RP: ISC Phoenix [Mission 1] - Feel the Pain

As Ellen stumbled around, she felt Zeta's hand on her shoulder and looked at the other woman. With her mind returning to her, she felt a bit of concern coming from somewhere- it must have been Aerin coming back. Aerin didn't feel any hate toward Zeta, but it was obvious to Ellen that Aerin did not want Zeta to find out the truth. Still, Zeta provided a distraction in the form of a question.

Breathing through the mask, she pointed at the partially deployed cover on the pool "it wont... close... all the way" she explained between breaths, indicating that they needed to do something more about the burning pool than they had already.

"Yeah, let's deal with the big one first and then we can worry about dabbing the rest on the citizens." Luca nodded towards Smith Jr as he found an empty canister the size of a fire extinguisher and a tank compression device. It worked by attaching the canister to one end of the device and putting what you wanted in it into a hopper.

Luca attached the tank to the business end of the device and grabbed the white Motiva from Smith's apparatuses. He poured it into the hopper of the device, sealed it shut and pushed a button. He heard some odd hissing as the device measured that Smith had created approximately 750 mls of Motiva White. An enormous and fatal dose for an individual, but for the population of a small town, it might do.

The fact that it was so simple to operate was out of necessity for Nepleslia. When your doctor kept on changing week by week because they wound up with gunshot wounds or dead, you had to make your equipment easy to use with clear instructions for the next idiot that has to use them.

There was no time to train a new doctor on how to use everything, and if they couldn't figure it out themselves or didn't know how beforehand, they probably were better off left where you found them.

"Luca I'm touching down near your location." John's voice could be heard in Scott and Luca's earpieces. He could be heard mumbling as the sound of the Big Bird's STL engines were roaring outside. "Tch... I'll drop a ladder down for you and Scott - its too packed for me to land."

The cylinder of compressed Motiva White was now fully pressurised and ready to be 'distributed'. Luca handed the Cylinder to Scott and walked outside and looked up with a smile.

"I'll handle the explosives, you first." He pushed Scott towards the Ladder that had fallen down from the open loading ramp of the Big Bird hovering above.

As Luca watched Scott climb the ladder and secured the explosives he'd found, he felt an ache in his kidneys and gasped. He staggered towards the ladder and hung on as his legs gave out beneath him and his vision blurred. He grunted and staggered back onto his feet.

He patted his front pocket for a pill the Lorath witch had left him. Just one and - as he understood - he'd be able to keep going for long enough to see this to the end. Hopefully. As his vision levelled with the horizon, he blinked several times and saw an outline of her come into focus.

She was walking closer, every step she took stained the ground with the blood of the weak and unworthy. Luca's ears were ringing with her voice and the beating of his heart as he fumbled for the pill and held it before him before swallowing it in one gulp.

She held her hand out towards Luca as though she was offering a way out of all of the pain. Luca kept on gripping the ladder as though he'd fall even though he was still on the ground. Her fingers curled, beckoning him to leave it all behind and pass on into the other world.

"Luca, what's taking you so long? Scott's here!" John yelled through his earpiece, his voice fuzzed. "Hurry! Its getting bigger!"

She then tried to reach towards him and grab the detonator. They would go out together. Luca tried to grab her arms and wrestle her away but they kept slipping slick with blood.

The pill reacted with his system and he felt the aches and pains subside, she and the blood faded away like whispers in the wind and Luca's vision returned to reality. He took a deep breath and looked up. "Hold your horses, I'm coming!"

He tapped his earpiece. "Aiesu, Luca here," he was sending her a short message through his earpiece as he started climbing the ladder, "I have one request if I don't survive this: send as much Motiva White as you can procure here in case I fuck up. Hugs and kisses." He was referring to Motiva Negative, but to Luca and Scott's understanding, it was just White Motiva, or Motiva White since that's how Aiesu described the substance to them.

That cloud wasn't going to disperse itself. Luca was swinging in the wind as he kept climbing up against the weather and rumbling thunder. A hand crept across the top of the loading ramp, followed by an arm, followed by the rest of Luca. His wounded eye appeared to be bleeding and tinged with an unnatural orange colour.

"What took you so long?" John asked as he leaned in to help him up, grabbing his hand and pulling him on the deck. "Shit, you're bleeding."

