RP: Neshaten Division 5, Case 03 Part 1: Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

Squad One

Too close to the border of panic to really listen to what Leo was telling her, Yinri found themselves yanked along by the collar when they were still half way through collapsing their sensor apparatus again.

She outwardly scowled, realising how dumb and useless this probably made them look... But also was super grateful internally, being given guidance and help by someone who really knew what they were doing.

Eventually the rig clattered back into it's folded storage position, allowing them to throw it over their shoulder, and actually get their needle pistol out. Got a static shock in their teeth. Must have been all of the ionisation that damn KF weapon was giving off...

"Boss Leo, I gotten' idea maybe?" They remarked with effort, a gravelly voice struggling to be heard over the constant explosions and gunfire. "Big 'un beam is messin' the radio signals an' polarizing all the equipment, but it's probably doing the same to our crashed hulls, sir?... I canne probably give you exact locations, if ya' lemmie have a wee peep from cover again, sir... Poor blagards probably gettin' shelled to 'eck!..."

Squad One

Holding the explosives on her left arm against her body, and a needle pistol on her right hand, the black haired Daur quickly but clumsily saluted their commander, almost dropping half her stuff in the process. - "O-Of course sir, I... Oops... Yes, I have everything here and ready!" - She said, suddenly changing her mind on the equipment carrying logistics, and holstering her pistol again to dedicate both arms and hands to the explosives, intending on leaving the whole shooting part to her companions. - "Suppression team, counting on you two!" - Said the girl as she ran after the boss.

Upon reaching the slope indicated by their temporary member, she was quick to drop to her knees and get to work. There was no time to lose, team two was at risk, but she had to do her part. The main reason she got in this team to begin with was her expertise with explosives, and if she couldn't do that right, then who would? Setting up a few wires, hammering a few pistons on the sandy floor... Within a few seconds that felt almost like an eternity, the girl was done and now she could help with the firing as well.

Her black white-tipped tail waving around to get rid of the sand, the Daur unholstered her smg with her right hand and kept the detonator on her left as she retreated away from the blast's radius. Despite the situation, she felt her heart pumping with excitement. Explosions on sandy terrains like this, are a special kind of fun and after a brief moment of imagining it, she turned back to her commander. - "Sir, everything is ready, awaiting your command! Team, get ready for a minor sandstorm!" - She said, ready to trigger the detonator.

Squad 1
After returning fire to the approaching terrorists Leo ducked back down into cover, fumbling to remove the empty magazine from his weapon and swap it out for a fresh one before looking across to the one-armed Daur. He took a moment, tugging on the new magazine to ensure a proper fit as he re-ran through his adrenaline-addled mind what Yinri had said.

"If you think it'll help then go for it, Arbavin, we could use extra hands," the now-sweaty captain nodded before scooting sideways, repositioning slightly behind the small bit of cover at his disposal, taking a knee to cover their demolitions expert's swift work before speaking once more.

"We've suspected that for a while now, Arynn, this all but proves it... keep that in mind for your after-action report," Leo panted before giving Suzu'ha the all clear to detonate her breaching charges, balling his hand into a fist and pulling it down next to his shoulder. It was a wonderful spectacle, the explosion causing a bright ball of light and briefly collapsed inwards on itself before releasing a thunderous and devastating shock-wave, collapsing the slope inwards on itself and spraying sand hard enough to blast some of the protective paint off the various armour-plates protecting the operatives.

Squad 2
Only really Cirillo and Hana would notice as they huddled behind a small lump of sand-stone, but the Daur that'd been saved from the dropship had been still for a while now, far too still. Her skin was pale and lifeless where it wasn't smeared with a combination of her own blood and Hana's, one eye angry and red with burst blood-vessels as they stared off into the distance, sand starting to pool in the deceased woman's slack maw as she lay there.

One arm was outstretched towards them both, and desperately clutched in it was the IFAK that'd been previous strapped to the back of her vest, the protective flap unbuckled though its contents unused as the wind lashed at the small medical kit. There was nothing more that could be done for her other than retrieving the body when appropriate, though the coagulants and wrappings would do wonders to help treat Hana's wounds if he could just get to it.

Through the combined fire of both squads they made quick work of the surface-side terrorists, dropping their poorly-armoured bodies to the floor from the sheer volume of plasma and metal flechettes being sent their way. Ki'lnda's plasma bolts in particular served two purposes, boring a hole clean through their targets and causing the distinct silohuette of Kyet to spin around and face them, it took a second shot for the busty operative to pin-point the second squad's location but she could be seen looking across to the distant form of Leo before pointing towards squad 2's semi-entrenched position at the crash site of the second prowler.

