Scene #6876: Mummies Alive

Owner	Pose
Vergil	Grafton Bioarcheological Research Facility is an austere red brick building built into the side of a hill right by the top. The main entrance is actually at the top, with the lower parts taken up by a loading bay leading to the deeper levels. Either way, both entrances are surrounded by police cars. Responders are directed to enter through the main entrance, as the loading bay doors are enwrapped in glowing threads that have torn at least one officer to shreds for daring to approach. "Please try not to hurt the specimens!" one of the researchers begs from behind the police lines. "There are mummified remains over 2000 years old on there, irreplaceable relics! Please, try to quell the source without disturbing the bodies!" He's practically weeping, but the police have a more pragmatic view. "Whatever it takes," says the chief, a broad man with a mustache. "Door's still open from the last guy. If you find him, dead or alive, get him out of there. You have 2 hours before we just collapse the whole building. Good luck." Indeed, the door is ajar. Curious that no mummies have attempted to exit the facility. They are still present however, staggering about the reception that doubles as a small museum. Pictures and portraits of the pyramids of Egypt adorn the wall alongside depictions of bogs, deserts, frigid wastes and other environments that can cause natural mummification. A grand sarcophagus stands behind the reception desk beside a set of double doors that lead deeper into the facility. However, of more immediate concern are the five mummies wandering the room, all turning to look at the new arrivals with sockets that are either mercifully, awfully empty, or contain some manner of preserved humour that made up their eyeball. All in unison, they advance with shrunken hands outstretched.
Richard Stadler	SO. It wasn't what Stadler normally dealt with, but... it was close enough. It wasn't as if he /hadn't/ run scinearios for mummies coming to like, or at least, something similar to them. Of course, the researcher might not like the set up Richard is going through with a few of the members of the local police force and a rather cheerful, bouncy armorer. The lack of restraining weapons was one thing, the precence of red-wrapped grenades was something else... and the fact that the primary weapon seemed to be a compact flamethrower would probably be a nail in the coffin here. The chief gets a nod as Stadler tightens the combat vest over the worn dress shirt and plain blue tie, Hi-Power holstered at his thigh over slacks. "I don't enjoy destroying history, but I don't want to take any chances here. Scinearios indicate with magical undead, total destruction of the body may be nessecary. Please give my... apologies to the researches." He says. And he is sorry. He really is. But the undead were undead. With a cheerleading stance by the cheerful armorer, Stadler checks the ignition on the flamethrower, before moving twoard the main set of doors. Was there anyone else on this operation? He would have to hope their would be a few friendlies... or that the first person they sent in hadn't been ripped apart already. All right. Test time. Stadler stands at the door for a few seconds, gauging the speed the zombies march toward the new comer's with. "Speed's a little slow... wouldn't want to waste the fuel." He notes. The flame thrower hangs on the sling, the pistol at his thigh drawn instead, as he'll /try/ to edge around them. Easy enough to lead mindless things around to give an opening... if there weren't too many of them.
Lilian Rook	"That's an odd choice of words. 'Disturb'. How does one disturb someone already up and walking about? Even if they are dead. It looks as if they're already perfectly disgruntled." Lilian replies with astonishing offhandedness to the most frantic of the research team, held back behind the police cordon. Given that she says so while performing a brass check on her sidearm, stowing at its magnetic hardpoint and pulling up her hair to pin back, it might normally exude dispassion for the scientifist's work --a complete lack of intent to take anything in one piece. When she finishes fixing the silver ornament though, she turns around to glance past the cordon at him, and smiles with open, patient warmth. "Relax. As much as you can after someone was cut to pieces, at least. The police could handle shooting your specimens; that's not why I'm here. Please, sit tight, and do as the officers tell you." Something about her reassurance is strangely compelling. The sheer composure behind it is inspiriting in of itself, poised and even tones uncannily more effective than any of the police's attempts to assuage anyone could be, people as they are. Lilian approaches the main entrance at a leisurely pace. Her focus isn't immediately on the mummefied threat, but for the rest of the room. She visually sweeps the interior layout, paying extreme attention to detail, looking for large pieces of decor and furniture, anything that is designed to be opened up, taken down, or taken apart for maintenance, the model of the building's climate control outlets, how the doors open and shut, and the makeup of the floor and ceiling. She doesn't go in without a plan on how to contain the immediate issue first. "Oh put that ridiculous thing away for a minute." she says to Richard. "If they wanted to burn the place down, any amateur could have done that already. We're supposed to be the best of the best, easily capable of getting to the bottom of this without destroying millions of dollars of rare cultural artifacts and scientific research material. Have some pride in your work." She keeps her voice low enough that it won't immediately be heard back at the cordon, down to a hard and circumspect murmur. "There's only five of them, and the person of interest is deeper inside, as well as whatever strung up those magic wires."
