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Operator	1931 HOURS ABOVE THE BEAUFORT SEA The chill of the Arctic Circle bites through the helicopter's exterior, fogging the breath of the occupants as flurries of snow and hail batter the windows. It's absolutely not flying weather, but the situation demands the risk, and the pilot at the controls seems skilled enough to handle the strong winds.     "We're five minutes out!" he announces through the headsets provided to everyone. Sitting in the back with you all are two people. One is an old, weathered man with white hair and beard, currently bundled in multiple thick layers of clothes, the outermost jacker being black with white fur collar, bearing the BSAA logo on the shoulders. The layers do nothing to hide his wiry, strong build however. Despite his age, this is a man who can fight. Beside his chair is a large silver briefcase. "Damnation, this ain't no place for a bayou boy," he grouses in a Louisiana twang, rubbing his own shoulders to fight the chill.     The other figure is silent, and even more covered than the first. Jet black military fatigues obscure their entire form, their chest covered in a stabproof vest, and nearly every inch of them covered in some kind of pouch, holster, or bag. They wear a black military helmet on their head, and their face is covered with a gas mask, the red lenses concealing their eyes and glinting in the dim light. Their wrists and ankles are cuffed together, and those chains are chained together again.     "So, what's y'all's story? Since this one ain't much for conversation," the bearded man addresses you all. You know him as Joe Baker, and he's your primary charge for this mission. The briefing was rushed, but you get the gist; he got caught up in a biohazardous outbreak that claimed his whole family save for his niece. She was exposed to the outbreak long-term and exhibited unique symptoms from it, so she was transported to a laboratory for examination and treatment.     However, communications with the lab have fallen silent, and the network indicates that its nuclear core has been rising in temperature. Joe kicked up a fuss, and so Elite help was called in to help him find his niece and prevent a meltdown. The BSAA is stretched thin and cannot provide more assistance, so they sought an expert from an unlikely place.     The silent figure in black was once a member of the security force of a notorious conglomeration who kickstarted the bioterror threat this world constantly faces. They were arrested and imprisoned, but seized records from the company indicated their impressive track record. The sole survivor of multiple botched operations, carving their way through hordes of infected with surgical precision.     In your briefing, you were told that they will answer to HUNK. They are being sent in with you as an anti-bioweapon expert. Their neck is fitted with a bomb collar to ensure their compliance, and Joe holds the detonator.
Operator	"I have a visual on the island!" The pilot reports. Through the window, through the frosted air, the lights of a landing pad can be seen glinting against white and grey. Beneath this remote island, a mere spit of rock in the sea, is the Dewfrost Laboratory for Bioterror Investigation. An out-of-the-way location where seized samples of viral agents, dangerous parasites, and living bioweapons are put away. The frigid air and isolated region limit the threat of a renewed outbreak on the mainland at least, but the conditions of the interior cannot be verified. It is for that reason you have all been instructed to prepare to fight against infected staff, if necessary. But first, you need to figure out where the lab entrance is. It's difficult to see at first, until a large bulkhead built into a hill is highlighted by the helicoptor's spotlight. Beyond that, the only structures that would imply the island is inhabited is a closed dock on the water's edge.     "Bogeys on the landing pad. I'll clean up for you!" Indeed, humanoid figures can be seen shuffling around as you get close. The mounted gun spins up before spitting hails of lead that cut them into pieces. "My God..." Joe murmurs, a look of distaste on his face. HUNK is still silent, but quickly rises the moment the landing gears touch tarmac.     As you all disembark, the pilot gets out and unlocks HUNK's cuffs. "Remember! You don't get back on my chopper unless he's with you!" he shouts while gesturing at Joe. "And these people can handle you, so don't get any funny ideas." HUNK looks to the pilot and simply asks, "My LE 5." With a scoff, the pilot shoves the request firearm into their hands, which smoothly check the safety before pulling the magazine out to check its contents. Upon ensuring it all appears in order, they check the area before running to the massive bulkhead, continually checking as they go. "Jumpy ain't he?" Joe comments as he picks up that briefcase. The pilot gets back in the copter before shouting over the rotors. "You've got about 6 hours before the reactor is critical! Try to be back up here in 5!"     The bulkhead is already open, leading to a large funicular that descends deep into the island. The platform is up here, its surface covered in spilled blood. "That explains the BOWs on the surface," HUNK comments, their voice clipped, brusque, and lacking any national markers or accents. "Staff tried to escape, but they were already infected." They cross over to the controls, and direct the platform to start descending.     "So there's an outbreak down there? Ain't these folks supposed to be the pros about this thing?" Joe grumbles as he sets down that case and opens it. "Places like this are punishment detail," HUNK replies, actually engaging in a conversation for the first time. "Same was true in Umbrella. No one ever volunteers, so people are forced to staff them. Either that or be fired. Issues arise because everyone on staff did something negligent or corrupt to deserve being there."     Within that case is a gauntlet straight out of science fiction. It wholly encases each finger and has a blue light on the back of the palm. Straps and clamps would attach to the forearm all the way up to the elbow. Joe begins strapping it on with the air of someone whose done it before. "Exoskeleton," HUNK says, a comment more than a question. "Those were in development when I was caught." "Yup. Found one of these doohickeys back when I first rescued Zoe. Came in mighty handy, so I figured I should get one for this." The glove hums to life, and a female voice issues from its speakers, saying "Ready for use."
Operator	The funicular comes to a stop in a vast warehouse-slash-entrance hall. All the supplies would be stored and opened here before dissemination into the rest of the laboratory if the spilled boxes of medical supplies and MREs are anything to go by. No biohazard containers are tipped thankfully, so it's still safe to breath air. But workers clad in torn, bloodied hi-vis vests mill about, unfocused eyes turning on the group.     "T-Virus infected," HUNK assesses immediately. "Their higher functions have shut down, and there's no cure once they're at this stage. Think of them as avatars for the virus and nothing more. They only know how to grab, bludgeon, and bite. They can overwhelm, but have no group tactics to speak of. Most major weakpoints on the human body will still work, but destruction of the brain or spinal column is required to put them down for certain. Let's see what you all can do."
Hellwarming Trio	Even though flying is just a Thing that they could normally do in better weather, the yokai from Former Hell still find themselves fascinated at flying through the snow in that helicopter. Utsuho and Satori are busy staring out the window, breathing it on it to fog it up a bit more while Rin busies herself with staring at the silent figure. "We're from Hell! I handle the furnace down there, so getting a reactor under control's gonna be like eating candy from a baby." "He's not? Huh. But he looks pretty cool in all those binding and sealing... Things. Is he really gonna be able to fight like that?" "Don't underestimate him, Rin. He's..." Satori doesn't finish that sentence, instead just staring right at/through HUNK. She probes around in their head a bit, mostly to try and get a surface read of what they're feeling about all of these people suddenly showing up for this job. She also stares at the firearm the pilot hands over to them, looking just a bit more interested for some reason even as Utsuho and Rin move to flank her when it's time to move. Naturally, they get distracted staring at Joe's freaky gauntlet. They crowd around him briefly until Satori remembers to stop staring at HUNK's gun and pulls them back. Clearly, the three of them have different priorities in stuff to gawk at, but somehow aren't as interested in the mounted gatling gun. Heading inside, the trio float along the platform rather than walk, leaving a little extra breathing room for their companions while glancing around at all the blood and remains of carved up- "BOWs?" "Bio Weapon. Uh. Right?" "The O isn't a separate word, Rin. Ah, eyes open, girls." With the workers turning towards the group, it's time for the yokai to show their stuff! Utsuho opts to get in closer than she probably should, brandishing her control rod like a flaming club while surrounding herself in flames, all in the purpose of searing and melting any of the infected that come too close. Rin's playing it a little safer, sending targeted wisps of flame towards them and around the other members of today's group to give them some extra breathing room (and making her fires look flashier). Satori, meanwhile, does that mind reading thing she's so fond of. She doesn't know if these infected workers have any functioning minds left, but it couldn't hurt to try before pelting them with fanciful patterns of colorful magic blasts from on high. It's clearly flashier than it needs to be considering how slow they are compared to her usual opponents, but it'll at least look nice and add more splashes of color besides red and bloodier red.
Rita Ma	She was exposed to the outbreak long-term and exhibited unique symptoms from it, so she was transported to a laboratory for examination and treatment.      There are a lot of reasons for Rita to be here. There are a lot of reasons for Rita not to say those reasons. So when Joe Baker works his way around to "what's y'all's story?", she stares uncomfortably out at the snow far below and squirms a little deeper into her oversized jacket.     "Oh. My brother, and my big sister, they're both really famous monster-hunters. They help and protect people every day. And now that I'm away from home, I want to start following in those footsteps. That makes sense, doesn't it?"      It's not a rhetorical question, her meager pleading smile reveals. And it feels bad to lie to a possibly-bereaved man. But in the moment, she just couldn't find the nerve.      On the now gore-slicked landing pad, Rita takes a deep breath. Then her lungs catch halfway through, and she shakes her head as if to clear out a nagging thought, looking disgusted. But not by the gore exactly. Now isn't the time to be hungry. If I stop to get a bite, they'll think I'm...      But they'll be right, won't they?      A gun materializes in Rita's hand. She squeezes it extra-tight.      As the group passes through the bulkhead, she says conversationally: "Um, Mr. HUNK? How does it spread exactly? Should we be being careful about blood splatters and things like that? Or is it only if you get attacked?" Then, a moment later: "And which one of us knows how to shut down the reactor, when we get there?"      "... there's no cure once they're at this stage."      Another little breath. Rita doesn't gag this time. "Right." She holds up her gun- fake, to any close inspection by an expert, made from recollection with no moving parts- and pretends to squeeze the trigger. "Sorry," she murmurs, under her breath.      There's a noise like a whip-crack, and a hole the diameter of a baseball appears clean through the nearest infected's head, thanks to an invisible spearing tentacle. It's a silly charade, but she keeps it up for as long as she's able, even if it limits her ability to contribute. Only when the zombies inevitably get close does she put on the fancy footwork, leaping between stacks of boxes to always stay out of arm's reach.
