Scene #7912: Bioweapon Proliferation

Owner	Pose
Hiromi	The location Hiromi's transmission referenced doesn't seem to have anything to do with that old prison ship. It's on an Earth-like planet, and a heavily built up one, but those tall and gleaming cities will need be left far behind. It would be horrendously difficult to find the underground laboratories without those coordinates, even using local contacts, being under a desert from from any city where people might like to be, and with so much of its transportation infrastructure being underground, too. The first obstacle, for any choosing a stealthy approach, is relatively simple. There are widely spaced sensors along a nearby road, on the surface, ostensibly to watch what little ordinary, non-secretive traffic the place gets, but they're angled and networked to actually feed this data into the underground lab, as an outermost alarm system for anything 'obviously wrong.' It's once someone hacks the electronic locks, or breaks through a wall (with the coordinates being precise enough that 'a' correct spot is easy to find) that they're likely to run into problems.
Redshift Operators	The Redshift Operators have a useful all-terrain jeep for these occasions. The road is likely good enough, but who knows what one needs? Whether an alarm goes off depends almost entirely on whether or not it's possible for the system to register an astronaut in the driver's seat of a jeep as a potential hazard, or if those sensors can detect the gruff man's briefcase nuke. It's not a military vehicle, this is a civilian one. That driver irresponsibly does the equivalent of texting while driving, pulling out a cryptographic sequencer and some wireless gear to start subverting and unlocking systems in range. Can they get the electronic locks open? They don't have stealthy intentions, it seems, but they're not announcing their presence. Just going to get through everything they can as quickly as possible, and let god sort out the loudness of this mission.
Rita Ma	Rita arrives with Liza, having had no time to come up with an outfit better than her usual: green skirt, white button-up, blue cropped jacket. She'd barely grabbed her satchel on the way out the door. Of course it's a trap. That much was said and acknowledged. Rita hasn't forgotten it either; anxious anticipation is written in her taut body language. But- "If we don't finish things here, they'll just rebuild from what we did to the prison ship," Rita says glumly. "I guess we have to thank Ms. Hiromi for that, even if she wants to be our enemy today." Internally, she checks over her tactical knowledge of Hiromi. Besides 'big', 'strong', 'commanding', and 'shapeshifter??', she comes up unnervingly empty. Others might get spotted, but Rita herself will not. Before the sensors could pick her up as anything but a weird hitchhiker, she shimmers out of visibility to reach a promising (according to coordinates) spot. If nobody's opened it up already, she's quite content to make a hole down to the lab with a generous helping of horribly corrosive venom that seems to materialize out of thin air near her. It isn't bright, it isn't loud, and it doesn't produce spicy amounts of energy, so maybe the sensors will overlook that too- but it is effective at turning rock and metal into sludge.
Sleek Shimmer	Four in a civilian jeep is a bit cramped! But in actuality, there's a fifth! Thankfully, red foxes are the size of small dogs, and Shimmer is content to take the middle of the back seat, sometimes curled up and sometimes sitting up. Should someone feel the urge to pet her, she'll allow it, but now isn't a time to be all playful and carefree. It's time for martial pursuits. War. Though, any urge to pet the fox will probably dissolve when she sits up and asks, "What does all of that fancy stuff do?" She's still very new to to complex technology. After all, unlike with artifacts, one cannot intuit their use simply by attaining qi resonance with them.
Rubi-Kan Vagrants	Riding alongside the Redshift's jeep is a monstrosity of a single-rider craft. The engine is anything but stealthy. It's probably why he's riding formation with them--if you can't be quiet, you can at least be distractingly loud. The noise thumps chests. Decals of alien hounds chase otherworldly prey, across thick green armored plating. He is also adding to the irresponsibility of the approach, by sending an invite to the occupants of the jeep to a listening party on a music sharing program. Bercilak de Hautdesert is listening to Judas Priest on Discoverize. Listen along? Y/N Reaching behind him, his axe is retrieved from a holster built along the running board. Giving it a testing swing around his head, the Green Knight guns the accelerator and cuts off, the engine roaring as he rockets straight towards the nearest wall of the complex. He's taking the 'distraction' angle as hard as it'll go--breaching it by simply driving the armored vehicle straight through.
Redshift Operators	The gruff man sitting in the back explains the purpose of the technology to Sleek Shimmer: "It kills them and keeps us alive." He thinks she's wondering about his guns and grenades, or the armor that the giant is still tuning. The driver up front with the cryptographic sequencer and the antenna elaborates: "It'll help us get inside as fast as possible. Getting inside is our first objective. I might be able to open doors between us and the other objectives."
Liza Grier	<J-IC-Scene> Liza Grier says, "What did I say about the Concord?" "I bet you anything it's her fault, Rita. You think a giant wolf somehow scraped digital security under that situation and learned about other secure facilities like an investigator?" A few seconds later, her voice becomes a lot less patiently explanatory, as the hiss-click of her helmet seal sucking up the last of her hair and closing the oxygen loop switches her over to her vocalizer unit, and sort of seems to skew her personality a little. Though Liza actually has the capacity for stealth, she doesn't really do 'stealth ops'; merely stealth entry into the most chaotic spot possible, sometimes. She has enough ability to scan teleport dropdown to the road sensor hub and or main power loop, set their readings to loop if accessible digitally or simply shut them off if only accessible manually, and then re-teleport surgical strike-style to the electronic locks on the facility. The first thing is for the benefit of people getting there over land. The second thing she will just solve by brute force cryptographic cracking, to make a second entry point from Rita and cast a wider net, without using up explosives. "Make sure to kill them all this time, okay?"
Hiromi	Between the insulating rock and isolated air systems, finding another entrance is about as simple as doing a geological survey, which may be practical for someone, but perhaps not too speedy for anyone here right now. The traffic cameras having been set up with the lightest levels of government security in mind, and then kept mostly as they are to avoid looking different from other traffic cameras, makes them an easy hacking target for the Redshift Operators. Getting into the system lets them know that they haven't tripped anything automatic, but the live feed suggests that someone could simply look at a monitor and make a human judgment call if they don't do something to cut that off, any second now. Whether they do or not, the locks are accessible from this network, with just a little more work. There's some routine in here to bolt the doors depending on what traffic shows up, which necessarily means they can be unlocked from here, too. The only unfortunate thing is that this network is separated from the security cameras that presumably exist inside. Rita's corrosive venom would work, though Neutron or Liza are likely to be faster by hacking, in this case, assuming the hacking occurs before Bercilak's appearance triggers the lockdown bolts and alarms. There's a lack of walls to mow down, it having gone wholly underground, but if he either aims for a spot near the known entrance or just really puts some effort into it, collapsing a stone ceiling to brute-force a new entrance with his axe is entirely possible.
Hiromi	The interior is an unorthodox design philosophy for secret pseudo-military labs. There must have already been a natural cave system here, and it was selectively carved to make flat-floored halls and multiple levels of rooms, occasionally visible at once, where the cave had extended vertically. The result is near immediately obviously an absolute mess of twisting passages that an ordinary person would likely need months to learn without getting lost. One might even think that it was designed to be confusing on purpose, as if in paranoia of infiltration, at the expense of the mental health of anyone unfortunate enough to be working here. Or maybe they have very good maps distributed during employee onboarding. One would have to ask. Fortunately, finding someone isn't hard to do. With all the loud roaring outside, red lights are turning on inside, and people in what look like slim, armored suits, with blocky, black metal weaponry, lined with cheery pink neon, shouting and running and probably searching for the cause of the problem. Given how many have opted for stealth ending upon entry, it doesn't take long for fire to turn their way, in the form of solid rounds at full-auto from dozens of positions and appreciably punchy ballistics. Fire is opened immediately and, curiously, without anyone, even a P.A. system, saying any words out loud. The reasons for this are likely to do with the large amount of heavily encrypted network traffic bouncing around the area. Being below the surface opens up the extensive electrical systems to easier tracking and analysis, along with the high-speed, short-range communication systems they're using, though these will take significantly longer to break into than traffic cameras. No calls for surrender first, either.