Sumiko	The magical girl of Envy walks with the other elites and listening to both the sobbing man and the police who just give them a 'by any means necessary' pass. She considers the Sobbing man expectantly, but he doesn't give her an incentive. This comes to a verbal sparring match on the radio, which Mikoto isn't really into today. Mana is an investment, as they keep telling her, and the time she's all for conserving it, 'oh no you can't just break the homicidal monster'. "Seriously, you just can't make up your minds," She says, to nobody before walking through the now open door. Her jade blade stabs into the floor itself. Sigh, why does she let them convince her to tie an arm behind her back? A desire to one-up the rich girl? Probably that. A strange creature seems to appear behind Mikoto like a stand. The creature has a face, but not where it's expected. Where it SHOULD have one, is just an empty space with a mask on it, one side crying, the other side in twisted ecstatic joy. The mask is jade, of course. The thing's arms are too long by half, ending in the faces of ever-shifting animals, though in the arms are the faces of people. Sonic, Lilly, Haguro, Haseo, Riku, and even Nanoha. Mikoto and the strange creature vanish, as she appears on the other side of the Mummies and simply attempts to bypass the problem by moving forward. Well, if Lilian was so confident, she would just press forward.
Vergil	Lilian would note coming in that the reception, at the very least, there's not that much to observe. It's just a small, on-theme reception area with chairs and coffee tables with old magazines. This place, on the surface at least, is on the level. However, while outside, she would have seen a ton of modern atmospheric control outlets installed on the building. Not just temperature control, but moisture control and gas filters. Not to mention, signs of a redundant electrical system. At least one area in this building is made to have total control of the environment in it. Everyone just... manoeuvrers around the mummies. And honestly, this might be the smartest move. They are very very creepy. Most normal people would instinctively flee or attempt to fight them. But to a seasoned Elite, their shamblings are none too fast, and they seem to be struggling to lift these limbs. These ones at least are for show. Entry further into the building is through a set of double doors behind the reception desk. This leads to a balcony overlooking the open-plan office floor of the facility. It is here that the researchers did the brunt of their work in what appears to be a converted library. The shelves are teeming with books, but some have been converted into space for a few racks of computer servers. The place has seen better days through. Desks are overturned, books are scattered, and mummies shamble about below. These ones move with a more predatory gait and quickly move around obstacles in their path. If the ones in reception are for show, these are for those who get past them. However, they seem distracted by something at present. That 'something' being a mass of white bandages bouncing, hopping, and skipping around the detritus, narrowly evading the grasping talons of the mummies. One finally manages to snag the thing, coming away with the tail end of a bandage for its efforts. But whatever is guiding the mass begins to spin, unravelling its bandages while whipping them to wrap up the offending mummy, before a leather booth lashes out and kicks it, sending it flying hard into a shelf and pulling the last of the wraps away. Revealed is a man in a red coat, with a massive sword hanging from his back, entirely dull grey with a skull-shaped pommel. The coat is open, revealing his bare chest and sculpted abs as well as his skinny leather pants. His hair is pure white, in that perfect 'I just got out of bed' scruffy mop it takes hours to achieve. "Whew!" he says. "You guys sure don't appreciate the stereotypes huh?" A mummy lunges at home, but the man flips over its head to land upon a desk and boot a computer monitor at the shambling creature's back. "C'mon, it's a joke!"
Sumiko	From the balcony, Mikoto watches the scene unfold. This gets more intense when the...marketable assets of the man become revealed. Making a small whistle, she considers the situation. They could HELP him...or they could just let him handle the situation. Hmmm...then again, he might have valuable information! Apparently, he was mentioned in the report... Cut back to before the report, Mikoto skimming the report, "Oh cool, mummies. I never fought a mummy before!" Maybe she should read those reports more carefully, she considers when the flashback is over. Well, regardless, Mikoto takes to the air as she hovers down towards the lower area. Her eyes looking out for anything long and wouldn't immediately snap with the barest of efforts. An extension cord, Bungie cord, rope...or anything really, and throws one hand to the other guy. Instead of pulling him up, she attempts to just fly around the mass and try and tie create a tangle hazard for them.
