RP: Neshaten [Kingdom Fall] - Assignment 1 "Offworlders"

Zoya waited until after Felonia left before speaking to Kol'ya and Gio-gio with the casualness of a child in a classroom as she pointed at Ana'stasias receding form with the others.

"That's a minkan." She was accused with an innocent conviction for everyone who had seemed not to notice. "She's too tall, i've never seen a daur as tall as that," the shortest member of the team kept her finger up and pointing as if lowering it would cede some point.

"That's an agent of TAINT." She assumed even as she took out her tiny camera and took several snapshots of the impostor and scrutinizing them even as she took up a position to keep watching around the pyramid from the vantage point.

"Gun Felonias' too nice, she doesn't notice these things and it's why she's just a gun cause she can't think outside the box like TAINT operatives pretending to be daur but not knowing how tall we are... Kol'ya," Zoya turned to give the larger man a serious look before continuing.

"Make sure that you- You know." She emphasized with unspoken airquotes.

Group 1 - Zoya, Giovyn, Kol'ya

With her podcast conspiracy spoken allowed the trio took another good look at Ana, and to the child's credit she did look a bit too tall. Though Zoya would need to save her investigation of their teammate for when they finished the assignment as the group was split into two and began their incursion to Thauriel - 1, with the valuable intel provided by their suspiciously tall friend Zoya, Giovyn, and Kol'ya had no trouble making their way around the edge of the building, skirting the camera's and guards to scope out entry points.

-----

Zoya, sharp as ever and obsessed with perfection had been tasked with monitoring the patrol patterns and she did just that, even going as far as to memorise all 3 routes and precise timing. At their vantage point near the front of the building she was able to keep track of the Gun and other Initiates making their way to the designated "kill point", and within only a few minutes the perfect window had presented itself. An opportunity that was quickly relayed to Felonia via hand signals they all had drilled into their brain during training.

-----

Like clockwork the group watched as Felonia began her attack as the other 2 guards continued completely unaware of the fate befalling their comrade. Much to Zoya's horror, one of the guards broke their patrol route and wandered a little way into the jungle nearby to relieve themselves rather than move back inside the building it would seem. With the other group preoccupied Zoya, Giovyn, and Kol'ya had a split second choice to make. With the jungle cover it was very likely the camera's wouldn't be able to see him doing his business but their window was closing rapidly.

Group 2 - Felonia, Ana'Stassia, Ike'shia

Felonia gave the daur a wicked looking grin of affirmation, she may technically be an Infiltrator but her combat skills were nothing the laugh at and their job was finally getting to the action part. Following along behind Ana, Felonia and ike'shia had weapons prepped for what was coming next, the group quietly moved through the underbrush as little more than a soft rustle in the dark, barely warranting a care from the guards. Eventually they arrived at the spot described by Ana, the only camera nearby was facing an odd angle, once upon a time it likely was facing their direction but luck was currently on their side and one of the guards was headed their way.

-----

From their perspective at the rear of the building, Group 2 could just make out the concealed forms of Group 1 keeping an eye on the front of the building and the other navy guards, then came the signal that they were clear to go ahead from Zoya who had been obsessively watching the patrol routes mapped out in their initial huddle. Felonia fired back a confirmation signal of her own before flipping the knife blade skywards in her grip and motioning for Ana to follow her. In the blink of an eye the powerful laibe had dashed through the tree line with barely a sound, her body as low as she could go while maintaining such impressive speed, ducking and dodging several twigs with ease before leaping into the air behind the armour-clad fox before her.

-----

There was a muffled thud and cry of pain as the guard, a female daur as Felonia discovered during her assault, was tackled to the soft jungle floor, head mere inches from the hard rock foundation of the building. Without skipping a beat Felonia had forced her right hand under the guard's helmet and clasped it firmly over her nose and mouth before locking her victim in place with their arms pinned by her legs. Satisfied with her capture the Gun proceeded to slice the tendons in the Daur's legs behind her knees, eliciting another cry of pain into her gloved hand.

By the time Ana reached her leader the Navy guard was completely immobile and trying to sling both calls for help and obscenities with very little luck.

"Alright Ana, time to prove your loyalty to the cause. If you hesitate this, filthy, loyalist will give away our position and all of us will likely be killed. Count your lucky stars you didn't recognise the body armour, as it belongs to Division 5 typically, but this despicable excuse for our nation's finest is nowhere near that level." Felonia leaned down and nearly hissed the last line at the Daur on the floor still struggling as much as she could to free even one arm.

