6869/SWRD 3: Big Fish, Little Pond

SWRD 3: Big Fish, Little Pond
Date of Scene:	18 October 2019
Location:	The Tapestry
Synopsis:	The investigation team moves directly to confront the apparent source of the problem: Apricot Software Solutions. The conclusion leaves more questions than answers.
Cast of Characters:	6928, Staren, 7071, 7116, 7002, Seifer Almasy, 6850, Rean Schwarzer
Tinyplot:	Ripples
Tinyplot2:	Still Waters Run Deep

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Riku (6928) has posed:
    Rain. It soaks into the walls. It soaks into the soul. The waters continue to rise with no sign of it abating. For most people, it's up to their thighs. But something is strange... They just wade through it like it's not even there. Cars continue to drive through it. Children simply walk along through it, somehow not drowning in it. But smartphones are seen everywhere. People seem glued to the screens, a simple glance over their shoulder or listening for the telltale sound effect of a post on one's timeline letting those who pay attention know exactly what they're doing: Checking SCOOL. People look tired, clustering together with others with seemingly little rhyme or reason, instinctively keeping to these unspoken collections and avoiding others.

RIPPLES
ARC 1 - STILL WATERS RUN DEEP
CHAPTER 3 - BIG FISH, LITTLE POND

    But through all this, you pass through Sunnydale towards the presumed source of the problem: Apricot Software Solutions. It juts up out of the suburbs in the middle of the commercial district, competing with Mercy Hospital for skyline. 12 stories tall, the building gleams with the promise of profit and innovation. The place is strange to anyone capable of seeing the UG. The entire environment is different there. The water stops at the edge of the property in a circle, as if held back by an invisible wall. The ground is bone-dry, sun breaking through the seemingly eternal clouds here to warm and dry people. It feels clean. Crisp. Pleasant.

    The building grounds are also festooned with cameras, watching the parking lot and the surrounding area. The front door seems to have regular traffic in and out. There is a side door that exits into a parking structure, but it seems to be closed for maintenance. Whatever that means.

    "So. Here we are." Baofu steps up, leaving the shade of a tree as he takes a long drag on a cigarette, slowly turning his gaze to the building. "Do you have a plan, or are you going to just bust in? I don't have any information on what's inside."

BGM: https://youtu.be/oIXSmxsKR7U

Staren has posed:
    Staren is here! He's a bit late to the party, so he's not sure what all is going on, but people want scans of the building. He can get scans of the building! So... he'll do that, he guesses!

    A cat man walking around the perimeter of the building might be kinda suspicious, but to pretty much everyone he looks like he's just trying to get a signal on his flipphone, and 'I'm trying to get a signal so I can call a friend to pick me up' will be his story to anyone who stops him.

    The 'flipphone' is in fact an incredibly sophisticated piece of magitech. Staren does his best to look in infrared for heat signatures, to examine the pattern of electric fields for an idea of how wiring and devices are placed inside the outside wall (and possibly detect power sources at a distance) and, if there's wifi, to look at the pattern of where the signal is and isn't blocked to gather data about the interior.

    Everyone can see the scan results on AR glasses Staren handed out. It's not as precise as sending in a camera, but it's hopefully more low-key.

Riku (6928) has posed:
    A cursory examination of the building with Sufficiently Advanced Technology shows that the windows (all of them) have pressure sensors on them to signal when they're being broken or manipulated more than normal. The wires are highlighted on the AR glasses, a simple, straightforward grid. Professional work, but... well, civilian-grade. This place doesn't seem to have the kind of security that one might expect based on suspicions, honestly. But then, that would be obvious to the local employees, wouldn't it?

    Power also runs to a large transformer outside the building, and there is a backup generator out back. Wifi is available, but it's secured. At least they weren't dumb enough to just leave it open.

Ash Williams (7071) has posed:
     Ash is really not 'with it' when it comes to social media. He's only vaguely aware of facebook, and is too paranoid about 'cops' finding him to look any further into it. Knowing him, it's probably a mixture of that and something embarrassing--well, something normal people would find embarrassing, anyway. The current mission, and the attention he's paid to it so far, is the only reason he's even aware of what SCOOL is. Because he is an awful, awful person, Ash naturally attempts to 'socialize' with people on their phones. And because he is a creep in the extreme, that mostly involves telling the women on their phones that they should smile more.

     Doomed, misguided and distasteful endeavors aside, Ash eventually wades his way to the Apricot headquarters. "Hey, thanks again for the pills, bud," says Ash with a nod towards Baofu. "Lemme answer that question with another question." Suitably, it has nothing to do with what he just asked. "You have a blow dryer or a towel or something?" He looks around scratches his chin.

     Ash chuckles incredulously at the sight of the place. "Hohoholy shit," he says. "/These/ guys aren't gonna just let us in." He holds up his prosthetic, bending one of the fingers back. A pair of wire strippers is pulled out. "If one of you gives me a lift, I can get us in through any window on this place, once Blondie knocks out the cameras."

     The moment he's able, and flown to a window of the flyer's choice, Ash expertly strips the insulation from the wire on a window alarm, tugs the wire out of its housing with a flick of his wrist, and sets to working on the window with what looks like an odd, red key--a very small circular blade is at the very end of it. A window cutter.

Phyllis Lancaster (7116) has posed:
After the last few appearances in the perpetually damp Sunnydale, Phyllis has finally thought to bring rain boots! They clash a bit with the white of her witchery outfit, but it's a small price to pay for dry socks. Good timing, too, since the rain seems to have gotten worse than before, and there's annoying splashes each time she takes a step forward.

She'll have to remember to bring an umbrella next time.

Upon reaching the outside of the building and meeting with Baofu, the with waves cheerfully while peering into the strangely dry area around the building. "Hello! A plan..."

And then things start getting discussed! While the method of actually getting in starts getting discussed, Phyllis huddles by the tree to stay a bit dryer and to disguise the fact that she's dropping dead birds out of a tiny portal away from casual glances. Remembering the last time she messed with decaying anything, she quickly sends the birds upwards, and they somehow begin to flutter and fly! Thankfully, they look almost like regular birds from a distance, albeit ones that are kind of shitty at flying in straight lines as they circle the building unsteadily.

Once a window winds up opened, the closest bird makes a beeline for it, and Phyllis will murmur a quick incantation before she disappears from sight and is replaced by a bird herself. Said bird lands on the ground where she was in a melting acidic heap, and the witch reappears where the bird was!

Hopefully, it's somewhere not awful.

Mikoto Shimizu (7002) has posed:
Mikoto shivers a bit, this constant rain and cold is something, but the fact that nobody seems to even /care/ and in some cases just seems to carry on regardless.  It's like being in a barrier, except...somehow a bit worse.  Watching children just walk through the water without drowning was just an experience.

At the building, it's just perfectly sunny and the water being held back causes her more than a little suspicion.  There is some talk about how to get in, but it appears that Ash has a way to get them inside without setting off alarms.  

"Alright, guess I gotta carry you inside," She says.  Behind Mikoto, something starts forming.  It looks like...well imagine a pop-up book with colored edges and something that just /does not belong there/.  The face of the creature is made of a mask with one side stuck in twisted joy, and the other in absolute agony.  Its body is covered in gems and jewels, each one with the face of an animal, or in some cases faces of people.

Sonic, Haguro, Riku, Lily, and Haseo feature on these gems.  The end of the arms ends in the heads of animals which constantly seem to shift.  The horrible abomination aims to grab Williams and the two of them blink away, before appearing in front of the window.  Then another blink, and they are on the inside.  