"I'm fine." Luca replied hoarsely, "we'll worry about that when this is over!"

-

MEANWHILE, BACK AT SARGASSO...

Lina blinked. Just who did she let into her town, drink her beer and give her money to get an air raid siren going?

"I don't know - you can't be serious." Lina crossed her arms as she tried to mull over what she heard. "That sounds like something out of a crappy action film."

Then she took a few moments to consider just who she had transported there this morning. A woman with a metal arm who could destroy anything with a punch, an engineer and her freespacer buddy, a gartagen pervert who loved to peep on her, a pint-sized inventor, a smoothly dressed doctor, the Kohanian, that rogue and that other guy who flew everything.

Finally, him. Washed up like her but still doing what he did best. When she first saw him stagger into his bar that evening with his daughter, she mistook him for another vagrant who'd ended up carrying the baby from a relationship. As time went on, she saw what a man over the edge with nothing to gain or lose.

"Shit, we have to warn everyone! Peachtree, get the word out: Everyone stay indoors and waterproof yourselves!" She turned around and took the bar's phone off of the hook and dialled a number. She heard a ringing and a click. "Karl, its Lina. Spread the word, get everyone indoors and waterproofed. Tell Takeyama and Neppie too!"

"Gotcha, Princess." Click.

Lina turned around to spot the new girl still standing there: "Well? What are you waiting for, an invitation? Go!" She shooed them away before turning around to make more calls.

"Shakes? Oh, hey Tony, Lina here, I've got bad news..."

-

"What's his problem?" Aoi asked Bronzi and Seiren as she started looking through the medical supplies and clean food supplies that she had. She had enough to keep her charges fed for a week. Most of it was non-perishable stuff that couldn't possibly have been infected by the tainted water. "I know, Neko, illegal, Nepleslia, sue me. I'm illegal on Yamatai too. They'll want my head on a stick."

She put her fingernail into a can of baked beans and started cutting the lid open. "But, if I go willingly revert, what happens? I can't ply my beautiful art any more." She flicked the lid off of the can and started drinking the beans straight from the can.

"Hungry?" She asked of the team that remained. There were plenty more non-perishables, including tinned fried just-about-anything-you-could-name and canned drinks and junk food. It certainly wasn't healthy but it wasn't going to make you lose your mind either. That said, most Nepleslians didn't give a dick about healthiness in their food. More crunch and more grease gave it more flavour.

-

Zeta looked out across the burning pool and across the iron cover that had stretched across it and found the closing mechanisms to be jammed with some manner of jimmy bar.

"This is just the beginning." The Lorath pinned by Enzo gloated with a thick accent, baring his sharp teeth. He took a moment to make a wheezy chuckle. "I saw you start the fire while you went picking that corpse like a magpie. What if I told a little bird about it?" The irony of a Lorath calling a Nepleslian a bird was not lost, and he started cackling again.

=== Meanwhile in Sargasso ===

Peachtree's lips parted to speak, but then she just hopped up. "I am not a hero but I will do what I can."

Lina would see Peachtree rear end dash out of the bar and into the streets. She began yelling at the people.

Now people are going to think I am crazy

"Uh Get indoors, tell your friends, everybody to just get indoors and seal up any leaks!"

=== Back with Aoi and friends! ===

Bronzi tilted his head at Makari and then went back to Aoi, Vita and the kids. "I derno. Sexual tension." He grunted as he stepped in doors.

Bronzi approached the food and nodded to Aoi's question. He was always hungry. even when he was not hungry he was already plotting his next meal. "Babydoll! Lunch break!" He grunted.

Bronzi squatted across from Aoi and set about grabbing some food and munching down. "Look." He said as bit of food flew from his mouth and down his chin.

"I am not gonna lie to ya. I ain't got single idea on whats happnin around here. If yer could uh...fill me in on whats happnin, Maybe we can be more of a help to the rest of her friends....an that one's Da" Bronzi said pointing a clawed finger at Vita.

Bronzi popped open a can of (Vienna)sausages and began spearing them with his claws. He shoveled them into his mouth savoring every unhealthy bite of the mystery meat.