"You won't cut through the armour, best to simply make sure she cant alert anyone."

Neshaten
Still Definitely Not An Xcom Blacksite

Ana’stasia blinked once, then twice, then tilted her head to the side as she intensely studied the grappled guard’s armor. “My, ehm, apologies, Gun, I won’t, uhm, I won’t mistake the armor again…” she replied, her expression its usual neutral self - and then the Daur stepped forward, grabbed the sides of the still-struggling soldier’s head…

…and twisted.

And twisted.

And twisted.

Until the guard’s neck gave way with a quiet - yet unmistakable - crack. “My, apologies for taking so long to strangle her, Gun,” she continued offhandedly as her lightly-armored form stepped away from the lifeless husk of what had once been a (presumably) proud and upstanding member of Neshaten society. “Growing up in microgravity onboard a, ehm, a spaceship has had a d-deleterious effect on my, ah, strength…” A pause, then: “Anyway, uhm… what should we, uh… do with the b-b-body?”

Felonia watched with a sick fascination as Ana pulled off what was usually quite a difficult feat. Removing her right hand from the helmet of the now deceased soldier the knife in her left was sheathed slowly before the hand went to Ana’s shoulder and she looked the Daur in the eyes almost like she was seeing through the photon helmet.

“You have made the organisation proud today comrade Ana’stasia. Signal to the others we were successful, I’ll deal with the husk of this creature.”

With that the Gun turned back and began methodically stripping the uniform from the corpse, paying very little respect to the former soldier, clearly her distain was not in word alone.

Ana, being the obedient follower she was, did as she told and hand-signaled to the rest of the group that the guard had been successfully terminated without incident; though her expression was hidden behind her armor’s mask, it was one of serene contentment - because she’d finally been praised by the Gun, which meant that she wasn’t a complete failure after all.

Life was - for the moment, at least - good.

The Spot

Zoya watched in abject horror as an being against order; A agent of the forces of chaos physically caused what could only be the beginnings of a possible aneurysm by how much she could actually feel when the miscreant shirked and neglected his duty of walking a perfectly laid out circuit around the facility to wander off and stand in some bushes.

Someone like that was an agent of ruinous powers; A purveyor of misfortune whose actions could not be predicted or relied upon as they imbibed nothing but chaos in their daily lives when they moved their left foot first instead of their right, or took breaks at times not at exact half or hour bases such as starting at 5:24 and returning at 5:41!

Felonia was gone now. Inside the pyramid of ultimate mysteries.

Gio-Gio was new and untested, Kol'ya not as skilled as the gun that Zoya was with her years of training and field expertise!

The foil to all the plans of Kingdom Fall was not far as Zoya slipped onto and to the side of the beaten path; Her steps were remarkably light and precise in ways to keep only the toe and sole on the ground to avoid getting any mud on her boots as she traced the guards path and slipped into the foliage off the path. She could smell him just before she saw him as Zoya poked her head carefully from between two frauns of a bush at least a dozen meters behind him as her hand slowly rummaged around in the satchel at her side for the little killer while he fidgeted about with his back to her with some task.

Pyramid Interior

Felonia and Ana’stasia managed to sneak in without inciden, right beneath the cameras, leaving nothing but the twisted body of a nameless soldier in the bushes. With the stolen uniform now adorning Gun Felonia they may even gain some extra advantage should they run into anyone else, it certainly suited the woman. Wordlessly the red fox laid out a basic plan for her companion with basic hand signals once more, the less they spoke the greater their chance of staying hidden after all. The only sound as Felonia motioned was the faintest of creaking from her newly acquired leather gloves, her hands a flurry of precise and purposeful movements that told Ana everything she needed to know.

“Go to window, monitor others, regroup here with team.”

Still riding her slight high from earlier praise, the initiate did as she was told with a confident focus, after scanning the surroundings and locating the last seen position of Zoya her keen eyes managed to pick out the small daur amongst the foliage in time to witness the second minor vic of Kingdom Fall that night.

Meanwhile, Felonia skulked away to check out a few side corridors and internal rooms without windows to the outside, while she hadn’t infiltrated a building like this before having done time in the Navy and other sectors helped with understanding basic layouts they often used.