Metamorph One	"Hey hunk~" "Don't say it like that." "Jealous~?" "No, you sound like a virgin." "Huh?! What does it even stand for then?!" "Obviously-- . . ." "Obviously what?" "Give me a minute." "Take your time hun."     Neither Elara nor Dianna have their usual preferred wear today. Both are clad for Business, wearing loose double-breasted short jackets and nearly knee high waterproof boots, both with fur lining, over individually fitted bodysuits with clearly integrated g-sensitive cuffs, all in the dominant white and orange of Applied Ontology's calling card designs. The mild bulk of the VPT units is concealed under the jackets either way, but the subtly light-refractive circuit patterns and understated jacks here and there suggest they aren't just pilot suits. "Story? Haha, gosh, that's so hard to explain. Where do I start?" "Just a couple of gay little soldiers who hate Earth." "What-- Don't give him the wrong idea!" "Basically God's bravest little fuckups, hoping to find a nuclear reactor big enough to melt down the planet." "Don't listen to her! She's being-- difficult!" "We just haven't built the escape velocity to get out of the battlefield's gravity well. It keeps pulling us back." "That's . . . true. But . . ."     Elara has spent most of the ride hovering between their two contacts, staring and shifting towards one, before Dianna shakes her head and pulls her gently back, then the other. The look on her face seems like she knows full well it'd be a bad idea to approach them for . . . something, but she feels fascinated, inexorably drawn, by something all the same. Like she's entranced by something she can see, and trying to catch more of a conversation only she can hear.     Dianna is the one who goes eerily still, breathless and charged, like a tiger crouched in the brush, at the sound of the helicopter's autocannon. Her eyes slide around the cabin, methodically slicing left to right, before she grips the ceiling loop and clambers out of her seat to look out. "One question. Private. Is the reactor better off going critical? Whether you want to save it, or whether we're scorching earth; either is fine. But make it crystal."     The chopper lands, and both disembark without hesitation. Elara turns to wave at the pilot, saying "Don't worry! We'll keep your friend safe!", though whether she's being a ditz or misreading it on purpose is anyone's guess. Dianna air checks her radio, then pops the trigger interface into her palm from out of her sleeve, closing one eye and clicking her fingers into the bars, almost as if stimming. "Severance on station. Not a lot of room for a Metamorph. Ghost Light, requesting fold beacon deployment; assuming remote uplink to controls." Elara turns away from the chopper, and her expression has been replaced with icy blue-eyed cool. "Understood. Deploying beacon at fifty south-southwest."     Elara palms her own trigger, left-handed. The shimmering threads of orange light don't bunch up her sleeve like physical wires, but loop back into somewhere at her back. Crunchy voxel distortion, made of light, resolves like an image artifact being cleaned out of real life; photo corrected for something that should already have been there, but was in error. A new device, sleek and military matte, which she fixes around her wrist. Turning a little ways towards the docks, she closes her eyes, focuses, and points, and a thin blue beam shoots up from the ground, painted by designator-- why it doesn't show up on nvgs or thermals is a mystery. "Check." "ETA thirty five. Safe to advance." "Affirmative."
Metamorph One	The advance into the warehouse proceeds without incident, save for the sound of Elara's grip creaking on her VPT and the subtle chattering of her teeth for the first half of the funicular, before she breathes it away. Dianna's attempts to make chatter are clipped and pointless. "BOW?" "Bio-Organic Weapon." And then she doesn't ask how she knows that. It goes on like this. "Confirm T-Virus." "Tyrant virus. Military-- no, private sector weapon. Counterbalance to mortality-based counterinfection." "Oh good. I was worried it was the other thing." "They're telling the truth." "Yeah. I assumed." "Check." "Affirmative. Point."     Dianna's VPT, already primed, clicks just once, and real life error correction kicks in. She was always armed. Supposed to be. This bug has been fixed. Image resolving right away. Some bastard thing that is nearly an assault rifle, credibly winter camo if not for the orange slashes and green star, but with an overplayed barrel shroud, compensator, flash hider, and ammo cradle that make it strikingly reminiscent of a miniature anti-personnel machine gun; styled for tanks, not people.     It works all the same. Dianna holds the door, crouches to one knee, takes aim down the glowing green holosight, and starts bursting down the zombies, one by one. The roar of the barrel is a crackle-crunch of distorted gunfire, peaking an invisible mic. The bolt cycle is the rapid, dull thump of recoil against a hull. Brass ejects, bouncing and rolling across the floor, then slowly dissolves again. Blue-tinted tracer streaks tear through limbs, heads, sever torsos from legs, full bursts sawing shambling humans in half.     Elara crouches to the ground, eyes over Dianna's shoulder, but fingers to the floor, scanning multiple things at once.
Operator	"Carrying on the family business huh? Good for you little'un," Joe says to Rita with a grandfatherly smile. "Stick close if you need it. The Baker's ain't got a legacy of this, but Zoe and I held up in the face of all kinds of freaks." HUNK meanwhile has his mind probed by Satori. Within, she finds... clarity. Purpose. This is someone with a mission, and they'll see it through. They're certain... in a way that is oddly familiar to the yokai. As certain as the inevitability of death. This human has similar vibes to the shinigami of Gensokyo.     "Human Unit; Not Killable." HUNK says to Elara and Dianna, in a tone that makes it very unclear if they're joking or not. Joe meanwhile lets out an "Oh!" as Dianna identifies the two of them as gay. Not a judgmental one though, nor scornful. It's like he just caught sight of some rare bird. When they land, Dianna asks for maximum clarity on what to do about the reactor. "Save it if possible! There's a lot of samples on this island the BSAA doesn't want to leave to rot. Or worse, mutate and adapt." ------     "Direct transmission." HUNK says to Rita. "Through saliva left in bites primarily. It can survive in water too, so take care not to drink anything that wasn't sealed. They were trying to figure out an airborne variant, but they couldn't get it working. You got your shots right? They've developed pretty effective vaccines based on the naturally immune lately." Aside, they reply to the conversation with the yokai. "Bio-Organic Weapon." HUNK confirms after Elara says it. "It's oxymoronic, but BOW sounds snappy, apparently. Umbrella coined the term internally and it stuck when it all came to light."
Operator	The fight begins, and Rita finds her 'gun' very effective. There are not magic zombies, they are humans infected by a virus. As such, they're reliant on the brain and nervous system. The holes she blows in their heads annihilates the latter enough that they slump over, dead. Thankfully, they're not too fast, so she's easily able to evade the ones who get close.     Utsuho finds that using her control rod like a club helps, but these things just entirely ignore being set on fire until the point that their muscles burn away entirely. The stink of burning flesh from her and Rin's wisps fills the air, and the smoke hits the ceiling and immediately sets off the sprinkler system, causing the room to be blasted with water. Satori upon reading their minds finds them bestial. They're only thinking of food, seeing the new arrivals as nothing more than meat. Not even prey, just meat.     Dianna's massive conjured gun does exactly what an anti-tank gun would do to flesh. Massive chunks get blown off no matter where the projectile lands. The T-Virus may augment physical abilities of the infected, but this is still more than enough to send them into shock until they bleed out. Elara meanwhile pings the facility, searching for their target. There are... many minds. And most of them are like the bunch in here. Some are different though. Some feel like two minds, with one dominating the other. Some feel intelligent, but in... a blunt kind of way. Like someone bestowed intelligence on a wheat thresher. But when it comes to wholly human minds, there are two. One is just ahead, and the other is in the deep depths of the facility.     Joe and HUNK take down the remaining zombies. Joe has the moves of a champion boxer, juking and swatting away the clumsy grabs and swipes that come his way as he assails them with a flurry of jabs, hooks, and straights that pulverize their faces. The finishing blow comes in the form of him charging up that gauntlet until the female voice announces "Charge complete." What follows is an explosive straight that annihilates entire skulls.     HUNK meanwhile fights with total efficiency. That SMG is not used to try and get headshots, but instead delivering bursts unto knees and legs, making the target slump. They then slither up to them, take their head in both hands, and wrench it hard to their left. The sharp snap of bone and cartilage always follows as the spinal cord severs. The zombie slumps over, paralysed or dead. Those that get too close find their eye sockets perforated by a spike that erupts from HUNK's wrist, piercing clean into the brain.
Operator	"Good work," HUNK calls as the last one dies. "Be more careful with flames," they caution Utsuho and Rin as the sprinklers finally die down. "T-Virus zombies don't have the usual reaction to being set on fire. You might just be making them more dangerous." Joe meanwhile crosses to the massive garage door and pulls the lever, causing it to slowly open. What's concerning is that it has a lot of dents in it that imply impacts from the other side.     But once it opens, there's nothing there. Just a massive entrance hall, made to welcome guests and cargo both. The reception desk is abandoned, and bodies cover the floor. They all exhibit signs of either extreme blunt force trauma, or crushing pressure. "Good god, what got 'em?..." Joe murmurs. HUNK meanwhile, just steps over them all and consults the facility map on the wall. "We should split up on level 3," they announce. "One team can handle the reactor, the other can locate the target. She's likely here." He touches a room on the bottommost floor labelled "Live BOW Examination Room." "My niece ain't a BOW!" Joe barks. HUNK just replies, "She's infected. They'll treat her as one. Let's move."     Joe grumbles, but follows along as the group moves deeper into the facility. Gore and the remains of violence cover the walls and floor. There's the occasional zombie, but they're easily dispatched. But as they pass the door to a storage room, there's a knocking at the window. "Hello?! Are you here for a rescue?" Their mind is the same one on this floor that Elara sensed.
Metamorph One	"Hey don't 'oh'! She's saying that to--" "No, no, he's got the spirit." "No reaction to the blowing up Earth part?!"     Inside the facility, Elara's earpiece lights up with a double link, drawing her attention from her task. "Metamorph One on-site. Linking you now Severance." Dianna lowers the smoking barrel of her gun, glowing like coals, and says "Affirmative Ghost Light. Track my location. Vertical parabolic, danger close, time to arrival . . . six, on demand." to the woman right next to her.     Elara stands, dusts off her jacket, and then holds her hands out before her, palms opposite, as if cradling something between them. Tiny sputters of gentle blue-white light fizzle in the air, separating into two sparking point, momentarily struggling to pierce through into being. Both abruptly unfold, almost like a night flower, expanding spirographic forms of delicate lace-light, drifting as if lighter than air. Elara closes one palm, and one light collapses into a flashing blue line. The other, she gestures and lets free, where it then zips deeper into the facility, chasing the second signature. "There's someone just up ahead. Maintain twelve. But we're not that lucky. Detain for questioning?"     Dianna takes the moment to size up her comrades of fortune. An eyebrow raises at Baker, where she says "Hand to hand? I thought these things killed you with a bite. And you don't exactly look young. There a story behind why you don't just shoot them?" Her chin tilts slowly back at the way HUNK fights though. The way she looks at them is cold without judging, that of strange-familiar recognition. "How long have you been alone, 'Non-Killable'?" she says. "Nobody would think of that without losing count of how many times they've been on last mag."     'Hello?! Are you here for a rescue?'     "Ah. That's them." comes Elara's impassive remark as the group goes by. "They're in good condition for now. We should take them along." She doesn't bother to justify her saying so. Elara stops on one sentence though, turning to Baker. It looks different, when he's actually about as tall as her. "Hey. I know what you're thinking, but you need to tell me right now. Is your neice in any danger of turning into one of those things? Intuiting her intent, Elara slips in. "If she is, Mister Baker, we need to be there. If she's not, then we need to be at the reactor. Please, tell us honestly, because her life probably depends on it."     Dianna wanders over to the storage door, checking if the lock works, and if it doesn't, just saying "Clear the door." before booting it right in down the middle; possibly snapping it, depending on what it's made of. She turns back to HUNK, then looks a little uneasily at Rita, as if not sure about something. "Resupply?"