Bronzi tilted his head at Aoi. He then swallowed his food. "What brings you to this world? Why leave yer own? Why are they fixin on skinnin you like a dog?"

Zeta's eye focused on the piece of metal obstructing the mechanism. She frowned and looked back at Ellen. What a brave kid. So young and already being part of stupid adventures. She should be in school dating boys and check new guns in shop with girlfriends. Still she was here and Zeta knew better then to try and talk the girl of being around Luca.

"I got it, just get away from the fire." Zeta said and helped the girl get on her feet. Zeta then took off. Sprinting, running, jumping. How wide was the pool? 20 feet? Maybe more. She could not tell, but she had the suit on and she herself was strong. And if not? Well she hoped that the WIND was not flamable. Zeta sealed the suit and picked up the speed as she sprinted to the pool. As she reached the edge she jumped.

"I told you to stop calling me that!" Seiren grumbled at Bronzi's attempt at a nickname. "Sheesh, izzat all you ever do? Just pass nicknames and gas?"

With the subject of nekos, he turned a less annoyed tone on his companion.

"Nekovalkryja aren't allowed off Yamatai-controlled worlds unless they switch bodies, I think. The rule mighta changed, but that's what I recall, anyways. At least, for those really dangerous older models it applies. I dunno, I haven't really bothered with Yamatain law recently."

The pint-sized male grabbed a juice box and popped a straw in it, sipping cutely.

Obviously, he noticed - it wasn't like they were in some sort of action movie where the protagonist had obvious signs to some problem that only the audience saw until some key point in the story.

'Wait, wait, wait - when did I start thinking of Luca Pavone as "The Protagonist"?!' Scott caught himself. Shoving it aside though, he had his own set of questions. "Blowing the stuff up to spread it around aside, what was that pill you just popped?" he asked, suspicious. "You're not hooked on something are you? I don't like it when someone's high off their ass and handling explosives at the same time!"

Waiting for the grand finale, Scott helped pull Luca up from the ladder best he could - it wasn't going to happen without him after all. Especially since he had the package!

Enzo blinked once, tore off a shot into the Lorath's arm with his handgun, and pressed the smoking barrel into the skin on the back of the behemoth's neck.

"So what if yous did?" Enzo asked like he'd only wiped something off of the guy's collar, "Why should I gives two burnt dicks about it? Who'd y'tell, the fuckin' police? Yer moms?"

Luca frowned at the junior Smith and crossed his arms. "You aren't all there, are you Doc? Can't you see I'm not all that healthy?" He pointed to his orange, currently bleeding right eye. "That pill was for my kidneys. Turns out Yamataian bodies get health problems too."

"Yeah, uh, you might wanna get that checked," John piped in.

"Later - I wasn't suggesting we use all of the explosives," he held up a single brick of the explosives and peeled off a smidgen of it with his thumb, "just a dab the size of my thumb to get the thing open when we hurl it into the middle of the cloud. That way it can do the most damage and we don't have to risk getting inside it if we crop dust it."

Crop dusting was a sound plan but it'd only get the top layer of the cloud, and it wouldn't address the rest. Luca didn't know how much Motiva Negative was enough, or if it actively sought out other Motiva and self-replicated or something like that.

He motioned to the compressed cylinder from Smith Jr. and nodded. "Come on."

-

Vitalia had found a chair, and positioned it carefully near a stack of lumber in the warehouse so that she could watch the distressed Nepleslians and Yamataians. So far, she had spent the better part of thirty minutes stuck in the warehouse with them, and Aoi.

The sick people, the ones losing their minds, had been Aoi's friends. It gave Vita cause for some thought and reflection, which were two things that she got quite enough of on her own. Her father, for instance, gave her enough reason to contemplate the depths of the human soul, but this presented a sort of crisis and eventuality which made Vitalia uncomfortable. As best she could, she tried not to let it show too much.

The ride had been entertaining; now, the curtain had fallen on that particular thrill of discovery. The end result turned her stomach a little.

The one upside to the current situation seemed to be the Nekovalkyrja in the group, who had been ministering as best she could. Vita watched her with a measure of patience and caution.

Vita knew. Vita knew that Aoi knew. And seeing as how they both knew, Vita still didn't know what, if anything, the furry-eared neko would do.

