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Russell widens his stance as heavy weaponry from the helicopter outside shakes the building. He is about to demand a reason over the comms before Carolyn's yelling drowns out the radio. He grimaced at the sudden burst of noise, before nodding to Jenieve's orders. He begins moving towards the northern staircase, ready to advance to floor three, before the comms are flooded with the blaring of the Old American Anthem. He quickly switches off the radio, rather annoyed at how things are not going too well for Coalition forces. He braces his weapon against his shoulder as he peers down the stairwell as he calls out to Jenieve. "Advancing. The target might be compromised, and I am the best choice to act as vanguard." He waits for a few seconds to hear a reply, before he begins his descent. He does a quick cursory sweep of the fifth and fourth floors, and upon seeing that they were empty from his perspective, he advanced to the third floor, rifle at the ready.
 
Kiku - Scouting Ahead

It was a hell of a surprise for Kiku when the building started to shake from the explosions. She managed to stifle a yelp, thanks to years of knowing how and when you should stay hidden. When you were property; loud noises meant louder beatings. Perhaps just as shocking as the building shaking to its very foundations, although for different reasons, was the arrival of Box. The woman had seemingly come from a window, and was now curled up and dealing with being in some sort of pain. There was a moment of smug satisfaction at seeing Box on the floor. It served her right for being a dunce, but she didn't look or sound like she'd been shot. She'd probably just got dinged on the head, or been rattled or something. Nothing permanent, at least. If she were seriously injured, Kiku would probably be inclined to stop and help.

Because Kiku had turned off her radio for the benefit of stealth; she did not hear the order to regroup on the second-floor southern stairwell. As such, she decided to follow her gut; and the niggling sensation that prickled the back of her neck. She wanted to find the mission objective, and she wanted to put the strange presence above her to rest. She wanted – no, needed to know what it was.

And so, while Box was distracted with whatever pain was rocking her, Kiku moved forward. She kept her footsteps light, trying not to disturb any of the dust if she could help it. Even if Box noticed any trace evidence of Kiku’s presence, she hoped that the big-man would remember she’d warned every one of her intent to scout ahead. Scouting was a lot easier done solo, so hopefully Box would take the hint.

Her hand was gently caressing the length of the Bosho-Buster when she heard the gun-shots from the middle of the third-floor. She quickened her pace slightly, aware that things might be going wrong very quickly. When she turned the corner into the hallway that led to Room 305, she saw the dead Coalition soldier on the floor. There was a lump in her throat as she looked up at what, for half-a-second she thought was the enemy; that is, until she saw Jenive among them. She pieced two-and-two together, and suddenly realised the possibility of traitors in their midst. She uncloaked for a second, her hands raised so that the Coalition forces didn't riddle her with bullets thinking she was ambushing them. She then pointed, first at herself, and then at Room 305. She took a few seconds to get any confirmation from The Coalition, before she went invisible again and trained her gun on the door. Before she made any breach though, she tuned in her Thermal sight one last time, to try and get a guess of what was going on behind the door. She was still so damn curious about the presence in the room, after all.
 
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Hewitt Ziegler
@Holmishire.

As the dust settled and Hewitt was finally able to see clearly across the hallway, he saw Box's prone form lying amidst the rubble. Not knowing whether or not Kiku had managed to secure the second floor, the big man nonetheless rushed down the hall towards his slimmer companion. He didn't bother calling out to Kiku and Bob—Carolyn had already given the order for them to regroup at the southern staircase, so he figured he'd see them soon enough.

Not seeing any obvious signs of injury, he knelt warily at her side. "Are you alright? We're moving to the next floor—I can help you up, but I don't want to move you into danger if you can't hold your own." [spoili]If Box is to motion appropriately, Hewitt will repeat the message through text on his written communicator for her to read.[/spoili][/hr]
 
Shit Show and A Half - Carter
Carter watched in awe as everything swiftly and violently went to absolute shit. He had to give credit to the power of U-ARM's entrance. When the sounds of glorious America began to blast them self over Carter's radio, he quickly muted the volume of his comms. His communications were severed, his air support denied, his position was no doubt being slowly swarmed with freedom loving assholes, and the only good news was that the target had been located.