Ash is set down, as the horrible thing seems to just hover behind Mikoto, her sword resting on her shoulder just in case trouble was right behind them.

Seifer Almasy has posed:
     The sloshing water is no problem for Seifer Almasy. He has a surfboard.

     Alright, it's not really a surfboard. It's like a skateboard that he cut the wheels off of and jammed a handy hunk of metal through to steer. And it's not really that the water is *no* problem. It's more like the water *itself* isn't the problem.

     Part of the problem is the people. They clutter together, little more than zombies. They wade. No, they *herd*. They *herd*, and that makes them just, great, big, obstacles. Now, for an experienced surfer, that would be no problem. An experienced surfer would have no trouble getting through this.

     Largely because an experienced surfer would have, like, a real surfboard. And skills.

     Seifer is really good at minigames, but this is tough even for him. The controls are janky and he's having to steer the skateboard like a skateboard, which makes his balance real tough. He's bending over a lot. Touching the thing's front or side to steer through the crowds. He's probably racking up some Munny weaving between them but he also nearly takes out a group of SCOOL-kids with a recovery.

     Finally, he slides to a stop in the terrain and joins up with the others, stepping off the thing in what was assuredly an accident but manages to look pretty smooth anyway. His gunblade, Hyperion, taps against his shoulder as he takes a stance. "Yeah," he says to Baofu, "I think we got a plan."

     Seifer gets real quiet. He runs his finger along the gunblade. It's part of him, so it should be no problem. Right? He's never done it before, but hey. No time like the present.

     He's the hero. There's a damsel in distress.

     Seifer gets low, quiet, moving in the blind spots of the cameras as he identifies them. There's always *some* blind spots. They may be hard to spot for someone untrained, some random reporter there to check out zombies in the mall or some punk kid running from Shadows in people's hearts, but for a SeeD? No problem.

     Once he's there and Ash and Mikoto have selected a window, Seifer presses against the wall under the cameras. He's just out of sight of the cameras, and he's got very little time. And he's never done this before.

     Deep breath. Center. Grab the gunpowder soul. Just a pinch.

     Through the blade.

     Seifer swings upwards. He's way too low.

     The blade cleaves through the camera's wiring with almost expert precision.

     Seifer pumps his fist. Yes. But no time to stop. Two more slash out, and that covers the cameras covering that *specific* arc of the building. That should make it easier for them.

     Now, he's going in the front door. Because there's nothing Seifer Almasy is if not a huge, fucking, distraction. And his IDs will probably confuse a receptionist.

Sho Fukamachi (6850) has posed:
     If only the Guyver could fly, Sho would be a lot more useful. But it can't, so here he is. At least the water isn't proving that much of a problem, though if that's due to the suit's strength or some weird metaphysics nonsense, he isn't sure.

     There's some discussion on how they're going to approach getting inside. Something Sho didn't think about, considering he was just going to try and go through the front door, but ultimately it's decided that they're just going to cut some wires and sneak in through a window.

     With Ash volunteering and Mikoto offering help, the Guyver decides to stick with them. Following behind the pair like an unwanted child. He waits for a sign for the two to be finished with their job, before backing off a bit.

     With very little effort on the Guyver's part, it jumps up to where Mikoto and Ash were working, flipping mid air as it aims to shoot itself through the opened window. It's pretty show offish in execution, even though that's not really Sho's thing.

Riku (6928) has posed:
It's getting progressively creepier as Seifer makes his way through the town. Something is slowly changing here, and not for the better. It's unnatural, and the power continues to echo more and more intensely through the UG, a sodden overlay over the real world for those who cannot see how it is beginning to engulf them.

    Still, he gets to work. There's things to do. Maybe he can make it better and save the damsel in distress. There's a couple blind spots, something Seifer can efficiently guess at based on the models of the cameras, expected view cones, and their positioning. Getting perfect coverage is something that people who service civilians don't get. He gets into position, and slashes, cleaving through the wires perfectly. The light goes out on the camera, indicating it's lost power and signal. If someone is watching the cameras, it might look suspicious, but even so it'll take time for them to investigate. Time enough to allow for the rest...

    Mikoto vanishes through a portal of Darkness, using her horrible projection to drag Ash with her through it and elsewhere. You'd think this would then be followed by the gut-wrenching sound of evisceration and bone snapping but this isn't a horror movie.

    Yet.

    They emerge on the other side, putting them past the lobby area (and the heaviest security checkpoint in the building, possibly), and Ash promptly uses his prosthetic tools to cleanly snip and strip the sensor off of the window, disabling it and allowing him to start using the window cutter to slice through the glass and open it up for people to enter that way.

    Phyllis promptly splatters into the building and causes a portion of the carpet to dissolve away under the acidic splorch before she reforms. The scent of caustic fluids hangs in the air like a miasma. Sho follows, considerably less gross and messy. Somehow. Despite his situation. Thankfully, no one seems to be in this area at the moment. She and the others seem to have full access to the first floor now... Provided they can deal with the occasional roaming people. They can hear the other employees in the distance.

    Seifer then walks right in the front door. Baofu follows him a bit behind and to one side, letting the commanding SeeD take point and the attention. The secretary smiles to Seifer, her smile wavering a moment as she gets the IDs. "Welcome to Apricot Software Solutions! How can I..." There is a pause. "Help you? I'm sorry, could you tell me what you need?" She asks. Meanwhile, Baofu simply slides along and around the counter, walking towards the central elevator bank. There are stairwells to either side, all of the above accessible within the building as well as without. The Tap Buster casually pulls out a card connected to a thin line that runs back into the briefcase he's holding, pressing it against the RFID scanner at the elevator.

Seifer Almasy has posed:
     Baofu follows him. That's actually helpful. Baofu brings an air of officialness that Seifer tends to lack - a well-dressed man in shades well-complements the more greatcoat-and-weapon SeeD.

     Seifer digs into his coat and produces his detective ID. It's an *excellent* forgery, not some cheap thing purchased off a shady website. This is a *paramilitary*-grade forgery. More than that, it's a *secret* paramilitary-grade forgery. A casual secretary certainly won't be able to get past it. It might not work on other worlds, but here? Hell.

     "Hey. Shitty weather, huh?" He puts on a disarmingly handsome square-jaw smile. "Sorry, my partner Greg," he jerks a thumb at Baofu, "An' me, we're here about a call we got. Somebody heard some gunshots goin' off."

     Seifer stows the badge. "It's probably a false alarm, but just in case it ain't," he says, keeping his hand inside his coat like he's looking for his wallet, "We'd like to take a quick look around, for your safety."

     "An', hey, the faster we get this over," he adds, grinning over his shoulder, "Faster we can get back to those drinks we left on the bar. Seriously," he turns back to give the Secretary another disarmingly handsome square-jaw smile, "Overtime, right? Boss says jump, you say how high."

Phyllis Lancaster (7116) has posed:
Success! With her everything still intact and everyone inside none the wiser, Phyllis takes a brief detour to get back to that window she just came in via bird through. Drawing a quick rune circle around it, she starts lowering bone after bone after bone down the other side of the window. It doesn't take long before the bones all lock together end-to-end, forming a questionably stable and definitely unsanitary bone rope to climb!

Hopefully, nobody actually looks at it. She waits until Rean gets inside before yoinking said bones back into the circle, each one disappearing into that weird nowhere space past the circle. "There you go! Alright, let's see." With a glint of her eyes, the witch starts traipsing about, peering around a grand total of two corners before holding up her hand and making random gestures.