Hellwarming Trio	"BOW... Yeah, that's pretty good sounding." "Better than BW, yes." "Sounds spookier with the O in there. BW just sounds like some human's name." HUNK's focus and clarity keeps Satori from prying further than the surface, that initial impression apparently a good one if they or anyone's even aware of what she's doing. Their information about the transmission of the T-Virus, meanwhile, has Utsuho turning up the heat a bit more than she normally would during the fight. She probably heard about heat and hygiene once before. It probably doesn't help with the smell, though, and it's not long before she and Rin have to actually hold their breaths just to let the stench pass somewhat. Satori's only slightly luckier than the other two in smelling that the normal amount, but she actually has to turn away briefly to hold back her gag reflex. Once the fight is over, though, they get a chance to catch their breaths and shake some of the water off their clothes before bunching up. Utsuho helpfully provides them and everyone else with some drying, though, thanks to the heat still radiating from herself and her control rod. "Good shooting there. Don't let Master get too close of a look at that thing, huh?" Rin chimes in towards Rita with a snicker, quickly looking away and whistling nonchalantly while Satori just stares at her. Her suspicion (seemingly) fades, though, and instead she considers HUNK's words closely (while staring at Dianna's giant gun instead). "That aside... These infected people's thoughts were extremely primitive. I couldn't sense anything but a desire for meat, so... Be thorough, and don't spread the flames." She warns, getting nods from Utsuho and Rin before continuing onwards. When HUNK directs their attention to the map, meanwhile, it takes a grand total of one second before they all raise their hands and answer in unison. "Reactor room." That's an easy choice to make, at least, once they get to that point. Thanks to their earlier encounters, meanwhile, Utsuho and Rin are far more careful to just try and incinerate the zombies wholesale rather than letting the flames linger, and then... Someone knocks at a window, and they all glance at each other briefly before looking over at Joe. "We hear ya loud and clear in there!" "Are you Miss Baker?" "If you're not... Uh. Are you infected?"
Rita Ma	"Mmmm! Of course, Mr. Baker. I don't want you to worry about me, but I'll stay close just in case anything happens," Rita says, amidst the violence. Aiming her spearing tentacle is easy; she keeps up a slow, methodical string of thorough kills.      The hard part is making sure there's no blood on it after. Every now and then, someone might spot a single disembodied droplet snaking its way through the air. "Oh, um, thank you, Ms. Rin!" But shy gratitude turns to embarrassment and hiding the gun at the latter half of the sentence. "It's- a special gun, that's all," Rita murmurs defeatedly.      She kept smoothly focused through the fighting, but when Joe starts to open the garage door, she crosses her arms uncomfortably. It's easy to tell that, without anything to do for a moment, her thoughts have nowhere to turn but to dreading the dents' source.      Talking to HUNK is sort of a relief. "Direct transmission," Rita repeats solemnly, as the door grinds open. Then he says "you've got your shots, right?", and she stiffens up before putting up her hands defensively. "Yeah! Yeah. I've had all the shots! Don't worry."      I'm already sick enough it doesn't matter, right? ... No, that's an awful way to think. I shouldn't push my luck.      Hastily: "I'll go with the team looking for your niece, Mr. Baker. I might be able to help her a little, and I don't know anything about reactors." The door's not quite open enough. Rita wracks her brains for some way to change the topic further, and ends up turning to Diana and Elara. "Um, excuse me? Miss?" She clearly doesn't know their names. "What does 'gay' mean?"      The survivor's voice might, fortunately, jar her off that line of questioning. She's into the room right after Diana. "Oh! Yes, we are! Don't worry, we'll get you out of there."      "Resupply?"      Rita startles with a little guilt- right, I wasn't pretending to reload- and nods, then pockets some ammo that is definitely not for any kind of handgun.
Metamorph One	'Um, excuse me? Miss?" She clearly doesn't know their names. "What does 'gay' mean?'     "Oh. Um. How old are you?" "Don't do that. Any age is old enough to learn." "Yeah but-- Maybe now isn't the time? You know? Zombies?" "Any time is the time." "You're being spite-- difficult again." "Yeah, what of it?" "It won't matter to her. You can leave her out of--" "Girls loving girls, boys loving boys, that kind of thing." "We're surrounded by corpses Di." "Yeah. That's the best time to know what those words mean."
Rita Ma	"Twenty," Rita says, with the kind of serene pride that only someone who still looks forward to birthdays can muster. "Or twenty-one, almost!"      'Girls loving girls' makes her tilt her head like she's trying to get a marble into its hole in a 3D maze. Then it settles.      Sunnily: "Oh! Okay! I'm 'gay' too, then. It's nice to meet you!"
Operator	HUNK looks at Dianna and replies coldly, "Umbrella made a lot of mistakes they needed us to clean up. I was never sent in alone, but I always came out alone." They take the magazine from their SMG and slot in rounds from one of their pouches as they continue. "Breaking the neck isn't desperation though. It doesn't matter how powerful a BOW makes someone, it has to use what's there. The central nervous system runs through the spinal cord. If you can access and destroy that, they're down. It's effective and efficient." It seems HUNK is reluctant to give any concrete war stories though.     As they advance, Joe gets interrogated on the possibility of Zoe turning, and he's clearly upset at the insinuation. "Look, like I said, they brought her here to make sure! She was all... weird when we found her. Not like the other monsters there, not like Jack. Look, if she's... if she's trouble, I'll handle it." He looks extremely grim as he says this.     "Baker?" the person behind the door replies. Their voice is very evidently masculine. "No I'm Dr. Daniel Reeds! Not, you know, a research doctor, the first-aid kind!" Dianna finds the door very locked, and some kind of barricade behind it, but her kick easily overcomes both. The good doctor is a portly sort, unshaven, with old sauce stains down the front of his shirt. He's surrounded by empty MRE packages, and his arm is covered in bandages. "Oh thank god!" he cries with relief as he runs out to join the group. "We should go. Zoe Baker was scheduled for tests on the lower floor, there's no way she's ali-" Before he can finish the sentence, Joe has grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him up from the ground. "Don't finish that thought boy," he growls, before dropping the blubbering doctor."     "Extraction of Zoe Baker is my mission. What else is down there?" HUNK demands to know. "Oh god, uh... we had Plaga samples, some captured Lickers, a Regenerador, a Tyrant..." HUNK audibly 'tsks' behind their mask at that last one. "And everything below this floor has biometric locks! So people couldn't go where they weren't assigned. But in a state of emergency like this, medical professionals like me get full access. So you better not kill me!" He stomps his foot and glowers at Joe who just sighs and shakes his head. "So he's coming with huh?" "Yes. Are you trained with firearms Doctor?" HUNK asks. Daniel puffs his chest and says, "Don't mean to brag, but I'm pretty good when the security guys let me use their range." HUNK produces a handgun from a holster and offers it grip first. "Safety's on. Stay behind us."     While this conversation happens, that blue ray of light finds Zoe. She's exactly where HUNK suggested, in the live BOW testing room. Currently, she's wrapped up in multiple thin hospital blankets, trying to stay warm. Her hair is white, but black at the roots, and her skin has patches of it that look more fungal that human. A researcher in the room is dead, their skull caved in with a nearby broken microscope.
Operator	The descent continues. True to Daniel's word, doors from here start having handprint scanners. "Figures they didn't think to give me access, " HUNK complains. Several of those doors have infected behind them, so they go ignored. The third floor is dominated by a massive cafeteria, and as HUNK orders everyone to cut through it, they see...     People, security guards based on their uniforms, just sitting at the tables, showing no signs of T-Virus infection. But they're not eating anything, they're just sitting there. "Oh hey! Boris my guy, you made it!" Daniel calls to one of them whose head slowly swivels at the sound of his name. "Daniel..." he murmurs, voice low. "Yeah, don't worry man the cavalry's here! We just gotta rescue the Baker chick and stop the reactor."     In perfect unison, the security guards start getting up. They grab knives and forks from the cutlery dispenser. Some of them are holding things like bonesaws or crowbars. Cooks emerge from the kitchens bearing knives. "Boris?... oh... oh god no." They begin to advance, all muttering different things. "They're parasitized!" Daniel cries! "The Plagas! Kill them!"
Hellwarming Trio	'It's- a special gun, that's all,' "Yeah? Heh. Cool. It's really doin' a number on those guys, so keep it up!" 'We're surrounded by corpses Di.' 'Yeah. That's the best time to know what those words mean.' Utsuho and Rin both nod firmly in agreement with this assessment. Satori just looks away to hide a pleasant little chuckle. "Do we need a first aid doctor with us?" Utsuho looks over at the doctor as Joe hoists him up, pursing her lips after a moment. "I mean, it'd be pretty unheroic not to save him anyway, right?" "Uhh... Yeah! And if someone gets bitten, maybe he'll know how to get the infection out!" Rin suggests, although she seems more excited about the possibility of what Joe could do to the doctor than whatever Reeds might actually be able to help him with. "I'd hope so. Is that something you're trained in, Doctor Reeds?" Satori doesn't sound all too thrilled by his presence, and she certainly doesn't need to actually wait for an answer to her question. She can just check his mind to make sure he's not lying to the group about what he's telling them. She also looks just a little jealous when HUNK gives him a gun. Regardless, they continue onwards through the facility! Utsuho considers applying fire to some of those doors, but Satori keeps her in check long enough that they get to the cafeteria without setting more fires than necessary. Luckily, conserving energy earlier means the three are already prepared to cut loose again when the guards start approaching with those various weapons. Unlike before, Utsuho is more than content to stay further back with Rin and Satori instead of heading right up to the front. The two flame wielders concentrate their attacks on the guards in pairs at a time to steadily bring down their numbers after recalling what they were told earlier, too! Satori takes a cue from HUNK, launching streams of magic projectiles at the Plagas guards' knees and legs to limit their mobility and open them up to being finished off more easily.