"You look a little out of place here with all these men." Aoi observed as she finished the cold tin of beans and eyed Seiren and Bronzi behind her. She crunched the tin in her hands. "You're just a teenager."

Vita managed to give Aoi a good smile. "Yea, I know, but one of them's my dad, so I kind of have to make sure he doesn't do anything, well, too dumb."

Aoi eyed the two other mercenaries behind Vita, and remembered the one with the cowboy getup that just stormed out. It couldn't have been any of them, there just wasn't any family resemblance she could see. She heard the voices of other people on the earpiece and radio, but she wasn't sure which one could be her father. Voices weren't hereditary. "What's he like?"

"Good guy," Vita said, "Bit of a hero complex. Can't sit still." Vita had picked up on Aoi's disbelief, so she nodded towards where the others were. "None of them. He's Luca Pavone."

"Wait." Aoi leaned in, eyes widening upon hearing that name. "I don't remember him having a daughter - surely someone in the press would've noticed that earlier." She chuckled. "You're pulling my leg."

Vita shook her head. "I'm Vitalia Pavone. If you don't believe me, just ask my dad when he gets here." Aoi appeared to be sceptical. One of her eyebrows rose and she crossed one of her legs, resting the back of her three fingered hand and smiling wryly.

"Still haven't heard anything from the media about him having a daughter, but if you say so, I'll ask him." She smiled before her expression became sour. "Wait." She looked up through the warehouse skylights and noticed that they'd darkened completely. "That cloud isn't gone yet." She put her fingertips to her temple and made a radio connection.

"Luca, sitrep. Where are you on that cloud?"

"Just about to try some-" Luca coughed and snorted. He wiped his nose, looked at his hand noticed a trickle of blood, made a slight sound of surprise audible on the radio and continued speaking. "About to try something. You'll hear it in a minute or two. Where's Vita - is she safe?"

"Yea," answered Vita. She made a show of using a small earpiece communicator. "Hey, dad, what's up?"

"Question, if I had a limited amount of stuff to neutralise the cloud with and a large cloud to put it in, where should it go off?" He had the dab of explosives in one hand and Smith had the cylinder. Luca's earpiece was also transmitting to Scott.

"Above the cloud." Vitalia glanced up to the metaphorical sky. "Let it disperse with the wind. Better, if you can make it rain."

Luca nodded with the second opinion. "Thanks, that sounds ideal, how are the others?"

Makari saw Melissa turning a corner from a side street and heading towards the warehouse. She ran through the door and halted suddenly, panting and wiping sweat from her brow. "Er, guys?" The look on her face was graven with worry.

"Eh?" asked Vita, taking her hand off of her earpiece.

"We got us a problem." She gasped between breaths. Hot on her heels, Allison and Echelon came running in transporting all the gear they were carrying. They grabbed Makari and pulled him inside and closed the doors behind them.

"S0M3TH1NG B1G D1S4GR33S W1TH US 4ND 1T C4M3 FR0M TH3 S3W3RS." Echelon yelled as a ': (' appeared above her head.

"I think they're crocodiles or something." Allison said. Echelon looked down at Allison and they exchanged a glance. "Well, they were."

A rumbling belch shook the air. "Got yerselves a problem eh?" Bronzi said cracking his revolver closed and holstering it. He smiled grimly at Vita, who sat back in the chair and gave him a quick thumbs-up.

A snarling could be heard from outside and from beneath the building. Aoi looked around her and tried to remember if the building had any underground access. "Kusouuu..." In the corner of the open warehouse, a trap door could be heard bumping and crunching, rising and falling visibly as something tried to force it open from below.

"Where is Luca, I dun wanna get all excited fer nothin, then find out he done skinned the damned shit lizards while were headin over there." Bronzi began loading his scatter gun, and rested the stock on his ribs as he reached down to his belt and pulled out a small handheld device. He began shaking it, and then slapping it on his left thigh. "Damn thing!"

The device sputtered and clicked. Then it began pinging. It started pinging faster and faster.

Melissa moved into the centre of the room and tried to gather the Yamataians and Nepleslians who'd lost their minds. They would be safer in the middle than spread out. "Carn, up ya get, move it kids!" She looked to Bronzi and asked: "Wot is that?"

