Chapter Three, B :: State of the Inhumane

[waterlily43]

OMG poor Reese
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Jaime had naively thought their enemy was the "brawn but no brains" type due to the massive amount of muscles rippling across his body. Normally people who spent this much time narcissisting over their own bodies didn't spend the same time training the muscles in their heads.

She was dead wrong. This guy had cast Reflect on himself, she realised with a sick feeling in her stomach when the Pain rebounded off the man and slung right onto Reese.


"No!" Jaime cried out rushing towards him as he buckled and writhed under the effects of the Pain. "I'm sorry Reese I'm so sorry!" Hastily casting Esuna to lift the spell off him. "Did that work?"

She spun around when a swift movement caught the corner of her eye. The man was inches away from slashing Van with his dagger. And she was too far away to do anything, even with her whip's tail unleashed fully. She searched around wild-eyed and came across an upturned silver bowl that had been kicked away by Reese earlier. She grabbed it, flung it towards the man hoping it'd at least reach him and distract his aim in time.

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Haha that's a stupid idea and prolly won't reach the man in time, but Jaime had to do something.

[vanesse]

www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Palms/6923/images/leatherface_004

He's coming! LMAO XD Dun dun dun!
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Vanesse caught her boomerang in an agile somersault and found herself backing up when the monstrous man started zeroing in on her. She looked around the dark room for anything but it was hard to see.

She jumped up in surprised when a lone chinaware from the left field smashed squarely on the man's head.

Now!

Vanesse raised her hand up and casted a malevolent tornado spell in the whole room throwing everything out in disarray. She would make this commotion.

"Now's our chance! Let's go!" She shouted on top of her lungs, shielding her face from the strong gust of wind in the area. She ran past the 'big bear' to help Jaime and Reese get to their feet and head to the other side.

Van spanned around. "Stella! Come on!"

[Reese]

LMAO @ that pic XD that's exactly how I picture him too hahaha

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Reese's clenched jaw gradually loosened as the Pain spell slowly melted away under Esuna's influence. He wasn't quite listening to what Jaime was saying, but he could feel and hear her at his side and that was astonishingly a small comfort in this situation. He came to his feet from his kneeling position and focused his eyes on their big angry enemy, who was standing in the center of the room looking slightly dazed.

There was a moment of strange calm amidst the battle, and then suddenly everything erupted.

Gusts of strong wind tore across the room and into the burly man, knocking him backward into a wall before continuing on through the room. The tornado whipped along the walls and shattered the contents of the lab. Vials flew through the air and busted into walls and tables, leaving their liquids spattered across the surfaces they hit. Monitors and books flew off of the desks and crashed against the walls.

No... Reese stood, watching the pandemonium with rising panic. No!!

Van was shouting at them to run.

We just failed the mission.

The realization ignited a burning anger in the pit of his stomach. Their opponent was just now recovering from his fall, and his attention was turning in the direction of Reese.

It's over.

We've failed.

He was so angry with Vanesse right now that he didn't care what happened to her anymore. He didn't care what happened to any of these women, he just wanted them out of his way. He could have done a better job at this all on his own. Did the stupid girl even realize what she had done? She had just destroyed virtually every sample, every specimen, every piece of information this lab contained. After everything they had been through, after everyone they had killed just to get to this place... and now there would be nothing to show for it.

The anger seared through him and shook in his hands. His grip tightened around his gunblade. His gaze was steady on the bulky form of the man approaching. The female hostage sobbed in the background.

We will not leave empty-handed.

"Run if you like," he spat, the words intended for Jaime. "I'm not leaving her."

---

Kay, anyone can feel free to leave Reese here if you like. Or help him. Don't care ^_^

[jaimelewis]

Jaime threw her hands up to shield her eyes from the tornado, it was too strong and if she didn't her eyes started to hurt. She could hear glass breaking and thumps of stuff hitting the walls and the floor. The hideous excuse of a man was similarly affected. Even reflect couldn't spare him from the wrath of the objects hurling around him.

She could dimly make out Vanesse helping her get up and shouting at her to run. But she could still hear the hostage sobbing.

"Run if you like," Reese spat the words at her. "I'm not leaving her."

She was confused. What did she do to make him angry? Oh she knew he was angry alright, that wasn't a gentle tone he'd used with her. Was it the Pain Spell? It had to be. She hadn't even done anything remotely offending after that.

"I already said I was sorry." She mumbled in a little voice. " And who said anything about leaving!"

"Van get the hostage! I'll stall the monster!" She hollered in Van's generl direction. With a huge step forward she unleashed the tail of Jade Torture, attempting to curl it around the man's legs and trip him on his feet.