Having taken stock of his situation, Carter sped to action. He used one of the chairs of his table to wedge the door to his room shut. A quick test proved that it would be enough to force any aggressor to kick the door down. Hopefully the force would convince U-ARM that the door was trapped and not worth opening. Worst case scenario it would mean any intruder made a whole lot of noise when they broke in.

With some semblance of safety, Carter would retake position behind his rifle. He watched room 305 carefully, but kept his left eye open to keep some level of awareness of any movement in the adjacent rooms.
 
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U-ARM's 'jamming' signal brought a grin to Ozzy's face. All the players are here. Let us see how the game turns out.... After listening to Morai's orders, he mimicked their gesture. Though he didn't know what the gesture signified, he understood the sentiment between them; they were here to risk everything for something greater than themselves. In that moment, he felt guilty for latching himself onto a cause for selfish reasons. He immediately quashed that guilt. I will prove my resolve through deeds today. I too risk everything for a greater cause. I will not hesitate, I will not falter, I will not die. Not today. Taking a deep breath, he nodded to Morai. “By your order, Red Dragon.” He signaled, licking his lips in anticipation.
 
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Florence Morgenstern - In Defense of God

Florence merely stared at Lillian as the other woman’s wounds healed, a small smile spreading across her face for the briefest of moments, before scowling at her smug comment. ”As delightful as you are, Lillian, you are not my Mother, so do not call me child.” While she was pleased that her ally had not been seriously injured, it was neither the time nor the place for such comments. As for Peter, well, at least they knew he wouldn’t be able to flee in cowardice now. However, not only did the sinners know their location, but they had destroyed their means of escape as well, which complicated matters. If we are to survive, if Mother is to survive, then we must weather this storm, and fight off the sinners. With that thought in mind, Florence took up position next to the doorway, ready and willing to unleash the full might of Hellfire’s barrels on any unfortunate sinner who dared to come near the room. God was on her side today, and she would not falter.
 
Aleksa lowered the volume on her comms when the music started blaring. She wouldn’t entirely turn them off. She may have seemed old-school, but there were ways of communicating that weren’t flat out conversations. Maybe, if they survived this, she’d teach them about code languages. Then again, if they had a mole it might not do any good. Yet, their continued comm hacking was turning into an old hat trick. Yes, pull that bunny from the moldy old hat filled with bunnies, once again.

So, without the knowledge of where anyone was, specifically, she knew she couldn’t release her drones. If she wasn’t manually handling them, they’d gun down anything that moved. That was not a good tactic in quarters such as these. While they might give her a larger look into the battlefield, she’d risk hurting other friendlies, Coalition or no, or losing them if she turned off guns. She did deploy three around her tank not on auto-fire, if only for 360 vision of her current standing.

She then turned her attention to her main guns. Her motion sensors blared as U-ARM forces piled onto the streets. Dammit! Her artillery was ready. She had some door knockers prepped. The helicopter, definitely Gabriel, fired off a few rounds to one of the buildings the U-ARM forces poured from. Sound judgement. She launched one of her rounds at the corner of where the street met the building. If they were smart enough to move back from the buildings, they might be caught in the ensuing explosion that her rounds wreaked. Still, there was no guarantee things would go her way. So she made sure her machine guns were ready.
 
Down in the Boxing Ring




KKKKRRRRRR PPPRPPRRRRR SSSSWWWWUUUURRRKKKKK.

Box lies down under some rubble, her head hammering in pain from the loud explosion. The air is knocked out of her chest for a few moments, and she just doesn’t move for at least a minute. The ringing subsides very slowly, but not fast enough for her to open her eyes to see some dust strangely moving about to the next floor. The woman lets out a groan and coughs, spitting out some blood from having bitten the inside of her cheeks, as her gas mask had been forcefully pushed aside. Before she can help it, her face glows a gentle copper, almost like there was a dim light under her skin. Box retracts her hearing until the buzzing is fainter, and as her body naturally heals the small cuts and gashes, she gets on her knees, shrugging off the trashed wall pieces, and crawls towards her companion, Hewitt.