"Motion detector..." He snorted not taking his eyes off of the thing. "Errr....Okay where are the man holes. If we can cover them..we can make a choke point...better to deal with em one on one usin da high ground."

Bronzi looked at Melissa. "Get up on da roof...you can cover more area..dat way none of 'em sneak up on us....though I'm worried." Bronzi said still looking at his detector. Melissa couldn't argue with this and went looking for a ladder. Aoi pointed her towards one and she started climbing.

"Things are big lizards eh? Gonna be hard to break dat hide with our bitty guns..."

"Yeah." Allison replied. "Big lizards."

"W1TH GN4SH1NG T33TH." Echelon replied as she swivelled the recoilless rifle around on her back. "TH3Y'R3 S0FT 4G41NST TH1S TH1NG, H3H3."

"Luca's trying to kill that cloud which made the crocodles-yeah you get the rest." Aoi turned around and opened a drawer. A Styrling Mancannon and some loose bullets were rolling around in there amidst stationary and she pulled the large calibre handgun out, checked the cylinder to see if it was loaded and snapped it shut with a grin before putting her finger near the trigger. She turned around to Vita and asked, "Think you can help? Surely your dad's taught you how to shoot."

Vitalia shook her head. "Well, I guess, but it's not very big or anything."

"Huh." Aoi's expectations did not line up with the reality, and she tilted her head at Vita. "How big?" In response, Vita pulled out a small Zen Arms, offering it up. "Wow. You couldn't knock the skin off of pudding with that."

Vita stood up and held onto the gun anyway, looking for somewhere to go where she'd be out of the way. Eventually, she decided to climb the crates she had been sitting beside, and set about doing that.

Bronzi tried to move out side of the building. Echelon was in the way, holding the doors shut. "R34LLY, TH3Y'R3 B1G."

There was a knock on the door.

And by knock, it was more like having the back side of an anti-starship cannon roll into you after it fired, propelled by the recoil. Echelon stumbled forwards, then turned back around to close the door and put the business end of the recoilless rifle through the gap in the door and fired. Metal confetti filled the air behind Echelon, and in front of Bronzi as part of the recoilless action.

"Alright. New idea." Bronzi said grinning brightly. He aimed his gun at the door and fired through it just for good measure.

"Open it up...I'm fixin on runnin' round like a fuckin' idiot 'cause I'm very fast. I'll get 'im goin' afta me...and yall can take pot shots at 'em. AN' FER SHIT'S SAKE DON'T SHOOT MEH. IF you do, please hit meh in da chest...not meh legs!" Bronzi said this over the radio as he dashed out side pulling his axe out of his belt.

"Y0UR FUN3R4L, BLU3B4LLS!" Echelon pulled the door open and fired thrice into the crocodile. Immediately before her, the crocodile absorbed the three fin stabilised sabots as though they were just normal sized darts. They expanded on contact but they only succeeded in annoying it. "THAT D1D N0T G0 4S 4NTIC1P4T3D."

"TH3Y'R3 S0FT 4G41NST TH1S TH1NG, H3H3." Bronzi called back cheerfully mimicking Echelon's voice as he dashed off.

It was twenty feet long, tinged blue and they weren't like the more passive breeds that pervaded the Nepelslias closer to Yamatai, like the Kennewes Alligator. These were crocodiles. Crocodiles were proof that dinosaurs still existed - and these ones were hungry. Normally, animal control would either keep these things fed and distracted or kill them with lead. Since the town's animal control had been indisposed, this one had gotten out of hand.

And there were smaller ones threatening to burst through the trapdoor in the room. Allison pointed her IAW at the trapdoor from thirty feet away. The gun rattled in her hands as she waited for something to happen.

Melissa would see Bronzi running around evasively. He was swift and deceptively nimble. He made a small detour at a near by man hole and delivered his axe to the head of one of the beasts. This was not aimed at killing it - merely to piss it off. She fired a round into the crocodile's tail and annoyed it further. It snarled and started snapping hungrily at Bronzi, displaying unanticipated agility and grace as it flicked its tail around to pivot and sprint at Bronzi.

Seiren looked upon all this, glanced at the two tiny pistols in his hands, and sighed.
"Welp. I'm 500% done. I'll uh. . . just stand back. To guard the kids."