Static filled the headsets of anyone fortunate enough to still have their helmet, barely audible but steadily building as a plume of sand followed by a thunderous boom erupted from the slope near Squad 1, soon becoming apparent that some breaching charges had been detonated as Cirillo let loose another burst from his weapon into the exposed tunnel. All it took was one needle striking the prowler's hull at the right angle, sparking off the vessel where paint had been stripped away, to ignite the puddles of fuel that'd been pooling down there in the tunnel. In an instant there was an intense heat in the air and flames licked out through the cracked ground, the defenders that squad 2 was previously engaging were immediately immolated, a quicker death than the needlers ever could have caused. The resulting explosions was largely contained to the expansive confines of the tunnel, though there was enough of a pressure wave to knock over any members of squad 2 not previously braced against anything. The breached area finally gave up the ghost and collapsed in on itself, the ground cracking and falling away to seal the wound that had been created in the ground.





Everything was still, and quiet for the most-part as the ringing in the ears of the operatives slowly died down and their hearing returned, the dust and smoke settling to reveal the scale of the opening fire-fight. The desert floor was lined with the bloodied corpses of terrorists and even a Division 5 member that'd been thrown free from the prowler that'd been shot down, their body mangled and twisted at unnatural angles that spoke of their quick death.

Squad 2, cont.
"Hold your fire, team," Leo commanded, slowly rising up from his half-squat as he surveyed their surroundings, small motes of sand and smoke still twirling away from the recently opened slope as he turned back to face where Operative DePolanskaya had reported seeing friendly forces. His pale eyes squinted for a second as Leo's HUD zoomed in and confirmed that it was indeed Squad 1's sniper and the remains of Squad 2, the white-haired commander licked his dry lips and swallowed hard before pulling his mask aside to yell out.

"Fall in on me and give me your status! do you have any critically wounded personnel?" he yelled out across the sands as that static continued to haunt the team's communications systems, waving Squad 2 across to their position at the base of the slope, before turning back around to his squad.

"We need to take stock of the situation but I want to get indoors first, I want Yuri'no and at least one other to go in and secure us a foothold, then we can discuss what to do next. Sort it out among yourselves," Leo ordered, taking a step back to lean against a nearby chunk of limestone and take some of the weight off his feet, SMG tucked tightly into the crook of his elbow as he waited for the survivors to catch up.

Now that they had a moment to breathe Arynn realized why her ear was itching, reaching up to finally satiate it her gloved hand came back slick with a small bit of blood. The wind finally starting to make the grazing shot against one of her large, fluffy ears sting something fierce, distracting her from three unidentified IFF signatures popping up on her tablet briefly, only to fade as suddenly as they'd appeared.

Slope Entrance, whoever decides to enter alongside Yuri'no.

It was dark but their eyes quickly adjusted with each cautious step further into the breached area, large chunks of sandstone and concrete dotted the area alongside what looked like they used to be mass-produced bunk beds, now twisted and splintered. One light occasionally flickered to life overhead, refusing to completely die just yet and casting eerie shadows throughout the decently-sized room, illuminating plastic tubs in one corner and a now ruined carpet now stained red.

Near the carpet, protruding from beneath a large slab of stone, was a bloodied glove. It took a moment for a stomach-turning realization to hit whoever had entered alongside Yuri'no, but there was no doubt about it, the thing was too small to belong to anything other than a Kit. They weren't afforded enough time to process the dark realization however, as something moved past the doorway leading out of what used to be barracks, blacker than black and followed by a blood-curdling scream that echoed throughout what seemed to be an expansive tunnel network, reverberating off the walls to seemingly coming from everywhere and nowhere at once.

Squad 2

Silence gave way in the desert as the wall of heat from the explosion faded and the rocks settled into a new makeshift grave. Now that they were given a quick moment of respite, Cirillo glanced around for a medpack. Relief washed over him as he saw the kit in the female Daur's hand, but his hand froze as his eyes locked onto to the lifeless, glassy eyes of one who was no longer with them. He couldn't help but wonder if they clutched that medkit in a final selfless moment to help Hana, or if it was a desperate and futile clinging to life.

A painful grunt from Hana urged him to act, so he finally reached for the medkit and tried to pull it. Their cold fingers locked around it, refusing to let go. He slung his SMG over his shoulder, grabbed the Daur's wrist with his other hand, and rocked the medkit back and forth until the fingers yielded.

"Sorry..." Cirillo muttered briefly before lowering the Daur's wrist. He turned and crouched by Hana, lifting up his pant leg to get to the injury. "Just breathe, but stay awake for me okay? You've been through worse." he said calmly, beginning to wrap several layers of clotting gauze over the wound until blood stopped seeping through. Lastly, he administered a pain killer to hopefully take the edge off the pain long enough to get to safety.