Metamorph One	'Oh! Okay! I'm 'gay' too, then. It's nice to meet you!' "Hi gay. I'm Dianna--" "Come on! Corpses!" "If she were normal she'd be at home. How many of us don't know death?" "At least call her Rita first." ". . . Yeah. Okay. Fair point."     'Breaking the neck isn't desperation though.'     "It's ammo efficient." Dianna replies. "Up close. Dirty. Exerting. Risky untl you master it. To save a few bullets." She turns away and resumes moving. "A real squad would have nearly two thousand rounds to share."     'Look, like I said, they brought her here to make sure!'     Elara gives Baker a long, serious look; analytically neutral, if not for the rigid set of her lips in sympathetic worry. "Okay. I'll believe you. But you have to prioritize your own life getting there, and getting back. Understood?" She stares off past his head, into the middle distance. Something glints in her left eye. "A few minutes faster won't make any difference. You getting hurt will." Despite the fact he's easily forty years her senior, she says it to him in the effortlessly patient and gentle undertones of talking to an apprentice.     'there's no way she's ali-'     "She is." says Elara, then smoothly swaps back. "I have confirmed visual on VIP. Sending you target feed." One would assume this means mapping data, but instead, those in the vicinity feels a cool prick of static; the faint smell of ozone and a winter day; an inaudible sound almost like windchimes; and a single, luminous point in their vision, here, here, down this way, around this corner, here, it's me.     'So you better not kill me!'     "Got it. I won't kill you before the first door." says Dianna. "No guarantees after that." She makes snipping motions with her fingers.     'Oh hey! Boris my guy, you made it!'     "Wait--!" Elara suddenly shoulders out from her middle position to reach for Daniel, but Dianna glances at her just as she begins to move, and reaches him first. Stars at her fingertips. The void at his back. Severed ties, falling upwards into space. The world before him recedes, slipping away, and-- Elara catches Daniel in the crook of her arm, then tosses him behind HUNK. "Severance requesting target analysis." She's already firing anyways. Brass ricochets off the door frame. She hasn't actually reloaded yet. "Existing intel holds. Recomment mobility kill first. Brain stem is--" "Understood Ghost Light."     For reasons uknown, Dianna angles her fire slightly downwards this time. Hefty rounds punch through heart and lungs, guts and spine, shattering pelvis and breaking thighbones. She advances slowly into the room, sweeping her aim to hit the closest plaga, then to the next by distance, back and forth, back and forth, until it looks like she's about to walk into them; or let any crawl past her to be someone else's problem.
Rita Ma	"Oh! Your arm! What happened to you? I can..." Rita's eyes go wide when she peeks around Diana into the room. She starts to rummage in her little messenger bag for medical supplies. Then- "there's no way she's ali-" she stops, just as Joe grabs him, and her jaw sets.      "Ms. Baker will be fine," she insists as she turns on her heel, crisply adopting a position at the fore of the party.      "How many of us don't know death?"      "Ms. Dianna's right," Rita says conversationally to Elara, if not brightly. The bodies do distract her, but not with disgust; something else, tight-lipped, restrained. "I'm not experienced, but it's not like I'm new to this, either. What's your name? Mine's- wait, you knew?"      Rita, to her credit, is tense from the moment the group enters the cafeteria, and extends an arm to bar Daniel from approaching before Dianna gets him. "No. Wait. Don't they seem-"      She's proven right a few seconds later, letting go of the doctor to level her handgun at the crowd. Maybe it's just lack of faith in her own marksmanship, but she never seems to make those whipcrack-gunshots at anyone further out than twenty feet or so, and she keeps leaping or dashing into positions too aggressive for her slow rate of fire.      It's only a matter of time until she wades in much too deep and gets surrounded. One of the knife-wielding cooks brings his blade down on her back while she's fending off two others. Rita yelps pathetically, only gritting her teeth in time to choke off the last half of the noise. "Agh-!!"     Reflexively, she lashes out with a backhand. His head above the jaw becomes a splatter on the wall.      Several more follow in the ensuing seconds: a kick that goes clean through a security guard's ribcage and pulls most of the organs out on the way back, an uppercut that gouges off the skull along with most of the collarbone, a one-handed wallslam that leaves both body and architecture ruined.      It's a level of force one notch below 'red mist', and yet more visceral for it.      Rita's hands are soaked with wet death in short order, eclipsing the red knife-wound in her jacket by an order of magnitude. She only starts to look self-conscious and embarrassed when she's running out of targets, and lamely swaps back to her 'gun'.
Operator	"Oh, yeah, absolutely I know how to clean a wound to prevent infection," Daniel says. He rummages in the pocket of his coat and produces rolls of bandages, antiseptic, stitching needles still in their packets. He clearly raided that storage room. As Rita goes for her own supplies, he says, "Oh, don't worry miss, I treated myself already, and I'm vaccinated. I'll be fine."     But as Satori reads his mind, she finds two things. First of all, he's absolutely lying about his shooting prowess, his only interaction with guns comes from his online shooting games.     The second is a stray thought that swims up before plummeting back down. "Thank god they're not asking for their vaccinations. Boy that would be awkward after all this."     "A modest outbreak can involve up to 5000 infected," HUNK retorts to Dianna. "Saving your bullets becomes vital. If only to keep one for yourself." But it is then that Elara shares what she sees and Joe gasps. "Zoe! She's alive. We'll be right down girl, just hang on!" Daniel meanwhile grouses. "Ah, she killed Raul. Hopefully that was just cuz he turned, and not..." Joe growls and he doesn't finish that.
Operator	In the cafeteria, these people are clearly different from the T-Virus zombies. They just shuffled in as straight a line they could towards you. These things are still intelligent, and it's not just because they're holding weapons. They spread out, slowly surrounding the group, trying their best to keep distant before they go running in. Those whit empty hands don't strike, but try to grab and restrain instead so someone with a weapon can charge in and strike.     But with that intelligence comes weakness. Utsuho and Rin find that they actually react to being on fire, trying desperately to pat or roll it out, but their combined efforts cook them too fast to have any effect. Satori's bullets slam into their legs and make them stagger. HUNK notices this and begins going for the neck snap after her shots. Their words ring true; it's still just as effective here.     Elara pulls back and covers Daniel as he cowers. Dianna moves in, now aiming low to blow apart their legs and lower body. They do their best to crawl forward, but they bleed out before too long. Things stick out from the wounds she creates. Thin, spindly tendrils writhe and wriggle long after the body goes still, but not too long.     Rita finds herself surrounded and taking damage. She hears Joe bellow "Get offa her!" right as she spins around and pulps the head of the offender. "Jesus Christ!" he cries... but he doesn't run. He has her back, throwing his own hands to clear space around her. "God damn, they raise 'em strong where you're from huh?!" he asks, charging another super punch that sends a Plagas cratering into the far wall. He doesn't find it weird at all.     Once the cafeteria is clear, HUNK finally has to discard a magazine. He rushes to Rita and says, "Hold still," before producing an aerosol can from one of those pouches and spraying her wound. The pain numbs as the edges foam up, clotting the blood. "Arklay Mountain herb mixture. This is what made Umbrella a legitimate company. You'll heal."     Past the cafeteria is the point of splitting up. "The nuclear generator is segregated from the rest of the facility for safety reasons. We'll need to descend through the maintenance tunnels to get there. From consulting the map, the only biometric lock is on the entrance, so Dr. Reeds can let that team in and join the Zoe Baker retrieval team. She is at the bottom of the lab, where they researched living BOWs."     "Well, I'm rescuing Zoe," Joe says bluntly. "And I expect you want to go to the reactor?" he asks HUNK, who nods. "It's an adaptation of a model Umbrella used for their off-the-map facilities. I know how it works, and how to shut it down."     "Well then," Joe says, taking that collar bomb detonator from his pocket. "Who wants to take this and go with him?"
Metamorph One	'Hopefully that was just cuz he turned, and not...'     "Because he deserved it. Right?" says Dianna. She knows perfectly well what he was going to say instead.     'What's your name? Mine's- wait, you knew?'     "Elara Steloj~ That's Dianna Nenui. She's nice, honestly." Elara smiles. "Why wouldn't I know?"     'Hold still'     "Hey fuck--" "No no, it's fine." The exchange lasts one and a half seconds. Dianna's gun lowers where it twitched up before. The stock remains at her shoulder, but the barrel pivots and drifts down from HUNK. Elara lowers her hand, raised in 'stand down' to Dianna, and moves towards Rita. Her boots somehow clap properly on the floor, even where it's soaked in sticky gore. "Hey. Rita. Do you want to--"     She stops at fifteen feet. Flinching back, as if struck by a wall of frigid winter blasting in through an open door. One heel clacks back, and she regathers her posture around it. "Okay. It's fine. Don't worry. Please take care of Mister Baker, alright?" she says. Her voice is limmed with restraint, trying not to swap to her professional tone inappropriately. "We can talk more over the i-link-- the radio. Okay?"     Meanwhile, Dianna turns to Joe, and without hesitation, says "Here.", raising her hand to accept it, as if she intends for him to throw it to her. "Worst comes to worst, we have the means to scrap it, or take over if they bite it." Once she has the detonator, she motions Elara away, who gives Rita one last lingering look of concern --sympathetic, and for herself-- and then breaks away, trotting after.
Hellwarming Trio	That stray thought about the vaccinations is nearly forgotten by Satori in the confusion that follows with the Plagas, but it's certainly not missed. It just has to linger in her mind for now as she and her pets continue their long-ranged attacks, not letting up on the guards until things have finally calmed down enough for everyone to get their bearings. The medical spray gets a curious look from Utsuho, of course, and she makes grabby hands at the used can. "I'll take it if you're done with that. I need to learn more words and stuff, anyway."  She explains, apparently assuming it conveniently has an ingredient list or nutrition facts or something on it. Satori's attention lingers on Daniel, though, and she sighs lightly before finally speaking up again once it's time to split. "Will being unvaccinated be an issue? It might not hurt to do that before we head for the reactor." She suggests with a brief glance towards the doctor, partially just to see what kind of look he has on his face, and partially because she's actually concerned after everything that's been said about the T-Virus and HUNK mentioning the possibility of an outbreak. Neither Rin nor Utsuho look nearly as worried, though, as they're more eager just to get a move on. "Having Okuu around'll make shutting that thing down even easier. We got your back, HUNK-y!" Rin chimes in with a confident laugh, conveniently ignoring the fact that she doesn't know shit about reactors. "But if we gotta split up..." Utsuho mutters afterwards, considering the two potential paths before pounding her control rod into an open palm. "I'll go for the reactor, and Rin and Master can go rescue the kid. Then we've got plenty of fire on both sides in case we run into more BOWs, right?" Satori raises an eyebrow, then chuckles lightly and turns to Joe. "I'm fine with that. Will that be acceptable?"