Redshift Operators	If the locks are accessible, then the Redshifts can get a good precise idea of where they are and rush them. Putting pedal to the metal, they take advantage of the security gap that Liza provides and pop the locks the moment they're near. Piling out of the jeep, they rush the opening, all weapons ready and waiting, and the giant carrying the hefty briefcase nuke. "Go, go, go, everyone move!" Unfortunately, it's the giant who winds up enduring most of the incoming fire for the team. As their mobile cover, he clomps around, hundreds of pounds of metal and meat, closing on formations ominously and dangerously. He looks like a dark lord commander, shots plinging hard on him while his allies use him as cover, enduring bruising and impact of their own. But thankfully he won't need to endure too much. That's because his allies, the ninja, the gunman, and the marksman are all blasting or slicing away, shot after shot after slice after slice, rushing the complex environment in coordinated surges while the ninja bounds and leaps through them and attacks from unconventional angles. Hopefully they'll give the marksman hacker who drove them here enough time to finish their hacking. "Newt, get us a read on the system! I want a map!" "Working on that objective." "They have nothing to say... cyborgs, communing wirelessly?" "Find out if they can scream." "Fuck up the local comms! Cut this networked shit out, we need some tactical room to maneuver! I need a place to plant the bomb!" Hopefully the hacker can find one of those maps, and in turn, somewhere the briefcase nuke will be effective.
Rita Ma	"You really think she'd do something like that?" Rita asks Liza innocently. "Maybe she got her friends to look at the data." She somehow hasn't yet seen Hiromi yet do anything bad. But, of course, her well-earned trust in Liza wins out over her naive trust in the Archwolf. "Well, we'll find out. But I believe you." ---- The acid is taking an uncomfortably long time to burn through, not for lack of potency, but for sheer depth. Rita stares awkwardly down into the deepening smoking sinkhole she's created, then glances back at her hacking teammates. "Maybe it'd be faster if I just went back?" she wonders out loud. "And sticking together might be..." But the sunk cost fallacy wins out. Eventually the sinkhole burns through to the lab below, and Rita shimmers back into invisibility as she drops down the makeshift shaft, just in time to join the raging fight. She isn't terribly far from her allies after all, but the alternate entrance helped her avoid the initial gunfire-clogged chokepoint and flank around behind the first wave of security. Accordingly, they are attacked by 'one of their own'- Rita discards her more-taxing invisibility in favor of morphing into their uniform, coming up behind them, and using the momentary confusion to make what seems like a telekinetic attack. Cloaked tentacles wind around necks, snag legs, pick people up and slam them into walls- as many as a dozen at once, while Rita herself seems to remain stationary. Liza gets a hasty, cheerful wave (unmistakably Rita-oid) before any friendly fire can happen.
Rubi-Kan Vagrants	The bike is alarmingly unharmed for what it just did--and in the cave complex the noise is all but unbearable. Banking and putting the armor plates between them is the smart play. But it doesn't conceal every part of him--necessarily so, for its design. As rubble from his entry still rains down upon him, a volley from the armed response pierces through the tough synthetic weave between his armored plates. Bright scarlet lances from several points on his body--an alarming number, in fact. That's to be expected, perhaps, from those who give no quarter. The butt of the axe crashes into the earth, cracking it with a deliberate downards swing, but no plants spring from it. Instead, he races past the point, charging the firing team. The intent is get them to break rank. To drive them apart, or otherwise to retreat from cover--to get away from someone who is very obviously a melee combatant. A sudden 180, once he's in range. A white hot cone of flame belches from the bike's engine as it whirls around. Bercilak makes that very flame a weapon for anyone attempting to stand their ground. The hammer blow was a feint--but the next one isn't. His axe, brought against the ground, causes thick masses of vines to rapidly carpet the floor in dense and uneven bundles. Pressing the attack immediately, Bercilak hooks limbs and batters at-speed, the speed of the bike giving his attacks that much less reaction time.
Liza Grier	Liza breaches the door. The first fifteen hundred milliseconds after doing so are everything; that window alone, more often than not, determines who wins and loses a firefight. She knows that very well. She's been cooking the high explosive grenade in her left hand for two and a half seconds to time it with the door opening, so the instant it moves, she can fastball it through, into the middle of the room, and there won't be time to get away from it. Before the door is even all the way open, she slices the retracting corner with her c20r braced against her tricep, one arm over the top to control the muzzle climb at waist level, and begins tearing fire into the room without even looking to see who's in it, slashing the guttering string of candlelight tracer flame across the room once, twi-- Why the fuck are they already shooting at her? At barely over half the professionally standard breach window, Liza is already taking fire back. Coordinated fire, and a lot of it. The surface of her harsuit flares with raindrop patterns of blue-white light. A second skin of electromagnetic energy wavers like an increasingly unstable bubble around her, and then bursts with a crackle of electricity. Bits of molten metal spark and splash from her assault armour underneath, carving off the bloodred paint and gouging through its layers a centimeter at a time, bullets crumpling on the flexible gel matrix zones between plates. The cumulative blunt trauma to the person inside should be utterly debilitating, but Liza throws herself to the floor on purpose; first, to let her grenade explode and avoid eating the blast wave or shrapnel herself, then to flare her wrist shield up over her head, fully protecting her body from the front, and action roll behind the nearest useful cover. "Oh? You got the memo? You know who I am? How flattering! I didn't even need to introduce myself at all! Fight me with everything you have, if it'll help you go to your graves!" comes her unhinged-sounding reply to the warm welcome. Timing her shield recharge in her head, Liza drops a sequencing beacon into a covered and irrelevant corner to start cracking the closed comms network these people are using-- in ten seconds. Liza replaces her magazine with a drum variant, then pulls, twists, and depresses the cap on a saboteur 'concealable' radiation flare, blasting the area with high-intensity ionization that should completely mince any kind of communication, targeting, sensor, or delicate AI processes in the area. Doing so takes down Liza's personal shield, just starting to recharge, as the price for doing so, but she's confident she can outfight the security without their mass technological edge over her. Her guns are ballistic and operate purely analogue, and her efficiency is all muscle memory and experience. She lunges from cover the moment the interference explodes, gluing her finger to the trigger as she rushes the security, spitting sixty armour-piercing rounds into the crowd and then swinging the empty firearm at the closest head hard enough to snap it in half. The energy sword won't work for another few seconds, so she draws and swings a tungsten carbide long blade instead, aiming to hack and slash her way through the security directly adjacent to an exit she can charge through, and force them to funnel into the maze-like tunnels behind her on a chase.
Sleek Shimmer	Shimmer emerges from the jeep immediately after the four Operators do, and finds even her mystical senses are having trouble keeping a feel of the layout of these tunnels. "Guns guns guns!" Snarling her disdain at the strange prevalence of these things in the Multiverse, she adopts a charge while wreathed in a windy aura that gusts and gales around her. Sometimes this is enough to divert the lighter caliber rounds, but more often than not she needs to zigzag - and even then, she takes plenty of bullets along her extremities, inflicting searing pain. Injury to her vitals is avoided though, thankfully for her! "Found answer for them though." As she runs, she melds back into her human-like form, garbed for battle, and a sizzling light-blue-violet energy gathers in her palm as she raises it upwards. The lighting actually flickers and a few bulbs might pop as torrents of electricity are ripped forcefully from the base's power systems and joins the qi being converted from within, compressing in her hand and going through several stages of intensifying across ten seconds or so. And when she spots an opening in the firing pattern, she rises to her full height and aims that palm towards the defenses. With an ear-splitting peal of thunder, a snarling SNAKE OF LIGHTNING erupts from her palm, zigzagging and fragmenting into dozens of smaller snakes as it maneuvers through the onrushing fire, using the metallic bullets like guideposts back to their point of origin. The corridor is simply FILLED with lightning-snakes!