Cirillo's ear's perked as he heard Leo's voice shouting across the night. He almost forgot for a second his helmet was gone. "Hana's pretty beaten up, but..." he started before glancing back at the Daur next to them. He reached for their dog tags and pocket them before closing her eyes. "...we're the only two left here. We'll try to get to you. Cover us."

The mission had hardly started, yet it had gone so south so fast. For a moment, he felt hopeless, but he had to keep moving until they were back safe.

"I can give you my shoulder Hana, think you can make it over there?"

(This post has a song~ It came out weird, but was good practice)
https://soundcloud.com/arcaneariagame%2Fdont-fall-into-despair

"Fuckin'-... Tinnitus!" The daur cried out, before grunting in pain, grasping at his leg and squeezing tight just above the piece of shrapnel that had impaled him. A pained cry as white hot anguish flooded his system, originating in his leg and creeping up to his stomach. Though the searing pain was beneficial in two-fold, he sucked in a deep breath as adrenaline flooded his system once more. It also distracted from the high pitched ringing and the throbbing headache. All of it simply reminded him; "I'm alive!" He cried out triumphantly before a fit of laughter came from the battered fox. "You hear that fuckers?! I'm alive!" He shouted down the tunnel, "because I sure as fuck can't even hear myself!" He gloated - alive, but battered nonetheless and surely, the blood he lost made him rather loopy.

Though most of his last sentence was drowned out by the explosive, the subsequent rumbling and as he was being pelted with small rocks and more debris, all Hana could do was cover his head and hunker down. He could feel the fuzz on his ears singe slightly due to the heat, but regardless, he was still breathing. Despite being worse for wear he pulled up his pistol once more. Mayhaps he'd have to spend much more time in the medbay than he would like, but he wouldn't die here.

Though they were friendles and as soon as he had ascertained that, the Daur lowered his pistol again, glancing over to Cirillo and seeing his lips move. Though he couldn't make the other operator's voice out over the high pitched whining that plagued his thoroughly damaged eardrums. "What?! I can't hear you! All I hear is; 'eeeeeeeeeeee'," he imitated the noise plaguing his ears before Cirillo lifted his leg. Causing the foul-mouthed operator to let out another how of unbridled agony. Slamming his fist against the cover he had collapsed behind. Though he was reluctant to swallow whatever Cirillo handed him, he swallowed down his doubt just like he did the pill. Scowling ever so slightly before sighing out relief.

Be it either by miracle, or the ringing had abated ever so slightly, Hana did manage to gather the last, nodding faintly to Cirillo. "Either that-... Or leaving me here with a single bullet," he cracked with a faint grin. Though as he was hoisted up to his feet, he did manage to steal a look at the other operator in the crawler with him. "Kanabozja," he uttered, before raising a soft sigh. "Poor fucking thing."

Into The Catacombs

Yinri was half way through making modifications to the tripod when Captain Leo managed to identify the position of the other squads for himself, leaving them grasping a bare energy crystal in hand whilst the sheer amount of casualties dawned on them...

Tempted to peak their head out. But who knew what was out there in the night, just waiting to take a pot shot? The explosion didn't affect their already-wrecked hearing, but they didn't have that kind of triage training or dexterity to deal with those kind of wounded anyway.

Distant yelling... Screaming...

Contractor or not, kind of left just one functional use, for a rotund little combat-fox like her, didn't it?

A gruff shrug, metallic arm hissing and whirring whilst it brought their needle pistol to bear, quickly slotting in some cables into the back so that it could feed from the array's crystal now in their posterior pack.

"...Captain Leo... If things keep going this way, we are all shredded, right?..."

"...I won' let you down."

Engineer Arbavin was on her feet before she knew it, crudely stomping towards that newly opened hole, though loosened earth and hot bolder fragments.

"O'Eytene Yuri'no, I'ave got yur back!" Her brash voice sounded in the larger full-foxes' left ear. Her eye flashed a murderous green once inside the bunker, quickly adjusting to the gloom. "If they want melee through, that's on you!"



The world became monochrome. Sounds became muffled and more resonant. Prosthetic fingers itched at the trigger.

It was the beginning of an approach into the literal underworld.

Kil'nda gave a sigh as he finally heard the rest of the team call out for them, at least Leo and he was hoping far more than he was alive though. He helped shoulder any wounded and carry them over so that they could all finally regroup. "Sadly sir," He said once asked about who was left and injured. I believe the ones we've managed to carry over here, as well as ourselves, are the only ones to make it. I saw a number of bodies thrown off of the carrier around us, but we couldn't get any life from any of them." He said and looked over himself and his gear from all this. "What now? The mission seems nearly dead in the water. We could try and storm the place, but it's fair to say they will know we're coming after blowing us out of the air."