That's stealth, right? Right. "Coast is clear. Let's... Hm." Hearing those voices, Phyllis starts tip-toeing her way closer, trying to find stuff to hide behind so she can get close enough to eavesdrop on whoever they are. She's also keeping her eyes peeled for a directory in the hopes of figuring out which floor she needs to go to in order to find someone important-sounding.

Mikoto Shimizu (7002) has posed:
Mikoto sticks her head out the door, checking to see if there were people immediately on their way to the stairs.  With a bit of thought, Mikoto actually decides that maybe they DO want someone.  Then decides against it, because it'd probably be too much trouble to hide the unconscious dude, and she didn't feel like killing someone innocent.  That's negative karma, and she already has a bunch of that.

She moves carefully out the door, moving towards the stairwell, and making sure to keep low or out of the way.  The important thing is trying to get to the door of the stairs unseen, and then run up them.  

She just assumes he's on the top floor because of course, the boss of the company is.  That's just common sense.

Ash Williams (7071) has posed:
     A dead bird flying right past him so quickly brings Ash back to his zombie killing days. He startles, uttering a shocked "JEsus." It... may have blown their cover a little? Thankfully there don't seem to be many people around. He adjusts his duffel bag and steps out of the way.

     He throws the circular plate of glass out the window, because he is an imbecile and lazy.

     After an argument about stairs that no one is unreasonable to assume Ash can't handle, the elevator is opened with a pleasant ding. Despite his claims that no, he didn't need any damn help... relief is visible on Ash's face. He steps into the elevator. "Alright, so, we're just taking this baby straight to the head honcho's office, right? No science crap we gotta poke and prod?" Again, because he is lazy, he attempts to just push whatever button is the highest floor.

Sho Fukamachi (6850) has posed:
     The Guyver was originally just going to pry open one of the elevator doors and climb up that way. That's how it's done in some of those action movies at least. But everyone's vying for stair usage, and apparently this Staren guy is going to hack open the elevators with the help of Baofu, so ultimately, they refrain from doing so.

     He follows Mikoto and Ash up the stairs, his suit sticking out like a soar thumb in this modern environment. At the very least, it doesn't seem to make any weird noises.

     The moment the elevators are taken care of, Sho's quick to switch to that, standing awkwardly in the back as his suit lets out an occasional respiratory sound.

Rean Schwarzer has posed:
Rean's here and standing in rain boots and holding a plain black umbrella over his head. Everyone here is super absorbed in their phones, ignoring the fact that they were surrounded by water. He's not sure since his world doesn't have social media (yet), but they probably weren't supposed to be THIS sucked into it, right?

After prodding Phyllis to get him in the building, she throws down a...bone rope? Rean carefully climbs up into the building, trying not to accidentally break this gross and probably not structurally sound rope.

Once inside, he tries to 'feel' out how many people are actually here, even if it's probably just more civilians talking.

Riku (6928) has posed:
There is a low chime as the RFID pad is finally sent a signal it recognizes, but instead of hitting the elevator button, Baofu turns away, slipping the card against his phone and pressing something on it. Staren receives a message with the encryption hash of the RFID reader, allowing him to basically manufacture usable IDs for everyone on the fly. The stuff is slipped back into his case as he casually swings right back into view, smoothly pulling out an detective's badge precisely right when she should be glancing back over to him. Almost like he basically timed this precisely. "Apologizes for the inconvenience, ma'am." He replies in a lightly placating deadpan to go with Seifer's gregariousness. He simply shrugs to Seifer as the SeeD banters, playing up the stoic hardliner to Seifer's Nice Guy.

    The secretary, overwhelmed by the IDs and official-looking nature of everything, simply nods and hands Seifer's card back. "Um, yes. I don't remember hearing a gunshot, but there's some areas that are pretty heavily insulated. Maybe I just didn't notice somehow." She smiles. "I'll get security down here and they can escort you through the area." She reaches to the phone and presses a couple buttons, picking up the receiver. "Hello, Security? We have police here, they are investigating... Yes. Please send someone down to escort them." She hangs up the reciever and smiles. "They'll be right down."

    Meanwhile, the office space is made up of convenient things to hide behind. There's plenty of thick cube walls, some of them half-height to make an almost iconic cube farm with computers and phones in them. Many of the cubes have little decorations, many of them nerdy. These kinds of places attract a Type. The farm sections are further sectioned off by full height walls, the manager cubes precumably between them with meeting rooms along the outer walls. One of those meeting rooms happens to be what they broke into.

    Mikoto checks, the coast seems to be clear, agreeing with Phyllis, they move. As one might expect, the stairwell is more accessible than the elevators, which are faster but far more busy. She can slip into them, which isn't a problem. The problem is that she's now needing to run up a dozen flights of stairs. There is also a surge of.... /wrongness/ as the elevators and stairwell are actually breached, a wash of familiar-looking darkness spilling outwards.

The elevators open for Phyllis, Ash and Sho, and a dozen metal insectoid limbs reach out to try to grab onto them and pull them into the elevator, which happens to be full of spinning, gnashing cylinders with long, rusty, bloody blades on them, surmounted by a smiling mask. Similarly, the floor below Mikoto erupts, the same kind of assembly screeching horrifically as it crawls upwards, pulverizing the stairwell behind her as it works to grab at her and drag her down into it. The other people at the nearby elevators scream and begin scrambling away, trying to get away from the horror that seems to have drawn them in. They can't seem to quite get past the edge of that darkness, though, their flailing entangling them and leaving them confused and slow.

Mikoto Shimizu (7002) has posed:
Mikoto gets onto the first of the stairs as something seems to flood the area with that palpable darkness.  The avatar behind her looks around as she starts moving.  Until something grabs her leg, she falls forward, but the monster behind her grabs up at the railing to brace her.  Bruised but not too hurt, she turns around and slams her foot into the face of the shadow and flips back to her feet.

"Alright, time to fly," she says, kicking on Nanoha's magical flight and starts soaring up the stairs.  It likely wasn't going to let her get away so easily, but she at least would have an advantage of mobility, movement, and speed so keeping her pinned would be harder.

Of course, it's moving up like a moving floor elevator boss.  Well crap.  She's going to need to think of something quickly.

Phyllis Lancaster (7116) has posed:
With their destination mostly decided on Phyllis tags along with the trio of gentlemen! (Yes, even Ash counts as one despite his himness.) Slinking towards the elevator, she peers at it suspiciously when she sees that darkness flowing out of it.

"That's not a normal elevator thing, is it?" She asks aloud, holding her hand at her side as bones spill out of a rune that appears on the side of her coat. She stares at it intently, almost as if expecting something scary to come out and eat them!

Instead, something tries to grab them and slash them to pieces. Close enough. Luckily, she's ready for it, and the witch leaps backwards deftly to narrowly avoid getting pulled into the murdervator! Crashing into a desk moments later isn't quite so graceful, but at least she's safe for the time being.

"Back away from it if you can! Let's break it up and save these people!" She recommends while flinging those bones at it with reckless abandon, some of them bursting into acid and others remaining solid to try clogging up the Shadow machine. As she does, she yells towards the people fleeing in horror. "Go around us! Make sure we're between the.. These things and yourselves!"

Ash Williams (7071) has posed:
     Ash shouts in surprise as the elevator limbs open up, but it's... sadly, far from the first time a seemingly inanimate object has come to life in an effort to kill him. He takes a step back and manages to escape being tugged in, but the grabbing insectoid limbs slash his arm, causing him to drop his shotgun before he can get a pair of shells in. He improvises.