Hiromi	Liza's in the best position, assuming she has the attention to spare, to analyze the floor layout using her sensors, given how many blind corners are in the way. The cave structure does give a limited ranged to that, but anyone who spends some time hacking the tougher, internal networks can start pulling maps, once they're in. Flying blind is another option, if not one with a lot to recommend it, given how the security forces move with an obviously full understanding of the layout and a moderately dangerous level of tactical training. Notably, the big power draws are further down. There's nothing in the upper levels but security and what are probably administrative sections. No sign of science work. The obvious ways down are circuitous, with a lack of convenient elevators, as it follows the natural cave system, but some utility shafts do exist, narrow and out of the way as they are. As for 'where to put a bomb,' the maps don't include the kind of structural tolerance details that would be useful for that question, but 'down' is the safest bet. It would, incidentally, be better for containing the fallout, too. There are other paths someone would have to take to get the underground rail station, which is at middling depth. Real traffic in and out all goes that way, rather than walk around on the surface immediately above the lab to mark its location. Rita's disguise gains her a few moments, though not as much as might be expected, because her illusion doesn't mimic IFF tags. This becomes less of a problem after Liza's scrambler goes off, removing the expectation, along with a lot of what goes into the defense team's coordinative ability. 'Cyborgs' was the right call, as Liza finds on braining one guard. It works, but much less easily than expected, because what should be bone is all metal. The shock is enough, if nothing else. There are limits to how much padding can do to protect squishy human brains, and the security forces do act like humans, not robots. Hacking into the local network reveals a few more things. Maps, most importantly, without many rooms being marked by purpose, but they are marked by security level, which indicates the expected locations of importance to be in certain spots further down. This also picks up some less important information, like these guards being officially designated as senior associate-level Loss Prevention Forces of Fullmart, Your One Stop Shop. Lastly, hacking the net reveals that there are blue team infosec forces. Any device connecting into local comms, as valuable as they are, is immediately hit with repeated and increasingly varied attempts to suborn or, failing that, destroy it. Bercilak has an easier, simpler time, less so in terms of bullets taken than in that his plan works perfectly. None of these people want to be near him at all, and they don't know his fighting style well enough to even try to idenfity a feint. They get back, scattering and covering each other in a coordinated retreat, using their knowledge of the area to try to stay ahead of him, though they may be overestimating how much dissuasive power bullets have on him.
Hiromi	With all of that information to work with, once it's communicated, people can take their picks on approaches. The problems of an overcomplicated battleground remain, and it's not possible to cut off the defender's communications and also hack them to immediately know what corner they're hiding around, in single cases. Even with picking between them or, better, switching between those states, while fending off attacks from the other side, it makes for an easier time than the first fifteen seconds of the firefight had been. That's about the time Hiromi falls out of the wall above Bercilak. As if a ghost, the stone remains fully intact behind her, but she's at once highly noticeable in Sleek Shimmer's supernatural senses, and noticeable across a variety of senses, including ones many people don't realize they have, in Bercilak's. Her presence is oppressively heavy, as is the weight of her ambush strike, doing what the cyborgs couldn't, and taking the melee fightto the melee fighter. A double-fist, fingers laced, aims to strike his shoulders with the underside of either wrist, with the kind of force that even stone floors aren't meant to contain. Should one catch sight of her face, they'll see her smile. She can't help but appreciate a man like him, after all. Then she's away again, with barely a chance to return a strike before she seems to melt through the stone, which ripples without ever having been anything but solid. Her presence disappears in the same moment, through every available means of finding her. There's no sound of digging to follow, and no tunnel behind her. The next chance of counterattack occurs at Liza's and Rita's location. Again, the walls remain intact. It's only that the Archwolf hadn't been here, and now she's dropping from the ceiling with her heel aimed in a sweeping kick across Liza's hardsuit, the kind of thing that would be as good as a cleaving sword against someone more lightly armored, but might still be possible to treat as a bashing attack, in her case. A sniff to the air, and then Rita's tentacles, rather than her main body, that Hiromi leaps for, with her teeth the first point to menace, claws second.
Sleek Shimmer	With the guards dealt with for now, Shimmer does her best to reach out with her senses and try to sense the presence of the Great Wolf, or, failing that, the densest source of power - of any nature - in the place (which is likely to be any kind of power core or generators or trunk power lines, and thus, downwards.) Powerful places are important places, in her mind. It's always where the head honchos hang out so they can draw upon the power to strengthen themselves in defense... She roams around until she feels a draft from a utility shaft and rips the covering grate off with ease. "Aha... power coming from down below. Going to check it out!" If necessary, she'll shift back to her fox form to descend the shaft. Of course no sooner is she IN the shaft and descending then she feels the PING of immensely focused qi, a divine presence, bearing down upon her spirit. The fox shivers, ears flattening and straight stance crumpling. Her beastly instincts know she likely couldn't defeat Hiromi head-on, and it's a good thing that she considers this entire thing a challenge, an exercise to grow and learn from Hiromi's ways. But for now, she's going down down down, and maybe, if she's lucky, she'll regroup with Rita soon. If Shimmer senses Rita to be on the same depth she'll definitely find an exit to the shaft and seek her out.
Rubi-Kan Vagrants	Bercilak leaps off of the hoverbike, which disintegrates in a tide of consuming blue light that crawls across its surface. The momentum carries him down a hallway that, ideally, will see him downwards. He does go down--but not in the way he expected. The Green Knight's axe is raised only in time to keep Hiromi from completely knocking the wind out of him. It does little to prevent the cracking of the cavern floor beneath him, leaves him unprepared for the hammering of her double strike. The pauldrons of that massive harness are shorn off, her smile reflected in his visor. "Wherefore dost thou istop me?" Though the question is uttered, it's more out of curiosity than anything--he is still very much intent on fighting back. No sooner is the question asked than does she venture off. Despite being grounded, Bercilak is not one to take a trade without getting something in return. The indentation in the floor made by his impact is suddenly alight, his cloak of spring flowers and grasses now on fire from the microthrusters that propel him rapidly upward. From the ground to his feet to the air, he rockets forward and upwards. Rapid flickers of lateral thrust give him some much-needed spin for the attempted sweep aimed at Hiromi's legs, his blazing cloak adding an element of misdirection. He hits the ground a split second later, now all the more determined to follow the path downward, to rejoin with the Redshifts. He'll cover them, reducing the amount of necessary fighting time to reach the objective with rapid-grown verdant obstructions and fissures hewn into the earth.
Redshift Operators	Bercilak takes a hit. He winds up having to take it right in the middle of the squad of Redshifts. The marksman, who wound up right next to him, is literally so focused on sniping the that they fail to notice the violence until several seconds after Bercilak is done and Hiromi is gone. While the gunman notices a bit earlier, they whip around and briefly hesitate to fire on the foe while she's struggling in close quarters with an ally. Then the gunman remembers: That's Bercilak, and he would tell him to pull the trigger there. A ruthles trail of shots from his SMG plinks off of Bercilak, all not targeted to vulnerability, but focused on Hiromi. "SHIT! We've got this ambush fuckery to deal with. WD! Run predictions!" "Under these circumstances, I will need considerable cover for the focus." "Then stick with GK! Him and me, we're gonna cut the path!" He turns back. His grenadier belt gets a lot lighter as he brings out two fresh high-explosive grenades and two thigh IR-jamming grenades, and slings them forward to blast and disorient the foes. He's trying to get enough space and time to focus some breathing. A strange respiratory drumbeat that matches Bercilak's motions in an uncanny way. He briefly gets on his radio as he readies his gun...
