"Yeah, yeah, just file it or whatever. I hope to not be around for it in the morning." Buck admitted to Sera, waving a hand as they all made their way into the warehouse. The scent of death was powerful enough, and the bodies were there for all to see. Even with the powerful lights, harsh shadows still fell over everything not in the center of the massive space. There were crates that served as nooks and crannies, little stacks of pallets leant against a wall, and desks. There were quite a few desks, each covered in terminals. Slumped over the closest desk was the first dead Freespacer, her eyes still wide in shock over the wakizashi that had been jammed into her forehead and left over a spidery flower of dripping blood. Behind her, two Nepleslian men had been battered to death and left there with purpled faces on the floor in favor another pair of Nepleslian men whose twisted forms indicated more stabby, greusome wakizashi-usage. They were wrapped in a postmortem embrace around the only Yamataian body in the whole mess-- a young-looking boy in a white tracksuit sporting a nasty-looking headwound.
There were three more Freespacers corpses, on the floor on their stomachs. They'd been crawling towards something when they'd been stabbed repeatedly in the back. The object in question was large, brick-like, a square shaped hidden beneath a thick canvas tarp which was now covered in blood-- the body of a wingless Elysian sat up against it. She had been a beautiful Patrician woman. Straight blonde hair flowed like silk curtains over her collarbones; hiding the expression of sorrow she'd adopted in her final moments.
While they were taking it all in, Buck whistled once, unmelodically. "A damn blood-bath." He suggested, "They really wrecked the joint."
Sashi, meanwhile, just lifted off the ground and hovered gaily to the woman slumped over the desk. A single gloved finger stretched out and pressed against the hilt of the wakizashi sticking out of her head. Curious eyes panned the wound, then the desk.
Makoto got something no one else got. It was her enhanced hearing, or perhaps her SAINT training. But it was there: a barely audible hiss, like someone in another world whispering
'Chikushou!' harshly. While the others were making their way in, the sound of their footsteps easily drowned out this quick noise, but not for the silent footfalls of the SAINT agent. Someone or
something other than them was in the warehouse.
-----
In comparison to the gore of the warehouse interior, the roof was really disappointing. Hoshiko's reward for her curiosity was a clean white rooftop, accented here and there with tiny powerboxes and whirring climate units. One or two of
those spinning metal sphere things was there. They're called thrust-bearing roof turbine assemblies. Not that anyone who hadn't been a roofer before would know or care about that. Perhaps of some small interest was the big hatch. I say big hatch to refer to the wide plate of hinged durandium that lay between two of these aforementioned turbines. It was large enough, that when opened, it could easily admit a spacefaring shuttle for airborne deliveries. Unfortunately for any shuttles that might've been interested, it was closed.