The explosion and dislocation of sand was enough to disrupt Suzu'ha's balance, sending her sliding down the dune for a moment, something she quickly recovered from, climbing back up to stay close to the commander, the only casuality being her uniform, tail, and even helmet, now getting unconfortably filled with sand. A quick thought ran through her mind, how is it that sand manages to get always in the most unconfortable of places? The helmet might look sealed, and the uniform neat and prim, but sand always finds a way, it's like they received some advanced operative training or something... Shaking her head in an attempt to purge the beyond useless thought from her mind, the girl turned back to her squadmates, focusing on the mission once more. This isn't a book, she thought, there's no time to daydream about stupid things!

The rest happened in a split second. Their allies' position located, the commander ordering Yuri'no to find a partner and delve into the opening, the engineer, out of all people, volunteering before she could even open her mouth to speak, and at the next instant, Kil'nda was already heading their way with the wounded in tow after the surface enemies had been eliminated, with a combination of well-placed shots, and of course, pyrokinetics. As soon as the wounded started coming, the young Daur was quick to offer her assistance, dropping to her knees and tending to her allies' wounds. They did a good job stabilizing their wounds during the heat of battle, but there are some things that can only be done with the help of someone else. Cleaning, disinfecting, bandaging... The girl works as fast as possible! [Survival Skill]

And then, she hears it, almost dropping the bottle of disinfectant in the process. That terrible blood-curdling scream... Her heart skipping a beat, she quickly rested her hand on the pistol holstered on her side and turned to look at the dark gaping entrance on the slope right behind her, that she herself, blew a hole through. Suddenly, that entrance no longer looks like a place to take cover from the enemies outside. It no longer brings a conforting shelter to the merciless desert, and it doesn't even bring the anxiety of hidden enemies within. Something is in there, something beyond what they signed up for... Something unknown, and far more bloodthristy than untrained and idealistic terrorists. She turns to Leo, fear reflected on her eyes. - "C-Commander, Yuri'no and the engineer..." - She awaits for an order, and at that crucial moment, even the air itself seem to freeze in expectation. The explorers are in terrible danger, but on the other hand, they can't just leave the wounded alone on the desert sand.

Bunker Exterior
"So we're half the force we started as~" Leo mumbled into his vest as Yuri'no and the squat engineer entered through the jagged wound that'd been blasted into the landscape, the man's off-hand balling into a fist of silent frustration at how quickly this reactionary raid had turned to shit.

"I don't like this situation any more than the rest of you, there seems to be a lapse in the superweapon firing for now but who is to say if it'd spool back up and crash another ship into the desert if we called in a bomber? too much interference for us to call a long range precision strike either~" he continued, thinking aloud as the operatives consolidated their equipment and licked their wounds, watching where two of his people had disappeared into what was, according to scans, some kind of old bunker system.

Then, that scream. That horrid scream that spoke only of pain and death, the horrid scream that was capable of chilling even the most hardened warrior to their core, a sound that told the group outside something had gone horribly wrong - for the two who had entered that same noise carried a different meaning entirely. It was irrefutable proof something much scarier than themselves was roaming the time-weathered walls.

The commander gripped his weapon tighter to hide the slight tremors, the polymer frame creaking beneath his gloves as the man took a decisive step forwards, pointing towards Operator DePolanskaya. "Pick up Hana and help him inside, hold this exit for us so we have a quick way out," the white-haired man commanded in a stern tone, being the rock that he knew the team would need right now as that pointed finger shifted to Suzu'ha.

"Demolitions expert Hina'mi, prepare everything you've got left, we're getting our people out and burying that FTL weapon alongside whatever else is left down there. We'll RV back here and bug the fuck out, no more of my people are getting hurt today," Leo finished, having given his best attempt to bolster the morale of the sad tatters of a two-pronged quick reaction force that were left solely under his command, knifing his hand towards the bunker before beginning to lead the others in, SMG at the ready.

"I'll take him from here, you link up with the others," Kyet spoke bluntly as she approached Cirillo and Hana, eyeing over the combined handiwork of Cirillo and Suzu'ha that was holding Hana's leg together. Kyet's taller-than-average frame blocked the sun from hitting Hana's face directly as she squatted down and offered the injured operator a firm hand, gingerly helping him up with a strength that belied the curvy frame hidden beneath the protective layers of her uniform.

Bunker Interior
Despite any protests Yinri might have had Yuri'no continued to lead her deeper into the dark network of concrete-walled veins that crept ever further underground, finding more and more corpses slumped along the way in various stages of preparedness, one corpse slumped over in little more than some tracksuit pants and a flak jacket next to another in a full suit of last-gen combat armour. Both of them would notice that the edges of the wounds bled very little for such deep gashes and gouges, the flesh seared and slightly smoking - telling the two that they couldn't be more than a few meters behind whoever or whatever was causing such mass annihilation. Footsteps behind the duo, and Leo's voice calling out "friendly," alerted the duo to their incoming backup.