Richard Stadler	Stadler leads and moves around the mummies in the front entrance, something he had been well trained to do in... various operations, before looking over to Lilian. "You have your precautions, I have mine. DOesnn't matter what they want. It matters if we need to contain this thing or not. Right now, you're right. No need to burn down what we don't have to, but I /do/ have pride in my work. Haven't had an outbreak in some time because of it." He notes, following along with Lillian and the.... girl who... teleports past them. Or seems to. A bit of a sigh. "Leading them is a little bit of a lost art, it seems." Through the facility they go, the air dry and crisp, for the most part; a little on the chilly side, though if that was because the AC had been set for a larger number of people or he was just getting a bit of a chill, one couldn't say. Through rooms, reception desks, to offices, with a large amount of precious research material already in the process of getting ransacked. Faster models down stairs, less easy to slip around... but they did seem to be a bit distracted by some target down there. "Who the hell... they guy they wanted us to find?" He says to Lillian, contemplatingthe situation. If it was about clearing the place out, a few white phosphrous grenades chucked over the balcony they were on would do a fine job of it, but there was research and a tager. Maybe time to test something. The pistol comes up from the holster, reflexively held in a two handed stance, as Stadler spends a second or two aiming, before firing twice at the closest mummy to the skittering ball of bandages with that sword. "Effectiveness test. I don't expect to do too much damage, but it's important to see what a shot to center mass would do." And the distraction would help the man down there... but he would have to help himself. If they could bypass the hot spot to hit the source...
Lilian Rook	The near-total mundanity of the lobby before Lilian is met with an open scoff, already sounding thoroughly irked. Her eyes linger on the triplicate number of necessary climate control outlets in her vicinity as she marches in, but none of them are large enough to do what she was looking for. "Typical. I suppose that's how they got this far in the first place though." she sighs, without elaboration. Given the awkward, shambling gait of the introductory mummies, Lilian doesn't appear to feel threatened enough to start warping objects around. Instead, she sweeps the magazines and cups off a coffee table, flips it off the floor, and brings it back down on top of a pair of mummies, kick sweeping their legs out from under them so they tumble over first. She leaps to the falling tabletop to stomp it into the ground, hard enough to bury its legs into the boring lobby tile, pinning the 'specimens' tightly beneath the table surface. She finds a couple chairs with, at the very least, some cheap aluminium leg frames, and pins two more to different walls with the same strategy, before simply bending one around the fifth. The crystalline lines in her suit glow faintly while she works, capturing and suspending the physical reinforcement magic in its ideal pattern. The corpses in the next room look like more of a problem already. Lilian hops up to the bannister of the balcony without so much as bending a knee, scanning the area below while teetering on its edge. "Are the mummies in here just fresher? Or did someone put more work into animating them? I know enough about necromancy, but not this quasi-Egyptian kind of thing." She pulls down her red-tinted eyepiece, holding her finger to the translucent crystal pip on the side to tune them into a couple of the faster threats, trying to read the relative levels of their animating force to those in the lobby, and the shared theme between them. It doesn't exactly take her long to catch sight of 'the last guy'. An eyebrow twitches upwards on reflex, Lilian slowly tilting backwards on the bannister from the edge at the sight. "Seriously? That's Tony Redgrave? I was expecting some hard-bitten former Beret sort of guy. Where'd he come from?" Her eyes immediately catch on the sword strapped across his back when he spins out of the bandages. Her fingers absently snake to the hilt of her own, but stop just short of touching it. "He seems to have things in hand for the time being. Please stick to what I said before. Avoid damaging irreplaceable assets if at all possible." Lilian leans forward and slips off the railing, plunging both floors, turning over once in the air, and aiming to land on a prowling mummy to stomp it flat to the floor. Considering the furniture here is much bigger, older, and more robust, she tries simply bracing her boot against a heavy desk and kicking it across the floor to pin another corpse flush against the wall, arms down by its sides. Manhandling a bookshelf, the glassy circuits brightening in her suit with a fading whine, she tips it over on top of another couple (backside first), and shoves another set of shelves up against a fourth. Moving towards the center of the room, she attracts the attention of the remainder deliberately, ducking under pounces and weaving around grabs, tripping them, throwing them, hurling them across the room and under heavy wooden decor. Given that these ones seem to be generally more alert and coordinated, her motions are swifter, smoother, more tightly wound and instantly followed through. Until she has a feel for how sturdy the animating magic is, she tries to hold off on anything that do more than break a few bones, constantly maneuvering herself so that she isn't directly across from any of the shelves that contain computer servers.