     Ash grabs hold of one of those limbs with his prosthetic. It's like being stuck in a vice. Raising a leg up and placing his foot against the wall, he tugs. He attempts to simply yank the limb loose, pulling at it with the strength of a bear. If he can tear it off, he'll follow up by chucking it into that gnashing woodchipper of death.

     His plan does unfortunately result in the other limbs getting a few good shots in.

Seifer Almasy has posed:
     Seifer winks at her. "Thanks," he says, in that I'm Handsome And I Know It way again. He's not flirting, per se, he's just got that vibe of 'I'm the hot cop, here to help You, Vulnerable Secretary Lady. Don't Worry.'

     He looks at Baofu. "Really, really hoping it's a false alarm," he says, "Place seems real nice."

     He really wants to see where this goes, and the rest of the party can handle this.

Rean Schwarzer has posed:
Rean trails a bit behind Phyllis and by the time he gets there, everyone is already fighting the death trap elevator.  People are screaming, and Rean dashes in, trying to slash as many of the robo limbs as he can as he rushes by.

Sho Fukamachi (6850) has posed:
     Oh. The elevator is attacking them. There's a yelp followed sigh that comes from the Guyver suit as it grapples with the horrible spider limbs, preventing them from digging too deep into his suit.

     "What the? Did they know we were coming or something!?"

     Sho seems flustered, but doesn't neglect to counter attack. The medal in the suit's head lights up as an extremely hot and powerful level shoots from slightly underneath it, aiming to slice through some of the limbs and make this whole situation more manageable

Riku (6928) has posed:
    Mikoto is caught up in the chase. No matter how far or fast she seems to fly, something is /wrong/ about the space. Maybe it's like a Witch's Barrier. Maybe not. Either way, she has to keep climbing in order to not get caught up in the gnashing gears and blades that would liquidate her if given the chance. She smashes her heels into the machine, managing to pick a spot in it that won't dismember her, and she propels herself a bit farther, a bit faster. Can she get away? She has to. The thing exhales a terrible wind, the vortex lashing out and trying to knock her out of the air as it continues to crush up closer, decimating the stairwell.

    Meanwhile for Ash, this is basically Friday evening. He never gets a break! He reaches in to make use of his prodigous strength, however, grabbing at one of the limbs and ripping it off with a loud SNAP. The thing oozes black oily ichor as he does so... And it seems to get shredded just like anything else when he hucks the limb into the gnashing maw.

    Phyllis eats some office furniture, but she seems to be okay. Really durable, actually, despite her appearance, eh? Still, she seems to just have bones forever, hurling them at the machine, trying to overwhelm it. But there isn't any overwhelming it with direct attacks like that it seems, the cylinders simply crushing and annihilating any bones hurled into it while the acid simply seems to sizzle and dissolve some of the gore already present. Maybe she can make this work, but at the moment it doesn't seem to be helping much!

    At least Rean's there to back Phyllis up. He bounds forward, slashing out to try to cleave into the limbs and disrupt the thing! His blade stings the limbs, knocking them back for the moment, forcing the Shadow to attempt its advance a bit more carefully...

    Meanwhile, Sho blasts with a headbeam, slashing out at the elevator! While the Guyver seems equipped for demolitions work, he seems to need to build up to that kind of thing, and the headbeam begins scorching into the corroded metal, digging a line into one of the cylinders!

    Thankfully, the horrifying elevator-grinder seems to be intent on the people present instead of trying to directly prey on the people caught on the edges, who seem to be lying about insensate, having also had close encounters of the furniture kind. Well, at least that helps with the witnesses problem. What it doesn't help with, however, is the massive blast of wind that washes out to try to blast down the people there and leave them vulnerable to being dragged in!

    Meanwhile, the elevator in the lobby dings, and a man in a security uniform arrives. He takes one look at the pair and frowns for a moment, but he nods. "All right, Detectives, tell me all about what's going on." He gestures to the elevator and indicates that they should follow him. Once inside and the doors close, he simply asks, "So, something about a gunshot? Where was it reported?" He glances over at the floor selection panel, where there's B-12. Baofu simply glances over to Seifer, letting him take the lead on how to handle this.

Mikoto Shimizu (7002) has posed:
Wind shakes up the entire path of the corridor, and she's having trouble getting away from the creature.  It seems like she'll have to fight her way out.  Of course, she doesn't want to get NEAR the thing either, because she doesn't want to become monster chow.  

Bouncing up the stairs, she's forced to use the avatar to protect her, slamming against the side of the wall, but still keeping her footing.  Instead of simply resting against the wall, she flips her position so that she's standing on the wall, looking down at the monster.

Her blade punches inside of the wall, as magical sigils appear below her.  This is followed by spikes of jade shooting out of the wall near where the monster is anchored, trying to impale it and also weaken it's own grip and trying to buy her some distance.  

"Seriously, why are you even trying to eat me.  I am very bad for your long term health."

Ash Williams (7071) has posed:
     "Gotta be shittin' me!" The leg is shredded up with no effect on the machinery whatsoever. It wasn't a particulary smart idea. He brings up his prosthetic hand to try and block another swipe from its legs, but the gust of wind throws him into one almost head-on. It slices through his leg as he slams upside-down into a wall. He hits the ground with a thud, but thankfully, he's near his shotgun.

     The monster hunter swipes his trusty firearm, loads two rounds, and swings the weapon shut with a flick of his wrist. Taking aim for the smiling mask above the shredders, Ash blasts with both barrels.

Phyllis Lancaster (7116) has posed:
Mere bones don't seem to be doing the trick, and acid only seems to be canceling out the few bones that don't get crushed to dust. Squinting slightly as she mulls over her options, the witch cheers as Ash breaks off one of those limbs directly, Rean keeps several others at bay, and Sho blasts the cylinders themselves.

That's starting to give her an idea. Rather than dropping out more bones to throw in pointlessly, she starts dropping entire limbs out of a steadily growing rune pile behind her. It's not even organized, either, as the pieces fall out haphazardly and start getting thrown back by the blast of wind coming out of the elevator.

Phyllis grins. It's working just as planned! As she braves the winds head on (but actually just hides behind the rest of the guys as impromptu human shields), she keeps dropping those corpse parts and letting them get blown further back into the office. As they slam into each other, they start attaching together, forming into a small mob of mostly-intact zombies!

Said zombies start pushing the furniture forwards, moving ahead steadily to build a sort of wall between the combatants and the bystanders at the edges of their battle. A pair of zombies even grab one of the cube-walls, then charge right into the cylinders with their furniture-y battering ram!

Seifer Almasy has posed:
     Seifer offers the security man a hand with a broad grin. "Hey. Sorry to make you come all the way down here." His grip is firm and trustworthy. He is a Proper Trustworthy Knight.

     "A civilian walking past claims they heard a gunshot on..." Seifer flips out his phone and scrolls through it like he's looking for a message, "Third story up, thereabouts? Maybe second, maybe fourth?"

     He looks back at Baofu for confirmation, then back at the security guy. "They were unclear on the phone. You know how people get. Panicky. I'm sure it's nothing, but we gotta do our job, and you gotta do yours." He shrugs helplessly. "Security footage or somethin'd make this go a lot faster, too, I guess, but that's probably a real hassle for you to wade through and, man, I don't wanna take up your time."

     "Heck, I don't really wanna *be* here."

Sho Fukamachi (6850) has posed:
     The head beam works! Amazing. Unfortunately it seems like he damaged some of the infrastructure with it, but honestly, there's no getting past that with most of his options. Also the fact that the infrastructure is TRYING TO KILL HIM.

     A gust of wind comes next, trying to push the Guyver into (probably) certain death. It manages to stand its ground, fighting the wind and the remaining spider arms as he prepares another attack by sinking a free hand into the crevice between its chest.

