Chapter Three, B :: State of the Inhumane

[ST]

Team:

Stella
Jaime
Vanesse
Reese

---

Alrighty, this is simple. This thread starts with Reese guiding his team away from the mainframe room, leaving Hady's group and heading for the laboratory instead.

I'll make a Reese post that will get the ball rolling here.

[Reese]

Reese strode right past the mainframe door as Hadrian and his team filed inside. "This way," he glanced over his shoulder, speaking to the three girls with him and watching to make sure they were close behind.

The white walls and white floors and white lights... The sterile smell... The air-conditioned chill of the hallways... He found himself pleasantly surprised at how quickly all of his senses tuned in to the familiar and comfortable feel of the environment. He felt strangely at ease, and somehow a little more alive. Ironic. It could almost be described as 'homey,' he thought with an inward smirk. Because regardless of his newfound alliance with Garden, this was once his home. This was what he lived, what he knew. So as he walked the pristine corridor and listened to his own boots thud against the marble, it felt understandably good to simply be in a setting where he was sure he knew his shit. Where he felt at least somewhat empowered. Even if he was technically no longer a part of this place, it still felt like a part of him.

The group of them came to the end of the hallway where their path split in either direction to the right and left. Reese turned left. "There are two entrances to the lab, so we need to decide which one we want to shoot for," He walked quickly, his eyes everywhere and his way of moving somehow both rigid and fluid all at once. Like a cat on the prowl. "At the end of this corridor, we can either take a right turn that will take us through an area called the Outer Foyer, or we can take a left turn and go out of our way to avoid that area altogether.

"As for what the Foyer is -- picture an underground stadium, almost." He kept his voice low and spoke quickly as they walked. "The Outer Foyer is a circular path that sits one floor above a massive lower arena, the Inner Foyer. The two are separated only by height and panes of glass. The Outer is mainly used for observation. It will be occupied by people. The Inner... well," He paused. "They use the arena for a lot of bestial experimentation. There is probably something gruesome down there they are toying with as we speak." He sighed. "In any case, the Outer Foyer will be somewhat populated with both scientists and DotNA operatives. I'm guessing we will be outnumbered about three to one if we go that route.

"Anyway, like I said, we can avoid it altogether if we really want. Our other route is a much longer one, though, and we run the risk of letting them trap us within the labyrinth-like network of hallways we will be forced to take to circle around to the main lab."

He came to an abrupt pause and faced them at the end of the hallway. "Whatever we decide, it must be done quickly. Both choices present great risk, but that obviously can't be helped. So how do we want this done?"

[Stella]

It's okay...

From the moment they stepped off the air ship she had been tense. It was the anticipation of going down into a place like this. An underground compound with its small little hallways and its clean sterile walls. For a moment she wished Rayden was there with them instead of off with the others. She hated herself for suddenly feeling so dependent on a man and straight away shoved that need aside.

I can handle it...

As soon as she had stepped onto the elevator she had drawn her guns. Their cool smooth metal in her hands stopped her from freaking out instantly. They were like her lover now, keeping her sane and steady. This was an important mission and she wasn't going to let her claustrophobia fuck it up.

It's not so bad...

No, really... I don't feel like the walls are about to close in on me at any point.

She wasn't very convincing.

Stella closed her eyes and inhaled before slowly letting it out trying to calm herself. This is a mission, Reese was speaking to them, and she was not going to flip out. Shoving that terrified feeling into the back of her mind she tuned into the man's voice listening to every word he had to say.

She glanced over at Jamie and Van giving them a quick look over. They were both small and seemed so very bubbly. They seemed to fit right along with that old saying don't judge a book by its cover. She hoped they were more then what they seemed. Things were about to get dangerous.

"As fun as it would be I don't feel like fighting any sort of monster experiment that could do Hyne only knows what.... but innocent people may get hurt if we carry on through the other route...." She let her voice trail off as she idly twirled Rhyme in her left hand.

"So monster city gets my vote, I guess.... The Inner Foyer" Stella said with a little shrug taking another deep breath.

They are just walls, remember? You didn't just see them get closer....

[waterlily43]

Jaime could feel a small frisson of uneasiness...no, not really small, it was enlarging by the second but she tried her best to ignore it with the help of her noisy but distracting GFs. She glanced back slightly at Van, a habit ingrained in her and it seemed especially important now that Van was the only part of the Opps family with her now. She returned her gaze to the front, centering it upon Reese's back. The confident and easy movement of their leader offered a major sense of comfort. They had someone who really knew what he was doing guiding them. Instantly Jaime's little etch between her eyebrows loosened along with the pressure building up within her.