Rita Ma	Rita sticks close to Liza where she can out of simple familiarity and comfort, though she still keeps to her black bodysuit security disguise. She only separates when necessary to get the drop on a new squad of guards. When Hiromi gets the drop on them in more senses than one, she's barely ten paces away from her friend. "Ms. Grier!" Rita shouts in a panic, reaching out as if she could grab Liza and pull her free of the danger that's already befallen her. But there's no time to help her, with Hiromi turning on her already. Her eyes are still wide with shock, but her body already knows what to do, subtly tensing and adjusting for the clash to come. Rita's less invested in protecting her individual tentacles than one might guess; they're far more expendable than an arm or a leg. They swish out of the way of Hiromi's jaws, but can't quite evade the followup of her claws; one is cut through, spilling a bit of red blood from what looked like thin air. As she jukes to the side, her disguise unravels completely in response to show the mutated girl beneath: nearly a dozen more tentacles, some ribbonlike and others as thick as her leg, stop pretending to be clothes and become lethal appendages. If her racing thoughts were put to words, they might sound like: I've seen her bounce back from getting hurt like it's nothing. Just cutting her won't stick. What really drives her is nowhere near that coherent, but her reflexes arrive at the same conclusion. As she leaps to stay out of arm's reach, her tentacles stab simultaneously towards Hiromi from every possible angle, seeking even a pinprick's worth of purchase through her tough skin. On finding it, they begin to siphon her life force in greedy swallows- less dreadful in the messy heat of combat than when she uses it as a calculated coup de grace, but dangerous nonetheless. Getting away from those hungering tentacles is of paramount importance. Hiromi can intuit two things from the feeding, however swiftly she terminates it: first, that there would be no returning from a death like this; second, that the kind of depletion it causes is uniquely obnoxious to heal from. "Stay away from her," Rita says, her voice trembling with adrenaline. "Please."
Sleek Shimmer	Shimmer bursts out from the vents with a great clatter, and thus draws the fire of various forces on her way to rendezvous with Rita. She shifts back to her human form at the first opportunity but then unfortunately takes a nasty set of shots before she can start dodging effectively. One of the bullets punctures her lung and immediately staggers here, coughing up blood and inviting a hailstorm of more bullets. But the latter hailstorm SPANGS off her skin as an earthy brown aura flows from her. Then... With a ripple-SWWOOOOOOF she vanishes, a vague blur at best which appears behind one of the soldiers... and above. "HYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!" Spinning around like a golf club, her feet the club and the soldier's head the ball, she strikes with tremendous force. Ideally, she's intending to send the soldier flying through a formation of others and topple the whole lot at once. But, she might end up sending only a head or torso. Depends on how tough these cyborgs are!
Liza Grier	A hasty, but easily agreed to, tactical outline is hatched over the closed Watch comm circuit. Liza begins her hellbent downward charge and doesn't look back. Down, down, to the outstanding high-security power signatures. Everything these guys want to keep running and everything the Watch wants to destroy. The security knowing the floor plan better and being able to outmaneuver her is fine; it's not as if she's always, or even usually, had detailed maps in advance of every place she hits, even if she prefers them. Her meson sensor suite can find new security easily enough, and in these tight and winding junctions and stairwells, she can dispatch small teams of them all at once. A grenade dropped right behind her as she fakes out a blind corner. A low tackle beneath the gun level of shooters on overwatch followed by cqc finishers. Firing her maneuvering thrusters to get her off the ground and allow her to turn and burst fire at any angle while moving when she changes or passes routes. A laser-activated micro-mine under the stairs here, slapping plastique as she drops down one of those steep maintenance passages there, throwing gas into adjacent rooms as the flanking squads arrive and then shorting the controls to lock them in somewhere else; they're all tricks she knows well, and can easily match each one to their ideal place on the fly. She doesn't have to do it perfectly; she allows herself a time-sensitive 'budget' for taking hits, cycling through her separate layers of slow-recharging and self-repairing protection. Four men die and she doesn't. Three men die and she doesn't. Six men die and she doesn't. But the synthetic blood, though --she can tell by the smell-- causes a rarely familiar kind of tension to knot in her stomach. Did the Concord already . . . ? Hiromi gets a clean ambush on her. It's a rare feat, but there's not a lot Liza can do about 'being cloaked in meters of solid stone from all directions' without even knowing about it. What matters is that she react to the sweep kick with a nearly imperceptible delay --even slightly before Rita tries to warn her--, throwing her weight back so that she slides low and flaring up her e-shield again to block it at a thirty degree angle; most of the force is deflected up and the absorbed energy knocks her over rather than penetrating her insides and throwing her away. The shield overloads and shuts off instantly, because it's been kicked by Hiromi, and her suit's personal energy barrier flicks and pops when Liza's back is slammed into the floor plates, but even then, her body twists out from under the Archwolf's heel, assisted by a split second flare of both shoulder thrusters in staggered order, to send her spinning back to her feet, across the room. Despite involving a lot of technology and seeming very informal and improvised, there's sort of no deceiving Hiromi that every step is anything other than thoughtlessly automatic --the body operating faster than the conscious brain-- not wholly dissimilar to an expert martial artist. A martial artist wouldn't effortlessly palm a fifty-cal handgun from a speed release holster and blast seven shots at Hiromi closing on on Rita, and especially not while bounce-rolling away, but it's spiritually like a kip-up. An eighth and ninth go for the lighting panel, scanned through the walls in meson vision. Pointless, because Hiromi can smell them. "Rita." is all Liza says, the words hanging in the air behind the light trails of green optics in the dark; that ominous glow defeats the entire purpose of darkening the room at all, if she won't shut them off.
Redshift Operators	The gunman's shining green optics flare bright. His movements change. No more getting cover, now it's a combination of Bercilak as cover and his own giant friend as secondary cover, always moving precisely in time with the Green Knight, on a cardiopulmonary battle-drum that leaves him surging on rhythm to flank, sling grenades, and make short-range shots, and brutal weapon-whips, with his SMG and pistol. Tactics are being set aside in favor of a kind of instinct-driven raw bloodlust that combines the muscle-memory of a trained gunman with the frenetic motion of a berserker, the kind of motions one would most often see with combo multipliers and glory-kill prompts. Disorganized security forces are bashed at, grappled, even given ruthless attempted short-range executions. He's going to make his way down the hard way with Bercilak, and find a spot -- he'll figure it out by eye -- to plant that briefcase nuke. Though the engineer will need to be the one to plant it, since the gruff leader has entered a low-level egregorist fury.
Liza Grier	Or it might be the entire point, leading the eye away from where she'd thrown the last handful of canisters. Smelling of little more than aluminium and water, the sound of Rita's many swishing tentacles easily eclipsing their aerial tumble, seeing them would be the only way to actually know that the entire area is about to be blasted across every inch of wall and floor. First, with a thick foamy haze of instantly hardening resin, coating every surface in inches of dull red, and a split second later, much, much more blueish-clear gel, dispersed as a fine, but very thickly pressurized mist. The combined effect is to block off the unworked rock from touch-effect, and then functionally render the entire area essentially frictionless, making it impossible to get a foot or claw hold much of anywhere. She even hacks the bulkheads shut; even smashing them will be a pain if the slightest off-angled fist slides to the side; Hiromi herself gets sprayed too, of course. This isn't too much of a problem for Liza herself, having the EVA equipment to anchor her feet anyways. It is strictly advantageous to Rita, who is now ankle deep in zero friction/massive surface tension space-fluid. Liza isn't trying to engage Hiromi head on just yet, but actually allowing Rita to draw whatever heat she can. Once she's set everything up, an ominous red glow envelops her, and she blips out of existence, brute forcing a linear teleport to the floor below rather than going through her ship relay. A scatter of small, hard objects jingles to the floor behind her; probably all those spent telecrystals.