She doesn’t hear what he says, but notices a bit of concern on his face. Or was it exasperation? No one wants dead weight on the field. The black woman blinks at him and nods, and despite not even hearing her own heartbeat, she moves up on her feet. Box spots her adoptive father’s vintage mask, surprisingly unscathed, and picks it up, swinging it around her neck. She nods again at Ziegler and makes a motion to her ears, shaking her head. Once a deep breath is taken, she exhales loudly and it is only then that her skin stops glowing. Her cheeks burn in embarrassment, but now is not the time to idle around. She mouths, “Let’s go”, and not having heard the instructions on the radio, she turns around without waiting for the big man and heads to the third floor.

Box can feel the tendrils of panic in the back of her mind, but the adrenaline snuffs it down rather instantly.
 
Shlan Fletcher

Taking the stairs two at a time, Shlan made her way down the stairs until she caught up with the other Coalition soldiers. The sound of gunfire doing wonders for inspiring haste. When shit hit the fan, she at least wanted to be present to influence the outcome instead of dealing with whatever shitty aftermath fate thought to provide her with.

After taking a second to regain her breath, Shlan caught Jenive's eye and gestured to the pouch of directional charges on her belt, along with the remote next to it. "I got four left," she said, voice low to prevent the people in 305 from overhearing, "and can make us a new door if you need it. Ceiling, wall, or floor." Whichever Jenive chose, Shlan was ready to head off and deploy the charges.

Or ready her rifle and equip her mask if Jenive preferred a more direct approach.
 
Bob didn't bother replying to the orders: he was already en route to comply with them, already halfway up the stairs between floors two and three. He would've been up to the third floor already had this been, oh, ten years ago or so. Age was catching up to him, but not so fast that he couldn't still keep going. The sound of gunfire from above drew a grumble from him and he keyed his radio in to the shared channel. "Friendly comin' up on three, south side." Despite his warning, he stopped round the side of the stairwell door and took a quick peek to check the lay of the land. Jenive, a couple other Coalition soliders, a dead coalition soldier, all gathered round one door... Good times. He stepped fully into sight to give them a quick thumbs up, then back into cover with his back to the wall, watching the upward stairs for now.

"Well shit." That mutter was for his own benefit, no radio involved. Bob switched back to the Old Guard channel and this time held the send button down. "Bob here, third floor, south stairs. Looks like the Coalition found the target. Gonna keep an eye and an ear out for the moment, see how this shit develops." He did just that as he waited for his fellow Old Guard folks to get up here, keeping his eyes on the stairs for any funny business and listening to what was going on in the hall behind him.
 
Ryn

Although she couldn't see exactly what was going on, Cathryn was doing her best to keep an eye on everything. The lack of radio made her heart tumble and twist her stomach, but she continued to watch and listen. After a moment she saw something move out of the corner of her vision. It appeared to be approaching the building, and wasn't in the same uniform as anyone she recognized.

"Targets acquired. Aiming." She knew the radio was down, she had turned it completely off when the blasting of music had nearly brought her to her knees. She wanted to warn her buddy that it was about to be loud. Not a second after she finished her words she squeezed the trigger. There was no doubt in her mind that her target would drop. The casing fell to her knees as she pulled a lever to load another shot.

Ryn guessed they wouldn't have time to react for another dozen shots, so she continued to squeeze and pump shots into her targets, then rise and twist to put herself against a wall (instead of facing out the window) and pack up her weapon. They knew where she was now. It wasn't safe. She would flit from nest to nest until she was ordered to regroup.
 
Hewitt Ziegler
@Holmishire.

Hewitt sighed with mild exasperation as Box ran off ahead. 'Excitable' wasn't a term he ever wanted cause to describe someone as in a combat situation—and even worse, he found it a little endearing.

The former mercenary was right at her side, however, when they reached the second floor; Bob already in position, guarding against the upper stairs. Hewitt tapped Box on the shoulder and signed the letters TC, sticking a thumb towards the hall. Deaf as she was, he didn't want her accidentally shooting any of their allies.