Lilian Rook	"I can't imagine who else he'd be." Lilian shouts back to Richard as she vaults the research tables to the center of the room. "Besides, what part of this has 'outbreak' written on it? You saw those glowing strings at the loading bay, right? This is clearly the result of mystic forces in play, not some kind of virus. These samples are hundreds or thousands of years old anyways. They're barely organic anymore." Eventually reaching Tony, she jumps up to a desktop to stay out of reach of grabby arms for a moment, and addresses him directly. "You're the person the scientists outside hired first, aren't you? Mind telling me if you have any idea about what's going on? You seem perfectly unsurprised about any of this." 'Me'. Not 'us'. "Unsurprised. Unconcerned as well, but . . " Lilian cuts off to hop down from the other side of the deck, kick it up off the floor, and palm thrust it through the air at an approaching undead, legs outwards. "You've done this kind of thing before. No, this is exactly the kind of job you usually take on, isn't it? How long have you been here already?"
Vergil	The mummies in reception are pinned down under the weight of $20 coffee tables and second-hand chairs. A befitting end for such nobility. The ones in the office are bit more troublesome as evidenced by Mister Redgrave's dance around them. Mikoto spies a spool of extension cords next to some uninstalled servers and leaps down alongside Lillian. Tony Redgrave looks up and laughs, reaching out a hand to Mikoto. "Now that we got some babes, it's a real party!" He grips the magical girl's wrist and spins her around, helping her to create a tangling mass for the mummies to trip on. Stadler meanwhile puts a bullet one, and confirms visually what Lillian observes through her goggles. When the gunshot hits, the mummy staggers, and faint purple threads can be seen enwrapping them, emanating from the doors at the far end of the office. More threads go through the air leading to the reception, but it seems to be fewer per corpse than what the ones in here are getting. Indeed, more effort is being expended to animate these once, hence their heightened capability to menace. Lillian goes about pinning the ensnared things under bookshelves and desks while Tony Redgrave plants Mikoto in an office chair and sends her spinning away before looking at Lillian with an easy smile. He endures her barrage of questions before putting his hands up. "Hey now, I'd be glad to answer your questions if you answer a couple of my own. Firstly, what's your name? Second, what's your phone number?" Whatever answer he gets from these, he begins to explain. "I've been here for a bit. When I got here, those doors were all gunked up like the back entrance." He gestures at the doors leading deeper still into the facility. "But I got it figured out, based on how these guys are moving." He plants a foot on a mummy's writhing head and carries on with it still there. "You know when you ah, 'hold it in' and the pressure keeps building? That's what the cause of all this is doing downstairs. Confining itself and building its power so it can unleash it in a burst. In doing so, it can snag a bunch more corpses than it might be able to usually. But before it can do that, it has to lower its defences. So, with that in mind, I decided to take a nap in some bandages so I'd blend in." He cracks a smile like this is some brilliant plan and you all should be awed. "It's starting to lower its defences. But it's also expending power to make these guys more dangerous. I think it's threatened by you all." He cracks a smile, and suddenly kicks one desk that has not been used to pin a mummy at the doors. "But I was here first, so I'll be claiming that reward money!" He leaps, and lands on the flying desk as it soars through the pair of swinging doors with a shout of "Yahoo!" What follows is many gunshots and the sound of grinding. Chasing him to the next floor would reveal it to be a far departure from the wood and brick of the rest of the building. This is all polished aluminium, plastic and tiling. Tony is grinding down a set of stair railings on the desk. Two handguns drawn and firing, sending medical equipment crashing and clattering. Gurnies are somehow juggled by bullets to send them crashing down on mummies. In this room are the tied up loading bay doors and a heavy duty pneumatically sealed set of vault doors. The mystical threads seem to be coming from there.
Sumiko	Mikoto is aided in her plan, being flung out as she wraps around legs and arms, using her flight to aid her in guiding herself. Until finally it comes to an end and she goes flying into a chair, which flies across the floor until it hits one of the walls and causes a crash. "Woooo!" Mikoto says as she goes soaring. Finally, done, she jumps up as she hears the man's questions, "Mikoto, and you can only get that IF you actually beat me," She says, with a grin, and flips to her feet as he goes running off. "Hey! Get back here I didn't say go!" she says, soaring off after Legally distinct Dante. The speed, mobility, and flight borrowed from Nanoha help her avoid more Mummies, and attempt to gain distance on him. Well, there is a door in the way...maybe if she just... She swings her sword as hard as she can at the door. That won't go wrong.
