RP: Cirrus Station [Episode 8] That Sinking Feeling

Acceptable threat thresholds exceeded.
Excessive force engaged, aggression pattern Echo-One-Three-Three-Seven-Heavy-Four (Fury variation).
WARNING: Obstructions over heat exchange vents. Five seconds recommended active time.

Estimated time until threat detonation:
2.98 seconds...
... ... ...
2.97 seconds...
... ... ...


With a burst of heat created by special Type S, Form-When-Needed muscles that was unfortunately contained by her suit, Tweak twisted her wrists as her hands dissolved into blood to deprive Bell of a brace for gripping and slid her arms out of the captain's grasp, leaving Bell with two bloody gloves which were slowly dissolving as the blood ate away at the CSS suit gloves and destroyed would soon them before itself becoming ash.

Once free, the neko's hands reformed and clamped onto Bell's helmet, then tried to slam the captain's head face-first into the floor. Whether that action succeeded in dazing, mashing the captain's face in, or accomplishing nothing at all, Tweak flung Bell bodily away after the attempt, half-trying to get the captain to land on top of her grenades but fully trying to get Bell out of reach of herself and Claire for the duration of the explosives' timers. This action took half a second.

Data message sent via radio said:

Kess, we're getting out now! Bell rigged explosives!

Click to expand...

The digital message was sent in a fraction of a second as Tweak was leaving Bell behind on top of some of the grenades before she jumped up and wrapped her left arm around Claire's waist to sling her over one shoulder and dashed toward the server where Kess had plenty of time to remove herself from the system or detach herself from the module. The over-heating Form-When-Needed muscles in Tweak's arms quickly dissolved en route to the server, the excess blood shifting to more urgent locations, leaving the muscles in her legs still active as she snatched the SavTech module from the server while hoping that Kess had time to remove herself from it and jumped up toward a section of incomplete ceiling while letting the module slide up her uniform sleeve and down the t-shirt that the neko wore under the oversized security suit. That block of actions took another second.

Estimated time to detonation: 0.4559_11 seconds... ... ...

Jumping from the floor and weaving through the outer framework of the incomplete room in the remaining fractions of a second left to her, the estimated time ran out just as Tweak began her last jump away from the room into the void of the sinkhole.

Stovaa span to face Swann as she first ordered them to stop, already having started down the corridor before she spoke. Before he knew it, Noboru had chinned the bitch and shit was kicking off. He made a snap decision, realising it wasn't going to get any easier if he waited. He slammed his 'shields' into the walls at angles, picking the softer spars separating the panels. The Uniques would be able to pull the panels from the walls themselves and with little difficulty, but by then he would be in the next room. In doing this, he had blocked off most of the corridor. Separating the team into two halves, those that were behind Kokuten and those who were in front. Kokuten himself was trapped with Noboru on the Swann side. This done, the Id-Sol turned and moved quickly towards the now-audible sounds of fighting, his retreat covered by the metal panels blocking the corridor.

"I hereby acknowledge I am going rogue from my team and thus my team is no longer responsible for my actions under official regulations, thank you for listening," he shouted as he ran down away.

As Tweak bounded away, Bell was also quick to recover. The Unique turned her slightly dented helmet back upwards and shot out her arm to grasp a hold of Tweak, missing by inches as the neko fled. With her targets heading towards the unfinished section of the room, Bell rose to a kneeling position and gritted her teeth back into a grin, poising herself to continue pursuit. As the Unique Captain pushed off with her good leg, however, she stumbled. Bell looked back at her leg with a strange stare, as though unable to contemplate why her leg wouldn't operate at full function aside from the obvious wound she had sustained earlier.

Bell brought her attention back as she watched Tweak pull something out of the server node in the center of the room. She couldn't help but let out a short laugh as she attempted to rise again. Bell managed to make it a few feet away from her small cluster of explosives before looking back at them, her laugh withering back into short bursts as her chest heaved with her breaths. The woman then glanced back as she watched Tweak and Claire aim to escape the explosion, muttering a single curse under her breath before the seven disk-like explosives detonated in unison.

---

Back in the hallway, Swann, Nell and the other Uniques were still trying to take control of the situation. Stovaa's attempts to stall them, however, were not as effective as he would have hoped; while Nell and the other two remained behind to see to Administrator Popjoy, the terrorists and Squad 35's slower members, Swann skillfully dove past the two jutting panels and continued after Stovaa.