The Bushes of Rekoning

Zoya had the upper hand when it came to stealth, she was well trained and due to such a small frame, naturally gifted in keeping quiet whilst on the move. The daur approached the second guard with no issues, and even managed to find her weapon just in time to line up the sights as he turned and faced her. Time slowed down, Zoya squeezed the trigger like so many practice runs, the man’s face changed to that of confusion beneath the helmet as his vision went dark and the muscles keeping him upright gave out. A clean shot to the head became visible as the body hit the floor and spilled the rapidly cooling blood from behind the mask, the guard not having time to even mutter a sound.

With their obstacle out of the way, Zoya spotted Ana in the building waving them over, with Kol’ya and Giovyn in tow they made their way over to regroup with their leader in the central room, they were finally in.


Scary Triangle pt2

With all her initiates together again Felonia addressed the team briefly.

“Alright here’s what I’ve found, we all saw the comms gear on the roof on the way in and our info said the higher ups thought something big was happening here, but so far all the terminals in this place look way too old-school for the stuff up top. Everyone spread out and see if you can find any signs of a basement or lower levels. These loyalists are hiding something and we’re gonna find it!”

Beside the group was the largest room, layed out like an office building with short dividers making a total of 9 cubicles, each containing an old terminal and phone presumably to contact others inside the building. The terminals are an older model but still current enough to run the usual programs and systems employed within Neshaten official buildings. In one corner of the room by an exterior window sits what could be the managers desk, larger and with a second much newer device beside its terminal of unknown origin.

In front of where the initiates entered was the smallest exterior facing room, seemingly a combination of a break room, kitchen, and living space with a door leading to an attached room housing several beds that didn’t look used. There‘s nothing obvious in the kitchen or bedroom, the living area has a large display that has been left on but isn’t tuned to any commercial station and is simply displaying static with the volume off.

The last room pointed out by Felonia was the upstairs room taking up majority of the 1st floor, an archive room of sorts with a large conference table in the centre, every wall covered in filling cabinets and data storage devices, this room appearsto have been ransacked compared with the rest of the building with papers strewn about and chairs upended and what looks like thrown across the space. Only a single cabinet in the nearest corner appears untouched and unopened.

Neshaten
Oddly-Located Office Building
Lobby

“Ehm, uhm, acknowledged, G-Gun,” whispered the slightly-taller-then-normal Daur known as Ana’stasia in acknowledgement as she checked, double-checked, and triple-checked to make sure that her currently-deactivated Photon suit was still functioning; once satisfied that it was, she turned invisible - to the naked eye, at least - and crept her way over to the largest of the three rooms as quietly and stealthily as possible, taking care to avoid any cameras (or other internal security devices she detected on the way there) lest they be equipped one of the several detection methods her suit couldn’t guard against.

Once inside the room, the infiltrator - again, trying to stay undetected as long as possible - began to quietly investigate the cubicles in front of her as she slowly worked her way towards her destination: the desk in the corner with the unknown (perhaps even foreign!) device attached to its terminal.

Lobby

"Yes!" Zoya shrieked in a way that it sounded more like a screaming banshee than a word as she jumped about, ran in a circle a couple times, and then stopped to heave and gasp for air as the sickly Daur was filled with an uncomfortable amount of energy at her first kill.

Seeing Ana waving at her, Zoya waved back vigorously and gesturing at the guard before picking up the hem of her sundress a bit to not get it muddy and plopped through the mud towards the building in plain sight while rapid-fire chattering in exitement until she entered the building.

"Did you see that?!" She shouted in excitement at Felonia, voice echoing in the lobby slightly as she managed to flag everyone with her lasser pistol again as she swung her arm and pointed.

"We gotta go back and get on the radio; We gotta tell my mom!" She decided until Felonia spoke and poured water all over her parade. A bit less enthusiastic that nobody was celebrating or praising her, Zoya instead looked around for some place to sit down and catch her breath now that everything had caught up with the physically weak girl as she sat down on a chair clearly ment for Daur with the right cuppage for a tail and still a bit light headed rested her head on the keyboard of the either reception or securing desks terminal while tossing her laser pistol on the desk as it knocked over a paper organizer as she began a coughing fit.

Scary Triangle
Lobby

Felonia did her best to finish briefing the others while Zoya ran her mouth and bounced around clearly hyped up on adrenaline, though she couldn't blame the young Daur too much, her body had kept her from such activities for a very long time and it was definitely a good sign she was so enthusiastic for their cause, her mother would certainly be proud to find out later. As Ana headed for the large office room, Felonia went over to Zoya and knelt down beside the out of breath daur.