Hiromi	The power sources down here are particularly difficult to discern to Shimmer's senses. Several others can point to 'down' as the correct general path, which is about as much as she can make out. These people don't seem to develop their qi at all. Rather, they don't have any, practically speaking. Where even a child on some other world would have undeveloped points of power at specific points along the spine, all the people she's seen here have replaced their spines, and there is no such potential in the hard steel they've used. A utility shaft takes some work to find, but less so with the help of anyone who's hacked a map, and getting down in fox form is fairly easy. This skips a lot of armed resistance. Bercilak's axe does find its mark, in that moment before Hiromi disappears through the floor. It holds her long enough, axe to mountain-hard shin, for her to growl things that aren't words, but that are close enough. These creatures can't test you. You'd hear a challenge for its own sake, but others need motivation. It is likewise long enough for Red Dwarf to fire and hit, but rather than any counterattack, there is only a moment in which Hiromi's eyes snap to look at him, and she's gone.
Rubi-Kan Vagrants	The Operators receive unobtrusive AR messages advising the installation of a 'virtual NCU,' traceable to the Green Knight. It's followed by some... very fanciful program names. Bercilak executes friendly nanoprogram Barrier of the Righteous... Bercilak executes friendly nanoprogram Imminence of Bloodshed... Every operator that remains within sight of the Green Knight finds that a protective, golden barrier dims the impact of incoming attacks. Better still, their own reflexes, reaction times and combat focus seem to improve, as well. White Dwarf gets one that's apparently more directly aimed at her. Something called 'Finality's Edge,' which seems to optimize the accuracy of two-handed strikes she makes. Using the blade of the axe as an enormous target shield for the operatives not possessed of his or Red Giant's absurd fortitude, Bercilak offers an explanation to the outfit's leader. "She imenes not to assist this, but to fraist us," says Bercilak to Red Dwarf. "Forthy shalt I yeve her what she lest, durst she to ayen-come hither." Despite the circumstances, he can't keep a hopeful tone from his voice.
Hiromi	Liza's plan goes off, with one snag. That doesn't prevent her from escaping to the next level down. Only a few of these areas are consistent in their distancing, which makes teleporting through walls more dangerous than usual, but the only trouble she runs into is more of what she's used to: People with guns trying to kill her. Moving outside of the areas she's already hit with cyberwarfare does immediately put her back into greater danger, but that's compared to the upper, semi-cleared levels, not to 'in a room with Hiromi.' In that room, Rita tries to siphon power out of Hiromi. Getting through her skin is the first hurdle, but not insurmountable, if one applies sufficient effort. One can just make it past, though the fibers of muscle, and find her blood, to feed. And another, and another. It works. Like siphoning water from a well, full to the surface, and extending to the center of the Earth. "I understand," Hiromi says, in the darkness, standing as still as she'd been when Liza had left. Leaning forward, muscles drawn taut, the space used to prick her disappears, every tentacle cleanly cut by what had been relaxed, moments ago. Another moment to find purchase is there, but her claws are ready. "You... lack the right, to keep me from her. Or, will you prove this? Your authority." Stone erupts from her feet, from the only place the foam hadn't reached. It flows, rolling across the room, crashing, solid waves, leaving nothing recognizable from what had been there, battering and breaking entranceways, undulating to leave still-lightless air. "Or is yours only stolen?" The stone is no issue for Hiromi, nor is the dark, and anything that touches earth, she knows its location, no matter how quietly it moves, even should the smell be masked. She strides forward, in the middle of the stormy stone sea, reaching for Rita, grasping, to take her by the limb, first, perhaps, but ready to pull apart anything that comes her way until she can reach her target's neck, pull, and throw her into that false sea. But that's all the time she spares for it, before she's away again. The Redshift Operators and Bercilak make their way down. Shimmer's plan goes off just as intended, and though she's somewhat blocked off from reaching Rita at the moment, that's a temporary issue. Rather, this is where Hiromi reappears, this time kicking out a prefab wall behind Neutron, taking the best angle from which to strike everyone except Bercilak himself, moving from point to point in deliberate motions that appear quick for the way the force of each blow stirs clouds of debris by its passage. Even a near-miss remains dangerous, if not nearly equal. Stomping strikes, sweeps of her leg, and finally, for Sleek Shimmer, a low run into a lariat that turns into, if not avoided, a lock, spin, and throw straight down a hallway with active security forces still firing up its length.
Redshift Operators	Hiromi goes for the Redshift Operators. The first one to take down is Neutron, maybe the least aware. But she might notice something in battle-instinct: a phantom of White Dwarf, whose precognition has monitored her ally. That's why the real one tries to ambush with a leaping strike, blade-first, a frantic effort to save her ally. It doesnn't go well. The blow that sweeps slams her and all her phantom-future-selves into a far wall with a cry of pain. The next is Red Giant, whose eyes go wide. The battered, bruised man stands tall, trying to muster the energy needed to protect his friend. No. He's too wounded and exhausted, hit hard and then stomped harder, cracks spiderwebbing around his Elite Syndicate Commando armor. That leaves Red Dwarf, running towards Neutron to help. In his frenzy, he catches one of those hits on an elbow, with a wet crack that sounds like a brutal fracture. His rhythmic breathing jolts, but keeps pace. "I'm gonna stuff an extra-large pet-cemetary coffin with you, you egregore-feeding bitch." With that blocking arm, he desperately slams the briefcase nuke's big red button, willingly taking the shot to start the bomb's timer. He's slammed back near White Dwarf, the medic, who's just barely recovering. She slams a stimulant into his side, and with ragged breaths, calls out, "Run. Run! We need to run!" Here's hoping nothing gets in the way of that desperate retreat.
Rita Ma	"Thanks, Ms. Grier," Rita says quietly. There's something like relief in her voice. Throwing herself on the grenade for a friend- yes. This feels right. Liza has her gratitude for not arguing about it. For a moment, Rita stays dark, but it swiftly becomes obvious that that won't impair Hiromi, and she relaxes into soft luminescence. One glowing blue eye with a cross-shaped pupil is highlighted in the dark; her tentacles are likewise faintly lit from witin by motes of stolen life-energy. Stone rushes outwards, and she leaps back from it. Liza's space-liquid is being swept away; a shame, since Rita's so agile on it. In its place, freezing seawater erupts from the air near Rita like an invisible dam breaking, rapidly filling the (again, thanks to Liza) now-sealed cavern up. "'Stolen'," she repeats, already knee-deep. She doesn't sound defiant. "Maybe. Ms. Hisako said you called it 'wrong-growing', once." "There's something wrong with me. I'm not proud of it. But it's enough, for this." Hiromi tries to close in, but Rita stays evasive; her tentacles now are acid-oozing, leaving smoking corrosive venom behind in their cuts that proves similarly difficult to heal. When the water reaches chest-deep, she starts to swim in it, no longer in contact with the stone Hiromi sees through; that multiplies her agility tremendously, as if she were better adapted to sea than land. For speed and grace, her skill in the water surpasses superlative fliers in the sky. Each time Hiromi grasps for her, she swerves away and retaliates with her regeneration-slowing tentacles, seemingly trying to play a long game. It's not a game that is in Hiromi's favor, certainly. But eventually, in the dark and confusion of the subterranean lake, the Archwolf does manage to grasp an arm. She follows it to seize a torso, and then a neck. But it is not Rita's neck. When her fingers tense around it, they find no bones inside. Her decoy tentacles overflow with acid and explode in Hiromi's grasp, covering her in yet more of that horrible burning substance. When Hiromi does leave the cavern, Rita yells after her in frustration: "Come back! I wasn't finished being brave! Don't just go around me!!" Liza can teleport. As of just recently, Rita can too: with a crackle of red-black energy, she disappears from the sealed cavern and materializes next to Liza, unharmed but still unraveled and soaking wet. "She got away," Rita groans after spitting out a lungful of water. "But... thanks again, Ms. Grier. For trusting me. Are you still okay?"