Her demeanor changed, however, as the sound of an explosion as well as a short series of tremors rang out, echoing through the hallway. The sudden blast of sound and shakes gave Swann pause for a moment as she looked down the hall. The other Uniques also halted what they were doing and looked up for a split second, unaware of what had caused the explosion but certain as to where it had taken place. One of the Uniques that was helping secure the eco-terrorists rushed out into the hall and joined with the awaiting Swann, leaving one Unique and Nell behind to apprehend the remaining members of the treacherous Squad 101.

"What the hell was that?!" Nell said, glancing over to her Unique companion as she watched Swann start to resume her dash towards the server room. "We're unsure," the other Unique answered through her audio system. "Captain Bell might be in trouble."

Swann and her single Unique, on the other hand, continued after Stovaa and any others that had made it past them. The second Unique Captain did not seem so concerned with Stovaa any more, however, quickly beginning to catch up to the ID-SOLs pace but not bothering to either fire at him nor attempt to communicate. It would take Stovaa and Swanns group another couple of minutes to reach the server room, and Swann seemed intent on getting there as quickly as possible.

---

The explosion engulfed the room in a bright white light as the detonation shook the very dust from the walls of the sinkhole outside. Bell's body was propelled forward, hitting the ground yards away from the deep chasm on the uncompleted end of the room, and it didn't stop until Tweak and Claire could see Bell's body slide out into the void.

Kokuten grunted painfully as he hit the ground. It seemed that whatever Noboru had planned, it had only succeeded marginally. In the very least, it seemed that Method and Stovaa had gotten away, and ahead, but that left the wounded Captain at the mercy of the Uniques. He laid on the floor, unmoving, as he was sure they would shoot if he did move too suddenly. The explosion, however, only served to unnerve him.

"Ms. Tweak, Ms. Winters, report." said Kokuten over the squad channel, trying not to speak too loudly so that the Uniques could not hear any sound from his helmet, "You have two more Uniques approaching, along with Stovaa and Method. I... I have no more control of this situation..." The shame was evident as he said it, "There is high possibility that the Uniques may consider you hostile when they arrive, I suggest hiding, or at least find a defensible position."

The Captain sighed, his head resting on the recently rattled floor. Until he decided to look up, noting the Unique and Nell tending to the terrorists and Administrator Popjoy.

"P...Please! Whatever you may think of us, or... or whatever wrong we are accused of, please know that Adminstrator Popjoy is of no affiliation to it! She has no hand in our actions!" yelled Kokuten, hoping to prevent mistreatment of the innocent parties. Though, as he tried to help others, the Captain would start noticing a bit of dizziness setting in, his leg began to bleed as it had before.

The trio hung in the air, Tweak trying to put as much distance between themselves and the estimated kill radius in the final moments before Bell's apparent last resort set the room ablaze behind them. When it finally did, Tweak found her calculations a little off as the heat wave overtook them while leaving the framework. At their distance the metal shrapnel should have be spread out enough to them any further injuries, but several punched a few holes into Tweak's suit, missing her. However, Tweak scrunched her face with pain that appeared to be growing, then she suddenly let out a strangled scream, trying to keep quiet as the wrist of her right hand visibly swelled. The pressure inside, though, seemed worse than it appeared.

Looking back, the neko noted Bell's body appear at the edge, then slide over and drop like she and Claire were going to. Once the momentum of her jumps wore off, they started losing altitude, rapidly. She raised her hand over her head and pointed at an outcropping of rock a number of meters below the room they had left just before her hand exploded in a mess of red liquid and sent a barbed spike trailing a wire slithering out of Tweak's wrist to become embedding in the rock.

Back when her hand had reformed after escaping Bell, Tweak had formed the tightly coiled wire (substituted for her wrist bones) and the spike (re-purposed metal from temporary bones she had made in order to grab Kess) whole beneath the skin of her new hand, the process accelerated because it was contained inside her. The thermal byproducts from her FWN muscles had superheated her blood nearly to the point of evaporation; that heat had been transferred within her body and used to form a pocket of pressure behind the spike. The entire process had been incredibly painful but fortunately only lasted a couple of seconds in a burst of pain like the severing of a limb. What lasted longer was the searing pain of having a metal wire, one end wrapped and melded to the bones of her lower arm and leaving the stump of her wrist bare to the air, carrying the combined weight of herself and her teammate as they swung down to slam into the wall of the sinkhole (or a structure below the one they had just left).