The trapdoor was broken open and the chains holding it down flew into the air. Allison started firing. Three smaller crocodiles (twelve feet maximum) leapt out and landed twenty feet away from her. "Seiren!" She called as she backed off to reload, dropping the spent magazine and shoving a new one in. "These things have forgotten how to die!"

-

"Vita?" Luca asked as he heard the sounds of chaos and gunfire in his earpiece. "V?" His expression became grave as he looked over to Scott. "Above the cloud. John, take us up!"

"Roger that."

"Zeta, Enzo, Ellen, sitrep." Luca commanded as he held onto the bulkhead as he watched the city become smaller and smaller from the open loading ramp of the Big Bird. "Things have gone sour in town. Have you found anything further?"

-

"Your boss. If he found out he'd kill you!" The Lorath heckled. "Or, I could tell Lazarus, I'm sure they'd be interested to know who was responsible for this shitstorm, and they don't let people bad for their image keep all of their limbs when they're done with them - assuming they let you feel at all!"

His previous words were very deliberate. 'I saw you'. Past tense meant that could've already sent something to someone. The conman was unable to distinguish whether it was a bluff, or whether this Lorath had found the truth and had already turned it against Enzo.

Zeta was propelled by the strength assistance servos inside the legs of the WIND suit. Even though it was nowhere near as strong as higher grade power armour, the WIND was much lighter, allowing it to leap fairly high across the half-covered lake and through the smouldering cloud. Ellen could see her fly through one half of the cloud and emerge on the other side coughing and stained with a slight blue. Immediately to Zeta's right, she could see the crunching mechanisms beside her.

She grasped the crowbar protruding from the mechanisms and yanked it out, sending it flying across the park and letting the mechanisms continue whirring into action. Behind her, the cover across the pond started whirring into action and extended itself to the other side. The cloud was now trapped, and the oxygen was no longer feeding the fire.

Now the cloud wasn't growing any further, but it still had to be neutralised.

His anger for the Nekos forgotten, Makari reloaded his HHG with reds and re-holstered it. Despite everyone else pulling out the big guns, Makari had another idea. He needed something smaller with less recoil and faster firing rate. He took his Standard General Assault Rifle out of its sling on his back and setting it to automatic. Aiming at the foremost croc's eyes, he let lasers fly. He figured that if these blue monstrosities couldn't see, they might start attacking each other. At the very least, they could use the confusing to get the kids out of harm's way. "Aim for the eyes and the inside of the mouth, they have to have some squishy parts somewhere!"

Makari did *not* like how this situation was playing out. There should not be giant blue reptiles immune to bulletfire. That's just not right. But hey, he thought, Mother Nature is a bitch.

Makari really wished he had his explosives with him right about now.

Although Enzo couldn't distinguish whether he was being bluffed or not, it was very easy to determine whether or not he cared one way or the other...

"I don't gives two flyin' dicks." He said curtly, and then pistol whipped again for satisfaction's sake. "Ultra-powerful mega-corporation don't scares me. Now how bout you tells ole' Enzo why yous was gonna pop a kill pill before he chops of yous hands and feets and leaves yous to yous boss, see?"

Seiren pocketed his Little Killer and focused on his other gun - A GP-13 Pulse Pistol. "Welp, I guess I shouldn't leave this on low power. . . But it'll run out faster. Aah, this is totally uncool."

Meanwhile, crocodiles raged.

"Right, deadly fauna! That's a thing!" he realized, aiming the pulse pistol for the creatures' faces. With his free hand, he fished a bunch of familiar, crimson candies out of his pockets.

"2x Attack combo! Have some candy, scalefaces!"

The frown Smith gave Luca was surprisingly familiar; Matt and Scotty were indeed related!

"..." he said, staring at the man. It wasn't until a sizable amount of time flew by that he finally spoke. "Screw patient confidentially," the Smith swore to himself, briefly glancing at John. "If you're on some of the hardest drugs out there Luca, I can get you on a course that will work it out of your system in three days, tops," he offered over the roaring engines and whipping wind. Shaking his head, he went on to explain, "Yamataian bodies don't have those kinds of long term problems - short term, maybe, but they fix themselves over time."