He turned to Bob. "I realize you ain't lived this long rushing in headfirst, but they've already cleared the hall. I'm moving in to help with extraction." Aware that Bob had already made his presence known over the radio, Hewitt strode into the hall, gun pointed at the floor. The big man acknowledged Jenive and Shlan with a nod, ready to support them as needed. If any breach were made, his intention was to use non-lethal force to prevent anything that slipped out from slipping away.​
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Tristan Sovres-Escalating Situation
Short collab between Maxim and @Brovo

It took Tristan a few moments to process what was going on. First, Gabriel had shot down several bridges leading between the buildings, almost sending the whole structure down atop them. At first Tristan assumed the worst and that Gabriel was some agent of U-ARM, but a few screams from Jenive later made him realize it was a serious breakdown in communication instead. After some thought, he decided to give Gabriel the benefit of the doubt.

Suddenly the Coalition soldiers shot down the staircases as though they were chasing something, leaving Tristan behind in the dust. Once Tristan registered this he followed in the rear of the group trying to keep up. He had only just arrived at the third floor when he heard the familiar "ratataptap" of machine guns blaring. Combat ready, Tristan pointed his gun where the conflagration was, but saw no hostile targets. In fact, the only thing he saw was a dead Coalition agent on the floor.

Aghast, Tristan opened his mouth to protest this, but before the words escaped he had another look at the body. It seemed oddly familiar, but he could not determine it. Suddenly he realized That's no Coalition agent. My word they're dressing up as us now? The horror of the idea shook his mind, could the mutants be hiding among the civilian population too?

Well, there was no use thinking about it now. From the looks of things their target was in Room 305, with escorts of unknown armament. As if that wasn't bad enough, he only just now noticed that the radios were blaring with the former U.S. Anthem, a blatant U-ARM move if he ever saw one. He switched his communicators off, and turned back towards the room. His instinct was to move in, guns blazing and capture the target before U-ARM decided to detonate the building and kill them all. He swiftly realized that may not be such a good idea though, who knows what else could be in there?

His thoughts turned to his backpack. He figured the best option at this point was to hold their position until the Old Guard caught up with them, then they could joint assault the room. With this in mind, he started to reach into his backpack with the turrets, when he had a thought. Turning towards Jenive, he asked "Sir, permission to set up turrets here to defend this position? I will place them in manual-type mode, so they will not fire unless I tell them to."

"Do so." Jenive replies back, quickly, her attention still focused on the room in question. Under her breath she mutters, "I swear I hit them both..."

"It is a touch strange isn't it?" Tristan said. Not quite realizing what he meant by that, he started placing turrets down and setting up their manual mode, if any hostiles went out of that room they were likely to get a bad case of bullets to the chest. Deep down, Tristan hoped that whatever Shlan's plan was, it would get them out of this mess.
 
As he arrived at the bottom of the stairs just behind Jenive, Russell kneels next to the doorway, keeping his heavy assault rifle trained on the door to room 305, ready to hose anyone stupid enough to exit the room. He offers a brief glance at the body, noting the Coalition uniform. "Guessing that wasn't one of ours. Permission to act as vanguard in this situation? My armour should protect me from most small arms weapons they have to bear." He offers the question to Jenive as his gaze returns down his weapon's sights. He waits for a few moments for Jenive's confirmation or denial, moving forward if she approved. He doesn't even notice the presence of Kiku when she briefly decloaks, he was too focused on the door of the room. He had his doubts, of course, but whoever the third party was, they were cornered with the only way out being a jump to the ground. He flexed his index finger a few times to loosen it up, before having it rest on the trigger of his weapon, ready to put holes in anything that may come out of the room.
 