Kokuten said:

"Ms. Tweak, Ms. Winters, report." said Kokuten over the squad channel, trying not to speak too loudly so that the Uniques could not hear any sound from his helmet, "You have two more Uniques approaching, along with Stovaa and Method. I... I have no more control of this situation..." The shame was evident as he said it, "There is high possibility that the Uniques may consider you hostile when they arrive, I suggest hiding, or at least find a defensible position."

Click to expand...

They bobbed there, swaying in the wind of the sinkhole for a second. Tweak closed her eyes. Her hand was gone, her foot was scorched, there was an ache where grenade shrapnel used to be but was no longer and several holes in her suit...hanging her head, the neko whimpered quietly to herself, uncaring that the channels to her teammates and Kess were still open.

"Is it over? I can't do this anymore..." Then what Kokuten had just said over the comm registered and she suppressed a groan. "Of course it isn't over," she murmured. Maybe Claire could take this call. Tweak glanced down to make sure that she was still holding her teammate. "Are you okay, Claire?" A corner of Tweak's mind itched at the memory of Bell's fall; something about that woman bothered her. It would not surprise her at all if the captain had survived. "We need to get moving. I'm going to try to swing us over to a handhold. See if you can get onto my back, okay?"

Claire was only now recollecting her thoughts. Everything had happened so quickly, her getting kicked, being grabbed by tweak, Feeling the intense heat of the explosions... And now they were hanging there, Tweak having a bit of a emotional breakdown while they struggled to move on. Upon hearing her inquiry to Claire's well being she finally stopped holding her breath, heaving as though she had the wind knocked out of her. (Which as Tweak had grabbed her, she probably had.) "Y-you... I..." She swallowed once and regained control of her speech. "Thank you, Tweak..." She felt an odd sense of companionship with the spacer, with how they had truly worked together to overcome a foe many times their match, Especially in how they had taken injuries and other wounds in order to give the other a shot.

Understanding that she needed her arm again, Claire shifted around Tweak, suprised by the woman's strength. She managed to get around her back, holding on in a sort of hug with her arms in an awkward position, one being right underneath Tweak's chest and one right above it just under her shoulders.

Tweak's face scrunched in discomfort while Claire moved around, then frowned. "If you're going to hold like that, put your legs around my waist like I did with Bell. That way your weight is on my hips and you won't slip off." And putting all your weight on my chest is not comfortable at all! she added mentally, but didn't say that aloud. She knew that Claire couldn't really put her arms around her neck yet with them hanging by her arm as they were. And the bulk of Claire's armor between them was making it tricky to move around.

While that was getting settled, Tweak checked her channel to the SavTech. "Kess, did you make it out?" Then she took a closer look at their surroundings, looking for a cleft in the rocks or spot among the buildings clinging to the sinkhole walls where they could hide and get their bearings before moving on.

While Tweak was berating her how to properly hold on to someone, Claire was already in the process of trying to pull herself up enough to where she could get her legs some leverage. By the time the spacer had finished, Claire had already gotten her legs wrapped around her hips, shifting the weight away to where she could actually be supported.

Despite the pain shooting through the Geshrin's face, she couldn't help but smile a little and give a short chuckle. The position she was in had only been done once before and that was when someone decided to carry her to their bed since she had complained that she was 'too tired to walk' after a long guard shift. Of course, what happened at said bed was what was making Claire have these thoughts with hilariously inappropriate timing.

"Just... shut ya trap fer now," Nell said as she stood over Kokuten and Noboru, making certain they didn't try anything else as the other Unique kept watch over the pink-haired administrator and the remaining eco-terrorists. Combined with the group of Vinross Yu-Cranker employees, they had quite a large group of bodies. "I dunno what you guys were thinkin', but we're gonna get this sorted out."

As she spoke those words, a soft hum began to echo through the hallway. Small bits of dust billowed out from the small ventilation shafts along the ceiling, and several light fixtures above them began to blink back on. In addition, a loud, constant beeping alarm began to sound out, a little on the late side but still a distinct sign that some systems had now been restored. A couple of the employees gave a sigh of relief.