Sleek Shimmer	Everything was going so well so far, though not quite to Sleek Shimmer's satisfaction. She had come to face the wolf, not these goons. Stopping the bioweapon is important, but it's not where her interests lie. But, in the midsts of the chaos, she gets her wish. The Wolf appears and comes for her. And Hiromi's quick. Shimmer turns to face the onrushing beast but staggers and hesitates, her spirit suppressed by those most primal of feelings. And, just like that, she's hooked by pure violent force and skill, spun about, and turned into a humanoid meteorite. She sails through the air, pelted by bullets. She slams into the wall. THROUGH the wall. Even though the wall is metal, it buckles and shears, shattering. And even then, she's forced through sand and rock. Surely she's been pulverized to gibbets by all that force. It's unthinkable that anyone could survive that. The dust settles. There's no movement from the tunnel. And yet. The fox's voice is heard by everyone, everywhere at once - or rather, from within? Rather than the ears, it arrives via the spirit. <Huntress Wolf. This fox has felt your Might. Rattling through her every bone and scrap of flesh.> Space warps and twists in Hiromi's path, a good distance before her. There, Shimmer appears from a ripple, a bloody sight. Both her arms hang limply, bones shattered. Doubtless a few ribs are similarly broken, and she's favoring one leg. How can she possibly expect to fight like this? WHY would she possibly decide to fight like this? <Now know mine! Win or lose, this ASCENDANT will sharpen her claws and fangs on you and leave a mark!> There's no hint of malice. No intent to kill, as such. Instead... Raw power bubbles up from the fox girl's navel and spreads outwards to engulf her. White, at first, but soon, it fills in with a spiral of green, light brown, blood red, and finally... a serene, cool blue. The colors mend and bloom seamlessly together and the uprushing aura lifts the young woman straight off the floor to hover. A few moments later and her body flashes with another display of power from within. The blood boils away and her flesh remolds. And, lastly, a fourth tail emerges to join the other three, bringing with it a pulse of even greater spiritual pressure than before. The very next moment, a sonic boom echoes through the halls, and Sleek Shimmer is upon the Wolf. A blur of hundreds of swift blows from a dozen directions, far too fast for the naked eye to discern where she actually is from where she's been. But through it all, the girl's skin bubbles oddly, the raw energies coursing through her are no doubt too much for her flesh to bear for long.
Liza Grier	"Oh no. Nice try, but you're not getting me a second time." Liza is right back into the firestorm, but it's one she's survived and been through already. She has the enemy cyborgs' number dialed in. The instant her boots hit the ground on the level below, she's already swapped to her backup e-shield and replaced the c20r with an L6 machine gun, and crouching low under the initial hail of fire. Hunkering behind the fresh shield, bracing the heavy weapon through its firing notch, activating minimal paramagnetic repulsion from her boots, and then firing EVA thrusters on alternate sides of her suit, Liza engages in a continuous strafing action roll that deflects bullets from the front while carving through readied soldiers with a tremendous roar of heavy anti-armour automatic fire, reducing incurred damage to a pittance in exchange for a pile of bodies. Once she's cleared that room, Liza rushes over to the power conduit, tearing away paneling, or even carving through rock walls with an energy blade if she has to, in order to access the main feed that routes to those areas of massive power consumption. Once she has the right feeds, she pulls something of a very old trick; breaking one half open, exposing the live conduit, and then jamming in exactly the piece of shit that'll complete the circuit again in the worst possible way. Now just to get to the bomb squad. Which Hiromi is attacking. "Red. Telem. Now." Liza can't chase down Hiromi again just like that, and she doesn't have a beacon set up in a room she hasn't been to yet, but she can access the Redshift Squad's tactical telemetry, quadrangulate between them, and warp herself right next to them, with a couple of meters of space based on intuition. In the mere moments prior, Liza tosses the half-full L6, draws her hard-blade again, and quickly blasts it up and down with clear spray. Then, whilst Hiromi is engaged in her close combat assault, a burst of red light announces the surprise intruder mere instants before more red betrays the ignition of her energy sword. It seems pretty fucking stupid for Liza to approach Hiromi in close combat. She doesn't even have her shield equipped, instead holding a sword of hard-edged ruby red energy in one hand, and a matte black military-industrial twin of space age metal in the other. Surely there's a method to the madness, though. For one, both blades are completely different prospects to defend against, given the different ways they work, and for two, Liza seems to actively target cuts made by the energy blade with the physical blade and the wounds made by Rita with the converse. Furthermore, it only takes the first couple of blows to realize that the nuclear operative, chronic gun-shooter, not only knows what she's doing with a sword, but is deceptively superhumanly strong and fast for no conceivable reason. "C'mon, bitch. You came here to fight me, right? I don't really care why, but getting in my way is the same as enabling them. So, no problem, you can get some too!" If nothing else, Liza sticking to Hiromi like glue and carving away at her is probably a good cover escape for the Redshifts.
Rubi-Kan Vagrants	The sound of the impact is what draws Bercilak's attention. Even as quickly as he's upon her, the Green Knight can't intercede in time to keep Neutron on his feet. While his nanites will heal to their ability, it won't be enough, and there's no time to make a covenant. The Redshifts retreat. Bercilak won't. "Ileve the devyse." The heel of the axe catches the suitcase bomb by the handle; a deft movement of Bercilak's arm flings it towards him. Tucking it under the opposite arm, he rockets forward, all thrusters firing, and shoulder-checks the Archwolf with enough force to dent that massive harness of his beyond its immediate ability to reshape. That attack made, he doesn't wait for a reprisal. He has an obligation, and he'll see it through. Bercilak is like a freight train, once he's gotten some momentum in. Even with all the red stains on his armor, he's still charging forward at a near sprint. Even as checkpoint after checkpoint burns more holes into the fabric between his plates, his axe, wielded one-handed, finds its mark. Cavern walls, equipment and prefab construction alike are painted generously with that fake blood of theirs. Rita isn't here--so he isn't being gentle. The haft is driven with inhuman force into exposed joints. The blade is used without hesitation, seeking limbs and heads freely. The beard doesn't so much trap as it does mulch, with the force that Bercilak applies. Hiromi at least agrees that there is no good reason this weapon should exist--but she has been adamant about -this- being the trail. "So be hit." As he passes the last checkpoint before the objective, dense clusters of thick vines carpet the floor, bidden by his axe. But their purpose isn't to trip up--indeed, their surface is perfectly safe to walk upon. It's even flat enough for Bercilak to lay the bomb down and begin the startup sequence--with some help from the retreating Redshifts over the radio. The vines also envelop walls, and even the ceiling, until the whole chamber is covered. The vines are easy enough for Hiromi to break through. Trivial, really, but that isn't the point. Each vine is so tense and thick that breaking through would make a noise as several snapped in quick succession. Moreover, he's barricaded the entrances with rows of trees, so that only he, the Archwolf, or otherwise someone with immense patience or strength might get in to interrupt. If she thinks to do this, he is swift and decisive in his counterattack, making full use of his weapon's absurd reach to harass her at her point of entry, hips, legs and shoulders working in tandem with the placement of his hand along the weapon to cover a wide range of angles. "HARK!" He bellows. "If I must gather mineself togeder o'er dais, binethe al the chargeous rokke and berned flesh this devyse shalt cause, thou shalt not forestal the quelling of this ivel!"