Rita Ma	The moment the adrenaline ebbs and she sees Joe rushing over, Rita's braced to be mortified. Excuses are already spinning up in her head. I'm a superhero. It's just martial arts. My family is-- But then he takes all the wind out of her sails, and she finds herself in the lurch, a completely different kind of embarrassed as he and HUNK swoop in to patch her up.      "Yeah. I guess they do, Mr. Baker. Thanks." She freezes up compliantly, then looks like a soggy cat as she realizes the medical spray was for her own good, too late. Being tricked into receiving help is truly the greatest indignity. "And thank you too, Mr. HUNK," she says, beleaguered. The knife wound is real, but it didn't go in quite as far as it should have. They must make them tough, too.      "Oh! Well, it's nice to meet you, Ms. Steloj! And you too, Ms. Nenui," Rita says with little polite head-bows as she adjusts her jacket. "Why wouldn't I know?" "Oh! I didn't really know I had a reputation," Rita says sunnily, but then a moment later another explanation occurs to her, and her sunniness fades.      So she isn't shocked when Elara staggers. If she could see that much, of course she'd see what's wrong with me. Her dimming light smoothly transitions into a guilty, defeated, acknowledging smile: I am that gross. I'm sorry. I know. "I'll take good care of him, Ms. Steloj. And Zoe, too. I can talk if you want to."      Talk, maybe with a capital T. But then she turns her back on the others to step over to Joe. "You don't mind if I come with you, do you, Mr. Baker? I promise I'll be more careful."      There's a tiny scrap of one of those funny tendrils under her fingernail. It's unlikely, though not impossible, that anyone would notice her averting her face to lick off that finger. That much should be safe, I'm pretty sure. And afterwards, there's a bit more of a spring in her step.
Operator	REACTOR TEAM     The maintenance tunnels are a far cry from the rest of the facility. Going from brightly lit laboratory hallways with clear signage (and only occasionally gore and corpses) into dark, dingy, cramped tunnels with walls and ceilings totally obscured by pipes, valves, and gauges is quite a leap. Mercifully, this dismal, abandoned section of the station has few zombies roaming it, and most of the few that are have gotten snagged on something or other sticking out of the walls, leaving them easy prey for HUNK's knives or really any other method.     Gradually, the signage begins to contain more and more of that angelic caution sign representing radioactive materials. Maps are sparse down here, but HUNK seems to have memorized a route. Finally, a single heavy and thick bulkhead comes into view... one ominously ajar. "Wait. Stand back," HUNK orders, approaching it carefully... before suddenly kicking it, using the force from the impact to push himself back and fall prone as an explosive goes off, launching shrapnel! But it was all aimed up, leaving the soldier unharmed.     "Aw, FUCK! If that's you Reeds, don't come it! I have a gun!" shouts a voice from beyond. With the door open, the group can see a well-tanned and dark-bearded man in an engineer's overalls sitting in a swivel chair, covered in scratch marks and with his right thigh heavily bandaged. "Oh wait... you're not him, thank God. Get in here quick, and close the door behind you." RESCUE TEAM     The descent through the lab proper takes the group below sea level, and the architecture begins to reflect it. Bulkheads occupy the end of every hallway, ready to seal the moment seawater begins leaking in so as to protect the rest of the lab from flooding. The number of zombies down here is far fewer than upstairs, and the few that are can only be heard growling behind gore-slicked doors. It seems most down here are those who got bit in the initial panic and fled down here, only to turn.     Them being behind doors means that Joe can't do much about them, but he's fine with that. He barrels forward constantly, slugging whatever gets in his way, and only slowing to double-check a wall map to ensure he's on the right path. Eventually, finally, the group reaches the Live BOW Examination room. It occupies a hallway of its own, just past a bulkhead. Joe immediately begins pounding on the door with both hands. "Zoe?! ZOE?! Still in there?!" After a moment, a muffled voice replies, "Holy shit, Uncle Joe?! Hold on, let me move all this!" The sound of furniture being tossed aside comes from the other side, when suddenly, the bulkhead sealing this hallway snaps closed.     "Face the far wall with your hands on your head, and don't move until we say. If you comply, you'll get to leave," an emotionless voice crackles from the intercom.
Hellwarming Trio	REACTOR TEAM Trapped zombies are easy to set on fire. Thanks to ^Satori's earlier directions, though, it's done thoroughly and quickly by Utsuho to minimize lingering odors and smoke! Just as well, too, since she's counting on HUNK's memorization of the route to maneuver down those halls, and the scorch marks from the fire might wind up leaving a convenient path to follow, anyway. It's pretty clear Utsuho trusts his judgment despite how he was being held earlier, too, as she's quick to back up when directed to do so. She flinches visibly when that door gets kicked open with the ensuing explosion that follows it, but she's also dumb enough to just stand there (at a safe-ish distance, but still) and gawk with a more eager light coming to her eyes. She probably thinks he's got exploding kicks or something now. "We don't know who that is!" Utsuho calls out 'helpfully' in response to the voice from behind the door, peeking in once the door gets opened up and waving with her free hand like she isn't looking at someone that's a potential T-Virus vector. She'll hold the door open until everyone's in, then pull it shut afterwards. "So... Are you feeling sick yet? Or are you okay with all that?" She doesn't look too concerned about the bites, at least, but her control rod is still toasty. RESCUE TEAM Going that far beneath the earth's surface (or the water surface, at least) is actually kind of comforting for Rin and Satori. Granted, they don't fully understand all those things they're looking at, and they'd probably be considerably more freaked out if they knew what bulkheads were, but they don't seem to feel like they're in any particular danger at the moment with many those zombies behind closed doors. Like Utsuho, Rin does a pretty good job at immolating whatever zombies come across her path, going for a bit of overkill to incinerate them rather than slow cook them so as to avoid making the smell linger too long. Satori's approach, meanwhile, is more about blasting them hard and keeping them away long enough to keep moving, as though she's trying not to open up more of those rotting wounds that really would smell terrible if left alone. Before there can be a touching reunion between Joe and Zoe, though, a mysterious voice sounds out, and the bulkhead seals shut. Rin's the first to start freaking out over that, and she's about to start running off to try pounding on that door until Satori grabs her to stop her. "Not yet. Let's... Go along with it." "For now?" "For now." Satori doesn't look quite as collected as she sounds while whispering to Rin. Her expression is too stiff as she heads over to the indicated wall, letting her thoughts wander a bit as she tries to get any kind of mental read on whoever might be behind that closed bulkhead. She's not even sure if anyone's there, but it's still worth trying to get an answer. "Who are you? Are you worried about something getting out from here?"
Rita Ma	Rita feels- and looks- just a little silly, going back to her whip-crack 'gun' after that naked display of violence. But circumstances don't demand much more of her, and she sticks a little closer to Joe than she had before, grateful for him taking it in stride.      He's trusting me, even though he knows a little. And Ms. Steloj is trusting me even though she knows a lot. So I have to do my best, don't I?      Her face, drawn tight in uneasy anticipation when Joe starts knocking on the BOW room's door, brightens with a little gasp. Her hands cup around her mouth as she leans in: "Ms. Zoe!! I'm so glad. It'll be okay! We're going to get you out of--"      Rita swivels before the bulkhead's even finished closing, not that it does her any good. Her elation drains away, leaving only shock. "... here?"      Her hands ball up when the intercom crackles, but Satori sways her. Reluctantly, Rita drops her 'gun' and follows the instructions. She shoots Joe a meaningful glance in the process, to make sure he is too.      "Who are you? Who's 'we'??" she shouts back while pressed against the wall. "You'll let Ms. Zoe leave too, won't you?" But she already knows the answer to that question. They wouldn't be pulling this stunt now if they meant to let her go. There's going to be a struggle of some kind, and she means to be ready for it.      It's a work of long seconds and subtle degrees to cover herself in a second wrapping beneath her existing disguise, use that to optically camouflage herself, and slip out of her old wrapping, leaving it behind as a hollow moving disguise. From the outside, Rita just seems to squirm anxiously and then go still. From there, she can quietly creep onto the ceiling, ready to get the drop on anyone who might enter.
Metamorph One	Parting reluctantly from Joe, both Dianna and Elara follow the reactor team in sequence. Elara drifts ahead on instinct, intending to take vanguard behind Dianna on point, but the other woman places her hand on her shoulder and pulls her firmly back, motioning towards HUNK with the barrel of her machine gun(?) (one-handed). Elara frowns, but nods at an exchange of silent words, and falls into the middle. Dianna moves just into position to keep her aim on HUNK the entire time, while staying just outside the range he could turn and grab her weapon by surprise. The explosive remote is left with her partner.     A few zombies later, where the clean corridors fade and the grungy valves come out, Elara clicks her own VPT, focuses, and error corrects in a handgun for herself, woven from a grid of starlight. Compact, clean white, and blue-slashed, it matches her outfit and no maker templates at all. "Ghost Light?" "We're moving into cramped quarters. The background terrain will make it difficult to locate hostiles." "El." "I've gotten used to it. And we're on a mission." "Acknowledged."     A matching eyepiece screen comes down over Elara's ear in the following minutes, though she keeps the other eye persistently closed. A spirographic will-o-wisp of blue-white moonlight hovers ahead of each corner and intersection, before the group approaches, moving smoothly to the individual gestures of Elara's free hand. Each time it disappears from view, she calls "Clear." or something like "Two, left-ten." and wandering zombies come from exactly the direction indicated. The roving trash that appears is blown away by chunk three-round bursts from Dianna; every so often, she counts "Three hundred." "Three-fifty." "Four hundred.", but the ammo doesn't seem to run low.     When HUNK says 'stand back', Dianna bristles, then says "Gladly.", backing up to put Elara behind her as well. The explosive bang sends both of them simultaneously dropping to seated crouch, but the pellets don't rebound from the walls. "Clear." "Clear." "There's two of three."     When the man begins talking, Elara hurries in quickly with her gun pointed steadily at the ground, and Dianna holds the door to shoo the others in, then slams it behind her. "Suggest denial of entry on our rear. We're aborting meltdown, not causing it. We can extract on our terms." "Understood Severance. Swapping ontological ammunition at Metamorph One's position."     And then, in completely different tones, the blonde rushes over to the engineer in the chair. "Oh goodness! How did you-- What's your name? What are you doing here? Ah, can you walk? I'm sure we can make room for you in the rescue party." The way she looks at him, far-away blue-eyed worry all over her face, makes it seem like she's looking 'around' him more than at his face. "We're with the BSAA. Our team here is on-track to shut down the reactor past this point. Can you tell us anything about its condition?"