"What the fu~ whatever," Leo began, steeling himself as the Daur stepped over a nearly biscected corpse, Arynn's tablet once again displaying an IFF error, this time further into the bunker network before it faded into nothingness.

"We're finding that weapon and burying it, any idea what's doing all this?" the team's leader spoke, his eyes flitting towards movement further down their current hallway. It was a body slumping over, nay, a Daur with a nasty chest wound that was somehow still breathing, albeit barely.

With the Groups seeming to finally be getting together once more Kil'nda sighed in relief as finally something had gone right in this mission. He slung his large rifle over his back and readied his SMG, not as proficient with it as he was in the art of sniping, he new that inside unless it was a large massive room or something his SMG was going to be the more viable option.

Right we have any idea how to get to this weapon? or are we clearing everything out room by room?" He will ask. Hopefully the loss of whatever this weapon was, will be a crippling blow to this terrorist faction.

Cirillo's heart skipped a beat as the unearthly scream washed over them. His emotions were conflicted: on one hand, something horrific just happened. On the other, it sounded so out of the ordinary, almost fake, as if they were in a brutal video game or watching a gore-filled movie. He took a deep breath, verified his gun was loaded, and physically checked his knife, just to be sure it was there.

"Roger..." Cirillo responded simply, lacking a bit of his usual promptness. He glanced briefly at Hana before giving him a nod and jogging inside the bunker.

Soon he was overcome by the smell of burnt flesh from a nearby victim, and his nose scrunched to block out what it could. On closer inspection of the body, he noted how dry the wound was. What weapon could have cauterized a wound like that... And with how much the flesh is torn... As he looked around the room for more clues, he spotted the gravely wounded Daur and jogged over. He thought to apply first aid, but with a wound like this, they wouldn't be long for this world. Instead, he clasped his hand with theirs and tried to comfort them.

"It's okay, you're safe now. Whatever did this to you is gone now. Just relax, okay?"

Arynn's ears had gone flat, causing a small trickle of blood from the wounded on to start decorating her helmet. She kept her drone orbiting, but with the weapon no longer firing, determining its position seemed almost impossible.

"Without some way to draw the weapon's attention and forcing it to fire, I can't pinpoint its position any more accurately. The most I've narrowed it down to has been a five hundred square meter area starting with that dune, but searching it manually will only get us spotted," The fennec techie reported, letting the rest of the squad interpret the consequences of that.

As she crept along the tunnels near the back of the gathering, the big-eared operator flicked her emerald eyes between the screen in her hands and the tunnel ahead of her. The bodies, the mangled corpses... Even if they were terrorists, the state of the fallen made her feel sick. Whatever had assaulted them... It shouldn't be allowed to live. It was inhumane. She was half-lost in horrifying thoughts before a blink on her data feed focused her attention - then disappeared just as quickly as it'd arrived.

"That's not the first time... Heads-up, everyone. Something down here is making false positives on the IFF. They're inconsistent and keep ghosting. These caves must be interfering with our electronics, so expect the rest of our equipment to start malfunctioning."

"Iye, looks like firin' tha' big gun has magnetized all tha' metal in the ground. S'probably why sensors canno' see 'nought." Yinri addressed Arynn's first, and then Leo. The distinct feeling of being watched made their gruff voice pretty hushed. "Possible they run outta power to shoot with... Dunno what did these guys over, though... Looks like a laser weapon o' some kind..."

It was the smell that really got to them, too. Scorched hair and bodyfat, all condensed in this enclosed space. Had the ventilation fans stopped working, along with the lights?

Was this one of those 'Neekoos' they kept hearing about? Like a cat person space monster, born in a tube, just lived to kill people. Had crazy strong armour and a sword made of trapped light beams, using energy from some hell dimension.

Staring out into the black and just wanting to get this over with before reality set in, the idea of encountering something like that gave them some freaking conniptions.

Kil'nda's words refocused their mind on the actual mission- And Cirillo's action gave them a clue about how to proceed.

"...Where is yer' reactor?" They closed the distance to the mortally wounded enemy soldier. Their expression was cold and dark, as if feeling guilty for being pushy with someone on their deathbed. But it was the location that would give them the most answers. "What do yah' use to power this place?"

Whatever monster did this... They'd just blow it up, if it was up to them... Leo might order them to follow the power lines to the gun, but personally, they'd rather overload the reactor, and blow up the whole bunker in one go.

Why even face this thing in a shoot out? They had no chance, if these guys couldn't deal with it, right?