When it came to choosing their way into the lab, Jaime had decided on one of them almost immediately. She couldn't exactly be described as sharp but she knew what outnumbered three to one meant. Oh, of course she knew. They were outnumbered that time when they lost Signe, Able, and almost lost Lawric, by the hands of the same people they're about to sabotage now.

"I was gonna say the inner one too." Jaime nodded, grinning nervously at Stella. Surprisingly her decision was in agreement with someone smart like Stella, although the gun twirling SeeD had slightly different reasons for it. It was like taking a multiple choice test and finding out that she wasn't the one with all the different--and most probably wrong--answers. "We would get detected by Dotna the second we step into the Outer Foyer and that would make progress so much harder. I don't want to be up against so much resistance the second we step inside. It's bad for morale."

[vanesse]

Vanesse swallowed at Reese's experimentation. A part of her was nervous, but a part of her was curious. Inhumane things? It just reminded her how much she hated this organization.

"In that case, it's settled," she spoke after Jaime. "Let's go to the Inner Foyer." She nodded. She was ready for anything.

/Are you?/

[Reese]

^{Okay, I made another ghetto map. I figured it couldn't hurt, idk if I confused anyone with Reese's explanation of the whole foyer place. Here it is: i193.photobucket.com/albums/z167/trinakening/ghetto_foyer.gif}

---

His eyes locked with each of them as one by one they expressed their choice. It was a unanimous vote; the Foyer. He wasn't displeased by the decision. This was the more dangerous route as they would be outnumbered, but it was also far quicker than trying to circle around and enter the lab from the back. As far as he was concerned, the quicker the better.

"Alright," he cleared his throat. "Once we turn this corner, we are pretty much there. We will be spotted and they will attempt to apprehend us. Like I said, we'll be outnumbered. Stay close; don't let them split us up too much. We're going to circle around the Outer Foyer clockwise until we reach the descending staircase at the opposite side. That staircase will take us directly down to the laboratory main entrance. Once we reach the lab we need to get inside and get that door shut."

He unsheathed Martyrdom and held it loosely at his side. "Like I said, the Inner Foyer is separated from the Outer by bulletproof glass. We shouldn't have to deal with whatever is down there unless they choose to release it and bring it up. If we can get through the area quickly enough, we might make it to the lab before they have that chance." His gaze settled on Vanesse briefly. "Get your Curagas ready."

Without any further words or hesitation, he turned and moved around the corner.

---

_{I'm sure you guys understand the gist of what needs to happen now. As Reese said, they will be met with resistance. I have no objections to all of us collectively writing battle posts and killing off DotNA people. From here we pretty much just need to carve a path.}

[ST]

Some information on DotNA operatives:
(just a few things to keep in mind if/when you describe them in your posts)

-There are women within the organization, but not nearly as many as there are men. I'd say the ratio is something like 4 to 1.

-There's no strict uniform policy among members, but most of them are prone to wearing darker colors and somewhat business-like attire.

-About 95% of the ones with combat training either fight with guns or gunblades. An operative who uses some other type of weapon is fairly rare.

[vanesse]

So the destination was the Inner Foyer no doubt. Vanesse smiled proudly the moment Reese asked her to ready her Curaga. "I already did." She did ever since they stepped foot in this facility. Following the group further down the hall, she heard a couple hurried footsteps from the hallway they came from. She looked back.

"Did you hear that?" she whispered harshly.

[Reese]

"Did you hear that?"

Reese paused for a second and gave a quick glance over his shoulder, looking backward just as Vanesse was. Hmm. They're behind us now, too. They've caught on.

"So much for the element of surprise," He muttered. For half a second he considered telling the girls to go on ahead, but that didn't make sense for a couple of reasons. One, they didn't know the place like he did. They'd be going into total unknown without him. Two, these followers were coming at a distance, and he carried a relatively short-range weapon. If any of them had guns, they could shoot him down before he even had a chance to attack. This job would be much better left to someone with similar capabilties...

"Artos," His attention turned over to Stella. "Handle our followers."

He placed a hand on Vanesse's shoulder and urged her toward Jaime. "Yanagi, go ahead," He looked at Stella again. "We will move into the Foyer. Meet with us as soon as you can." A slight nod, and he was off with the two Opps girls.

The voices and clicking of guns up ahead told him that in the Foyer, they were expected. Even with alarms disabled and security breached, word of mouth had traveled rather quickly among the compound. His grip tightened on the hilt of his gunblade, his resolve coming together, his nerves hardening.

The blood of his former comrades on his blade... Would it make him any more a traitor than he already was?

He lunged ahead of the two girls and clashed Martyrdom against the blade of their first attacker. Guess I'll find out. He slid his blade away from his attacker's and as he did so he fired a round into the man's leg.