     The sound of flesh being peeled back fills the air as the Guyver reveals a charging yellow orb underneath its one breast panel. Sho calls out for people to keep clear, before discharging a half powered beam of pure hot mega particles directly into the elevator.

Riku (6928) has posed:
    Concrete and steel continues to shred and pulverize behind her as the stairwell is pulled into the grinding maw. She continues to run and run... Until she fights back. She unleashes spikes from the wall, the pointed jade grinding into the machine and slowing it a small amount, buying her valuable time as she turns and attempts to launch herself away. She gains some distance, thankfully, as she continues to climb. It might be a trick of her senses, but perhaps high above, she can hear some kind of ringing noise, something to focus on as she climbs... Could it be a goal?

    Back at the elevators, however, Ash lets it go with both barrels. BOOM BOOM! The blast strikes the mask, and actually causes the thing to recoil, pulling deeper back into the elevator shaft as it actually shows pain for a change. The mask remains intact, however, even as even more legs thrust out of the shaft like a spreading cancer.

    Phyllis follows up by unleashing a massive mob of zombies, trying to overwhelm it with zombie engineering this time, creating barriers and rams! However, the deadly thing seems to be more than capable of grinding down the cube walls. They must be cheaper than they look. It consumes both the walls and the zombies carrying them with equal aplomb.

    Sho, however, makes an exception to that when he unleashes his MEGA PARTICLE BEAM. The thing seems to have a problem with eating intense energy beams bigger than its head, and the beam crashes into the Shadow. With a shriek, it sizzles and crackles under the force of the blast, shuddering...

Riku (6928) has posed:
    Before it detonates with a soundless blast. The shredder shakes and vanishes in a wash of darkness, dissolving into the air. The elevator is left open and clear, the would-be witnesses left unconscious.

    "Third or fourth floor, huh?" The security man nods, and reaches out to the panel. He hits... Two and three. The moment it gets to two, the doors open and he nods. "Well, I don't see any need to get in your way, gentlemen. Have a good day." He says, stepping off the elevator. Baofu allows himself to glance over to Seifer again, frowning as the doors close...

    On the third floor, the doors open, Seifer and Baofu getting a view of the rampant murderfest that just occurred. There's no Shadow, but that dark miasma is still present... when out of nowhere there is a roaring horn as a black-and-crimson resized fuel tanker bursts into the battleground, the horn roaring as it rushes towards the group in a high-speed ramming attack. Flames spill off of the thing as it surges forward with apparently unstoppable power, the hood ornament a grinning mask in the way of Shadows.

    Baofu reaches over and hits the close door button seconds before impact, the doors sealing shut on him and Seifer moments before the truck sideswipes the group with malicious intent. Baofu simply turns and hits the '12' button, not saying a word.

    Unfortunately for Mikoto, the one in the stairwell doesn't seem to be connected to it. It continues to chase after Mikoto... But this time it pauses, the limbs swivelling in the air as it begins to etch some kind of dark rune in the air, hanging there with black flame as a circle of that same fire erupts out of it. Mikoto suddenly feels the dark power rip at her, attempting to simply snuff her life energy in a massive blow...

Seifer Almasy has posed:
     Seifer grins at the guy. "Thanks. I really appreciate it. You too."

     He steps into the elevator. He snaps his fingers inside his coat once the door closes, blowing apart a camera he's sure is there with a quiet pop. Elevators like this are practically standard. He's getting real good at controlling that.

     "So," he says to Baofu on the way up, "You like music? You heard the soundtrack from The Sorceress's Knight?"

     Mercifully for Baofu, the door opens on a fight. Seifer's about to move when Baofu presses the button and swipes it to twelve. Instead, as the doors close, Seifer just snaps his fingers, providing a supportive explosion to help somebody not die.

     "Good thinking," he says to Baofu. "Let's see just how much danger we're in if this is what they keep on *three*."

Phyllis Lancaster (7116) has posed:
Okay. That didn't work quite as well as expected, either. Phyllis is going to have to get a LOT more stuff if she really wants this to work! To that end, she focuses her zombies on gathering up even more furniture. She doesn't spare any of them towards hurling themselves into the grinder, instead drawing out a bones to start tossing at the flailing limbs and chopping knives.

If she can't jam up the works with smaller piles of gunk, she'll just need to bide her time for now. Just as well, since the elevator shows off its true power by calling in a striker: THE TRUCK. Phyllis braces herself as she does an abrupt 180 and dives away from the oncoming death machine. At the last moment, the witch is suddenly replaced with one of her stuff-moving zombies, but not before the truck still clips rather hard. As she reappears closer to the mass of bystanders, she spins out of control quite a bit and tumbles head-over-legs several times in a row before finally stopping.

Graceful. Staying in place for several moments, Phyllis finally pops herself back up onto her feet and nearly topples over again on landing. Turning to whichever of the civilians/office workers that might still be watching, she flashes them an encouraging, yet bloody and obviously pained grin. "Don't worry. We've got this taken care of!" After trying to reassure those people, she starts hobbling forwards while tossing out bones haphazardly. Some start turning into little bone pillars, spitting out shards of splinters at the truck's tires to supplement her allies' attacks and buy the remaining zombies more time to regroup and assemble themselves into something bigger. Something MEATIER.

Mikoto Shimizu (7002) has posed:
The darkness spreads around her, it was all she could do to think fast and try to avoid death.  She can't cut through it, she can't shield herself from it.  However, a portal appears just above her as she flights straight up.  

The darkness tries to steal her life force, and out of the exit portal, she looks frazzled from the attack.  Hitting the side of the shaft she runs up it, trying to keep ahead of it desperately.  Eventually, she hears something start to build up.  

An explosion rocks the creature right in front of it's 'face'.  Of course, Mikoto wasn't done yet.  Seifer gives her the edge, but she takes the final attack.  Her blade hits the wall, as another magic circle appears.  This time an elephant appears right in front of her and falls down the shaft, aiming to crush the thing below her.  

Even if it could take care of it, it would still force it to use precious time.  Time she could use to get to the finish line, and that bell!

Sho Fukamachi (6850) has posed:
     The elevator is defeated! Sho narrates this to himself in his head like the dork he is. Unfortunately there is no EXP or levels to be have, but at least the worst is over. Or so he thought.

     As the Guyver begins closing its exposed inner breast, it turns around to hear the sound of a massive murder machine driving down the hallways. There's really no room to work with to avoid the attack. Nothing to hide behind, nowhere to escape... So Sho only does the next logical thing in this instance. He bunkers down. The Guyver raises its arms in an attempt to brace for impact, and weather out the worst.

     And weather out the worst he does, the car hit, and the boy lets out a blood curdling scream followed by the sound of various bones and organs shattering. It's the kind of blood curdling scream someone makes when they /die/. But they can't be dead. Their body is still in one piece, if barely, and they're clearly pulling themself off the floor as the damage they've accumulated rapidly begins correcting itself.

     The strange medallion on the Guyver's head begins glowing non stop at this point as a hand reaches down towards the armored breast it hadn't opened. There's almost no hesitation this time as it pry open the armor plating to expose the exact same interior as the previous breast.

     Much like the last time, the exposed mechanism glows, before letting loose another half-powered Mega Smasher, releasing a large torrent of super heated particles down the hallway and at the Bersercar. Unlike last time however, Sho doesn't warn anyone he's using it, nor is there a call for people to get out of the way.