The dying terrorist spluttered and gasped as they were surrounded, their strained gaze softening slightly at Cirillo's all-too-kind words before Yinri began interrogating the dying woman. Beneath her pale, clammy skin it was obvious she was fairly young, barely old enough to have seen through her service in the youth corps, one of her blue eyes clouded-over slightly with some faint scarring that ran down her cheekbone speaking of either an unfortunate training accident or an injury sustained during combat.

She spluttered once more and desperately held one gloved hand down on her chest-wound, glaring at the operatives with equal bits hatred and fear, as hard as her body fought to survive she ultimately knew this wound would soon seal her fate.

"...bastards~" the young woman hissed before wincing in agony, blood soaking through her own armoured bodysuit and tattered shoulder cape, gloved hand balling into a fist as she desperately tried to remain conscious. A fruitless effort as her eyelids began dipping and the dirty floor beneath took on a deep shade of pink.

"You...burn~" she murmured before going limp, letting out one final breath as the fading light drained from the young woman's eyes and her hands fell to her side. With a quiet, metallic clatter a single star'ling fragmentation star grenade fell to the floor, inactive. After a tense moment Leo stepped forwards to retrieve the weapon, and stowed it away within his own vest, muttering something sombre beneath his breath, waiting for Kyet and Hana to catch up a bit before addressing everyone once more.

"We don't have the time to clear this place room by room, nor scour the desert floor unfortunately," the snowy Daur answered, turning from Kil'nda and Arynn to face Yinri, noticing the cyclopean engineer's eye briefly flitting towards some sleeved cables running along the roof, offering her unspoken theory a nod of agreement. He began formulating their next move as Kyet finished checking on Hana's wound and stalked over towards Arynn, bending at her knees a little to better speak with the child-sized operative.

"The IFF false positives you mentioned~" Kyet began, brows creasing slightly as she looked down at the tablet Arynn was busily tapping away at.

"Let us know if you see any patterns or consistencies form, I'm hoping it's just interference like everyone keeps saying but~" Kyet was cut off by a low, shrill whistle from Leo as he grabbed the attention of the remaining operatives.

"We follow the bodies down this hallway, plant the charges and get out before burying whatever we find at the end there. Sweep doorways as we pass them and be thorough but stick close and move fast, we don't want whatever else is down here to be picking us off one by one, Arynn and Yinri should stick to the middle of the stack," Leo commanded with a firm little nod, clearly retreating somewhat into his position of authority in an attempt to quell some of his fear of the unknown, whatever had caused all this couldn't be too far ahead of them...


After taking a moment to form-up Leo would begin leading the survivors down the hallway, carefully stepping over the increasing number of bodies lining the walkway, taking careful steps to avoid slipping on the freshly spilled blood that stuck to the soles of his boots. Each careful sweep of the room revealed nothing too interesting, some upturned furniture and a body or two but not much else, this bunker was a tomb, the sandstone and concrete walls permeated by the stench of death and seared meat.

A sudden pressure wave hit the operators in the chest as an explosion rolled through the labyrinthian hallways, kicking up a cloud of fine dust in it's wake. Suzu'ha's ears came into contact with the familiar sound of two or three sticks of L-24 explosives being used before they reflexively flattened against her skull, that kind of overpressure along was enough to collapse the lungs of those standing too close even if they weren't caught in the explosion directly, especially in such confined spaces.

Thankfully the sound also echoed around a few times before hitting them, taking some of the edge off it.

"Shit, that can't be good, we've gotta move double-time," Leo commanded, quickening his strides as they rounded one more corner and he signalled for the team to halt, coming face to face with the warped remains of a heavy-duty blast-door that had been blown open, visible through the layers of swirling smoke and dust were banks of computers and servers retrofitted from various other projects. Hairs stood on end and Arynn's tablet displayed a strong IFF signature of unknown origin as some of the operators began to realize what they were seeing in the wisps of acrid atmosphere before them, something pushing through the thick air ahead of them, displacing the smog and moving to the side of the breached doorway.... where the small Operator's tablet was reading another unknown signal.

And behind their flank? the gut-wrenching sound metal scraping against metal, some of the settling dust highlighting the faintest hint of something unseen lingering behind the operators in absolute silence. Even the tightest-wound piano wire was never held under this much tension.

Cirillo never broke eye contact as the life faded from the woman's eyes. He squeezed her hand until the very end, unable to let himself look away from the cruel end of what should have been a long life. He vaguely registered the grenade bouncing on the ground next to him, and how his actions may have put his entirely team in grave danger, but that didn't seem to matter to him in that moment. If she had managed to pull the pin, he'd probably would have died right there.