[Reese]

Jade Torture lashed out and snapped around the ankle of the beastly man, bringing him to his knees with one vicious yank of Jaime's arm. Reese looked quickly at her in mild surprise. In the heat of the moment he had assumed Jaime would follow her friend's call and flee from the room. Apparently that assumption was false, because Jaime Lewis wasn't going anywhere.

I'm sorry. In that brief moment he thought the words but didn't give them voice. Now was not the time.

Their adversary howled in a mixture of rage and pain and scrambled to find his footing again, but Jaime's grip was true and her strength impressive for such a slender woman. She brought him down once more before releasing his ankle from her whip and cracking it behind her.

Choosing to seize the window of opportunity Jaime had given him, Reese charged for the man while he was still down, bringing his gunblade up and closing the space between himself and his opponent quickly. He carved into the fallen man's shoulder and torso in a fast downward arc as he passed, then pivoted on one foot and turned around behind him, so that for a single moment before the man could recover from the slice, Reese had a clear shot at his head.

Clean.

He gripped the hilt of his weapon with both hands, levied all his strength into his arms, and swung.

The head rolled away from the body and fell to the marble tiles below with a sickening 'thud.'

Reese watched the rest of the body crumple to the floor. He then freed one hand from the hilt of his blade to wipe away the spatter of blood left on his face.

[Reese]

He breathed deeply and raised his gaze from the crumpled body in the growing pool of blood before him, meeting eyes with Jaime across the expanse between them. He didn't say a word nor move a muscle; not even a slight nod of the head. For that small moment, his eyes were simply steady on hers. Maybe if she were intuitive, his silence and stare would speak to her and tell her the volume of respect she'd just won from him.

The woman who had before been sobbing now simply wept in a small and muffled way, the sound coming from some other part of the room. Reese's eyes traveled away from Jaime, drifting downward as he slid his gunblade into its' sheathe.

"You should find her." He advised quietly, addressing the blonde without lifting his gaze. "We need to leave."

[vanesse]

LOL! Omg, Van just foiled their mission Oh snap!!

Van: YOU foiled us! >_<
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"Wha--?!" Vanesse gave Jaime and Reese a reluctant look before setting off to get the sobbing woman from the other room. Did she do something wrong? She concluded that the sooner she finds the woman, the sooner they can get away from that monster. She took the opportunity to search around. Her eyes had adjusted to the darkness but that didn't stop her from running over a table and breaking more flasks.

"Ow ow ow~!" Vanesse winced when she realized that her head was resting in a woman's lap. She blinked. "Ah, found you!" She bolted right up and grabbed the woman's hand.

"H..p...mn...." The woman was sobbing so hard. Vanesse couldn't understand her.

"You're safe now. We'll get you out of here." Vanesse reassured, pulling her up. She couldn't see the woman very well due to the darkness, but she could kind of make up the shape of her face. Maybe it was just Vanesse's imagination, but something was off.

"Guys!" Vanesse recklessly dragged the woman to where Jaime and Reese were and stopped. The psychopath was lying dead before them. Black water was pooling around the man but she could tell that was blood.

Who took him out? She stared at the dead body. Jaime and Reese?

"....I...got the....girl," she ended. Was the strong guy really dead? Amazing.

[Lex]

'Kay XD *cracks knuckles* let's get out of here!

---

Reese offered Vanesse a wordless nod and the four of them, hostage in tow, made their exit of the laboratory.

They moved back out into the darkness of the area beyond, passed the gruesome blood-smeared staircase and hanging fluorescent light. Reese led the group back up the staircase and around the Outer Foyer, through the scatter of dead DotNA operatives left from their previous battles.

They backtracked through the hallways they had used on their way in, Jaime and Vanesse under each arm of the rescued hostage, helping her walk, Reese at the front, directing their path, and Stella moving at the rear of their group with her pistols in her hands, watchfully guarding their backs. They moved through the compound with relative ease, encountering no one alive.

As they neared the computer mainframe they noticed the steel doors wide open and a destroyed mainframe room beyond. Jaime tried to radio Zacke to inquire about the success of the hack-job, but received no response. With an empty mainframe room and no way to communicate with the group that should have been inside it, they left the compound under the assumption that Hadrian must have already accomplished what he needed to accomplish and he and his team were already back on the Aegean.

The elevator that had taken them down into the DotNA compound took them back up into the city. At some point during their hasty exit the woman from the lab had passed out in the arms of the Opps girls, who were now forced to drag her along as they stepped out of the building that housed the elevator and back into the streets of Timber.