Pausing to try and pick out the right words, he pushed onward, sure that he was right and not believing the man's explanation. "I understand if you feel you need an edge to keep fighting the way you do, but, I'm pretty damn sure I can find something that will work out better," he insisted. "It doesn't do anyone any good if an Icon died of drug abuse!" Scotty continued to shout over the lashing noise.

"I mean, you got a daughter for crying out loud! You can't crap out on her like this!" Despite the new problem that came up, it wasn't the most pressing matter. "Forget it for now - let's just drop the thing just like Vita said!"

Zeta gave herself a nod of job well done. She did those few steps and picked up a crowbar she yanked out of the mechanism. The fire will stop burning soon and that was great. With crowbar in hand she went to where Enzo and Panther held up the Lorath man.

"So who is this bloke?" She asked them. "Or rather, who you and what were you doing here you wanker." She asked him with a frown under her helmet as she started patting her palm with the crowbar.

MEANWHILE, BACK AT SARGASSO...

Tani was lost for words she didn't know anyone here in town... hell she had barely been sober since she arrived. She slammed her drink and crawled off the stool, sobering in an instant, it was such a waste. She didn't know where to start but when she walked out and saw a sooty faced child wandering around with a pocket full of brass. He was on his way to Karl's to trade in the casings for pocket money or store credit. This kid's name was Lil' Trev, but Tani was new in town.

Tani almost ran into the kid as she came out of the bar. he looked like he was a local and well she like kids. "Hey kid, you want to make a few DA?" Tani Smiled and pulled out some cash monies that she had grabbed from a machine earlier that day. She didn't like using her card around here.

"Ummmmm..." Lil' Trev started his characteristic tic as he considered the options. He already had a pocket full of brass to give to Mr. Karl, but maybe more money plus the brass money meant that he could afford that game. Tani could see his thought process as his eyes looked left and right before finally stopping and looking up at her with a bright smile. "Okay!"

"Well then kid, Go and find every kid near by to get under something dry. There is a bad storm coming... Not sure why but everyone needs to be undercover. When you get that done, we can negotiate a better fee, but here." She handed him, 30 DA, and gestured him to get running, "And remember when this is said and done there is more." Tani Winked before racing down the street yelling at folks that were standing about. The people on the streets appeared skeptical and continued their business until Karl's voice could be heard yelling the same message.

"Okay!" He waddled off towards home. He lived in one of the buildings next to Ferros Block, one of the ones that didn't rise as high as the tower. Still, a lot of families lived there and scraped by on what they could muster. When he got home, he started telling all of the other kids to tell their parents to batten down the hatches and get to the driest part of the building they could.

Drug abuse? Drug abuse was a bit of a strong word to use for Luca's situation.

It was more like overuse and mixing that'd made his Yamataian biology so fragile. The Azorean stuff was only there because nothing else was on hand, and it didn't seem to mix well with that Elysian stuff. Of course, the universe at large never anticipates this sort of misuse via utility. Normally, enough time resting and recovering would remedy this but his biology was fundamentally destroyed by two things: He never got the chance to take physical rest upwards of a week, and he was haunted by guilt.

When one put their mind to it, they could regrow an entire limb. Luca's turbulent emotional state meant that he couldn't even regenerate a scratch ever since she died.

Then Smith said to get on with the mission, and Luca's doubts were gone. "Okay, let's wrap this up."

-

The Lorath, still pinned by Enzo and facing the business end of Zeta's jagged, twisted crowbar chuckled again, as though he was oblivious to the situation. Zeta could not recognise this Lorath person, it didn't look like the one that had invaded the apartment with the tall woman last night. The pointed ears would tell her that he was a Lmanel, but his motives were up in the air.

"Doing? Oh, I did something a month ago. Your foul smelling rogue, however," He grinned and nodded upwards at the cloud, "he was up to something much worse." The way he twisted his words and Enzo's fluid grip on being trustworthy lent some credibility to his words. Even if it was in ignorance, he was still responsible for the cloud.

Zeta pressed the jagged sharp point of the crowbar against the man's nose. "You said that right you wanker," she said with a smirk, which was sadly hidden by her visor. "He is our foul smelling rogue. You better speak out while you have all your teeth. What is that blue stuff and why did you drug the town."