If it could have made her rest more easily... crossed his mind, but he shook his head as if to throw those thoughts out of his head. No, as long as I'm alive, I can make other's lives better. As long as I'm alive. He slowly released his hand and stood up, his eyes following Leo's hand as he pocketed the grenade.

"Understood," Cirillo quietly acknowledged, once against grabbing his gun and leveling it ahead of him as he walked. He scanned each doorway on his side of the patrol, but all he saw was more bodies and destruction as something caught up with the terrorists. He couldn't help but pity them, dying to some monster instead of giving themselves to their ideals. Here I go again, glorifying death. I really gotta stop--

The sudden flash of heat and sound rocked his head back into the game.

He couldn't help himself from coughing as the wave of dust caught him off guard. As soon as he could, he leveled his gun at the figure in the smoke in the doorway, only for a chill to run up his spine at the screeching sound behind him. They'd be as good as dead if that thing cut off their escape route, but there'd be no escape anyway if they're killed from the front before hand. Leaving the flank to those in the back, Cirillo quickly unpinned a frag grenade and tossed it through the torn-open blast door, shortly followed by a burst from his SMG at the mass in the smog. They might not see the grenade due to the smoke, and the gun fire might distract them from hearing it. Whatever action we take, we need to do it fast!

Kil'nda was as alarmed as everyone when he saw the grenade fall. They could likely have had time to leap out of the way, though most if not all would be greatly wounded. However the pinned grenade was not the greatest scare they were to receive, it was then clear that there was not one, but seemingly two, at minimum, cloaked targets heading for them. "The enemies are cloaked!" He called out to out to the rest of the squad and raisesd up his SMG to the one that was moving though the smoke up ahead. Try and force them to show their position and we'll knw where to shoot!" He will all out to them as he figures that if, whatever the hell these things were, were indeed friendlies they would have made that known to them by now, not lowly and menacingly approaching the armed squad. This was almost immedtly fallowed up with the actions of Criillo as he took to taking on the front enemy as well.

Yinri was too distracted to think about the morality of the last encounter, her ears running on autopilot to seek out the next threat. She'd learned the hard way in the past, not to hesitate in combat. That grenade probably should have done them in too, but she wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Dark room after dark room. Blood stain after blood stain. The faint clicking and flashing of her fellow technical support fox's equipment... That gave them something to follow... something to focus on, even if the haggard thing wasn't close enough to understand what the feedback was...

And then, all of a sudden, the walls were alive.

Throwing their back against one of the concrete walls, Yinri rapidly looked back and forth, dazzled by the cacophonous surge of shockwaves and gunfire ahead- and the sporadic rays of light it cast on the thing lurking behind them.

Was it genetically engineered? A machine? A monster? No time to think. No space to breath.

Rechecking the backpack's power capacitor lines they had hardwired into the Sharp's pistol grip, they commanded their fake arm into a side-long, firing from the hip pose-

"Arynn!- Put your goggles on!-"

The jailbroken needle pistol whined unnaturally in their hands, ammo counters pulsing and spasming with an orange-hot glow- And then it spat a constant string of brilliant white, superheated death all over the corridor behind them- Wildly imbedding into the walls and jabbing through electrical panels like a ribbon of furious lightning.

It couldn't stop. The trigger was melted in an open position.

Yinri squinted and rode the firestorm, until it either jammed or ran out of ammo.

The Anthill

Arynn was too preoccupied with looking for the phantom signals to have realized the grenade was dropped until it was too late. The fennec was lucky it wasn't primed - she'd have been liquified in the shockwave along with half of her squadmates. This shook her a bit, radarlike ears now pressed downwards on a hurried swivel - occasionally bumping a rock and twitching violently, occasionally flicking blood against the already-stained walls. Engrossed as she was, Sher'Meso had learned to at least look around more.

Which only made the gut feelings of being watched even worse.

Step step step. Step step step. Step st-BOOM

Arynn shouted as the explosion rocked the tunnels, but after realizing it wasn't an immediate attack - she figured it came in from further within... And then unfortunately found out that things were getting more complicated.

Cirillo, Kil'nda, and Yinri were much faster on the draw than the techie Fennec, immediately firing at the unknowns that she'd failed to identify - the latter of the three making her presence especially known by the heat of their half-molten weapon radiating in an uncomfortably tangible aura. Arynn spammed a few shots from her own pistol that went wide of the cloaked, shadowy, or... Whatever type of figures these were.

What she wanted to do was investigate the data in this bunker, but she can't do that when dead.

Bunker
Leo and Operative DePolanskaya quickly joined the opening salvo, weapons jackhammering backwards and forwards stiffly as the air was filled with needles flying both down both sides of the tunnel. It'd soon become apparent that there was no effect on their targets, as true as anyone's aim might have been the air crackled and sparked, some fiece shielding system melting and deflecting most of the salvo into the bunker's time-worn walls. Yinri's rounds already being superheated meant they were ionized into dangerous gouts of plasma that did manage to break through. Causing their rearward target's damaged form to glitch and warp, streaks of colour arcing off their tall form and sections of black armour plating becoming visible.