Operator	REACTOR TEAM:     The man struggles to sit more upright in his chair as he groans and coughs. "Oh, the bites? Yeah, I had my booster shots on the mainland during a conference. Expect that's the only reason I'm still-" He shudders, clearly feeling a lancing pain shoot through him.     "I'm... Ryan Jones. Nuclear engineer. I handle the reactor when the place isn't going to shit. I... I don't think I'll make it. Definitely can't walk." He gestures at the bloody bandage around his thigh. "That ghoulish pasty thing got me. I think the researchers said it was a 'Regenerador...' I managed to lock it inside the reactor though, it should be cooked by now. Oh right, the reactor. I did that." HUNK twitches at the mention of 'locked it inside the reactor,' looking to the other door in the room plastered with warning signs and process infographics, but doesn't say anything.     Swivelling his chair around, he begins to hit keys to wake the screens up. "Our setup has a scheduling system, so I-I set it up to slowly raise the control rods every hour. Sort of a makeshift distress signal. But also so that if-if no one came... the meltdown would flood the place with radiation. Hopefully sterilizing it and killing all those freaks. Can't let any of them out."     Exhaling, he says, "But, if you're all here, then I can turn that off, put them back in-" A rattling crash echoes from below, and Ryan freezes. "No, nonono, that can't be, it's been over a day down there-" HUNK grunts and shakes his head. "Of course. These things would never react normally to long-term radiation exposure." Ryan pounds the keys to open up a camera feed of the reactor interior. The footage is heavily distorted by blue static, but there's enough clarity to see some freakish thing attacking the reactor. Great spikes erupt from its form as it flails with massive claws, it's blackened skin constantly boiling off, only for pasty white flesh to regrow in the same place. "Fuck fuck fuck! If that thing breaks... well, anything, the whole place could go up! You need to go, now!"     Now banging comes from the sole exit. A crowd of zombies pile against it, drawn in by the loud banging from below. "Oh god... oh god I'm so sorry. You... can I use that?" He gestures at the white gun held by Elara, a desperate look in his eyes. RESCUE TEAM:     "Oh god oh god oh god," Daniel mutters, shaking as the demands from the mysterious voice come through just as Zoe finishes clearing the door and rushing into Joe's embrace. Rita asks if Zoe gets to go too, and the voice replies, "Negative. We will be taking her."     "Like HELL you will!" Joe snarls, walking up to the bulkhead and slamming that gauntlet against it. The metal on metal rings out loudly, echoing in the confined space. "We are not concerned about what happens to this place. Miss Zoe is an... intriguing subject. We only want to examine her before the BSAA flushes her system. Now, one more time, against the-"     What they were going to say is cut off as something slams the wall on the other side with great force. Gunfire reverberates through the metal, but one by one, it cuts off, until another tremendous strike hits the bulkhead, causing it to buckle.     "Nonononono, please no, not them!" Daniel cries as a massive hand reaches around the compromised metal, pushing it up so it slides back into place with a tremendous squeal. An enormous wall of a humanoid, covered in dull grey flesh, clad only in a leather coat stands in the way. Behind them is a scene of utter carnage. A bunch of soldiers, dressed somewhat alike to HUNK, lay dead. All beaten, crushed, and slammed with great force, like the bodies in the entrance hall. Daniel's only response is to wet his pants. "The Tyrant," he squeaks with the terror of someone before the gallows.     With measured footsteps, it advances. Its eyes are dull, but full of clear malice.
Rita Ma	Rita, clinging to the ceiling, holds her breath as the Tyrant advances. Her fingers dig little furrows into the metal. If it sees through her camouflage somehow...! But it won't. It doesn't.      On a sluggish delay, she remembers to have the fake Rita stagger backwards in horror. The expression of shock doesn't take much embellishment to craft; the way she fumbles to pick up her gun from the floor in a panic is a little heartwrenching.      She feels a little guilty. But it only has to last until the Tyrant passes her by and turns its back.      At that moment, the fake Rita mottles, blurs into active camouflage, and unravels like a sweater with a loose thread. The real one drops from the ceiling, lands behind the Tyrant, and then sweeps her arm through its lower spine elbow-deep.      Her forearm is tinged soot-black in the aftermath. Where it touched is alchemized into charcoal and steam.      "Mr. Baker! This way! If you hurry...!" She can't look triumphant- it wouldn't be that easy, and as braced as she was to sacrifice the illusion of normalcy for others' safety, it still leaves her queasily melancholy. But maybe that'll slow the Tyrant down long enough for the others to rush past it. A chase is better than being pinned down at a dead end.
Hellwarming Trio	REACTOR TEAM "Booster shots..." Utsuho repeats Ryan quietly, pursing her lips while considering his words slowly. She not-so-subtly steps up behind Dianna and HUNK, then whispers without really trying to hide that she's doing so: "Did we need to get those?" She shrugs a moment later, then looks over at the reactor door with a slow nod. It's a sound enough plan, at least with her limited knowledge of radiation poisoning. The crash from below gets Utsuho's attention fairly quickly, though, as she looks down while still somehow not looking too worried. "If they're coming for us... Hmm. We should move fast then." She states with all the haste of not, turning to watch that footage of the Regenerador's... Regeneration and visibly recoiling at it. "Whoa... That thing looks strong. But we're stronger, so don't you worry." Flashing the man one of her fully confident, yet empty-minded grins, Utsuho looks over at the exit when the banging starts coming from there. "Already? Annoying things... Oh, good idea!" She (verbally) applauds the engineer's request for a gun while missing what he might actually mean, floating a bit as she heads towards the marked door. "More of us blasting those things should make this way easier. Or you guys. I've got the reactor!" Smacking a hand against her chest confidently, Utsuho beelines for the reactor. Recalling that the job today is to prevent it from exploding and melting down, and recalling that Ryan mentioned that everything could explode if the creature attacking it breaks anything, her singular focus becomes the prevention of exactly that. As long as the creature's still down there, though... Utsuho just starts taking power from the reactor into herself and her control rod. As much of it as she can, even, as she's banking on her own ability to withstand such energy to hold out until it's safe to finally start putting it back in. RESCUE TEAM Satori doesn't really know what Rita's doing, but she can sort of guess. She doesn't draw attention to her, though, as her first priority is making sure she and Rin don't get shot up by whoever's on the other side of that bulkhead. With Joe banging on the door and Rita doing Rita things, though, she sighs and waves Rin over as she starts building up a wall of projectiles in preparation to fire them at whoever's on the other side. ... Except whoever's on the other side is already shooting before the bulkhead even opens. Rin shoots Satori a baffled look while Satori purses her lips in concern, already bracing herself for the sight of the giant gray figure coming on through. At that sight, Rin screams in terror roughly around the same time Daniel does, letting adrenaline takeover as she darts in front of Satori in mid-air. "D... Don't think you're gonna get a hand on master! Get outta the way!" The kasha screams as she starts launching a frenzied array of fireballs right at the thing Daniel had called the Tyrant. Her aim is a little off at first, but the flames start curling and converging towards the Tyrant in a rather erratic-looking pattern that's more concerned with just immolating it than anything else. Against her better judgment, Satori tries to probe the Tyrant's mind, if it even has one. "Mister Daniel, calm down. What is it?"
Metamorph One	"Could have guessed." Dianna says to Ryan. "She means the nuclear engineer part, not--" "No you look like a Ryan." Elara sighs. "Don't worry. We can handle the reactor procedures ourselves. We should focus on getting you out of here." Dianna comes within inches of shoving HUNK from behind, but then thinks better of it. "Hey. Mister 'Unkillable'. Herbs." She gestures towards Ryan's leg with the gun. "If you need a motivation, then I'm threatening you." She does have a gun and is at his back, but it doesn't actually move.     "Regenerador . . ." "You could guess even without speaking the language." However, Dianna is looking somewhere else, smirking faintly, at the words 'ghoulish pasty thing'. "So, confirming one target in the reactor. Anything else you shut in there?" "We need to confirm that we have accurate intelligence. Thank you so much for everything you've done so far. You've been really brave. If you hadn't sent that signal, we wouldn't have been able to save anyone. We'll make sure you get home safe, okay?" She's already sending a pulsing blue light whizzing off down the corridors to see for herself.     The footage. Elara looks at Ryan in concern. Some nameless, awful worry flickers through her eyes. ". . . Okay." she says uneasily, flipping the gun and handing it over by the grip. "But you have to promise me." She stares at him urgently. "It's for the zombies. Got it?" She refuses to let go until he convinces her.     "Severance to Ghost Light. We're on the clock. Critical containment failure ETA damn soon." "Noted. Handing i-link visual to you. Triggers free." "Acknowledged."     Dianna doesn't move from the spot. Elara closes her eyes, focusing deeply, and then extends her hand to her parner; the luminous 'threads' wired through her jacket glow blue. Dianna barely so much as touches Elara's finger, and the glow is reflected in her eyes. Her trigger hand releases the grips, letting it fold into her sleeve, and she squeezes the air instead. Fingers twitch against empty space; her wrist tilts in clockwork motions through thin air, slowly and surely. "There." she whispers. A squeeze. "Five seconds." Visibly counting down on her fingers.     The rumble of impact quakes up through the floor and rattles through the walls. Directly centered on the live visual they have of the Regenerador; a clean 'bunker-buster' through ceiling and wall and door at a shallow angle, leaving concrete smouldering from the pass-through. "Time. Counting seconds to complete enemy reconstitution." "Move!" Dianna begins racing in.