“Let’s be sure that we’re not doing the same. That fog was thick. There was a lot out there we couldn’t explain. We were also let go very easily.”
-Aleksa Volkov, Page 4.​

The Old Guard

As Catheryn aims and fires, she would feel a reassuring kickback. Unfortunately for her however, the moment her bullet found its mark and took out its target, the second man ducks behind cover to avoid further fire. Not that it would really matter overly much, as she could feel the ground underneath her feet shake as the building The Coalition had been pouring out of starting to tip—mere seconds from collapse. The soldier beside her stares with bewildered wonder for a few moments, before following her to her next nest—he looked shocked, but not panicked in any way.

On the ground, Carolyn pulls her tank back and away from the target apartment, as she puts a little extra distance between her and the collapsing structure. “Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck” she starts muttering as she watches part of the northern structure collapse onto the target apartment.

Meanwhile, inside the apartment itself, the entire building shakes underneath their feet—the sound of concrete, wood, and metal groaning under pressure reached their ears. The northern staircase collapses entirely, leaving a cloud of dust and debris where Coalition soldiers used to be standing. Nonetheless, the structure remains standing—barely, as it seems to have a slight lean to the north. It also seemed likely that most of the first floor would be badly damaged, to the point of being impossible to navigate or exit from. Aside from jumping out of second floor windows and risking injury, there was no safe way out anymore.

Kiku, looking through the door with her thermal vision, would see four figures inside. Three did not have normal heat signatures—instead having random patches of heat and cold side by side: Bright yellows, and dark blues. Then, without warning, one of the figures is ripped out of the room, and an explosion blows the door off its hinges and slams Kiku against the wall behind her. Although bruised, she remained otherwise unharmed.

At the very least, it seemed apparent that the U-ARM presence on The Old Guard side of the street was thoroughly stumped. The forces who had engaged Squad One were pulling back, and Squad One was regrouping. For the moment. This left Hewitt, Box, Kiku, and Bob alone on the third floor.

The Coalition

Outside of the apartment, the combination of shots from Gabriel and Aleksa was sufficient to bring the northern structure crashing down. Large pieces of debris rain down on U-ARM soldiers, crushing several underneath as the rest simply disappear into cloud of dust that appears. Several seconds pass, but it's clear that U-ARM—at least, their forward force—had been completely stopped by the blast. The radio jammer preventing Coalition communication ends, the source of which likely having been crushed underneath tons of concrete rubble.

Meanwhile, Jenive hangs a couple feet from the third floor, with one arm wrapped around Tristan. His turrets had fallen down to the rubble below, while they hung from the ceiling of the second floor thanks to a quick grappling hook from Jenive. Russell was laying on his back on the second floor, a mere foot away from the gaping edge where the nothern staircase had once been. Shlan is hanging off the edge of the second floor, having managed to grab the edge just in time. She manages to retain her explosives, though one glance below her reveals the mangled remains of the other Coalition soldiers—partially buried alive. One of them had pushed her forward as he fell.

Jenive slowly rappels down the grappling hook attached to her SST, and touches the ground. The moment she does, she lets go of Tristan, shakes out her arms, then leans down and reaches to Shlan. “We need to regroup here for a moment and figure out what happened. They're trapped in here with us now, so long as The Old Guard doesn't try t--” Behind her, there is the sound of another explosion in room 305, along with the building shaking a second time. “... Perhaps more of the building just collapsed. Keep your wits about all of you, we're sticking together and searching room 205 once I know your conditions. God I hope that was not the sound of our objective going up in flames.”

As Carter watches all of this go down, he would notice movement in room 405, just after the explosion. Though there was a little dust in the air, he could still make out two figures—one being pulled up, and one standing behind it. He could identify enough to recognize the target, and a male in an unknown uniform.

Red Star

As the building shakes, Morai motions for his group to move to room 405. Once inside, the building stops shaking, though it was clear the northern staircase was now gone. “Lā shǐ. (Shit.)” Yankee mutters aloud, as Morai makes a few hand signs Ozymandias doesn't recognize. Yankee kneels down and enables his thermal goggles, looking through the floor. “Four targets. I think the one we want is standing to the left of the window—but I could be wrong. There are three unknown humanoids, and one human woman.” Morai nods, and motions for people to take positions. “We cannot escape into the second floor, so I am adjusting the plan. Línghún jī, grab the target and pull him up through the floor. Pin, drop explosives after—kill whatever else is in that room.” The two simply nod and follow orders, taking positions.