The front target was in a much worse state, the grenade bouncing past the shielding barrier before it detonated rather violently, tumbling a tall, black figure past the breached blast-door.

Moments Earlier
"Raider 1 I'm in position, friendly elements seem to be making progress faster than predicted and will be on your position shortly, finish up your work and prep for exfil," came one raspy voice, whispering through a series of heavily encrypted relays on a frequency most Shukaren militech couldn't yet grasp reliably. They stalked along behind the group of surviving Operatives unseen and unheard beneath layers of armour, light and sound warping around the being's movement as they stayed hot on the team's tail, blade drawn and pointed forwards to silently deal with any trouble that might arise.

This hidden thing felt no sorrow for the injured, confused assembly of Operatives, they played their role and their hidden shadow played its role. Though deviating from the script like this did cause some tension it the shadow did not falter.

"Copy that Raider 2, I need a moment to set this up and we'll be ready to move out, keep me posted," replied another, somewhat less blunt voice before it too was fragmented and erased from the communications network.

An explosion rocked the tunnel, ripping apart a blast door and kicking up all sorts of sediment from the bunker's decaying innards. The dust rolled against the unseen shadow's armour before microscopic agitators beneath the plates kicked in, displacing the film of dust as though nothing was there.
The unseen shadow picked up pace as the group it was stalking hurried their steps before coming to a sudden halt, helmet head tilting to one side, observing the Operatives.

"Hold Raider 1, they've stopped, not sure why~"
"Copy that, should I prepare the gas?"
"Affirmative, we'll~ wait~"

The figure that'd been following the group observed Cirillo flicking his SMG's fire selector and raise the barrel, followed by the other Operatives doing the same, raising their hidden gaze to further witness dust swirling around their cloaked teammate standing near the remains of the blast door.

"THEY'VE MADE YOU, SEND IT!" the rearward figure howled as the energy shields of both elements kicked in, scuff marks appearing at their feet as each figure was pushed back from the barrage, then the grenade detonated. Raider 1's cloaking systems overloaded as they were sent spinning backwards, heavy armour crunching under its own weight as it hit the hard flooring.

Raider 2 had already stepped forwards, only partially cloaked as their blade sliced clean through Yinri's power cable. Without losing pace Yinri was shouldered into her own team-mates as a heavy pommel struck the side of Arynn's head, the obscured assailant sweeping a leg low to trip Kyet and Leo in a smooth motion as they crossed some ten meters in a fraction of a second.

Present, Once More
The Operatives were sent spinning in all directions, becoming a tangle of limbs as Leo's nose crunched against the floor. That thing that'd balled them all over gouging two deep divots into the concrete floor as it span around and uncloaked, sliding protectively into the remnants of the destroyed blast door. As they scrambled to recover their footing and their weapons it'd become more obvious how out of their league the team was - which would only raise more questions.

Though crouched forwards the figure seemed to have the height of a Nepleslian male, clad head to toe in plates of sleek, black armour with an expressionless face made from a spider-like array of sensors and cameras with dark red lenses. The air shimmered like an oil slick as the figure fully deactivated whatever had been keeping them hidden, one long arm holding a hook-tipped sword in a backwards grip defensively across the threshold of the blast door. Visible just past the ready-to-pounce being was the one that'd suffered from the grenade Cirillo threw, slumped up against the wall with one arm clutching a duffle bag, blood seeping slowly from between that arm's plating.

There was a moment of tense silence as the Operatives began righting themselves where the crouched entity simply stared at them, chest rising and falling.

"STAND DOWN. OR BE PUT DOWN." demanded an electronic, heavily modulated voice speaking flawless Tinacen, both from the figure guarding their way forwards and through their communications equipment, slicing through the haze of static that'd plagued the team from the moment they'd hit the ground.

The figure challenging them, their plasma-gouged armour...

...their armour accommodated coverage for Shukaren ears and a Shukaren tail~

Though the similarities ended there.

Slowly coming to his feet after being taken down with the others, there must have been more there then they thought for sure, Kil'nda heard the metallic voice speaking to them, seems they at least knew how to communicate, or given they had such robotic voices, they had translators. The fact they were not dead tipped him off this is likely not the terrorists. However what the hell they were was not known. "You stand down then." He tells them holding his arm. "You're not with the terrorists, your alien, and I've already met Humans or any of the others I've seen before." He says. He either can get some answers here, or atleast by his allies enough time to get up.

(Not sure what factions are cannon right now so kept it vauge at the time)