"I did see it Zoya, you should be proud of yourself! Once we finish up here and get home I'll be sure to get you in contact with your mother, I'm sure she'll be very happy with your performance." The glint in the red-furred Laibe's eye shone through her casual smile as Felonia's mind ticked over, Zoya would definitely prove a useful asset to Kingdom Fall, and to Felonia herself if she played the cards close to her chest for the time being.

"Now, do you need a bit longer to recover or are you ready to go? We've still got to find out what they're so intent on guarding here before we can go home, and I could use you watching my back."

From the corner of her eye the Laibe watched as Ana seemed to shimmer and disappear, the stealth suits from that GH mob were certainly something she was a big fan of, and clearly so was her newest Infiltrator. Something about this Daur's nature had the Gun on edge, years of working her way into every nook and hiding place in Nesha Prime's society had taught her to read people well, but Ana almost seemed to easy, too obvious to be a trap laid by the Sword above her, oh well no use thinking on it now.

Offices

Ana'stasia made her way through the room with a level of discretion befitting her training, barely making a sound and keeping clear of disturbing anything in the room to give her currently hidden position away. It was odd that all of the regular cubicles were setup in exactly the same way, far beyond the usual suspects like the same model of office equipment or layout, the similarity each shared was akin to a clone and its host. Every desk oriented the same way, each containing the same items, in exactly the same condition, placed in the same location all the way down to a pen and notepad beside each phone.

Another detail that slowly became apparent to the Initiate was the thick covering of dust over the floor but not the furniture and devices, despite looking like it had settled downwards as usual the top of the cubicle dividers, the terminals, desks, none of them had a single spec on them. The cloaked Daur continued into the room making a beeline for the obvious desk in the corner and it's strange contents.

As Ana got close she could see the strange object better, it was like nothing ever seen in Neshaten technology before and clearly used an alternative power source to their usual lunabaren crystals, later on she would thank her foresight to move so slowly through the room as Ana placed a foot down and felt the floor panel move ever so slightly with a soft click emanating from under her boot. Instantly the facade dropped as the strange object seemed to power down, while it wouldn't be immediately apparent to Ana'stasia the cubicles behind her had all vanished behind her as if they never existed, in their place was a hatch in the floor hissing open as an equally alien and very deadly looking machine rose from within the floor with the unmistakeable "GH" painted across it's side.

Once fully emerged, the device unfolded into the unmistakable profile of some kind of heavy calibre automatic firearm with a whole lot of extras packed on, the entire machine had deployed within a second behind the cloaked Daur, its barrel along with several unseen hydraulics or servos whirring softly as a blue light shone out from its side and began sweeping the room as it rotated. The light would reach Ana in mere seconds, the doorway she entered from now on the other side of this strange device with no other way out of the room and nothing else within but the single real desk beside her.

Neshaten
The Office™
I Thought This Was A Cubicle Farm

The somewhat tall Daur known as Ana’stasia Faldel’la had just begun to berate herself for her clumsiness when she heard the hiss of a pneumatic-driven door open, causing her to whirl around - and, as she felt her gut proverbially plummet several hundred feet into the ground, finally realize just what was going on: the reason the cubicles were all identical and dustless was because they were fake.

Fake, and meant to mask the gun emplacement - whose manufacturer, noted Ana’stasia with more then a hint of irony, was the same as her beloved stealth suit - that would gun down anyone unlucky enough to be caught out in the open. It was a dastardly and highly effective setup that would’ve undoubtably mowed down many a potential infiltrator, but Ana’stasia Gor’siev’ya Faldel’la wasn’t anyone - and whichever bureaucrat had placed their desk straight in the turret’s line of fire had done a very, very good job of sabotaging the contraption’s effectiveness.

All of the above and more flashed through the foxgirl’s mind as she looked back at the desk, flung herself over it, and - thanks to her haste - landed roughly behind it with a very audible thump as her armored form solidly impacted the ground; though Ana’stasia was stunned for a moment due to her breath quite literally being knocked out of her, she was fairly sure she’d gotten behind cover in time.

And she hadn’t - or if the turret was programmed to shoot through the desk, or could simply see through it with its sensors - well…

At least she would die quickly.