---

"Why are we in the pit?!" Kess finally said something as she was spoken to. "Are we falling?! Did you drop me?!"

As the spread of fire settled, the room quieted back into silence. The large blast radius of the explosion was clearly visible, excessive scorch marks and masses of burning matter littering the floor. The peace of the deep canyon void was disrupted, however, as a soft hiss sounded out. Tweak would then feel an intense burning pain on her right side, just below the ribcage. The sensation came from a single plasma bolt, which melted straight through Tweak's CSS body armor as the black undersuit sluggishly attempted to seal the point of entry. The magnitude of Tweak's previous suit breaches, however, made the job more difficult for the suit to handle, and the hole remained open. Another soft hiss sounded out shortly after, but missed its mark as it collided against the rocks just above Claire and Tweak.

Tweak's inkling of Bell's fate was correct... for the most part. Further down to their right, several meters below, Tweak and Claire would see the Unique Captain. Several parts of her outer armorsuit were alight with small fires, small dollops of burning gel stuck to the outer shell. It would appear that as Bell had fallen down she was able to hook her arm around a single outcropping of rock... although she had to use her entire arm and house the rook in the crook of her elbow, as her hand from the wrist down had be replaced with a blackened, charred stump. Bell's left leg was also in the same shape as well.

Bell's other arm, however, was still quite functional as it held aloft a small object, most likely a secondary emergency weapon. This would be confirmed as Bell fired a third shot, once again missing the Cirrus Station trio by inches. In the dim light provided by Bell's flaming bits, they would be able to spot half of Bell's face staring directly at them, only half of her wide grin visible while the rest had been replaced with flames. As the Unique Captain hung against her rock, she readied her pistol for another shot.

Claire let out a short gasp of suprise as another plasma bolt hit Tweak. Between the danger of the height and the fact of a superheated charge that just hit the woman keeping her from falling, Claire's adernaline kicked in as she semi-panicked. With Bell's plasma rifle still in a deathlike grip in her left hand, Claire swung it around to aim it at the origin, her other arm, still wrapped around Tweak.

Time seemed to slow for her. She realized that she had exactly one shot before her life would end from the follow up shot Bell was preparing, for the recoil would not allow her another. This woman, if it weren't for the damaged faceplate, they would be staring right into each other's eyes, even from that distance. Claire felt all the anger built up from the weeks since they had first met boiling up. Her eyes focused, ignoring the pain from her wound on her face. Her arm straightened and steadied, giving her a shot as accurate as she made it. And her voice, though it came forth as her hand squeezed, could not find the words to her feelings. Her only thought came out instead.

"Die."

The sights jumped away from Bell's exposed face as the plasma rifle fired.

"No-- yes--no, I didn't drop you! You're in my sui-"

Tweak's reply to Kess' panicked question was cut off by a choked-back cry of pain as Bell's plasma shot seared through her suit, skin, and damaging a couple internal organs, but not severely enough to disable. However, her ability to repair herself was becoming taxed as her body had already used much of her resources on the battle and metal synthesis was not cheap. She felt Claire moving around again, the movement pulling at the wire they were hanging from. What was going on?!

Two more plasma bolts gave Tweak enough reference to get a fix on their origin. Bell's grinning face, not entirely unexpected, was still not something the 'Spacer neko wanted to see. Then Tweak heard Claire say something before the appropriated plasma rifle fired.

As the tremors died down, Stovaa lowered his head and picked up the pace, hammering down the corridor towards his team-mates location, starting to widen the gap between him and Swann. As the lights started to flicker back on, he noticed Method ahead, though she wasn't running. Realising he didn't have many choices, he opted for what he thought was the easiest: sweeping Method up and carrying her. One arm behind her knees and another around her back and under her armpit, though he regretted it when he lifted her off the ground, his seamless act becoming less seamless as he struggled momentarily under the weight of the Freespacer.

Or more specifically, her crazy-awesome robotic arm. Which was heavier than he thought. Did they make this thing out of lead? Christ, who even makes prosthetics this retro?

"Uh... Hey there, fellow 101er. You... come here often?"

The gap between him and Swann began to narrow again, but he was probably going to reach the room a few seconds ahead of her.