Hiromi	Bercilak, on the way down, gets to notice something that was less clear with greater distractions, and unnoticeable to those who habitually maul or shoot obstacles in the face. Whatever destruction he causes to the bodies of the men and women standing in his way, however many limbs or trunks have their steel armor and skeletons shattered, these opponents don't die. They don't appear to feel much pain, either, but a lack of lungs doesn't stop one of them from breaking his silence to curse the knight, and his relationship with his mother, in passing. That tenacity doesn't make them that much greater obstacles to his progress, especially with the vines he grows. They lack the appropriate weapons for taking down foliage, whether fire or saws, and he can grow a field, once he's put himself into the room he wishes, at greater speed than they can get into it. There is the problem of the totally unarmed and unarmored researchers in the highly secure room he broke into, but there's not much they can do about it but gawk, either. Up above, there's still a faint sense that Hiromi is eerily watching the Redshift Operators, but she does absolutely nothing to hinder their retreat. With Liza's appearance, she hadn't even thought to hassle Bercilak running off with the bomb, though she had refused to move when shoulder-checked, the blow bouncing off her wounded, but still healing body. Slowly. More slowly than it had been, but she's shown that to be a conscious effort as much as an automatic one, before. "Wrong-growing. Are you?" Still, it's Rita she addresses first. "'Something wrong.' Is there? Something strange, yes. Unusual. Interesting. But, less important, than 'being brave.' You wish for more. To climb further, for her. I understand. Come, I'll let you try." Not that it's actually possible to ignore Liza's presence. From the very first moment, she doesn't leave Hiromi's sight, one ear keeps twitching in her direction when she takes a step, and the Archwolf busies herself with taking both blades, though she shows, at the same time, that there's little she can't force to turn aside by striking it with even a single claw. Her footwork is even more dangerous, like this. Only for brief moments does she lose contact with stone, and whenever she is touching it, it can rise in spikes and shelves to cut or push, in time with her return strikes. "But you, something not placed. A different interest. Training? Instinct? Power from old places? New ones?" She laughs silently, while Liza's swords cut against muscles that are far harder than any living thing should possess. "How much can you show? Will you?" The hiss through a predator's hungry smile speaks to something, but this time it isn't put into understandable not-words. Alas, she just can't go and assault Bercilak while with these two. Between tentacles and blades, and -- Oh, not two. Three. Sleek Shimmer's reappearance was least expected, but Hiromi braces with a power stomp to raise earth around her, focusing in the directions from which she can be struck, extending her hands, and meeting that speed with just slight movements to avoid what one could assume would be 'vital' blows, ignoring the great majority, even as they tear at her. She doesn't say anything until after that long round of being beating back against the wall, after which, she says, "Ah. Stronger than I'd thought. Good."
Hiromi	It's a counterblow without windup. A back and forth motion of one arm that cheats what should be possible, using sheer power to overcome all obstacles, including the problem of having not already been in position to strike. Forcefully, her position is corrected to that of one ready to attack, and in the same moment, twice the force reverses her motion, and her fist comes for Sleek Shimmer. Immediately after, she takes circling steps, seeming by her gait to move slowly, but each step is a flash forward and thunderous crack of earth as it breaks her advance. "I'll show--" she's saying, but the words are too slow. She's already on Liza, her circle carried into a spin with her elbow, then her opposite heel swung low, then a height-advantaged (purely for her towering stature) elbow drop, every blow aimed, in mercilessly effective fashion, for a joint. "--a few things I've seen." They could have been martial arts, but that isn't really right. They were merely natural motions, of which any human body should be capable, in theory. It had to be intuition, not trained precision. No attack comes for Rita, immediately, but only because Hiromi trusts Rita will come for Liza. It'll only be harder if she approaches, and easier to avoid the betrayal of the stone beneath her, if she doesn't. It drops away, then snaps back, crumbling into so much debris in the process, as Hiromi steps in, at once losing her humanoid form, taking to four legs, enormous and terrible and still strangely beautiful, until her jaws open. She needs only to grab 'something,' to give it a bone-breaking shake. But if all that's still done and opposition remains, there's nothing she can do to stop the nuke from going off. Probably.
Sleek Shimmer	There's something freakish about the onslaught of blows Shimmer's onleashing. Her movements are too eerie, flowing around the wolf like a whirlpool, not a scrap of motion or momentum wasted. Hurricane winds propel this motion and each blow not only contains the force of a rockfall but strikes with uncanny timing and precision. As if every movement of the great wolf could be felt, predicted, and expertly countered with a resonant blow that turns that movement back against her. Well... almost predicted. As it turns out, Hiromi has some strange surprises up her sleeve. Shimmer can't quite detect just how or why the tables turn at the last moment of her onslaught. One moment she's pummeling her target and the next... JUST WHERE DID THAT FIST COME FROM!? "Huuuuuuuagh----" It catches her straight in the gut at the worst possible time. She spits out a mouthful of blood and, once again, goes flying into and through a wall, crashing through to a different chamber entirely. This time, there's no resurgence. No noise. Nothing. In that chamber there's just a thoroughly bloodied fox with a few broken legs, several missing teeth, wheezing and struggling to breathe. With a weak cry, she reaches out with a paw... and thin lightning sparks and arcs out from a power socket in the wall into her paw. She's absorbing the energy and using it to mend the worst of her physical injuries, and maybe build up enough power to teleport away if possible... Though, that will only work if nobody bothers her for a minute or two.
Rubi-Kan Vagrants	The Green Knight has suffered much to get to this point. Still standing, he turns his head to level a cold, expressionless stare towards the scientists. "Let ani-man who lest to atscape, to lif, stond anau bifore me. Sware nau that thou shalt bitell, iwide, what behapped unto this place, and whi. Sware that thou shalt expend thy ilerning, thy craft, forevermo quelling ivels as thou invented hither." He turns fully to face them, vines squeaking, choked beneath his plated mass. "Do this, and thou may ileve with no ferdnesse of the wepens of mortalhed, for the remaindre of thy dais. Deni me, and hither shalt thou die. Ithinke ani of thee to frauden me..." His voice darkens. "I shalt knoue. I shalt knoue, I shalt ifind thee, and thanne shalt thou -trueli- hath reson to flinch from mine axe." In short, the offered deal is thus: to give up their line of work and put their talents to use in service against it. In exchange, they are offered immediate salvation here, and later, immortality and healing factors that shield them from direct, violent reprisals should their former employers seek to tie things up simply. Any further help, he won't offer. He leaves little time for debate or decision making. On his time, he turns and simply starts pounding his way up, hewing fissures into cavern walls to make his own alternative path. He doesn't bother with the vine coating here, but he does stop, with extreme force, any scientists that turned down his offer, from trying to sneak past. Hiromi could intercept him here without setting off any kind of intrusion detection method. He'll deal with that, if it becomes an issue--but his mind has already shifted focus to another, self-imposed obligation.
Hiromi	There's no noteworthy response to Bercilak until someone starts running his speech through several learning AIs and confers with his fellows on a best-guess interpretation. Then someone says something, someone else yells, "You can't just quit! You're on contract!" Blows are exchanged. Harsh words about petty past wrongs left simmering are concisely, but cathartically delivered. A few tell him, "Got it." "Deal." Most of them nod in agreement. The rest are in disbelieving shock.