In moments, Línghún jī takes a deep breath, and slams her hand against the carpeted, concrete floor. She breaks through it, creating a hole large enough for her to reach down through and grab Ezekiel by the head via leaning through it. Then, with her legs alone, she pulls him back up through it, and in the same moment, two sticks of C4 fall through the hole.

Pin hits the button, and room 305's entire floor blows apart violently.

Morai looks at Ozymandias, and motions to the bewildered Ezekiel. “This is our target. Grab him, and lead him out of this room, we're going to the roof.” Ezekiel shrugs and smiles softly, glancing around at the group. “I have no idea who all of you are, but this is pointless. It is already too late for you to escape. It is already here.”

Children of Eve

As Ezekiel is ripped out through a sudden hole in the ceiling, and the explosives are dropped in, Eve wraps her arms around Florence. The explosion rocks the building once more, and Florence is left in darkness. Landing on the second floor apartment, she feels Eve over top of her, blocking the debris. Lillian, too, survived—though she looked a little slower to recover than Eve did. The entire room on the third floor had been blown apart, leaving little more than the support structure behind—most of the walls, and the floor, had collapsed.

Eve pushes off the debris with little effort, then stands up and stares out at the northern wall—as though staring at something beyond it. “Clever move, but far too late.” Her eyes wander down to Florence, there was a distant, sanguine look to them. “Our aid is here.” She offers a hand to help her up. “We will catch our breath here for a moment, then move out. We will kill every single Child of Sodom in our way, until they give up Ezekiel. Then, we will leave.” Lillian flashes a joyous smirk. “We will kill them all.” Eve looks softly, though sternly, at Lillian. “No. Only those that refuse to stand aside.” Lillian pouts, and sighs. “Fine. This time.”

The Old Guard – Squad One Falls

“This is Zan Richards! Something just came out around the street corner! We thought the shaking ground was from the explosions behind us, but, we have to warn you all! This thing is HUGE! I can't even find where its head is! Carolyn, get the fuck out of here while you can, before—AGGH~”

The transmission to both The Coalition and The Old Guard cuts off with an unsettling sound of metal and bones being crushed underneath overwhelming pressure. At the northern end of the street, at the intersection where Zan's tank once was, now stood a large, amorphous creature. It stood at a height of three floors, and across its body were multiple eyes, constantly folding underneath the surface anywhere it was taking gunfire from the remnants of Squad One. It was as wide as the four lane street it stood upon, and though still making rapid work of the remnants of Squad One, it was clear that it was about to head down the street that The Old Guard was attempting to protect.
 
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Taking The Shot - Carter
Carter watched the scene with bemused contempt.The destruction was something to behold, and it had seemed that his air support and heavy artillery had been able to effectively stump the U-ARM attack. After the chaos had died down slightly, he noticed two figures move up into room 405. One fit the description of the target, and the other was wearing an unfamiliar uniform. He took aim at the unidentified individual. Cross hairs on their chest, he let out a long smooth breath as he slowly and steadily squeezed his trigger. At the exact moment that the last bit of breath left his lungs, the rifle fired. The walls of the room he was in acted to rebound the noise, causing his ears to ring for a short time. Confident that his shot was perfectly placed, and taking the chance that when the Northern building went down U-ARM's jamming went with it, he tried his radio.

"Carter here. I just saw the target move up to the fourth floor by an unknown third party." After giving his message he heard someone calling themselves Zan Richards warning of some giant beast coming after them. Carter decided it was time to call in some support. He went over the TC's comms. "This is Carter, requesting air support! There is some sort of fucking massive creature in our AO! Just get in here and hit it with everything you've fucking got! And you'll fucking see it when you get here!"
 