Lobby

"No, i'm alright." Zoya wiped some of the spittle from her chin after her coughing fit and caught her breath as she waived Felinona off with the casualness the youth used. As the light headedness receded she hopped down off the chair with a jaunty plap of her shoes on the tiled floor. Reaching down to pick up all the papers and objects she knocked over, Zoya began carefully and methodically re-arranging them into neat organized piles back on the reception desk.

Going over the contents of the papers to better organize them by page number the young Daur did her best as she skimmed over the complicated words and connected each page over the last by the start and end decimal and contextual layout until the reception desk was neater than it was when she arrived.

Turning back to the rest of the lobby, Zoya quickly did a mental headcount as she looked about for something to clean the mud and dirt tracks from the lobby entrance before stopping.

"Where's the big one?" She asked.

Scary Triangle - Now with Lights and Sounds
Office

Thanks to her quick thinking, the fox still currently known as Ana'Stasia managed to get behind the desk before the presumed scanner beam passed by harmlessly over the desk in-front of her with only the soft whir of the turret's motors and her own breathing inside the helmet to pass the seconds that felt like minutes. Thankfully for the young initiate none of her comrades had walked in behind her as the imposing form of the mounted weapon continued rotating past the doorway and eventually finished its scan of the room without incident, though it did not retract and instead faced the window beside the desk currently shielding one fox.

The strange blue light-field had disappeared and the device appeared to have entered some sort of hibernation but Ana couldn't be sure, without getting to study it whilst active it was impossible to say if any additional lights had also switched off to backup the observation she could make. Thanks to her training as an infiltrator and the keen eye all initiates were taught to use when scrutinising the technology of the Kingdom for signs of outsider interference or design, Ana would be able to make out the faintest red glow emanating from a lens below the dangerous, flesh-shredding barrel, with no discernible light actually emitted from it's surface however.

The way to the doorway appeared clear, the gun emplacement no longer moving or seeming interested in scanning the room, though it was impossible to know if it was secretly aware of anything happening outside its immediate front on view, or exactly how she'd activated it in the first place, or if it could see her while cloaked, the risks were only growing.

Lobby

As Zoya reassembled papers and office junk Felonia kept an eye on the headings of each page as it were sorted, just in-case they left anything useful lying in the open but alas it all looked way too out of date, checking the date-stamps confirmed none of these documents had been relevant for almost 8 years, long time to have left them lying around here collecting dust. The red-furred laibe decided there was nothing worth looking into there and continued checking around the lobby for any signs of recent use, muddy boot prints leading to a set of stairs would be nice.

Although in reply to Zoya's question, the blue light of the deadly turret's scan peaked out from the doorway in the corner of the little Daur's eye while it finished its sweep of the room where her comrade Ana was hiding, unknown to the other pair thanks to the effectiveness of the stealth suit, but it was the only thing that seemed to have changed in the last 10 minutes within the building. "I'm not sure Zoya, Ana'Stasia managed to requisition one of Galactic Horizon's stealth suits and we don't really have anything to track it currently so just keep an ear and eye out for anything strange" Came the half-minded reply of Felonia as she continued scouting out the complex, following a set of tracks to a wall where the Laibe had put an ear to the surface whilst tapping along its surface to see if her hidden door theory would pay-off.

While the young Zoya had been left to her own devices, the blue light faded as quickly as it had come, after a minute a rhythmic tapping started upstairs, metal on metal with substantial weight behind each sound and nothing tell-tale to give away its source.

Neshaten
8Bits (made of Triangles) Are Scary
Office(r) Down

The blue-haired Daur possibly known as Ana’stasia Fal’dela knew that the timer representing her remaining lifespan was ticking down faster and faster with every passing second, as she knew that the mechanism she’d triggered had to have alerted someone somewhere that something amiss, which in turn meant that someone would eventually come along and detect her non-stealthed comrades; problem was, she didn’t have anything to-

Bump!

The fomx very nearly jumped out of her skin as she grazed against the wheeled, sinfully comfortable, and possibly armored chair behind the desk. Ajduqkdbwhdjsjohgoshohgoshohgoshoh-wait…

The light above the desk - and Ana - coincidentally lit up for a moment as she had an idea. This is really dumb (like me), probably going to fail (like me), and is probably going to alert everyone (which hurts the Gun and the others, which is definitely not okay and so I really don’t want to do it, b-b-but I have to live to complete the mission, so… I’m s-s-s-so sorry ever-everyone!