The plasma rifle in Claire's hands kicked only slightly as a bright bluish-white bolt of plasma drove out of the barrel towards the Unique Captain. Whether it be due to her injuries, the distances of the shot or the close proximity, Captain Bell made no visible effort to dodge the shot. The burst of plasma collided with the upper ridge of Bell's helmet, searing through the material with relative ease. Bell's pistol arm went taught for a second, the shot she was preparing the fire soaring far off target away from Claire and Tweak as the arm fell, continuing to fire sporadically down into the deep chasm. In another moment or two, Bell's other arm that was holding her up slowly slide off of the rocky outcropping, her body plummeting downward.

A short moment or two of silence passed before Kess spoke up again. "Can we get out of the hole now, please?"

---

Back in the hallway, there was a big commotion going on down the hallway towards the assembly area where Squad 35 had first fought their group of Eco-terrorists. Within moments, several more Uniques began to flood the hall, accompanied by Gold Harbor law enforcement officers and medical teams. It wasn't long before the GHPD were escorting the captured terrorists out, accompanied by a handful of Uniques for good measure. Several of the Uniques who stayed behind were conversing to each other silently through their communication systems. Nell looked over at the Cirrus Research Station group, particularly at the two injured men as a team of first-response doctors came over to have a look at their wounds. A couple of the police officers also seemed somewhat interested in the CSS presence in the hallway.

"Just make sure they're stabilized an' stuff," Nell ordered one of the medics from over her shoulder. "They'll be needed for questionin' pretty soon."

---

Back in the server room, Stovaa, Method and Swann would enter to see the results of the explosion beginning to die down. Small fires were still lit around the blast zone, but other than that nothing seemed to be visible. Swann in particular found this quite alarming, passing Stovaa with a shove (or an attempt, at least; she would find herself unable to budge him) and giving the server room a once over. "Captain Bell?! Lisa!?" Swann shouted out through her external audio system after turning up nothing. Bell was, unfortunately, not in much of a position to give a reply.

Far behind them in the previous hallway the group could hear more footsteps approaching, most likely more Uniques and local law enforcement continuing to sweep the facility.

Noboru had, remarkably, managed to remain silent through the entirety of the situation, except for the pained grunt he gave when he was shot. This was only the second time he'd been wounded, and - in his opinion -the Mishhu tentacle to the chest had been a much more painful experience. Here, the only pain he had was the entry wound of a plasma bolt to the leg; which was painful, but markedly less so than a squid spearing you in the guts like a pig.

Well, that and his bruised pride. His "brilliant plan" had almost cost not only his life, but those of Kokuten, Blake, and Admin Popjoy as well. Inside the CSS Suit's helmet, Noboru wasn't crying, but this was probably the most angry, frustrated and downright moronic he'd felt since... Well, since Fort Ready. Since he had headbutted Swann, this would fall on his shoulders. That was that.

So he continued to lay facedown on the floor, COMM switched all the way off, sulking.When the first doctors showed up, he wordlessly accepted painkillers, then slid over and leaned his back against the wall, still not speaking or responding to any inquiries, giving only "yes", "no", or "I'm fine" as a response to any doctors who asked him questions.

Finally.

Hopefully, finally.

Subject deemed non-responsive. Tracking lost. Subject status: Unknown, presumed deceased.

Tweak didn't say anything back to Kess, but made sure Claire was holding on with both arms again before heaving herself up to grab the wire with her still-there left hand. The anchoring keeping the wire attached to her right wrist was still stable, as far as she could tell, so the neko began slowly swinging, getting enough momentum to drop them onto a very, very narrow ledge. Her boots found purchase, and her left hand forced one as she grabbed onto the face of the cliff and sent a thin thread of blood up the wire to re-integrate the materials used to create that wire, both for immediate purposes (removing evidence of their location) and practical purposes (it would be a waste of material to leave it behind).

Tweak examined the cliff of the sinkhole and then looked down. There was a bottom to it, far below. She glanced down at her right wrist as the last of the wire was withdrawn into the port amidst the ragged remains of her hand. Then that torn flesh was absorbed before a crude replacement built itself. It was entirely metal, a skeletal hand with sharp tips on the fingers...excellent for piercing stone. Skin grew around the palm of the mechanical hand, leaving the fingers bare for now. This was all done with her right hand held against her belly, her shoulders hunched to try hiding the gruesome process from Claire.

"Keep a low profile. I'm going to try to climb us out."