Lilian Rook	Considering Tony is ostensibly on the payroll here, and supposedly a professional, Lilian apparently intends to answer him, though she deliberates on which of the two forms of formal address to introduce herself by, before, just letting down her shoulders and waving offhandedly instead. "Lilian Rook. I can give you my personal work line, at least. I'm sure I'm not wrong." she replies, putting up with the antics with a surprising amount of --if resigned-- good humour. "Your turn. While we're at it, add what 'it' is to the heap, please." She visibly holds back a snort-chuckle at the ridiculous idea of dressing up in bandages. "God I . . . well I can't blame you for trying I suppose? Theoretically, I mean. You should have gotten one of the researchers outside to tie it though. It would certainly have been more authentic than what you went for in the end." She disguises a residual laugh as a cough, shaking her head slowly just imagining the idea of it having been successful. When he goes grinding a table down the stairs, spinning both guns around all the way, Lilian lingers behind just a moment, muttering to herself "What a character. And here I expected a corpse. Or at least a boring veteran." with a great big shrugging sigh. "Definitely not what I planned on tonight, but we'll call it a pleasant surprise." Despite his staked claims on the entire paycheque for the operation, Lilian doesn't seem to be in a hurry to catch Tony Redgrave . . . though, that's not really surprising, the obvious factor considered. Now that she's identified the threads, Lilian flips her eyepiece back up and follows them by the sensory impression she's marked out, skipping the stairwells with long, gliding jumps, sailing past them as if in quarter gravity, leaving little black sizzling distortions where her toes barely touch the ground. Rounding out to the sub basement in a slow, falling circle, she takes only the briefest of looks at the vault, before strutting straight across the room towards it, talking over the clicking echo of her own footsteps. "Now that's something that absolutely shouldn't be down here. Considering nobody was forthcoming enough to offer us any way to open this up, I believe it's well within our prerogative to do it ourselves." The sword is drawn over her shoulder with a sound like the sliding of a hot razor over wet stone, glowing red floral etchings rapidly blooming up its length. Stopping before the vault door, she raises it high over her head, suspended in a tensely wound power stance. The lines of her suit brighten considerably, letting off a low electric whine from processing the amount of energy she channels through her meridians and into her muscles. The sword seems to 'blur' around its edges, becoming fuzzy and indistinct, as if imperceptibly vibrating, building up a faint, keening wail, as if from a great distance. A bolt of scarlet flashes up through the fuller, and then Lilian brings it down in a split instant, breaking the tiles around her from the wave of cloven air blasting to either side. Cold scarlet light carves an manyfold oversized arc through the air, prickling with black static, ripping through reinforced metal as if it weren't there. Given any extra layer of protection, Lilian follows it up with three extra inputs, painting an extra triplicate of giant slashes through the mysterious source of the threads' protection.
Richard Stadler	Stadler peers over glasses at the shots he had made to the mummies... threads. "So, some sort of supernatural control. More on this side then outside... rules out destruction." He mutters to himself, before looking down to Tony. "Hey! Maybe download a dating app on your own time, huh?" He notes, before the weapon he holds gets pointed down. Scientist should be lucky that he wasn't burning these things anyway. Shots to the legs and knees to incapacitate was almost a mercy in this sort of thing. At least this.... Tony seemed to be somewhat competent at what hee was doing. And seemed to have a bit of information on the situation... which Stadler did not like in the slightest. "Did you ever stop to think some of use might burn first and check the bandages later?" he says, indicating the infernal device still resting on his vest. "I should think it's threatened- Oh, for." He calls out to the man. "Money's yours! Just... get back here!" Damn it. Bad enough he was running off without any sort of plan and destroying things without thinking about it (as opposed to Stadler's well thought out destruction plans). But /two guns at once was a bit excessive. "Give it time. You still might see a corpse if he runs off like that without back up." He mentions to Lillian, as they move through the facility, to the loading dock, to the source of the thread... and a very, very large vault. "That's... rather secure. After you." He says, giving difference to Rook's process in taking out the thick metal door. Give him enough plastique, and he could do the job himself... but weighing himself down with plastic explosive in a musuem wasn't top priority.
