left, one in each direction of circulation.

The fourth team ia being quiet or they're only going where the other three have passed for now.

Yeah, if Clarkson's group can make sense of those mixed up and criss-crossed paths, they will deserve beer and pizza. So there's THREE groups he can track right now by the movement of the birds and their noises...

But they're all taking too long as Tyler pulls his gear back on, counting down the seconds until their timers go off.

Three.
Two.
One.

...Where is the theme for Jaws coming from?

Oh, one of Clarkson's teammates has it as the alarm noise on her iPhone.

"......oooh gawd." Clarkson cries out dismayed, turning to stare openly at this particular teammate as everyone catches the giggling from far off. "I'm surrounded by crazy people!"

"What is the BIG deal about this kid, seriously he's like half our size and-" -phoont! -splut!!--

Stupid Newb doesn't get to finish that sentance. Well. He could finish it, but he just got a faceful of paint-soaked sponge to the face.

"Mphragrh!"

Meanwhile Clarkson is diving for the bushes. Say what you will about his mouth, but his reflexes are pretty sharp.

"Take cover you idiots? Take cover and shoot back!"

Return fire starts, but it's pretty ragged. Figure they have a compass direction, more or less, but nothing more accurate than that.

That...okay, he's not going to ADMIT it, but that's pretty decent, given that he's got to hide behind a tree and prime that pump-action paintball gun.

There's going to be a burst from behind the tree, a grey-blue, short and fast moving little blur, who actually manages to get three shots out before he gets behind a particularly thick bit of bushes.

Paff! Paff! Paff! Jaws theme, Captain Clipboard, and Koi Tattoogirl! Yeerrrrrr OUT!

The other five fall back to different clumps of bushes trying for a better angle.

"I am going to go get a beer and then I shall watch from the cameras and laugh," announces Clarkson as he wipes at his face, "Come on! Who wants to stop early? I can shoot you too!"

Fiff

That's... well that's Clarkson being shot again actually. Might be a good time for Tyler to move along too.

Oh yes, he'll be moving along...in juuust a bit. As the other five move for a better angle...They'll find Tyler isn't in that clump of bushes now.

He WAS there. And he might be nearby.

Piff! Piff! Yeh, definitely nearby, it's hard to tell where those two shots came from.

"...I'm out!" "Same here, what is this kid, a Chuck Norris clone?"

Chuck has nothing on what you can pick up in the kinds of situations where Tyler's been. Almost enough to make you feel sorry for the new guys.

The last three have put themselves in a triangle and are moving out quickly anyway. They're even taking they're best guess for Tyler's new location and trying to put their 'dead' comrades in the way.

The real problem for Tyler coming up is deciding which of the two groups coming towards him to target first. The two groups circling the perimeter having been drawn to the fighting.

...Let's see now. Which team had Mr. Jake Tentacle-Porn on it again?

Though it looks like Hammond and the two remaining full newbs just started in on the group that got a little too close.

"Jeeeeezus! Hammond, you nutwad!"

Well. That makes up HIS mind, he's going to go after Jake and his crew of eight, sneaking underneath the bushes.

...With the mini air cannon he packed in his backpack. What happens when you fill the entire cannon with a hopper of paintballs and point it at a closely packed group of nine?

The answer to that can now be determined experimentally. Apparently the answer is 'paisley paint patterns over plenty of people'.

It's not total coverage and the remaining four are doing their own version. Jake was missed and has taking the initiative of 'looting' a dead teammate for a second gun. Double the volume of fire, something like a third the accuracy.

YAUGH, time to move!

Tyler's just going to be beating a hasty retreat into the bushes now. Looks like Jake's plan of 'newbs as an abalative meatsheild' worked for him.

piff!

Except for that headshot just now.

"I'm sorry, but your brain is in another castle!"

Jake twitches.

"I'm not a zombie!"

"Well you're walking around a lot for someone who's been shot."

"Stop helping!"

There's the team that Hammond was shooting at coming up from a side leap frogging as they advance in teams of two. Maybe they lost one to friendly fire from the others?

Yeah, from the looks of things, but this was one of the teams that had 4 people from the obstacle course.

Now these guys are going to be a little harder to take care of. He's going to bunker down and get a good view of the land before making his choice.

Tyler's going to arm the air cannon with one more hopper of paintballs, take the zip baggie of paint-soaked sponges, and rig the air cannon to go off behind him in a moment with a timer.

He's got to see if he can't avoid their capture for a while longer. There's still one team left that hasn't been accounted for.

And he's willing to bet someone has made a bet on him making it back to base by now.

Yeah, there is a bet.

There's also team four broken up into three sets of three in the woods on the way.

That's for later though. After the remains of the other three teams, now lead by a fellow with longer hair and an impression of mild exhaustion pounce on the decoy after it fires to the sounds of vigorous swearing.

...Yeah, none of the other three teams are going to have any love for this kid by the time the sun sets.

It's just him, a pump paintball gun, and two tubes of paint now. And he's definitely taking a different route back than the way he came, more for the fun of it...

Well. Tyler just has to see if he can make that tree-to-tree jump.

Well none of the teams are really going to be cool with Tyler's impression of a squirrel with a manufacturing base.

Neither are the trees who've had a hard time of it these past few days. Tyler makes his jump but the branch is not taking the shock well.

Crack

"Waugh!"

thump!

"...ooough."

"I heard a branch snap!"

"Get him!"

The remnant is making enough other noise as the start to come toward Tyler that they should be easy to avoid if he can just manage to move. Breathing would be nice too.

"Careful you lot. It might be a trap."

Okay...come on...come on, MOVE, movemovemove body that's it, chest up, arms up, ROLL...breath...cough a bit and then run! Use some of the deerpaths, and keep low!

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