With that, the Daur shoved the office chair towards the right-side wall (the left-sided wall, from her perspective) and made a mad dash for the doorway at the far end of the room from the desk, hoping beyond hope that the gun emplacement’s electronic sight was based on motion or sound - both of which the office chair was providing in copious amounts as it noisily clattered its way across the floor. I have to live to complete the mission I’m sorry everyone but I have to live to complete the mission I’m sorry everyone but I have to live to complete the mission I’m sorry everyone but I have to live to complete the mission I’m s-

Lobby

Zoya stared, quizzically at the shortly lived light she had sworn she'd seen like a predator waiting for prey it knew was there to bolt from cover as the only part of her that moved was one hand playing with the zipper of her satchel as she searched detached for her little killer until her hand found the pistol grip and formed around it.

And then after a long moment she looked up curiously up and slightly away at an unidentified rythmic sound she couldnt quite place.

"Rain?" She asked out loud before it registered more and the young daur frowned as she tried to place the sound. Not waiting while Felonia smelled the wall, Zoya walked over to the door she had thought she saw something and casually reached for the handle to go investigate the source of the sound deeper in the facility.

Office

Ana's daring plan would change the course of her life drastically though she didn't know it at the time. As the chair rolled across the hard floor, its wheels causing enough noise that even Felonia's ears perked up as the Gun whipped around to the source of the noise. Back inside the office the gun emplacement had taken notice as the chair crossed its path and after 0.5 seconds to acquire the target a deafeningly loud barrage ripped through the office, despite the noise of a 20mm autocannon firing in close proximity Ana's plan had worked and the fox scrambled for the doorway as fast as her legs would allow.

Outside the room, Zoya grabbed the door handle and had just begun swinging it open as the gunfire decimated the office chair and the exterior wall with it, followed closely by the frantic, shimmering form of their blue haired fox companion barrelling through the doorway, the sudden opening of which had thrown her off balance resulting in Ana'stasia reflecting off of the door itself and ending up in a lightly dazed heap on the floor. Meanwhile, satisfied with the smouldering remains of the metal frame and burning tatters of cloth and mesh littering the air like ash, the emplacement retracted back into the floor in the same way it had emerged, the pair outside the door waited for an inevitable alarm or floodlights to activate revealing a huge contingent of soldiers waiting for them.

But none came.

Unknown to the trio above, a system had stirred below, a small light flashed before a monitor illuminated, dousing a small room in stale white light. The watcher sat in their chair, spectacle covered eyes piercing the display before a single finger was extended to snuff out the light. The monitor switched off and the small space was once again black as the night sea, swallowing the occupant whole.

Lobby

Felonia burst through a nearby doorway sliding into the lobby on one knee with her recently stolen Shukara SMG levelled at the office door where her two initiates were still processing the rapid events of the last few seconds.

"What the FUCK just happened?! You two ok over there?" The red furred Laibe scanned the room going into full tactical mode while moving slowly towards the pair, sweeping the barrel of the weapon usually reserved for Division 5 operators around in-case any new security showed up to deal with them.

"Zoya, help Ana'stasia and make sure she's not concussed, then check that room... carefully. I think I found what we were looking for earlier but I need to sweep the perimeter, find out what that noise was and make sure it isn't still gonna be a problem."

Lobby

At Felonias orders Zoya... Did not at all help ana as the smaller daur curled a lip at the thought of touching something so burnt, dirty and likely bloody. Instead, she fidgeted in her napsack until she found a fresh roll of clean white bandages and a packet of alchohol cleaning swabs and finally a packet of wet naps before placing them on the ground next to the woman and, making sure beyond her risen hackles that there was nothing on her, casually walking towards the door the other daur had just flung herself though.

Using a towel to once again pull the likely contaminated handle on the door, Zoya, with the invincibility of youth heeded no danger as she casually strolled into the room with all the survival instinct of someone walking down the road.

There was broken desks, and chairs, and holes everywhere. And it took all she had to not drop down to her knees and start piling it all up right that second. Not one hundred percent clear what she was looking for she then turned around towards the door, cupped both hands around her mouth, and to be heard through the building shouted back to Felonia "Heyyy!" before stopping with a coughing fit.

She wondered if she could find a cool gun too somwhere...

