SET Initiative

Austin had been sleeping in the front seat, and sat up as they hit a bump in the road.

"Huh? Oh, hey kid, you need me to drive?"

He looked around.

"Uh, do we have gas?"

Randall frowned down at the gas meter, which was making a rather annoying dinging noise. "Crap. Pull the map out of the glovebox, see if there's a town nearby where we can get gas. We're gonna have to walk for a bit, sadly. Josh! Wake up!"
The slightly younger of the two twins sat up, yawning and rubbing his eyes, scratching the back of his head and messing up his already unruly black hair. "What's up?"
"We have problems, man. You'd better be awake for this."
"I hate problems."
"Ditto."

Austin got out of the car when it stopped.

"Give me a second, I'll be able to tell if we're near a town." He tapped a few buttons on his wrist and pulled up a map in his helmet.

...

"Figures, satellite systems are down." Austin groaned. "Do you guys have a gas canister we can use to siphon from other cars?"

"In the back, I think. Josh, watch my back." Randall got out, stretched for a moment to loosen himself back up, walked around to the trunk, and popped it open. After a moment of rifling around he pulled an empty gas canister out and showed it to Austin. "Now we just need to find a gas station, you know. I think we're going to have to do it the old-school way, with an actual map." He crossed back to the front, sliding into the passenger seat and opening the glovebox to dig around for the map he knew was in there. "Where are we, do you think? Have we crossed the D.C. border yet or no?"
Josh was pacing around the car, keeping his eyes peeled for signs of the undead. So far nothing; it was eerily quiet, nothing but the crickets chirping, and eventually even those stopped altogether.
The hair on the back of his neck raised in an unnerving manner and he slipped the bow off the quiver on his back, the sharp blue eyes scanning their surroundings. He let out a low whistle, a two notes tune that caused Randall to freeze and slowly look around. It was their own language for silence, something was amiss. Randall leaned out of the car to find Austin, holding a finger to his lips in a simple gesture for quietness.
In the meantime Josh had lowered his bow slightly, not yet seeing anything. But then he heard it- the sounds of something walking through the woods, leaves crackling and twigs snapping underfoot. The bow was raised again, although judging by Josh's confused expression it was still hard to pinpoint the noise.

Austin shrugged, taking the gas canister.

"No clue." Austin looked over at Josh with a confused expression before seeing Randall's simple gesture for "Shh."

He nodded and materialized the armor again. He set the can down carefully and pulled an energy pistol from a holster at his thigh.

Visor switched to thermal image scanning to find...

A man stepped out of the woods, one that neither of the twins recognized. This guy was different, new- and Randall didn't like him one little bit. Even Josh, who was normally accepting of strangers, felt something weird about this one.
"Whoa, hold your fire," the man requested, cold blue eyes looking the three of them over. "Just a traveler lookin' for supplies. Nice to see some warm bodies for once."
"Yeah, well, we got nothing. We're looking for supplies too, so I suggest you keep moving on," Randall replied smoothly, his eyes narrowed slightly at the newcomer. He glanced over at Austin a moment for support, then over at Josh, who had tightened his grip on his bow.
Good. He had the sinking feeling that he was going to need it soon enough.

Austin shot Randall a look that said "Let me do the talking, idiot."

His energy pistol was holstered, but his armor didn't go anywhere. And you couldn't see it, but within his helmet, his visor was analyzing every aspect of the man: Height, weight, hair and eye color, body language, potential weapons on his person...

After Austin had gotten a satisfactory summary of the man's life story, his helmet disappeared in a blue flash.

"Sorry about the rudeness of my friend here. He tends to be a little distrusting of strangers. Where are you from?"

Randall's gaze flicked over to Austin, noticeably angry that he was talking to this guy and not backing him up. Strangers weren't the best thing in the zombie apocalypse, and Randall had had a run in or two with hostiles before. He had come to think that he was fairly good at spotting them now- but it was seen as paranoia, not a survival instinct.
Does anybody ever listen to him? No, of course not.
The guy was doing some sizing up of his own, sizing up how fast he could take these people out, how fast his friend could take them down as well, which one needed to go first.
"Chicago," he replied, his head tilting to the side slightly as he considered how fast he could possibly draw and shoot this guy. He'd have to do it quick and in the head; he had a feeling that anywhere else wasn't going to do much, what with that freaky armor and all. "You?"

Austin nodded with a smile. His thermal imaging and helmet's built-in sonar had caught on to the man's hidden partner, but he didn't want to give away that he knew something was up. He hoped Josh and Randall would catch on, although they'd probably think he was crazy.

"Chicago, huh? That's cool. Me, I'm not really from any place. I've spent a lot of time up in space. Pretty cool up there."

As he spoke, he made hand motions. Nothing fancy, just a few bounces of his hands in the air, with his palms facing up. A pointer finger or two. Sudden motion with his hands could throw the man off when he disabled him with plasma.

"So what part of Chicago are you from?"

The guy's eyes narrowed slightly- space? The hell was this guy talking about? "Downtown area," he replied with a shrug, trying to decide if Austin was crazy or not. Granted, everyone was some varying degree of insane, but some more than others.
Randall was still extremely wary about what was going on, but he wasn't that good of a mind reader yet to know what Austin knew. He'd have to make it a little more obvious- just a smidge- if he wanted the twins behind him on this one. The hidden one was well camouflaged, after all- a year or two of highway looting had made him pretty good at his 'job'. It would take a hawk (or in this case, a rather cool helmet) to find him hidden in the thick foliage of a tree.
Randall was watching the stranger, mostly, while Josh focused on Austin, playing absently with his bowstring. He was picking up the negative feelings of his brother and whatever you'd call Austin (friend? Ally? Something like that), but wasn't sure if it was just him or what.