Vergil	Tony shoots Mikoto a dismissive look. "No offence kid, but you're a bit young for me. Try again in 10 years or something," right before launching into his sicknasty grind on a desk. The others follow and while Tony deals with the mummies. The hermetically seals vault door is on the recieving end of two blasts of cutting force, breeching the carefully regulated atmosphere within. The dry, cool air comes rushing out, along with something else. A taint in the air that burns and chills all at once, sending hairs standing on end and sweat beading on the skin. A rank, demonic taint that makes one shudder, as if someone walked over your grave. Tony pays it no mind, striding over to peek over Lillian and Mikoto's shoulders. "Nice blades," he says with a smile that doesn't quite reach his eyes. Lillian's in particular seems to be grabbing his attention. "Lemme show you how I handle mine." He then turns and breaks the awkward atmosphere by yelling at Stadler. "Not my fault you can't keep up old-timer! You can stay here and hang withy tour compatriots if you like," he says, gesturing at the mummies shut inside morgue shelves and trapped under gurnies before striding through the ruined vault door. The inside is a nightmare. Patently, it was once used for the preservation of mummified bodies. It has morgue shelves like outside, and had all manner of chemicals on shelves once. But those shelves have been overturned and emptied, and now the walls are painted with sigils in blood. Floating in the middle of the room is a demonic entity. Four sets of horns erupt from its head, spiralling around each other before branching in the four cardinal directions. It has a deer skull-like head, and no torso or legs, but many many arms. Cradled in some of those arms is a dead, bloodied human woman. The demon inserts an arm into a bloody slit in her back and begins manipulating her head, mouth, throat and lungs all at once to create speech with her lost voice. "You have ruined everything, insolent humans!" the corpse is made to hiss. Your rank stench permeating even here was bad enough, but now I have lost my chance to puppet every single corpse in the nearby soil. You will all die for this." Tony seems too distracted sniffing at himself after being called stinky, but he fires right back. "With all those arms you have, you probably stink worse than I do, what with all the extra pits you must have." "WRETCHED HUMAN FILTH!" the dead body shrieks, when suddenly every bit of debris in the room is snagged with those threads. Shards of glass and bits of metal are whipped up into a whirlwind aimed at battering and slashing those present. Tony takes that massive sword off his back and begins swiping it defensively, showcasing a manner of swordsmanship that dances between 'trained' and 'something he saw in a movie once.' At times he's whirling it about with obvious finesse, other times he's spinning it like a windmill, and yet it all works. "This guy's no big deal now that his bottled power is gone! Take him out!" Tony shouts.
Sumiko	Huh, that worked. Of course, it worked, they're /awesome/! Mikoto shrugs at NotDante, and waves a hand. "To be fair, I wasn't interested. I'm already sort of dating. I'm still human though," Something she'll carry with her until she can't anymore. Of course, this reveals the room of...wow. The corpse in the thing's arms almost causes her to wretch immediately, in fact, she takes an initial step back. 'Come on Mikoto, not now..' she chastises herself. She can't just throw u-... She throws up. Recovering, she grabs her sword...but too late to defend herself. Shards of glass and debris hit her, taking her off her feet and throwing her around like a ragdoll. Her blade catches the floor and drags along with it, causing a line of sparks as she stops. However, with the blade dug into the floor, she already has half of what she needs for what she does next. The magical girl symbol activates, and in front of her, a phantasmal elephant appears. It charges the demon, attempting to gore him with the tusks and throw him up, or overrun him. Mikoto's body is already starting to shove shards out of her body, as wounds start to recover. "Ok seriously, how are you calling US filth? Have you looked in a mirror? The big man can only win a fight against dead things. How /absolutely/ frightening, well, unlike that woman in your arms we can tell you /no/."