Russell now found himself lying on his back one floor down. Luckily he hadn't landed too hard, or he would be gasping for air. His ears prick up at the sound of Jenive's orders, and he slowly rises to his feet. He trains his heavy rifle on the door to room 205 as he kneels for stability. "This is Russell. I'll keep watch on the hallway while the rest of you regroup. If I'm overwhelmed, I will retreat to ground level, but not before letting some shots off." His voice remained steady as he called out his status and what he intended to do to Jenive. He would frown under his helmet, quite annoyed at the turn of events. U-ARM seemed to have a whole lot more staked on this mission than he originally thought. He gave them credit, however, seeing as how they have learned to channel their religious zealotry towards becoming an effective fighting force, though that wasn't enough to garner his respect. Shaking off the distracting thoughts, Russel would focus on the doorway, finger hovering over the trigger of his heavy weapon. "Come on, I dare you to come out..."
 
Ozymandias sheathed his machete and grabbed Ezekiel by the shoulder, guiding him towards the door. He met his doomsayings with a laugh distorted by his helmet, “Oh ye of little faith....” He didn't know what 'it' was, but he had already placed his faith in Morai, so he was sure of their success, though getting from where they were to safety was still the question of the hour. Ozymandias was aware that they'd likely need to fight through the Coalition forces they skirted ahead of, and they still had 'it' to deal with along with U-ARM.
 
The pit in Cathryn's stomach grew as the explosions ripped and tore through the building, taking apart almost everything she could see. The noise was enough to send her to her knees and clap her hands over her ears, a choked sob wrestling its way out of her mouth. The smell of fire and its destruction scorched her nose as she slowly rose to her feet, silently begging herself to get a grip. She shook her head to try and reset her senses, but there wasn't much she could do. Slowly, Ryn began to move into the next room and set up her weapon.

The scientists had been right. She wasn't prepared for this sort of life. She was too easily broken. A few tears collected in her visor before she lifted it to rest on her forehead. Ryn's world was nothing but a green blur, although she knew the world was all shades of beige and gray through an average citizen's eyes. She knew there was a beast coming. She knew she had failed squad one despite her orders to protect them. Rather than sit in her nest crying like an infant she aimed for the creature that had made a mockery of her mission.

She had a full clip and unloaded it all towards the sound and smell of the beast, the most pungent thing that currently existed. Such a large creature would be impossible to miss unless it was more freakish than it appeared.
 
Kiku - The hunt for Red Oct-Asshats.


For the first time in a while, Kiku was reminded of life’s most obvious and blunt of facts: Pain sucks.

Before she could really comment on the strange-ness of the heat-signitures inside the room, or call out the number of people additional to the target, she was rocked by the concussive force of the grenade; knocking her backwards and on her ass. If that wasn’t bad enough; the entire building was seemingly shaking under her ass, ending up leaning slightly north and leaving the young listener confused and a little disoriented. She started to wipe any dust off of her face as she reached down and grabbed her radio receiver; turning it back on and broadcasting on all channels.

This is Kiku; confirming that target is on the…uh… She paused for a second, counting on her fingers before continuing her message. “…Fourth floor. 3 unknown uh…friends of the target I guess? They’ve dropped down to floor two; but the target is on floor four, with an unknown amount of hostiles. They dropped a grenade on us, the fuckers. Moving to intercept.

At that, Kiku returned her radio to its normal position as she reached down and gripped her rifle; still invisible despite all odds. Thankfully, she didn’t exactly need to concentrate hard to maintain her listener quirk, and a little pain wasn’t enough to stop her. She checked that the rifle was still in one piece, before looking towards southern staircase. She moved quickly as she figured her best chance to do any damage would be to cut the fuckers off at a chokepoint; and with the Northern staircase gone…

Kiku approached the third-floor Southern stair case and pointed her rifle up; at the top of the stairs. She’d hoped she’d been quicker than the bad guys, because she hadn’t had to deal with moving a valuable PoI. She moved as quickly and quietly as she could about half-way up the staircase so that she had visual of the entryway to the fourth floor’s southern staircase before she stopped and went down to a knee. From there, invisible and with probably the only cover available to her, she waited in ambush for the attackers who had grenade her; intent on shooting the first fucker who moved on through that didn’t have the weird mix of cold blues and warm oranges for a heat signature.
 
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