Austin smirked at the man and nodded ever so slightly up and down. Like in a mafia movie.

"Well, no matta whea ya from," Austin began in his best mock accent, "you know it's best to not mess whidda guy who's got all the fiapowa. Ya feel me?"

His helmet and giant glowing boomstick appeared simultaneously.

"Ya even think- If you even think about offin' one-a these two, I'll make sure reserve a special place in hell for you and your little pal. Right next to Capone. Gottit?"

A second's pause before he moved his hand behind him in a "get in the car, or at least behind me" motion to the twins.

The man's eyes narrowed, and ever so slowly a small smirk carved its way up his lips. "That is perhaps the worst Chicago accent I've ever heard," he commented slowly, his gaze drifting up to the trees.
The sniper up in the treetops couldn't hear their conversation, but he could pick up when things were going south. So, it looked like it was time to get with the program- at least before Austin and his wicked looking gun could beat them to the shot.
Josh had snapped his fingers at Randall, slowly backing off as Austin had ordered. Randall turned his head slightly to catch Josh's signal and had just given him a quick nod when a loud crack resounded through the air, immediately followed by a yelp of pain from Randall as he quickly dropped to the ground.
Acting off instinct, Josh loaded his bow and fired in the direction of the shot, hoping to hit something or at least distract/startle the shooter enough to buy Austin some time to sort things out (which would probably just take a matter of seconds, knowing Austin). He skidded behind the Tank for cover, loading his bow once more and cautiously peering around the front fender.
Randall was playing dead, hoping to give the illusion, at least to the sniper, that he had been killed. That way if Austin needed backup, he could be all stealthy and stuff and pop in unexpectedly. Easier said than done though; keeping his breathing under control was difficult, what with the pain and adrenaline, and it was hard to not try and claw at his back to stop the bleeding. It felt like he had been shot somewhere in the shoulder close to his spine- wherever it was, it hurt like hell and was going to be a huge pain to fix up.
Paranoia wasn't the worst thing to have in the zombie apocalypse.

No sooner had the gunshot rang out than hard bolts of plasma lightning sang through the air.

Boy, fried highwayman doesn't smell as good as it's cracked up to be.

Probably a helluva feast for some zombies, though.

Austin couldn't pinpoint the man's friend, though. He saw him, but a clear shot was tough. Especially without hard bullets. Austin's helmet was now activated, and he didn't have any time to react to Randall being shot.

"Josh, take cover. I'm gonna kill this son of a-" He stopped himself, and just ran.

Josh watched Austin go with wide eyes, nocking another arrow to his bow to try to be of some use if things went badly. He doubted that would happen though, since it wasn't very probable that the sniper had weird high-tech armor that looked like it could withstand a tank blast. Not entirely impossible, but somehow it didn't seem like a big possibility.
He glanced back to his brother, who was growling curses under his breath. He must be somewhat okay, Josh concluded, since that was a very Randall thing to do.
The sniper himself was starting to lose it. He had almost been hit in the face with an arrow and his little buddy has been charbroiled and now he was on his own against some freakishly powerful guy. His fight-or-flight instinct was kicking in, and right now he was leaning towards flight.
That was exactly what he was doing- running as fast as his skinny legs could carry him, rifle bumping on his thin back as he did his best to not trip and fall on his face like what happened in all the cheesy horror movies. That would be most upsetting and rather stupid.
Granted, Austin had the advantage and would probably catch up quickly, but it was worth a shot.

Austin stopped once within the trees. He could see the man running now.

His breathing was forced to slow, and he pulled his rifle to his shoulder again.

Bzzap

It was like one of those bug zappers. He had shifted his gun to a lower setting, so the man was probably only knocked down and maybe left with a third degree burn or three.

Austin looked back at Josh and Randall.

"You guys okay?"

((BTW we're waiting on yas in CRP. ))

(GAH ok, I'll post there in a minute or two)

"Fine," Josh said with a nod, creeping out from behind the Tank.
"I HATE PEOPLE," Randall replied with a snarl, cracking an eye open to peer at Austin. "Do I look fine to you?" He was in a bad mood now, but could you really blame him?
"Shut up and sit up," Josh told him, helping him to sit up so he could get a better look at his gunshot. "There's no exit wound so it looks like it got lodged in your shoulder blade or something."
Randall sighed, grinding his teeth together to keep himself from yelling in frustration and pain. This wasn't going to be fun.

Austin headed back towards the Tank. If the guy wanted help, he could find it.

He knelt by Randall and looked at Josh. "Where's he hit?"

As he spoke, he turned his attention back to Randall, removing any top-layer clothing Randy was wearing. He was going to treat the wound as soon as possible.

"Right here," Josh replied, gently turning Randall around so Austin could see. "Any farther over and it probably would've lodged in his spine. It'll be a little easier to dig out since it's just stuck in a bone and not surrounded by nerves out anything, although there are muscles and stuff here that we need to be aware of. Don't need to hurt him any worse than he already is."
Randall drew his knees up to his chest, his back hunched instinctively against any kind of touch the two would give him. "We need to go," he hissed, turning his head slightly to look at them out of the corner of his eye. "Those gunshots weren't exactly the quietest."

Austin grimaced. "I couldn't fix it right now on the side of the road. Randall's right- We need to get moving. You can drive, right?"

He looked up at Josh and pursed his lips. This wasn't going to easy or painless.

(I'm getting back into the swing of things with RP. Prepare for longer and juicier replies!)