Ash Williams (7071) has posed:
     Ash hears the horn before he sees the car. There... couldn't be a truck, this high up. Could there? He turns and looks at Baofu and Seifer as the doors open, then back to Sho. "So... I'm /pretty/ sure I haven't dropped a tab today, but I could /swear/ I just heard a--" His sentence is cut short as the side of the truck slams into his back. He's launched into the air, his duffel bag coming loose. He smashes into some poor employee's vacant cubicle.

     Pictures of this person's family go flying into the air as the full weight of a fat old stoner slams into the desk formerly supporting them. He crashes through it. A split second later, the bag carrying his chainsaw crushes a neighboring cubicle's completed Lego castle. Ash groans, getting to his feet after a moment of self-pity for that decidedly very painful and uncool landing. After the elevator monster died, he kind of figured he'd catch a break. Honestly... he's starting to get pissed off.

     Ash steps over the wreckage of the neighboring cubicle, straps on his chainsaw, and kicks down the cheap cubicle wall standing before him. There is irritated, embarrassed Boomer fury in those eyes as he yells, "Okay, Billy Bob, I'm gonna cut that cab open and yank you out faster than you can hide a dead hooker!" Ash williams never runs.

     But today, he does. He pulls the ripcord on the chainsaw and breaks into a /sprint,/ bum knee be damned. Then he leaps. Not jumps. Not hops. /Leaps/ into the air, whirring carbon blades a-roaring, chainsaw lifted triumphantly over his head to do exactly that--cut that cab open, hoping there's a driver inside he can give a Denny's parking lot level beatdown.

Riku (6928) has posed:
    Mikoto, meanwhile, fights against the the power of Death Itself with... An elephant. The thing is able to chomp down on lots of things, but an elephant is a bit much even for that. The impact sends it screeching down the gaping stairwell, the spiritual beast being slowly crushed in a horrifying manner... But it knocks the things so far back that Mikoto is able to race to the top, able to break free to find the top floor door beckoning her. The ringing sound seems to be right there... And she pushes through, escaping the horrible creature!

    No one expects the TRUCK. There is a crashing of screeching metal, flame, and death as it suicidally just rams into the group. Phyllis, however, survives the initial impact and assault, returning fire with bone totems! The sharp bones stab into the remaining Shadows, ripping into them and suppressing them with showers of murderous bone spurs.

    Sho blasts at the truck, the beam crashing into the truck, forcing it to slow down as it struggles. Flames burst out from the sides, the machine collapsing on itself as it advances, the engine churning with hellish, incandescent fury as it prepares to roar forward again in a maniacal defiance of that beam of death!

    Ash puts an end to that, however. He lunges forward with that chainsaw, the thing slowed down enough for him to slam that carbon-steel blade into the body of the Shadow and cleave right into and through the cab, slashing it apart in a gruesome, intense cacaphony of shredded steel and igniting flame. It falls over, crashing into the wall and dramatically detonating harmlessly behind Ash, framing him and the others against the burning not-fuel before it vaporizes into darkness... And the Shadowy barriers vanishes, leaving you finally free to move on after a cool pose and one-liner opportunity.

Riku (6928) has posed:
ON THE 12TH FLOOR:

    The elevator moves up to the top floor. The doors open up to the sound of someone talking on the phone. "What do you /mean/, there's no more? How was I supposed to..." A pause. "Don't give me that, this is pure b..." Another pause. "Fine."

The top floor is a single room. one side of it stuffed full of computer gear and monitors flickering with all kinds of data all surrounding a VR chair. The other side has a big desk, with a tall, thin, blond-haired man in his mid-30s in a well-tailored blue suit and matching tie. He sighs, letting the cellphone drop from his hand onto the floor pointlessly as he stares up at the ceiling.

    He doesn't get up for the visitors. "Well, I guess you guys are here. How's it going, black swans?" He looks back between the others. "Well, I expected you." He points to Baofu. "But the rest, well. There's just no planning for you guys is there?"

    "The game is up, Walker." Baofu states. "Give it up."

"Okay." Walker says, casually raising his hands. "That's how you do this, right? I surrender. You really sure you want to do this, though?"

Seifer Almasy has posed:
     Seifer taps the gunblade on his shoulder menacingly. "Heck yeah we're sure we wanna do this. On the ground, hands behind your head. Shades, hold him, put a gun to his head or somethin' while I find somethin' to tie him with. Then we're draggin' you outta here. You try anything, and he'll shoot you, or I'll stab you through."

     "An' if you ain't never been stabbed by a gunblade before, lemme tell ya from experience - it ain't fun."

     With that, Seifer goes to find something to tie the man up with, even rudimentarily. Some string he keeps in his office, some extension cord, whatever.

Mikoto Shimizu (7002) has posed:
Mikoto comes flying out of the door to the stairs and rolls across the ground into the office.  She looks around, standing up to see Seifer and Shades ahead of her, and the others getting off their own elevator.  Ok good, everyone is here.  

Walking forward, she moves around to the other side of the desk to look at the computer and to put herself between him and trying to get anything off of his screen or destroy anything like evidence.  She gives him a stare, that was an odd question.

"Ok, humoring you, why are you asking if we're sure?  I mean, we did fight your stupid shadow monsters, sneak into your outfit, and now have you dead to rights after you tried to off us.  So WHY should we be sure we wanna do this?  Cuz I totally want to knock your teeth out.  That dark magic stuff /hurt/."

Ash Williams (7071) has posed:
     Ash takes a minute. He's earned it, in his mind. He's sweaty, tired, his non-chainsaw hand cradling his complaining his bum knee. As he takes a look around, he can see that everyone else is catching their bearings. Good... that's good. He stands up and 'coolly' limps over to a vending machine as-yet untouched by the battle. He is exactly the kind of person that knows how to get a dollar's worth of soda for free through some arcane, precisely placed strike and button chicanery. So, that's what he does. The minute it seems like he has an excuse to leave and go drink something even worse for him, he does.

Phyllis Lancaster (7116) has posed:
One-liners are not Phyllis' specialty. They're so not her specialty, she doesn't even try to come up with one! It's due in part to her not realizing that this would be a good opportunity for one, and the moment is far gone by the time she does upon Ash announcing it. She glances over at her mass of zombies, trying to figure out what to actually do with them now.

"Hmm... Well, can't let this go to waste." The zombies pile together, dragging in bones and whatever leather furniture they can find as the whole lot of them congeal into a massive-ish octopus, and the whole thing even wriggles and lurches like an octopus forced onto dry land. The smell is about as bad as expected, of course, but it dissipates quickly as the necromancer, lacking a clear target, just starts drawing a massive rune around the whole thing. With some shoving and wriggling on both of their parts, the whole thing eventually disappears into the magic circle!

With the immediate threats to everyone's safety gone, meanwhile, she can finally relax a bit. Pulling her trusty broom out of nowhere, Phyllis takes a ride on that into the elevator, then pops right back out when it takes them to the upperfloor. "Black swans? What's that code for?"

Truly, fixating on the important things. When Seifer brings up the idea of tying Walker up, the witch floats on over with her broom with a renewed vigor in her eyes. "Oh, try this!" She hands him what looks like an excessively long octopus tentacle.

It smells like death.

Sho Fukamachi (6850) has posed:
     The Guyver remains firm and stationary after firing, closing up its chest as it remains there to finish repairing. Once it's all finished up, it remains still for just a bit longer before there's a sudden shift in demeanor and a very confused Sho asks what happened on the radio.

     Well, whatever he missed, it seemed to work out well enough. Even if he's not sure how he was left standing after getting hit by a gosh darn muscle truck. Well, it's probably not important if no one is making a big deal out of it.