Neshaten
Lobbyists Galore

With a groan, the cream-colored Daur occasionally known as Ana’stasia Fal’dela stirred and returned to the land of the living - only to immediately wish that she hadn’t, given how much every square inch of her body seemed to be either exhausted, exerted, in pain, or some combination thereof; after performing a mental role-call of her limbs (all of which were still attached, thankfully) the fomx slowly got to her feet… and winced as a titanic headache abruptly reared its extraordinarily ugly head within her, well, head. “Ow… I’m… I’m sorry for making so much noise, Gun,” said Ana, her helmeted head hung low and her shaky, emotion-laden tone clearly indicating that she was upset with herself for blowing the team’s cover in such a spectacular fashion. “There was a gun emplacement in the middle of the room, and I couldn’t think of any other way to get past it besides using a chair as bait, and… and…”

The Killing Room

As if to continue perpetuating Zoya's ignorance of the danger it appeared the turret had been completely switched off, either that or the short fox had managed to avoid any pressure plates and lingering motion detectors when strolling through the room. Apparently the deactivation was less important to whoever programmed the turret however as Zoya caught sight of the imposing size of the smoking barrels which had just torn open the room she now stood in before a hatch slid shut covering away the weapon.

As Ana'stasia began appologising to the rapidly approaching form of Felonia who had just completed the perimeter check via several windows the red Laibe knelt down and assisted the shaken Daur with the medical supplies so unceremoniously left by Zoya moments prior, getting the initiate patched up as best she could though thankfully there were very little injuries and mainly just scrapes and bruises from some wooden splinters and launching through the doorway.

"Don't worry about that Ana, you did well to get out of there in one piece, given that it doesn't seem to have killed Zoya I think we're safe from it reactivating again. Seems like a waste to have it setup solely to scan for a single target that trips the room though, these bastard loyalists are getting more desperate to thin our ranks." The Gun growled softly to herself at the last line, accidentally applying more force than intended while helping Ana to her feet and nearly launching the poor girl into the air. Satisfied that she could stand for the moment Felonia turned to the doorway at Zoya's call, heading over to stop her from choking on the dust and keeling over for good.

"Make sure you stand up straight when you cough, gotta stop anything from getting lodged in your throat." Felonia strode over and gave her a firm pat on the back to help without wanting to knock the poor Daur over. With her initiates tended to and thankfully no injuries, the Gun gathered them together once again "Alrighty, I think I found what we were looking for here too, keep it together for a little longer you two, we just gotta get some photos and prove something bigger is going on and then HQ will send in the cavalry later." The Gun led the pair over to the next room where Zoya had mistaken her for smelling the wall which had now opened to reveal a lift, open and waiting.



-----

???

In the cool depths beneath the strange building the 3 Kingdom Fall members found themselves facing a short tunnel network, not big enough to be labyrinthian but not a small space either. A brief look around revealed several living spaces and a rec room along with a staircase leading up to somewhere unknown. Finally, another large pair of doors awaited the small team, certainly a much more important room and likely what they had been sent to investigate.

Felonia had been leading the group in a low stance since the lift opened and now it was time for another huddle, this would be the defining moment of their career.

"Ana'stasia, you've got a stealth suit and it isn't Neshaten technology, you have the best chance to get some recon of that room without being seen, hope you're up for this." The Laibe drew her sword and passed the covert SMG stolen earlier to the Daur with a nod, Felonia ushered Zoya along until they had managed to find a corner to hide around to keep an eye on their companion.

-----

???-???

Behind the imposing doors presented to the fox trio lay an impressive control centre of some kind, rows of terminals and screens dotted the large space all focussed around a massive floor to ceiling display at the far side of the room which seemed to be monitoring the satellites around the planets in Neshaten space. The whole room was bathed in different hues of white and blue from the displays, and standing at the forefront of the room keeping an eye on the whole thing was the unmistakable black clad figure of a Division 5 Operator. Beside the imposing elite soldier was a pair of Daur who didn't seem thrilled to be here, along with the Navy Soldier with a gun trained on them.

"Operator Sher'Meso, these are the three I mentioned before. One of em is a disgraced doctor, sorry a dropout doctor. Other two we caught snooping around in Navy business, figured you lot could find out if they're part of that Kingdom Fall mob." The soldier, a gruff looking Laibe, said with a sneer while not so gently smacking Raya'suf in the back with his gun and threatening Nur'mak and Xial'na to get the same treatment should they dare to move a muscle.