[ST]

Three operatives rounded the corner about a dozen or so meters from where Stella stood. The first, a man armed with a pair of pistols, got off a few poorly-aimed shots at her.

The other two came at her running, a man armed with a gunblade and a woman with a pistolblade -- a blade-and-pistol hyrbid not unlike a small gunblade.

---

Jaime, Vanesse, and Reese -- when the three of them rounded the first corner that took them onto the Outer Foyer pathway, they were immediately met with a force of several operatives. Six or seven, maybe, and all of them armed with gunblades.


_{Okay guys, here's the chance to make your charries shine. XD Or not -- if you want to make my guys look cool and make your charries get injured you can do that too! Haha.}

[Stella]

Before Reese even looked at her she was all ready slipping one of her silencers out of her pocket. While he spoke she quickly screwed it into place and nodded at him. This was exactly the kind of distraction she needed.

The wall was very cold behind her as she crept along it leaving the others behind. Whoever these people are they weren't on the stealth team of the Dotna. Her heart was a pounding mess in her chest. Finally she was going to get some payback agaisnt these people for all that had happened. Her other silencer was in place, her guns held loosely in her hands. Flipping on the red dot sights she watched them play across the floor for a moment gathering herself.

Her head snapped up as the three operatives rounded the corner, their shots ringing agaisnt the walls around them. So much for the silent and deadly approach. The first bullet whizzed passed her and the other clunked harmlessly into a wall nearby.

"Tsk tsk, you'd think a DotNA operative would be a better shot then that" she chided her voice full of huskiness and threat. At the sound of her voice the other two came running at her full speed and she couldn't resist the small smile that played over her lips.

She aimed her guns instantly at the woman with the Pistolblade. The small weapon could be quick and deadly in the right hands. Stella let off two shots her direction and then ducked low to avoid the great sweep of the man's Gunblade. She spun around and aimed a low kick at the man's shin. It caught him off guard and as she raised herself up again she let off another spray of bullets.

The third man in the back was still firing at her and miraculously his shots seemed to be getting better. One graze her leg tearing a hole in her jeans and leaving a trail of blood in its wake. She growled agaisnt the pain and turned back to Pistol Blade both of them eyeing each other with a deadly grace. Another bullet whizzed past Stella and she chuckled. Raising her guns she aimed and fired as Pistol Blade came sweeping forward in a would be deadly arch. But the bullets reached her chest before she could finish the move spraying blood along the white walls and her companion who was suffering on the ground with a bullet wound in his stomach.

The man with two pistols was still firing but there was fear in his eyes. Stella heard the clicking sound of an empty clip and grinned at him with a shake of her head. He fumbled a bit at his belt trying to reach for another clip as she slowly raised her guns. The red dot sights lingered on his chest right where his heart was. He turned and started to run but with the calm precision she let him run for a bit and then shot him down easily a distance away from his companions.

Reaching down she started to search the two bodies close to her looking for some kind of communication device that they may have been using to keep in touch with their superiors.

[jaimelewis]

The hostile wall of Dotna Operatives was the first thing Jaime encountered upon rounding the corner. As if on cue the enemy started firing rapid rounds from their gunblades, and she had to duck and roll continuously to avoid getting hit. She scooted behind a pillar, a temporary respite from the rain of bullets, and almost immediately two of the Dotnas started forward to corner her.

"Don't you guys know the meaning of privacy?" She frowned with a slight shake of her head. "No wonder you're so UNPOPULAR!"

With a smooth flick of her wrist Jade Torture's studded tail curled around the legs of the second Dotna, jerking him so that he fell forward and hurtled straight into his comrade's back. Dotna number 1 crashed to the ground with the sudden impact from Dotna number 2's weight upon his smaller frame.

"What the fuck are you doing? Get off my back!" The sight of the two Dotnas trying to scramble to their feet was amusing, to say the least.

She did not wait for them to regain their bearings, running forward and aiming a kick into Dotna Number 1's face, then the side of his ribs. Dotna Number 1's skull barrelled straight into Number 2's nose effectively breaking the cartiledge. Jaime grinned to the music of their collective of pain. But she wasn't finished yet, carving jagged streaks on their faces with Jade Torture's tail, releasing the junctioned Pain magic into their bloodstreams. Dotna number 2 valiantly tried to reach for his gunblade, his face virtually turning green from the effort and poison in his system. She quickly kicked away his weapon grinding her boot on his hand with extra emphasis grinning with satisfaction at the crunch of his hand bone.

But her amusement was shortlived, an excruciating knock at the back of her skull sending her vision reeling, her long hair yanked back by a merciless hand to expose her neck. She glared up at her attacker eyes watering from the pain. Another male Dotna, wearing a menacing smirk and a shock of red haired spikes.