Blake dropped his weapons upon capture. The Uniques and the police were too much for the partially wounded, separated squad to take on. Not too mention he was fairly certain he could accurately defend himself and the rest of the squad in a court of law. Except maybe Claire and Tweak.

"None of us were carrying any explosives," he noted, both to Nell and himself. "This had to be done by someone else. You're obviously arresting the wrong people here if you're looking for whomever caused this explosion. They're most likely getting away as we speak while you waste your time with us."

Blake looked at the woman with desperate, serious eyes. He was nearly pouting, "We helped you."

Claire's eyes stayed widened as she watched her gun fall away from her view, just in time to see the plasma bolt fired hit it's mark. Bell's wild last shots barely registered in her mind. The unique was falling. Falling away into the abyss.

Falling to her death.

That thought alone almost made Claire stop breathing in astonishment. She had fantasized about it plenty of times. About killing that woman. And now, the image of her fall was now likely to be forever burned into her mind. The feeling of immense relief was overpowering, with a hint of joy in it. Claire did not even notice when the rifle slipped from her hands and fell down after Bell into the pit. She felt... tired.

It would turn out that Tweak did not have to worry about Claire keeping a low profile. The Geshrin's arm found it's way across the spacer's chest and her grip held firm as she basically attached herself to the other woman's back. There was a long sigh and Claire ceased to move, aside from normal breathing. Her head found it's rest against one of the neko's shoulder blades and for all intents and purposes; Claire was dormant. Any attempts to communicate with her would be met with silence for a while, her unsteady breathing and her leg's grip on Tweak would be the only signs she was still awake.

From behind Claire and Tweak, a new sound began to draw close; this time from the sky above them. Several hovering vehicles began to descend into the sink hole, each of their hulls adorned with the Gold Harbor Police Department logo, their sirens blaring out loudly. By the time Tweak had finally found stable footing back on the platform, she would be helped up by another Unique that she had not seen before, Stovaa and Method, as well as a handful of police officers.

The entire facility around the Sinkstrip was in the same situation. The facility air defenses, which included large caliber antiair cannons and a single, rather menacing missile pod, had been activated just minute ago. The Vinross Yu-Cranker security teams didn't really know what the make of the situation; they had chalked the timely reactivation up to both luck and their reliable failsafe protocols. The guns were immediately set to encouraging the Eco-Terrorists' two unregistered gunships to flee the facility airspace, while emergency calls were sent out to every law enforcement their communication arrays could get a hold of. The terrorist vessels were apparently too well accustomed to sitting pretty above Vinross Yu-Cranker airspace, and were quick to vacate when they realized their handy system shutdown was no longer in effect.

Inside the facility, the remaining eco-terrorists were finding their goal of capturing critical company heads and CEOs a little harder than they had first anticipated. Laj Vinross Yu and Marissa Cranker were quickly vacated before they could even catch a glimpse of them, and the rest of the conference attendees had somehow eluded their capture. These problems were all at the hands of the Uniques; what few hostages the terrorists were able to capture were quickly freed, the Uniques weapons, skills and abilities far outweighing those of the eco-friendly marauders. It was a wonder to the police and the Uniques as to how these riff-raff believed this raid to be a good idea in the first place... and as the situation quickly began to fall out of their hands, the eco-terrorists too began to wonder how this plan ever sounded so sure. By the time the Gold Harbor Police Department was on the scene, most of the facility was back online. With communications coordinating them and blocking the coordination of the enemy, the Uniques had most of the facility back under Vinross Yu-Cranker control. The police were just there to help with the clean-up.

---

Serra and Cassefin caught a lucky break at their unfortunate plummet; they had stumbled on the area that most of the company CEOs and conference executives had fled to, with the help of a handful of Uniques. They were able to sit quite comfortably in the presence of several armed guards from several different businesses and companies, up until the facility became functional once more, where they were escorted to safety by the police riot teams. Cassefin was relieved to say the least, but made a point to remain quite on her excitement until she knew the location of Squad 101.

---

An hour or so afterwards...

Squad 35, formally known as Squad 101, found themselves sitting in a rectangular row inside a Gold Harbor Police Department transport vessel. These vessels were large planetary vehicles, usually used to move riot police to locations... and bring the arrested back in. Although they were not cuffed in any manner, Squad 35 would notice that they weren't exactly free to leave; this was evident in the armed guards they had at the only entrance. While normally it would not have been a problem, all of the weapons the police could see on the outside of their suits had been confiscated.