Currently the room seemed to be far emptier than it was equipped for with only a small handful of technician looking staff fussing over the various stations and readings, while it was hard to be sure it didn't look like there were any other armed members present besides the operator and soldier, though everyone in Kingdom Fall knew the danger even a single member of Division 5 could represent. A speaker system crackled to life somewhere in the ceiling before an artificial voice could be heard.

"Shade Field test now complete, disengaging in 30 minutes for recalibration, all staff prepare for light-shift."

It had quickly become clear what the purpose of this odd building was, while possibly not the central unit, it was obviously connected the Shade Field which had been installed around the Neshaten planets while the Kingdom had been sleeping, and made it very hard for Kingdom Fall to continue its import/export runs with no idea when the sun would be turned off, the significance of such information enough to make any initiate's ears twitch.

They now had an hour before escape would become that much harder.

Neshaten
We Were At A Blacksite, Right?
Unda Da Earth

The Daur known at the moment as Ana’stasia Faldel’la - still wearing an expression of immense relief behind her stealth suit’s mask at not having let her glorious leader down too badly - proceeded to obediently listen as Felonia gave her instructions, then positively (albeit silently, of course) beam as the fox bequeathed her with an even more powerful weapon and entrust her with what the blue-haired fomx believed to be a very, very, very important part of the mission. “T-T-Thank you for, uhm, uh, entrusting s-such something so i-im-important to, ehm, me, G-Gun,” she whispered, keeping her voice low in case there were hidden microphones nearby or something. “I, ehm, I, uh, I’ll t-try not to let you and Initiate Fe-Fe-Felonia down!”

With that, the Daur - after triple-checking that her armor’s stealth systems still functioned and that they hid the submachine gun well enough - silently scurried around the corner and over to the door. After making sure nobody else was around, she activated its opening mechanism - a simple keypad that lacked even the most basic of security features; clearly, the designers of the building hadn’t expected for anyone to get around the defenses upstairs - and, once the doors were open, calmly (or as calmly as someone with her levels of nervousness could, at least) strode in.

Only to see a rather… unexpected (and dangerous) scene as she promptly scuttled over to the darkest corner of the poorly-lit room, given the presence of the Division 5 operative, the Volunteer Navy soldier, and their captives. As she was outgunned (and possibly out-trained) by the black-clad operative, Ana thus decided to wait and see what their reactions would be to the door opening would be - and, if possible, kill the operative while the soldier’s back was turned.

Elevator

"You're welcome." Zoya acknowledged Ana's apology to her as a Gun for having to deal with the death-turrets when the larger Daur was insufficient. She only wished she had thought to use her camera or something to have recorded the whole this to send to mom. It would have been propaganda for months, Zoya was sure!

When the lift opened, Zoya was the first one out. Casually jumping out of the lift without any haste or situational awareness she took in her surroundings of the living spaces and rec room as she strutted about curiously even as Felonia lowered herself to Zoyas level. Noticing the sword however, Zoya quietly scoffed as she drew her little killer and held it casually down towards the ground by her side.

Felonia thinks shes a 'sword' now! Zoya mused inwardly as she began poking her head into the closest room to scrounge, look for important documents that media told her should be laying on tables strewn about, and for something to eat after all the excitement drained her blood sugar levels.

She had a granola bar in her satchel but if she ate that now there would be nothing left for the ride home.

She got a final laugh at Ana going all stealth-mode too only to open a very un-invisible door. Not seeing any of what Ana did, Zoya went back to her important work as she pulled out a small personalized digital camera and started taking pictures of a table, a trash barrel, a white board, and just about everything as she held the shutter button down the whole time without pause.

Xial'na's eyes focused in on the Division 5 Operator who had a gun trained on her. What did they really think she was capable of that they had to sic him on her? The Daur could not really care less in the moment as she was not to thrilled with being imprisoned at the moment. As the big oaf in black mentioned something about a mob she rolled her red eyes. A mob? Her? The sheer thought made her want to burst out laughing right then and there, only thing stopping her was the obvious death in her face.

Her ears focused on the other sounds swirling around her, never once looking away from the unfortunate soul that had to keep weapons on her. She did not much know the other two there with her and did not really care to either. All she had done was look into a few curiosities that had garnered her interest. Look where that had gotten her, she let out a soft sigh.