Lilian Rook	"By all means." Lilian replies to Tony, feigning an invisible curtsy oozing with so many layers of irony that it wraps back around into semi-sincere. "After all. What's the point of packing a sword like that if you're not going to use it?" Her glance crosses his own. When the vault doors breach, slide open, and crash down, the wave of air, so thoroughly tainted by an almost putrid magical aura, causes Lilian to take a step back, leaning on her heel as if she'd like to take another, arm hovering in the proximity of her face, ready to ward it, but then instead she rocks forward again and marches forward with purpose, stepping up onto the steel doors now lying on the ground, and smoothly drawing her gun with her empty hand. "Oh good. I was wondering if there'd be some sort of evil Egyptian artifact that some unwitting archeologists dug up and stored here. But it's just this thing." she says. "Pity for you though. If there weren't a dead woman here, maybe you'd have gotten off easy for only causing everyone a headache and property damage." Her eyes roll up and off to the side. Her head tilts, and a shrug of her shoulders causes her gun to list sideways in her hand, until she snaps it forward again with a loud click, her gaze suddenly refined to the point of a dagger. "No. I don't think so. You'd be dead for daring speak to me like that either way. I don't let putrid sub-simian trash like you get away with that. Call it human pride." The contents of the room come exploding towards the entire group at the vault doors. Lilian could duck and cover around the corner, but the demon has only egged her on. The handgun clutched in her fist roars, spewing a flickering blossom of fire from the muzzle brake that stutters somehow too fast. A spume of brass flicks up into the air all at once, and a spray of angry tracers rips through the gaps in the debris, aimed at the demon behind it. Just before impact, Lilian-
Lilian Rook	-----[stop]----- She stays exactly where she is, for a 'moment', however much a measurement of time means. The wave of jagged shrapnel swells out in front of her, suspended at the height of its momentum in a three dimensional diorama of dangerous fragments, as if held up on a museum floor by finely tuned transparent strings. Assessing it for a couple of seconds, Lilian then hops down from the severed door and charges straight into the mess --at the shards of glass and slivers of wood like pikes arrayed against her. Her own sword shoots out in front of her, smacking aside a broken chair leg, then twitches up and away, cleanly severing a piece of pipe. It lunges out and snaps back like the bite of a spider, breaking a shotgun spray of glass into diamond powder, now accelerating sideways. The blade darts back and forth, arcing and striking from point to point, battering and slashing through the debris as Lilian advances all the way to the only safe point in the room: directly behind the demon. -----[start]----- -ducks supremely low and slides under the monster on her side, slamming the butt of her handgun against the magazine magnetized to her hip, then rolling onto her back, taking a long stance with one arm outstretched, and emptying another score of bullets into the demon's back before she even finishes skidding across the floor. Reaching the end of the vault, she twists again with superhuman speed and grace, plants both feet against the back wall, tosses the gun up into the air, and then kicks off like a bullet towards the demon again, both hands on her sword. Extending through the air, she thrusts the blade through where she would assume the monster's neck and spine to be, throwing her body weight into the strike, and then swinging herself around to stand on a pair of its arms. The handgun twirls through the air behind her. She reaches out, and without looking, plucks it out of the air over her shoulder. With one hand on the sword, she twists the black iron grip, and the blade turns demonic blood into horrific barbed thorns, which then burst into black flames. With her other hand, she thumbs the release, flicks the magazine clean across the room, reloads a second time, then jams the muzzle between the thing's horns and fires over and over again into its skull, driving the weapon deeper and deeper into any wound she opens, even if it means shooting wrist deep in its head.
Richard Stadler	This... was not good. The feeling of whatever energy was sealed in that vault getting out put Stadler on edge, and for the first time, he thought maybe that vault wasn't something they should have breached... well, if it hadn't already gotten out and started corrupting corpses. Always corrupting corpses. "Just... stick with the goddamn group! You over extend, you're going to get cut off and taken out." He tries to reason, looking to the mummies off to the side on the gurneys... Jesus, just how many mummified corpses did this facility have? The place was like an above ground cemetary... which would explain the ready supply of blod surrounding the area. The fact that it was a demon made Stadler briefly consider having brought something other than fire, but... No, no. The fact that it was using a human woman as a hand puppet was reason enough. "I dislike when corpses come out of the ground. Professional dislike. But we're not dead yet-" The glass and metal brought around in a whirl wind causes Stadler to close up, gtting onto his knees, trying to protect viral areas, before he finally reached for the weapon hanging at his chest. "Always wanted to see if this works!" He yells, before activating it. The benefit of a napalm tank is that it held together much better in a whirlwind than butane... And Stadler wasn't aiming for the demon itself. Not at first. The blood sigels around where it seemed to get some of it's power, that's what he aimed for first, splattering it in bursts of flaming liquid, before coming to the center of the problem. Besides, there were other people here who seemed ot be able to pump more lead than he could at the issue.