     Noticing that Ash is limping, he offers the man help until he's out of the building at least, where he'd proceed to split off and head home. His dad's probably wondering where he is at this point.

Riku (6928) has posed:
    Tying up Walker is no problem. He doesn't resist in the least. Baofu does, however, happen to have a pistol on him, which he does keep trained on the CEO while Seifer uses some computer cables to secure him. "You don't need to stab me. I'm not going to resist at all." He says laconically.

    "You've got a lot to talk about. We'll see how much you start resisting." Baofu states.

    Mikoto checks the computer. The screen is locked. There's no obvious attempt to delete anything ongoing at this point. Walker shrugs a little in his bindings. "Shadow monsters? I don't know what you're talking about. I'm just a CEO of a low-tier Silicon Valley-adjacent startup that has a popular social media app in public beta. You should try it, I think you'd like it." He smiles pleasantly, as if he's not being threatened repeatedly. "I mean, you could knock my teeth out, but that would make it hard to talk, wouldn't it?"

    Phyllis makes a horrible undead octopus thing and stuffs it into whatever hell dimension she keeps her minions in. Well, that's a thing that happened.

    "Black Swans? Have you ever heard of black swan theory?" He replies to Phyllis. "It's simply a situation you can't prepare for or predict." He squints at the death-scented tentacle and shakes his head. "The ethernet cable is fine." He says.

    Ash, in the meantime, liberates a free soda from the vending machine. It tastes like delicious cheap acid-sugar water. Still, no one seems intent to stop him from bailing to the nearest bar if he wants to do that. Sho's help just makes it even easier. Both of them can gallivant off into the sunset, having enabled justice to be done. Some kind of justice, anyway.

    "Enough stalling." Baofu says. "What happened to the girl?"

    "What girl?" Walker replies.

    "The Reaper." Baofu says, pulling back the hammer on the gun. "Don't expect they'll lift a finger for you if I use this right now."

    "She's right over there." He gestures with his head over towards the VR chair, which does have a female in a bodysuit and a heavy pair of VR goggles lying in it. On closer examination there is also an IV connection.

Mikoto Shimizu (7002) has posed:
"No thanks, deleted that program right after I saw what it does.  Specifically somehow influencing the world with the shadows.  Also, don't screw with me or I can just start extracting info out of you in a really unfun way.  Your teeth are optional in this, so I guess you should start talking unless you want me to use it."

Mikoto says, with a brilliant smile.  That kind of unnerving thing she can do when her words don't match her expression in the least.  

Of course, the girl is revealed, and she lets someone else who might have a medical specialty mess with that.  Instead, she looks around on the computer for things.  Documents, incriminating emails, stuff like that.

Phyllis Lancaster (7116) has posed:
Phyllis squints at Walker as he feigns innocence, shaking her head slowly when he asks about the black swan theory. She frowns a bit when it sounds just a little too simple, glancing over at Seifer when Walker seems less than enthused about getting that tentacle anywhere near him. That gives the witch an idea!

First things first, though. She needs to do a bit of setup! "Enough playing dumb. All that super specific denial and being so calm after all that noise... That 'what girl' thing when she's right in your office." She glances towards Baofu for a moment, then over at Mikoto when she suggests doing that weird thing she did the last time to the barriers.

"... Wow. I was just gonna stuff this in his face." Phyllis seems genuinely surprised (and mildly concerned) despite holding up one end of the gross tentacle and wriggling it for emphasis. A moment later, she turns back to Walker. "So what's it going to be?"

Riku (6928) has posed:
    Mikoto keeps trying common passwords to get into the computer. Baofu just sighs and steps over to the PC, popping the case open and revealing that it's actually a luggable laptop with storage cubbies for tech. He runs a cable down to the computer and presses a button on his own laptop and the system begins getting hammered with a brute force password attack. "Let that run for a bit." He says to Mikoto, giving Walker a Significant Look.

    "What are you even hoping to find?" Walker asks.

    "Your connection to SEBEC." Baofu replies.

    Walker's eyes widen a bit, and he laughs. "What the hell are you talking about? I have nothing to do with them. I'm not even owned by them. Surely the Tap Buster can figure out how to navigate ownership registries."

    Baofu's hands practically creak as the gun comes up. "You're a liar. Tell me what you know. Tell me about the American branch. Tell me what you did with them."

    "I can't tell you what I don't have." Walker says, smiling beatifically in the face of the gun. "So what are you going to do? Shoot me?" Phyllis threatens her with the tentacle, and he frowns. "Look, shoving that in my face isn't going to solve anything."

    Baofu's cool exterior cracks, and he scowls. With a grimace, he turns around and very slowly and deliberately puts the gun down. "It's not going to matter. You're going down, Walker. What were you even doing with the Reaper? What are you /actually/ doing here?"

    "Oh, that?" He looks over to the Reaper in the chair. "She was my plan to take over the Reaper's Game."

    Baofu pauses and stares. "You what?"

    Walker nods, leaning back. "Reapers have an intense connection to the 'Underground'. It's why they can do a lot of what they do. The thing is, that connection goes both ways because they're standing between the open world and the spirit world. And the Underground resonates strongly with emotional content. Do you get it yet?"

Mikoto Shimizu (7002) has posed:
"You're trying to influence the real world through influencing the underground by messing with a Reaper," Mikoto says, and then looks towards the Reaper.  "So...anyone a doctor or get medical experience?  Might wanna get her disconnected from that and see how messed up she is?"

"Of course, this means she can probably testify against you."

Seifer Almasy has posed:
     Seifer listens. Seifer listens to the whole plan. He watches Walker give them a smug grin, give them nothing about 'SEBEC.' He watches Walker admit that he kidnapped and tortured a girl for the sake of hijacking a thing that keeps people safe from evil ghosts. He watches Walker lean back and ask if they 'get it' yet.

     Seifer's fingers are shaking.

     He grabs Walker by the collar. There is no resistance. The man will not be given a chance to resist. He walks Walker over to the window.

     Seifer is very strong.

     Seifer *smashes* Walker's head through the window. Twice. Once is just to get the window cracked. The second time is to knock the window out.

     He holds Walker by the collar, dangling out the window.

     "No," he says calmly, "I ain't gonna shoot you."

     "But I might drop you."

     "Long way down. Real nice building. Real good thump. So maybe you start talkin'. Or maybe you stop smilin'."

     "*Do you get it yet*?"

     "Now spill."

Riku (6928) has posed:
The woman, once she's been pulled out of the chair, is in fact Anne-Marie. Her eyes are wide and dialated, a glance at the VR goggles showing an intensely high-speed cavalcade of posts to SCOOL, each one apparently being blasted straight into her eyes for fractions of a second before moving to the next one. She flops over limply, alive but effectively comatose, into the arms of whoever wants to haul her out.

    Meanwhile, Theodore Walker is a healthy man, but he's no SeeD. Once Seifer begins hauling him to the window, His expression falls. "Wait, what are you... No, wait!"

    There is a yell as his head impacts the window. Spiderweb cracks run through the thick pane before the second one hits, shattering as he is left dangling. Blood runs down his face as he hangs there, choking, possibly concussed, and about an inch away from a 12 story drop.

    Baofu simply stands there, watching the computer as he hears things going on behind him.

    Seifer is wondering if he will say those idiotic words. Those words that would probably guarantee his death. Theodore is genre savvy enough to not call the paramilitary super soldier's bluff. "No! No! Seriously, I'll tell you everything I know! Just /tell me what you want/. I can't tell you about SEBEC, I /really don't know anything/. I don't wanna die! I DON'T WANNA DIE! JUST STOP! PLEASE!"