"Looks like you've been having too much fun." He spoke against her ear in a low voice, pressing the blade of his weapon against her neck. She bared her teeth turning her head suddenly to bite on his nose hard enough to draw blood, which tasted salty with sweat. The Dotna loosened his grip enough for her to duck under the blade, but both actions had created a thin gash on her neck that hurt terribly. Pressing one hand against her wound she backtracked several steps, held her other hand out and unleashed a hastily conjured Flare straight at the Dotna's body, who dropped to the ground convalscing with third degree burns on his entire body.

"Next." She spat on the ground trying to ejaculate the nasty taste from her mouth.

[Reese]

Reese brought down his first opponent with one quick and powerful adrenaline-pumped swing. This particularly unlucky guy happened to be armed with only two pistols, and Reese was on him before he could get off even a shot. The cutting edge of Martyrdom's blade cleared the man's attempted arm-block and sang straight through his jugular, spraying blood and bringing him to his knees.

During the fleeting moment of respite that followed, Reese's eyes fluttered shut for a split-second.

Haste.

He turned with cold eyes at the approach of another DotNA operative; this one a young man with a gunblade. Tawne. Reese recognized him; a former trainee. He came at Reese with a feral howl and swung his weapon with too much anger and not enough accuracy. With the aid of his spell-induced speed Reese easily avoided the attack. Tawne growled and swung again, and Reese deflected the blade with his own, then turned his hand and carved low, going for the legs. He could feel the grind of both shin bones all the way up the steel of his blade and into hilt. Tawne let out a cry that was gruesome to his ears, but judging by his stone exterior you would never know Reese was affected.

He outstretched his free hand palm-downward. Bio. Tawne lurched forward in sudden agony and quickly found his way to the ground.

"What the fuck are you doing? Get off my back!"

Reese turned at Jaime's voice, and for that short moment during which she had distracted him, their last opponent let loose a Flare in his direction. The combustive spell rushed toward him hungrily and again his Haste saved him; he barely had time to avoid being engulfed. His nostrils flared in anger. "Silence!" He shouted the name of the spell as if it were a command, killing a flame that would have become a second Flare in the small hands of the DotNA woman before him. This girl he didn't recognize. She looked very young.

He pointed his gunblade at her.

"Get out of th--"

Before he had time to finish his sentence she slipped a concealed pistol from her dark coat and shakily fired three times. Her novice level of skill was apparent in the accuracy of her shots; two of them missed him entirely, and the one that didn't tore through his left bicep.

---

_{I let her get off only three because I'm operating under the assumption that someone other than Reese would put a stop to it before she fired any more at him. You know, someone who'd be able to take her down from a distance. >.> *ahemahems and nudges Stella* XD}

[vanesse]

"Jaime!!" Vanesse hurriedly attended to her and casted Curaga. "Ohh, now you've done it, you...idiots!" She picked up her bullet shields--her twin boomerangs--from the ground and prepared to go into offense mode. It wasn't long when she heard three gunshots from Reese's direction.

"There!" In full force, she threw one of the boomerangs to the girl in front of Reese. The boomerang caught DoTNA's neck and it dragged her to the ground. "Bullseye!" She hopped in enthusiasm. "You okay, Reese??" She was tempted to summon Paridge, but that would probably be a bad idea for it would rock the place too much.

Casting a glance to the rest of the goons, she casted, "Tornado!" A huge cyclone started to appear along the narrow hallway, hitting the rest of the DoTNAs in full force, causing them to bounce on and off the walls. Clinging to one of the pillars, Vanesse accidentally caught one of their gunblades and threw it back at the hurricane, hitting one of the goons in the head. Before things got worse, Vanesse quickly cancelled the spell, leaving a mass of unconscious bodies on the ground.

"I didn't kill them." Vanesse told Jaime, staring at the bodies for a while. "Anyway!" She ran to where Reese was and healed his injury. "That should take care of it," she said. "Let's get to the Inner Foyer now....or was that the outer?" Where were they going again? This place was really tricky.

[Stella]

Stella came jogging around the corner just as the battle ended. Boomerangs were flying about and she ducked low to avoid them. Vanesse was saying something but she didn't even hear it. Her eyes were trained on the DotNA lurking in the shadows not far from Reese. His back was to the operative but surely the other two girls could see him. Vanesse was standing right there!

"Vanesse, Reese, get down" Stella growled as the DotNA operative shot out of the shadows a wicked looking dagger in his hands. The blade was dangerously close to the back of Reese's neck.

Without another thought she raised her guns the scope's lighting two bright red dot's on the operatives' forehead. No more hesitation, she fired.