Vergil	The demon is run through with a phantasmal tusk, but the same issue that confounds it now confounds Mikoto; their foes are regenerators. It waves its hands, causing threads to enwrap and crush the tusk as it pulls itself free, its puppet snarling with hate. "Fool human pup, know your place. Demons are your betters! The ant should not question the foot that crushes them!" Lilian does something to get right behind the demon! Even Tony seems taken aback at the girl's display of gunplay and movement, so much so that he lowers his guard long enough for a shard of glass to cut his forehead, sending a splash of blood flying. "That power...!" the corpse puppet gasps. "Like a Geryon! Impossible!" The demon writhes in obvious pain as a blade is plunged through its 'neck' and a gun emptied into its skull to drive the blade through. And yet, as if in frustrating deja-vu, she can only watch as the wounds close immediately. "Poor fools!" the puppet crows. "Have you accepted it yet? Assail me all you like, your puny weapons cannot slay m-AAAAAAAAAAAA-" The grotesque puppet show ends as Stadler sets the bloody symbols on the wall alight, all the recently closed injuries reopening all at once on the demon. It slumps to the floor, and its assault comes to an end. Tony puts his sword away and cracks a lazy smile again. "Sorry for worrying you old timer," he says to Stadler. "Just never had anyone who could keep up with me before." He nods to him, then Lilian and Mikoto. "You all did good. Vomiting notwitstanding." He winks at the magical girl and turns to leave, but the demon has one more thing to say, one hand invading the woman's corpse. "Ahahah... I know you now, Whoreson. Your blood is rank with the stench of a traitor with only the barest masking of humanity. You think you can escape the judgment of Mundus forever? He'll flay your skin and feed it to his hounds, Son of-" Tony shoots the demon's arm off at the elbow, silencing it. He then draws his other handgun and advances on the demon, emptying both clips at a rate that must surpass the weapon's limitations. As the demon twitches, he speaks coldly. "When you get back to Hell, tell them Tony Redgrave sent you." The demon breaths its last, and crumbles into ash. He's quiet for a moment, before letting out a laugh. "I guess getting those digits now would be in bad taste, even for me. I'll just have to run into you again, Rook." He gives everyone a lazy wave and strides towards the loading bay exit as the police storm in.
Sumiko	"Heh. Even if you beat me, your victory would be really short, but your chances of doing that are so low they might as well be zero percent!" Mikoto frowns, oh it's one of /those/ assholes. Mikoto is back on her feet, it can't regenerate forever but could she outlast it? Well, she's not alone here so she could just simply outlast it with little expenditure if she played it carefully. This is of course until the runes are shot, and the temporary relief of damage comes right back. "Oh well, good thing that the plan worked," Hahaha, yeah. Obviously, she knew the runes were the source the whole time. When Tony 'NotDante' Redgrave pokes fun of her incident she gets flustered and turns her head away. "It's not funny, I don't like the sight of dead bodies," She says, both embarrassed and flustered. This moment is broken up by the exchange. Apparently, there is more to this than she thought. However, she's not going to pry right now, she just met the guy and is trying to recover her reputation. "Oh, I guess I'm rubbish. Hmph...stupid.." she says muttering towards the exit and of course her paycheck.
Richard Stadler	As always, massive amounts of fire seem to clear up quite a bit of things, and sometimes you have to look for causes rather than effects... not that he would have done well with only his handgun if it came down to it (he acknowledge style, at least, even if he didn't give points for it). But he had to admit it was /immensely/ statisfying to see it collapse on the ground in a burst of open wounds. Smoke billows out from the walls as the jellied fuel burns off, Stadler doing a through job of scouring whatever remains. "No need to apologize. You look like you can handle yourself... for the most part. Kids are kids, though, and I /really/ wasn't looking forward to the paperwork if I had to drag your corpse out of here-" And with that, the demon speaks again, talking about triatos and mask and judgement. But... again, Stadler thinks someone else is better to do the demon exterminating. At least for the massive amount of gunfire. "Well... it certainly does have a message to present." He says, reaching for a grenade on his belt. "Just in case it doesn't happen to get the message, however." A pull of the pin, and he's leaving the vault for an engulfing, clensing fire, approching the police. "2 minutes of letting in burn, contain the fire outside the vault!" He didn't like taking chances.
Lilian Rook	"Son of-?" Lilian doesn't get to finish the thought before Tony begins dumping way more ammo than his weapons should even contain into the writhing demon, but she wasn't going to complete it anyways. She stands idly by while Redgrave makes a gunshow of executing the demon, blasting it with so many holes that it outright crumbles, away. When he turns around, she masks the appraising stare she was giving him by turning her head and wiping the demon's splattered blood from her cheek with her thumb. She remembers another guy, knee deep in demons and obsessed with his father. Had a much more severe look. Brooding. Hawkish. Considerably more clean cut. Still though, she can kind of see a resemblance. Oh well, it'd be rude to pry. "I hope we do." she replies to Tony, waving slowly over her shoulder on his way out. "I really do. There's a time and place to talk about things." After that, she moves out of the way to let the old man torch and blow the place, standing outside the vault and waiting for the police. "Thank you for the support on the bindings. I'll wait around here for a little, though. Redgrave can have whatever bounty they're paying him. The real money is in what they're going to need me for after the fire burns out~" She gives Stadler a little finger wiggling wave.