The team had not seen much outside of what they witnessed upon being brought into the vehicle. They were all brought into the transport in short succession, Serra included as she and the Head Administrator made it to the surface floor. They had not seen Cassefin Montreal nor Purina Popjoy in all of the time they had spent in the police vehicle, roughly an hour or so. The riot police made them take off their helmet... and it took a while before some of the confusion about their identities was made. At first it would appear the police had identified them from their squad number... which had apparently raised a red flag when the team was asked to remove their helmets. After a few minutes, the officers began to call them by their actual names as they asked them to move from one location to the other.

Method and Tweak, however, were an exception; the police instantly recognized their high radiation signatures and asked that they please keep their helmets on; the officers weren't looking to be the unwilling recipients of any unwanted radiation sickness. Kess, still hidden in the confines of Tweak's suit, was deathly quite through the entire ordeal, having not spoken since Tweak, Claire and her were out in the pit.

Kokuten and Noboru were allowed to lounge about in the stretchers they were carried in on, the medical teams having done all they could in the short, frantic moments to stabilize the two injured bedfellows. For the conditions, the medics did a decent job; the wounds were properly dressed and the drugs made the pain slight while retaining their comprehension in case they were needed for questioning.

As long as the team was cooperative, the enforcer involvement in their personal effects was minimal. Aside from asking them to move from one place to another and asking them to remove their helmets, the officers didn't question any of them about the events that had happened. Apparently they were waiting, which was a likely possibility; there were probably a lot of people in line for interrogations.

---

After a while, a portly officer in an official-looking hat ducked under the entryway into the vehicles' holding area, giving the group of Cirrus Station personnel a once-over. He gave each of them a critical stare, as if evaluating them and their conditions. After a moment of awkward silence as he gave the squad a long sigh, the officer cleared his throat.

"Alright, you're all free to go."

After the officer gave them all the green light he hustled out of the vehicle, only to be replaced by Cassefin Montreal as she ducked her head into the doorway of the holding area, looking positively peeved. Her red hair was pulled back into the tight, ever-familiar pony tail, her feet were no longer clad in cumbersome heels and her business jacket was left unbuttoned, letting the blouse beneath breath between huffing breathes. All in all it was likely this was all that could be done to prevent her exploding from what appeared to be an enormous amount of stress.

"Come on, he said we're good, so get a move on. I don't pay you all to lounge."

It was not an easy transition for Claire, and for a while, it wasn't for Tweak either. To the officer's dismay, they would find that Claire was astonishingly unwilling to let go of Tweak's hips despite being generally unresponsive to nearly everything else they tried. As they left, they had to leave Claire attached to Tweak until they were escorted to the area where the medics were waiting. One of which was an annoyed woman who managed to undo Claire's grip within a matter of seconds and get her on to a stretcher. The geshrin wasn't seriously injured by any means, and was still very much awake. She was just mentally exhausted by the ordeal to the point where her mind basically shut down cognitive thought. It had been years since she had been truly emotionally invested in something with a clear resolution, and she was not used to having it be so personal.


When Cassefin finally came to retrieve them, Claire was together enough to stand up... but not to stay standing. She almost collapsed again onto Tweak who would either need to support her or find something else to do that. Though noticably Tweak was not the closest person for her to fall on to which suggested Claire was starting to think again.

Outside of the vehicle, the team would see that they were all parked on one of the several shuttle pads located on the outer ring of the facility. Things had settled down in the time of the captivity; the facility a fair distance away and aside from the police and a handful of Uniques, they were alone on the landing zone. Cassefin stood at the door, ushering them to quickly file out of the police transport.

Outside, a few familiar faces were there to greet them; or rather, two familiar faces and one familiar voice. Nell and, from the markings on her body armor, Captain Swann were standing outside as well, watching the Cirrus Station Security team exit the vehicle. She looked concerned for a moment, but Nell's expression turned to relief when she saw the squad begin to exit the door.

Purina Popjoy was with them, her appearance still in a minor state of dishevelment but otherwise seemingly overjoyed at the squads' safe return. She smiled at them as she stood next to the two Uniques, the green glass terrarium still clutched in her hands.

"How are you all holding up?" Purina asked with a sweet smile.