Operator	REACTOR TEAM:     "Already got one piece of dead weight that wasn't in the briefing," HUNK grumbles as they're ordered to supply first aid. But, they do comply, producing another spray bottle and dumping most of it into the leg wound, the last ten percent being spread out on the smaller cuts that Ryan suffered. The engineer exhales with relief. "I take back everything bad I ever said about Umbrella, that stuff is a godsend."     As Utsuho heads for the reactor, he yells, "No, wait!" But it's too late. Beyond that heavy door is a small elevator that begins a slow descent. After about a minute, it finally stops and a massive bulkhead slides open before Utsuho. The air is hot, and tastes metallic as she enters the reactor. There before her is the Regenerador, currently clawing at one of the coolant pipes. It's clear that while it's alive, the radiation burns have destroyed whatever rationale it once had.     As she begins to draw in all the ionizing radiation from the room, the temperature begins to drop. She can see the control rods starting to lower as Ryan disables the automation and sets them to descend. But the Regenerador has finally noticed it. It lunges, twitching like an overcranked movie monster, opening it's hideous maw as if aiming to bite her head clean off!     Back in the control room, Ryan takes the gun with shaking hands after finally nodding. "Zombies only. Okay." As the Metamorphs scan through the dense shielding between they and the reactor, they highlight the Regenerador. Curiously, while its skin is burning hot from the radiation, there are multiple points through its body where it's glowing hotter still.     But then the bunker busting shot pierces clean through it all and removes most of its upper body, sparing Utsuho a chewed head. Finally, the control rods finish sliding into place, and Ryan speaks through the intercom. "Temperature is dropping, damage is minimal enough that we can keep it under control. Good job miss, come back u-"     He's cut off by the squeal of metal giving way. The zombies breached the door, and HUNK immediately acts. Shooting the leg out of the one in front, he delivers a mighty punch that sends him sprawling back into the others. In the other hand he holds a grenade, which he tosses into the pile just as it forms. The resulting explosion is soaked by the bodies, creating a shower of gore. "Objective complete. We need to link up with the rescue team and extract." RESCUE TEAM:     "Tyrant... Umbrella's most successful mass-produced BOW... incredibly strong, durable, stable, and smart enough to follow orders..." Daniel cries as he sinks to his knees. "We're dead, dead, dead!"     As the Tyrant steps forward, Rita completes her ambush. Dropping from the ceiling, she cleaves into its back. The Tyrant's muscles are intensely dense and thick, enough that her cuts are more shallow than she might have hoped, but still enough to stagger the thing long enough for Rin to immolate it. While it's reeling, Joe delivers another punch to its knee joint, causing to crumple.     Immediately, Daniel is running past, shoving Zoe aside on his way. "Coward!" Joe yells after him as he lifts Zoe up to her feet. "Let's go!" He too takes off as the Tyrant slowly begins to get up, patting itself down with it's massive hands to try and extinguish the flames.     "They talked about that thing," Zoe says as she runs along the group. "It stalks its targets no matter what. It's gonna follow us. We need to slow it down!" As they pass a bulkhead, she stops and smashes the glass pane that covers its operating lever, sharply pulling it down to cause the bulkhead to close. "Good thinkin'!" Joe says, doing the next one as the group ascends.
Operator	Both teams reach the third floor at about the same time. Daniel has run out of breath at this point, now leaning against the wall as he recovers it. "Rescue complete I see," HUNK says as they nod to Zoe. "Yeah, but we gotta go! Some big Tyrant thing is on our heels!" Joe barks. "Tyrant... damn. We need to extract ASAP." "Wait! Weren't those soldiers down there with him?" Zoe exclaims, pointing at HUNK? "Other soldiers?" "Yeah, they tried to trap us and take Zoe!" HUNK looks up and says, "They may have dealt with our pilot. We should go."     "YOU!" Ryan barks suddenly as he notices Daniel, lunging to club him over the head with the butt of that borrowed gun. "This is all your fault you son of a bitch! You and your stupid fucking conspiracy podcasts! You didn't give people their boosters, did you?! That's why they all turned so easily!"     Daniel sobs on the ground, head wound bleeding profusely. "I just... people should be allowed to do their own research, make their own decisions...!" Ryan has that gun pointed at Daniel's head with a trembling hand. "You made the decision for them, you dumb fuck! And now they're all dead!"
Metamorph One	"Hostile down. Severance, proceed at discretion." "Reiuji. Suggest you secure-- Utsuho, grab the remains and haul them out through the hole we just made. Dump it somewhere it'll freeze or drown, if it's still regenerating. Burn it to ash; I don't care. Just don't leave it in the reac--"     The door breaks down. Dianna halts her sprint towards the elevator, skidding violently across the grungy floor and grabbing the wall to halt, lunging back towards the room with Ryan, HUNK, and more importantly, Elara.     Who does not seem as concerned as she should be. Where fear and panic and visceral disgust should be overwhelming her, she stays in front of Ryan as if she were a million miles away, cold eyes focused on the tide of infected as if she were seeing them through a viewscreen. "Ghost Light to Severance; requesting FPF on illuminated coordinates. Danger close. Copy?" Just as she had before they entered the facility, Elara extends the trigger's blue-white laser into the gnashing horde, just ahead of HUNK. "Copy. Hard-Light rounds incoming."     Once again, the ceiling opens up; this time without an accompanying explosive rumble. Bolts of solar light streak diagonally through, this time at a high angle, bursting overhead and cleanly puncturing zombies in a dense spray like flechette or grape shot. "Reload ready in five." Dianna skids around the corner, a holographic orange targeting overlay in front of her. Her fingers dance over the VPT madley. error correction fires a carbon fibre cable into the hole in the ceiling, through the two layers up. She grabs hold of Elara. "We're not taking the long way." Then she broadcasts to Rita.     "Ghost Light to rescue team. Can you confirm that you have the package? Do you need extraction? I repeat, do you need extraction?" Dianna is already reeling her up.
Hellwarming Trio	REACTOR TEAM That metallic taste is somewhat familiar to Utsuho already as she charges right into where the reactor is, focused as she is on keeping the thing from exploding after all those strikes. Luckily, she's spared the headbite thanks to Dianna's and Elara's expertly placed bunker-buster, and she glances over at the pair to flash them a quick grin and shout a hearty "Thanks!" before turning her attention back to the reactor itself. Ryan's doing his part, and that makes her job easier. Despite being and acting how she has, she knows just how to control the flow so things don't fluctuate too rapidly. She keeps at it until she's given the okay from Ryan to return, only retaining some of that excess nuclear energy in her control rod before drifting back to rejoin the group. When Dianna gives her some directions, meanwhile, it takes her a moment to comprehend them, but she nods firmly a few moments later. "On it! How abooout... Both? I like both." With that still-powered up control rod on one side, she starts shoving the chunks of the Regenerador back into that convenient hole formed by the two. Once she gets all those pieces down the hole, she sticks the control rod in, then unloads all of that gathered energy straight through. On the way back, all those zombies exploding in front of HUNK following that punch only serve to solidify her belief that he's got exploding strikes (even if she did miss the grenade toss). Naturally, she cheers about that. RESCUE TEAM "Stop whining. We haven't died yet." Satori snaps at Daniel in his moment of peril, gesturing at what's actually happening when Rita gets the jump on Tyrant.  She's doing a better job at keeping her cool once she sees all those cuts turning into fire, and even relaxing when Joe wades in with his super glowing fist. Rin's still looking positively freaked out even as the Tyrant topples, but she still keeps it together long enough to scramble back and start tugging Satori along when an opening is presented. "That big guy's gonna keep comin'?! Screw it, let's just find the others and go!" Satori does't need to be told twice, although she does look over at Daniel thoughtfully. He did seem so scared of the Tyrant just now, didn't he? No... That'd be too cruel. Maybe later. REJOIN "... Oh! That's what the booster shots were about!" "We'll worry about the booster thing later! Yeah, that tyrant thing'll be comin' back any second now." "Wait. If Mister... He's correct, this could have all been avoided." Satori narrows her eyes at Daniel, then looks over at Zoe and Joe. She purses her lips briefly, then shrugs and starts floating up after Dianna and Elara before stopping. "Will you need help getting up?" She asks, looking towards HUNK and Rita. "We're not the strongest, but... I think my pets and I should be able to carry you up." "I dunno... He looks kinda heavy." "It's fine, Orin. She's... It's cool."
Rita Ma	"Ms. Zoe!!" Joe beats Rita to helping her up, but Rita still fusses pointlessly over the fallen girl, casting an anxious glance back at the rising Tyrant in the process. She puts a (non-blackened) hand briefly on Zoe's shoulder anyway, ostensibly to steady her.      Really, it's to say "you're with friends. You're not a leper to me." Whether or not it's a reassurance Zoe needs, it's the kind Rita would want. "I can't believe Dr. Reeds. How could he just...?"      But it isn't the time for recriminations. And even though the escape from the Tyrant ought to be nervewracking- and it is- the longer it goes on, the more relaxed and focused Rita becomes. Nobody's looking at her. Next to fireballs, what she's done hasn't been too strong.      "Rescue team to Miss Gh- I mean, Ghost Light," Rita echoes from the party's rear, keeping her 'gun'- when did she get it back?- trained on the buckling bulkheads behind them until they recede from view. "Zoe Baker is secured. We're nearly to the third floor, but we're being chased. Be ready when we regroup."      When they do, she flashes the reactor team a sheepishly relieved smile, keeping her arm hidden behind her back. She's careful to stay about twenty feet away from Elara, just in case. Nervously, she chimes in: "Um, if anything did happen to the pilot, does anyone here know how to fly a helicopter?"      Ryan gun-clubbing Daniel makes her gasp, in the way that nobody really inured to violence would. "Doctor Reeds! Are you..." "This is all your fault you son of a bitch!" "... Okay?"      Her sympathy drains away. Her eyes widen. Her blood ices. All those hundreds of people, just because someone couldn't take the danger seriously. Couldn't imagine it.      "Doctor Reeds." She steps forward, hands folded, coolly demure. "You've never been sick, have you? Really, really sick." If this had all been on purpose, it wouldn't be less evil, but it'd make more sense. This is just gutwrenchingly incomprehensible. "In a way that changed your life. In a way that really hurt you."      Her lips press in a tight line. Her eyes flick to Ryan. He's the one who's been hurt- shouldn't he make the call? But there are other people who ought to make it, too, and don't have a voice anymore. "There's no point apologizing to us," she says, even though Daniel hasn't really. "The dead can't forgive you."      On their behalf, an invisible tendril snakes out, coils inside the trigger guard, and squeezes Ryan's finger down.      Then she pivots smoothly, swallows, smiles a fake smile, and holds out her undirtied hand to Satori. "Yes, please. I'd appreciate the help getting up."