    "Then where did you get this stupid idea?" Baofu asks. There is a beep from the computer, and Baofu taps at the keyboard. "Never mind. I can find out myself."

    Electronic schematics begin flying across the screen. Baofu scowls more and more as he looks through them. "... This is going to take some time." He hits a key. "Time we don't have." File copy bars begin appearing on the screen. "I'm taking a copy of his system." He explains. "It should give us an idea of where to go next even if we can't get anything out of him."

Phyllis Lancaster (7116) has posed:
Phyllis does not seem convinced by Walker telling her it's not working. She keeps that tentacle good and close, but her attention is more on the line of questioning rather than forcing him to talk. She doesn't answer him when he speaks of the Reaper's connection to the Underground and his plan, but she doesn't need to.

She does, however, flinch when Seifer gets considerably more physical with Walker. She takes small steps forward when he gets /very/ physical, and then outright approaches when Walker's outside that window.

"Hey, hey, you don't have to go that far!" She calls out, but relents when the weight of everything Walker's already done is reiterated. "I mean, just because he tortured someone, probably several others before her, hasn't shown a single shred of remorse for..."

It /does/ sound pretty bad when she says it out loud, doens't it? Phyllis taps a finger to her chin at that point, then vwoomps her tentacle back into her weirdo storage hole before backing off.

Seifer Almasy has posed:
     Well, he doesn't say 'you wouldn't dare.' And Seifer is, in fact, convinced he doesn't know anything.

     He starts to slack his grip, just in case. Just to see if the man knows anything. When he doesn't, he tosses the guy back inside, a bit hard. He walks over to Walker and stomps, hard, on his shin. *Hard*. Supersoldier hard. Then he leans down.

     "This is a reminder."

     "You do this kind of crap again, and I'm not gonna let you off with a broken leg. If you're lucky you'll be crippled for life."

     "Ain't I the nicest guy around."

     "You're welcome."

     Seifer stands up. He looks at Phyllis. He gives her a long, hard stare, like 'yeah you wanna just put those words back in your mouth'. Then he looks back at Walker, as if he's considering breaking the man's other leg. But...

     They're out of time.

     "Somebody get the girl. Shades, fry the drive when you're done. All of it. Virus the whole system if you can. Burn it to the ground. Nothin' left on their mainframe. No projects. No data."

     He turns and heads for the elevator. On the way out he's going to give a cheerful smile to the receptionist and the security guard, and say something pithy about being glad it was nothing serious, probably just a truck backfiring and echoing.

     It's scary how he can do that.

Mikoto Shimizu (7002) has posed:
Mikoto gets up for Shades and walks over to the girl to unhook her.  She looks at the VR glasses and frowns, deciding to hook them under an arm before she walks towards the window and Theodore.  She kicks him across the side of the stomach once, before putting a foot on him.  

"So where DID you get the idea for this?  WHY do you want to control the underground?  How did you get the intelligence on the Reaper?"

Riku (6928) has posed:
Walker gibbers his thanks as he is pulled back in. The snap of bone causes Walker to howl in pain, the man writhing there as he loses the ability to walk properly, possibly for the rest of his life. "YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND!" He yells as he lies there. "IT'S GONE! IT'S ALL GONE! I PAID FOR THAT!"

    Mikoto comes in and kicks him, knocking the wind out of him before she asks him those questions.

    "If I can control the Game..." He gasps. "I can control who lives. Who dies. I would become immortal. As for why her..." He shakes his head. "All these kinds of rituals need a medium. And she's the strongest Reaper in the area."

    Baofu fries the drive after he gets that copy. The screens around the VR chair begin to flicker and grow dark as he uses his admin access to shut down the social media application and presumably crash it.

With uncaring eyes behind those dark shades, he looks back to Walker. "Men don't make other people pay for their own debts."

    Everyone can get out more or less the way they came in. The stairwell is mysteriously intact again somehow. No more shadows attack.

    Baofu packs up and leaves. His expression is much more stony on the way out, a mask across his face as he nods to the woman. "Nothing to worry about, ma'am." He says. "Have a nice day." At that, he leaves with Seifer just as the actual police drive up... Just in time to miss them both leaving.

Mikoto Shimizu (7002) has posed:
"It wasn't yours to buy," She says, with another kick to the broken leg. "You haven't quite paid for your crimes yet either. So WHO gave you the idea. If you don't answer I'll finish what he started."

Riku (6928) has posed:
"I CAN'T TELL YOU!" Walker screams in pain as his leg is further abused. "THEY TOOK IT! MY MEMORIES! IT'S ALL GONE! I DON'T KNOW! PLEASE, I'M BEGGING YOU!"

Mikoto Shimizu (7002) has posed:
"As she begged, no doubt?" Mikoto says, with a narrowing of her eyes.  Moving so that she rested over one shoulder for a moment, she uses her other hand to point down towards the man.  "Well, maybe there is something left in there to give us a clue.  Or you'll suffer for nothing a little more," Mikoto says, coldly.  "I may be a magical girl, but I'm not nice.  Especially towards kidnappers, torturers, and exploiters."

The Data drain fires, once the data bracelet forms, aiming to mostly see if she can actually collect any of these 'missing' memories on who gave him the information.

Riku (6928) has posed:
    The Data Drain rips through Walker and does basically more horrible things to him. However, she does get to see exactly what he means...

As large sections of his memory are simply.. missing. Excised, like they were cut out with a scalpel. Abyssal holes that seem to resist being refilled. She can see his plans and plots, his efforts to acquire the Reaper, his efforts to control the data that goes through SCOOL to manipulate the people that use it.

    But before that, the massive gaps persist. All the way back to the beginning, where there is a single flicker, a momentary sight of an Asian man in a black suit reaching out for his face...

And then nothing.

    "As if you'd be any better... In my position." Walker practically burbles, barely conscious as he tries to deal with the aftermath of being Data Drained.

Mikoto Shimizu (7002) has posed:
There was at least one thing there she can grasp at, even with the memory she wants is a giant hole, she at least gets perspective...and a face.  She'll have to get with Shades later, that might be enough to at least direct them.  

However, he says something as she turns.  There is a twitch...and then she sighs, holding the woman back in her arms.  

"The difference is that I was fighting to live, you just wanted to live indefinitely.  I acknowledged my mistakes...you simply are sorry you got caught.  I am going to try and make amends, you are going to do nothing but make sure your pathetic life continues anyway you can instead of trying to fix things."

"You don't even care that your memories were torn from you, instead you just pushed forward with their agenda," She says, before kicking that leg again.  "Enjoy prison.  I have an innocent woman to help recover."

She says, this as she takes flight towards the portal.

Rean Schwarzer has posed:
"...You're really going to do it."
Obviously, Seifer wants to just drop the guy out the window if his smug face didn't cooperate, but just tuning the guy into a splat on the ground wouldn't help at all, right? Even if he deserved it what with trying to mess up the game and using the missing girl as a filter for whatever the hell he was doing. Walker cooperates though and gets off with a shattered leg and Mikoto data drains him.
"Did you find anything?" He asks Mikoto, once she's done. Whatever her answer is, he hoists Walker on his back to drop off at a Paladins facility. Then maybe he'll go check on the reaper. Before he does that though, he gives Walker a glare. "Maybe you should think about what you do with what's left of your life before someone actually decides to take it from you. Maybe you'll become someone worthy of being immortal." Maybe he would get killed by whoever erased his memory, but it was still /time/ he could be using to make up for his actions if he didn't spend it feeling sorry for himself or continue to be a dick.