Liza Grier	Liza's plan is even more confusing, when she continues her exact same approach even after Hiromi demonstrates herself to be obviously the superior close quarters combatant. Though Grier is exponentially more to handle than anyone who's pointed a gun at Hiromi thusfar, even 'out of her element' like this, there's no way she's actually going to win like this. The thin, disintegrating cuts the energy blade makes can be healed too quickly, and the harder cuts from the physical blade can't even reach bone. All she's doing is shedding blood, and paying for all of it. "Why is it so difficult for you to figure it out? This is the only rational thing to do. How is it so confusing to you? Or is it just because I'm the only normal one here? A human being whose brain is working as intended." Liza pays for it dearly. Hiromi's counterassault redoubles, and she is no longer able to hold it back. She ducks the elbow strike so narrowly that it instantly catches and obliterates her just recently recharged energy shield, only the balance and kinesthetic control of a former EVA technician to roll with it and stay upright. The low heel cracks the armour of her hardsuit and tears the plating free around the calf, a sudden explosive release of all its remaining thruster fuel as an emergency measure being all that allows Liza to escape with two working legs. The elbow drop comes from above, and Liza ducks to block it with her blades; the energy sword does nothing to stop its force or dissuade the attacker, and the physical blade snaps in half and lodges. The elbow glances from Liza's helmet, shattering her optics on the left side, and crashes at an off-angle on her chest plate, audibly breaking bone. Liza should rightly collapse on the spot. Even with the luck of an Elite, it wouldn't be a surprise if she were in the realm of intracranial hemorrhaghing and pneumothorax. Instead, she teleports just on the spot, reappears barely ten meters back at ceiling level, and flares all of her thrusters and gravity gear, bleeding off part of the attack's crushing momentum as a harsh 'fall' before hitting and rolling off the ground. Staggering back upright, she grabs her broken helmet and tears it off, showing her pale face and blood-streaked white hair to Hiromi. On close inspection, the trickling blood around her eyes isn't actually splatter, but inexplicable crimson tracks. On even closer inspection, despite the scent of blood, Liza isn't bleeding anywhere. She shows no signs that any bones are broken at all, even though Hiromi clearly felt it, as she examines, then tosses aside the broken blade hilt. She doesn't appear bothered by the destruction of her weapon. Even without the menacing voice synth, somehow her tone hasn't changed at all. "You feel it, right? Viral anticoagulant. Mine. Sorry, but I never made a cure. Don't need it. You're tough, so you'll probably survive until it can't divide anymore. But thank you for bleeding anyways."
Liza Grier	Liza's eyes shine with a distinctly unnatural inner light, like a cat's reflecting in the dark. The blood amply spattered around the arena, mainly that casually shed from Hiromi's endlessly regenerating wounds, accelerates to her from every red-slicked surface, extruding into innumerable finger-thin spikes with a single-celled tip and a hardness and integrity of Liza's force of will. Individually they're little more than a painful impediment, but altogether it wouldn't be all to difficult to sever her every ligament and pin her every joint, nailing her to herself where she stands. Defending against the bulk of them wouldn't normally be all that complicated, but it's the blood still in Hiromi's wounds that betrays her. It hardens into liquid steel, binding to her bones and stitching itself into her muscles, tearing and piercing as it goes. Hiromi is much, much too strong to hold like that indefinitely, and she could easily regenerate from the grievous damage she'd inflict to herself tearing free of it. It's the tactical combination of both at once that makes it so difficult to deal with. "Any wolf can hunt with its own pack. A real one can secure the kill with anyone. Right?" Liza must have been planning to do this since before she even asked for coordinates. Liza flares her psychic power as hard as it takes to keep Hiromi locked down, for as long as she needs to allow Rita --specifically-- to attack, and the bomb timer to be too short for Hiromi to reach by Liza's veteran mental calculations. No further. She's not eager to brain damage herself like this; that would run counter to her apparently well-earned reputation. The instant she can release the control, she ejects most of her remaining thruster fuel to rocket dash over to Rita, tackle her in both arms, and teleport the both of them out to her outdoor recall beacon, disappearing in a burst of red light and a handful of dark, cracked telecrystals, jingling to the floor like spent brass.
Redshift Operators	The Redshifts, for their own part, have dived into their jeep near the entrance. The big guy is groaning in the back, horribly wounded, while the medic desperately focuses on helping him, assisting the healing that they were endowed with. The driver staggers into the front, ignoring several bleeding wounds, but with Bercilak's help, they can live and drive. The gruff leader has shotgun, and slams a finger on the radio module of his hardsuit. "Heard the bomb's set, get out! Don't play deadly games or you're gonna win deadly prizes! We're gone soon, you all better be too!" The payload on that thing isn't massive, but it's enough that it's much wiser to get distance.
Rita Ma	The fight's been very kind to Rita so far, but she still looks awful. She's soaked, bedraggled, shivery from adrenaline and from the cold. Just as she's starting to maybe wind down, Hiromi turns out to be 'already here', too, and she's forced to jolt back to attention. Keeping all her appendages out can be a risk, she's learned, so Rita re-weaves her human disguise in a lull. "Climbing...? Ah. It doesn't feel like it," she says. Despite the circumstances, the subject brings out something earnest and melancholy in her. "I don't want to get worse. But this is enough already. I'll--" She's shocked out of her ruminations by Liza dashing in. Again, there's her sense of alarm, that futile grasping-hand gesture: "Ms. Grier! Please-" The sight of an imposing superhuman white-haired woman hacking away at a monster with dual swords briefly reboots her brain, and somewhere in that process, she remembers that Liza is capable of taking care of herself. "-be careful!" Initially it seems like she might hang back on the periphery; her tentacles have a long enough reach that she can try to range Hiromi out with her agility and rack up more of that healing-resistant damage. It's a solid plan, but she can't possibly stick to it. Rita is trying to be brave. Rita is significantly too brave for her own good. When the Archwolf's thundering counterattack on Liza begins, she dashes in to intercede. Her reflexes are marvelously calibrated against anything she thinks is a threat. She doesn't think the ground is a threat. Her loss. It drops out beneath her, and she trips forward; it surges back up, and her leg is pinned by heavy rocks. She tries to flinch out of the way, but the wolf's jaws close around her arm- And then she simply isn't there. She reappears with a crackle of energy twenty feet away, by Hiromi's side. "Sorry, Ms. Hiromi," she pants softly. "That's not the way this goes." She makes eye contact with Liza as she unravels one more time. Words don't need to be said. Her expression conveys tired accomplishment, and rueful acknowledgement, and the tentative and anxious joy of being known. This time there's no worming out of it. This time there's no grazing hits. Rita's feeding tentacles stab into Hiromi's open wounds to bypass her tough hide; they don't harvest blood, but something ethereal and decidedly more finite in greedy pulses of glowing blue. Something of which there is a limited supply is ticking, at whatever rate, towards zero, and terrible things will happen if that countdown ends. But the nuke's countdown is going to end first. Whenever Rita had planned to pull away, Liza cuts it short by making that decision for her. Despite how how glassy and almost invertebrate she'd looked a split second earlier, the rescue tackle knocks a girly "Ah-!" out of her. "Ms. Grier-" But then they're gone.
Hiromi	Most of the scientists in that room follow Bercilak back out. They'll be in trouble, later, but this world has more than a few Watch cells. Local expertise can cover for a lot, if he chooses to leverage it, in terms of getting them off the grid. Otherwise, he'll definitely need to go in and wreck a lot of things to cover for them, himself, within a few weeks. No one still in the area can be expected to survive, when the bomb goes off, with the possible exception of Hiromi. 'But this is enough already.' 'Sorry, Ms. Hiromi. That's not the way this goes.' The Archwolf is stabbed in her open wounds, the viral agent and toxins slowing her constant regeneration, preventing her from immediately closing them off. But those wounds are still too shallow, her muscles still too strong, even with the skin stripped away. All of her, down to the bone, and even below that, is strong. There's plenty of that undefined essence for Rita to gorge herself on. There are still reserves below the physical form, yet untapped. The time before the bomb goes off isn't nearly enough. It's not enough. A low sound in response. Liza's calculations have more wiggle room than would be expected, thanks to Bercilak. Even if she's underestimating how quickly Hiromi could tear her way down to the bomb, the barrier of vines would slow her down. And Hiromi knows they're there, because she can sense where they touch stone, even if she's only guessing that the bomb was planted in the hardest to reach place in research complex. She does guess that, because she trusts Bercilak to be that straightforward in hsi challenge to her. It's unfortunate, then, that she doesn't have time to pick it up. That's the 'win.' A trial passed. Apologize when you've done wrong, not before. Liza's out before she gets a response, so she doesn't get to see what happens, either. There had to be enough for the jeep to get fully clear.