Metamorph One	Meeting the other team, Elara allows relief to flash across her face, only to swiftly be replaced with alarm when Ryan rushes forward. "Mister Jones, don't--" However, this time, Dianna doesn't have to pull her back. The blonde's face screws up in an expression of shock and concern, then sour disgust. She turns her back and forms up on Dianna-- herself passive and inscrutable-- and says "Confirm the pilot. We can--" "We have room for maybe two at most in the cockpit. The Gensokyo kids can leave under their own power. If it's my choice, I'm taking Zoe and Rita."     Elara jumps at the sound of the gunshot. Dianna puts her hand against her back, which silently urges her not to turn around. Overhead, the sound of thrusters whines. Radar picks up the incoming signature of-- that's their craft, left outside, and no doubt firing all of this artillery. "Joe. Ryan. Figure it out."
Operator	Utsuho jams the meat of the Regenerador into the hole created by the bunker buster. As she gathers it, she can see tendrils akin to those left in the corpses of the Plagas in the cafeteria. They're scrambling about, trying to connect to the other chunks, pulling them closer as it all gets amassed in the hole. But the nuclear fire that floods it makes the tendril sources explode in wet pops, and by the time she's done, the hole contains only inert carbon.     The holes left by the hard light do indeed cut straight up to the entrance to maintenance, allowing for a quick ascent back to the third floor. HUNK nods their approval and pulls Ryan over, taking a rappel harness from his kit and hooking the man up to ascend before following him. Utsuho, once she gets out of the reactor, can simply fly up.     On the third floor, the choice is made, if not specifically by the one holding the gun. Daniel's last words in response to Rita was, "B-But don't you see? It's the vaccines that make you sic-" right before the bullet hits. Ryan seems stunned, but nor confused. It's very likely he was about to pull it anyway, and didn't notice the pressure on his index finger. Taking a deep nasal breath, he gathers phlegm and spits it onto Daniel's body. "Too good a death for you."     The remote operated craft descends and begins firing. Its sensors pick up multiple soldiers awaiting in the snow, easy pickings for its weapons. The helicopter the group arrived in has a great smear of blood on it's wind-shield, clearly indicating what happened to the pilot. As the artillery begins to fire, a black boat pulls away from the docks and begins to speed into the night, using the dark water as camouflage.     "From the sounds of it, I don't get to come," HUNK says flatly to Satori. "She has the keys, and didn't even mention me. Go. I'll deal with the Tyrant and wait for recovery efforts." "Huh? No, wait, he's hurt!" Zoe appeals to Dianna as she gestures at Ryan. "Take him. I'll stay with Uncle Joe." "Like hell you are!" Joe retorts. "You're getting the hell out of here." "You're not my Dad! And I can look after myself! I survived in that house without you, I can survive here with you! It's... it'll be easier. Last time, when I got left behind, I was alone. But not this time."     Ryan looks between the two, looking terribly guilty. "Look, um... if you're staying, you'll need this more than me." He offers the white gun, and Zoe takes it with a nod. "You all need to go. We'll see you off at the entrance.     The ascend back to the fulcrum is a short one. Zoe, Joe, and HUNK watch as you all begin to ascend. Distant stomping gets louder and louder as the Tyrant approaches. "Don't you die on me," Joe orders HUNK, who only retorts, "Can't. As long as she's here with us, mission isn't over yet."     The group of Elites emerges in the black of night once more, surrounded by bodies. Dianna and Elara's craft is before them. The Gensokyo residents get to look forward to a freezing night flight back to the mainland.
Hellwarming Trio	Although none of the three are necessarily surprised by Daniel getting blasted away, the gunshot at close range is still enough to get the three of them to jump just a little bit. They don't look particularly saddened, though, as they're still busy being distracted by everything else around them seeming far more important at the time. Getting everyone back to the surface, for example. Satori can't be too disappointed, either, since Rita did ask so politely. "Of course. Okuu, Orin. Help the others." At least, that's the plan until it's revealed that there's only room for two more in Dianna and Elara's vehicle. Satori has an easy enough time helping Rita up there if she wants that as well, and Utsuho and Rin can at least help Joe, Zoe, HUNK, and Ryan back to the surface. Eventually,t hough, Satori comes back down with that news still fresh in the trio's minds. "Escaping would be easy enough here, but..." "Buuuut?" "... It's as Mister HUNK said. The mission isn't complete yet." Satori glances up at the craft again, then nods firmly before turning back towards the trio still ready to face down the Tyrant. Utsuho is still trying to stifle a snicker (badly), and Satori shoots her a brief Look before turning to the remaining three. "We can fly back home whenever we'd like. We'll be alright staying until then." "... Heh." "Quiet." "Bet we could grab that doc's body, too!" "Oh yeah. He's still fresh." "I'd rather... No."
Rita Ma	"Too good a death for you."      "Yeah," Rita says bloodlessly, already salivating again. She forces herself not to look at the doctor. But she can smell the trajectory of the bullet anyway: fresh blood, cerebrospinal fluid, brain matter. No need to make sure.      The three yokai bring her up. But once she's out in the dark of night and the howling snow, and she fully realizes realizes who will and won't be coming, a slow-spreading panic blooms over her. She turns around to look back down the hole and helplessly holds out a hand as the thumping approaches. "Wait, no. You can't really mean- Ms. Zoe, we were supposed to get you out of here! Mr. Joe-!!"      She wheels to look at Dianna and Elara, distraught and almost pleading. The Bakers will be okay, she knows deep down. They don't need her help. And she's seen and done enough; she's starving, cold, exhausted. But the way Elara recoiled from her...      "Ms. Steloj. You can't really... this isn't okay with you, is it? I'll just be a burden. I belong here anyway." It's meant in more senses than one.
Metamorph One	'From the sounds of it, I don't get to come,'     "What's the matter?" says Dianna. "You're unkillable, aren't you?" Despite the venomous sass, she looks at him with less hostility than she does . . . most people, honestly. "Here." And just like that, she tosses him the remote to his own explosive. "We'll be out of signal range soon anyways. If you get out, then you deserved to live."     'Take him. I'll stay with Uncle Joe.'     Dianna shakes her head, but it's Elara who says "Zoe . . . The whole reason we came here-- that your uncle came here, was to rescue you. He was prepared for the risk from the very start, just to save you. If we leave you, then . . ." She sighs. "We'll come back as soon as we've evacuate the others." Dianna says. "Metamorph One will provide retreating FPF for as long as we're in range. Then, find somewhere to bunker down, or if you find an exfil route, leave a beacon for us to verify."     'Ms. Steloj. You can't really... this isn't okay with you, is it?'     Elara looks at Rita with a kind of twisted, miserable understanding that borders on hearbreakingly gentle. "A girl like you doesn't belong here, Rita. We need to evacuate our most vulnerable teammates first. You don't have a way to get back on your own, you can't operate a helicraft, and . . ." She looks down at Rita's wrist. "You don't have any spare ammo, do you? Please just come with us."     The quadrupedal mecha lands nearby, its white silhouette blending with the outdoors and making it stand out against the sky. The opaque armoured canopy pulls back; it really will be a tight squeeze. Dianna vaults the distance all at once, then extends an arm to help the others. Her hand on the pilot triggers manipulates the anti-personnel ball turrets to the flanks. Wordlessly, the rows of launchers fire smokeless missile lights into the air, which arc down in a scatter around. "Don't have ammo forever. Unless you're planning to carry those three on your backs across the ocean, let's go."
Rita Ma	"But I--!"      Rita's hands ball up over her chest. She looks like she's been struck. She wants to say something, but what can she possibly say? "I can swim back"? "It's not a real gun"? Joe and Dianna were kind to her. Somehow, even though she's told a thousand people a hundred times before, she can't bring herself to gamble with their affection.      After a long strangled moment, Rita realizes that Elara has her beat. She breathes out, puts on a bittersweet smile, and droops her head. "Okay. Thank you, Ms. Steloj. I'll... I'll try not to be any trouble."      She takes Dianna's hand, hops up into the cockpit, and squeezes down into a corner as small as she can. The whole ride back, she does her absolute best not to think about being hungry, which never ever works.
Operator	"I know. Sorry for making you come all this way." Zoe says to Rita and Elara, looking a little teary herself. "But... we're family. I can't just leave him behind, and he would never leave me behind. This is the only way." As she appeals to Joe, he just... pats her on the head. "Don't you worry miss. The gators back home put up more of a fight than he did. You head back. And promise me you'll try to reconnect with those people, okay?"     "I'm unkillable. They're not," HUNK says to Dianna, gesturing at Zoe and Joe. But they accept the remote to their collar. Eyeing it for a moment, their thumb drifts to the 'Release' button, but they eventually just pocket it. "Might be useful for a quick end."     As the yokai volunteer to stay, HUNK sighs from behind their mask. "I don't understand you three at all." "They're good folk. Probably weren't many of those at Umbrella," Joe retorts. "I'd say they're stupid. But there were plenty of those at Umbrella, and they didn't act like this."     The Tyrant finally emerges from the depths, their coat having burned away to reveal mottled flesh. A single treat eye bulges from their left shoulder, and bones have grown from their hands to form claws.     The fight is frantic and desperate. The Tyrant moves faster now, lunging as it carves up the floor with each slash. But the exposed eye makes for a good weak point. The flames of the bird and cat only inconvenience it, it's mind is too simple for Satori to play on. HUNK dumps every round they have into it. Joe drives his fists into it every chance he gets. Even Zoe gets a few clean shots in. But it just won't go down.     Not until Joe lands a clean, fully charged hit on its cheek, sending its head spinning hard enough that muscle tears and cartilage snaps. At that moment, HUNK lunges in, leaping and wrapping their whole arm around the Tyrant's head. Using the full force of their jump and entire body weight, they twist the head completely 180, bringing the hulking figure to the ground.     "Hah... hahah! Got him!" Joe cheers and HUNK gets to their feet. "Mmh. First time I'll be bringing people home after a mission," they say, when Zoe suddenly screams. The Tyrant lunges, leaping to its feet in spite of its backwards-facing head, reaching for the two men.     Only for HUNK to produce that remote from their pocket and hit the button. The collar, having been slipped on the bioweapon during the neck twist, detonates. Only a smoking stump remains as it collapses for the last time.     "Always double tap. It's the first lesson I learned."