"Just a harmless experiment. There was..." He paused mid thought and hung on his word, watching Zeta. "...an unaccounted for variable. That's all. Oh really I don't know!" He tilted his head to one side and coughed. "I'm just here to monitor its progress and it's-"

"Well too bad," she said, pulling the crowbar back a bit. "We are putting an end to this and you my friend are in the shit." The observer kept his indignant expression on his face, as though some larger plan had been fulfilled and there was no stopping it. Something about that smug expression just made making it six feet long all the more appealing.

"Who are you working for," Zeta then asked. Her face was hidden by the helmet, which made everything quite impersonal. "And don't think that smug face of yours will get to me."

He didn't answer. Enzo remembered seeing a symbol he couldn't identify on a bundle of cash he found in a drawer.

-

The overgrown crocodile snarled and snapped at the jumping blue target. Its thick hide was repelling the small arms fire. Bigger guns with more punch behind them seemed to be having a better effect at cutting through the thick skin of the monstrous crocodile. What constituted a 'bigger gun' was of debate though. Makari's assault rifle was great for putting people down, but the bullets were not getting far into the thick and mutated hide.

It spun around and flicked its massive, thick tail at Bronzi and whipped him in the legs as he was about to land and continue moving. He stumbled and fell on his side, side by side with the crocodile. He could see it tensing as if to roll over and crush the Gartagen as he was off balance.

Bronzi for all of his natural agility was put off by being tail swiped by a monstrous 20 crocolisk. He landed on his left side, managing to blunt the fall by planting his elbow into the ground. When he looked up he realized he only had a split second to react. Bronzi was on all fours and would have used his powerful legs to launch him self forward, over the rolling croc and into the other direction. "Uh, runnin outta ideas, how is erry body else doin'?" He huffed over the radio.

He groaned and muttered. "This is mah wake up call..." Bronzi said as the rolling croc closed in faster then he knew he could launch him self.

As the crocodile was rolling over, Bronzi could hear a sharp crack from up above, and watched as a bullet pierced the Crocodile's thinner underbelly. "YES!" Melissa yelled.

"4WW Y34H!" Echelon yelled as she fired a shell from the Fingale's revenge into the monster's midsection. It seemed like this monster was able to take a large amount of punishment. She guessed that the virus gave them a tolerance to pain thanks to their different brain structures.

Makari's bullets were also finding purchase and slipping through the thick underbelly. Fifteen flying bullets hit the underbelly of the crocodile as it rolled over the Gartagen. Melissa cringed as she watched the Gartagen disappear for a couple of moments. She didn't fear the worst for Bronzi since she hadn't seen much of him, and what she did see wasn't all that appealing.

However, he was tough as nails. When the crocodile righted itself at the end of its roll, Bronzi was flattened against the concrete by the weight of the giant crocodile, and maintaining materially cohesive.

What Bronzi looked like was one thing, what he felt being squished by a 20 foot long, raging croc was another. It was a sensation he would later describe as being unpleasant. Melissa and any body else watching would see Bronzi face down and flat on the ground twitching in discomfort.

It was a moment, but he was back on his feet; Croc 1, Bronzi 0. "Now I'm PISSED!" He snarled as his right hand darted down and pulled a stick grenade from his belt. He did not realise his radio was still on and he growled. "Fragmentation!"

The grenade pinged and the light on the top turned blue. Bronzi started his approach, drawing his revolver, he popped a shot into the beast in an effort to gain its continued ire.

Makari's rifle was still pelting the crocodile even as it had rolled over and self righted, and it turned around, threatening to sweep Bronzi again to face its attacker, and it started charging towards the ajar doors of the warehouse, snarling and growling and sending flecks of concrete up with each thrashing step. At least now Makari had a clearer shot of its eyes and its softer insides, as did Echelon. "H0LY SH1T 1T5 M4D!" Echelon observed as she grabbed a door and tried to pull it shut in a knee-jerk.

Bronzi had intended to blow its head off with the grenade. Now he was reduced to slowing it. The Grenade was thrown and would blow up. But not before that thick crocodile tail swept and collided with Bronzi. It sent the Gartagen tumbling across the concrete and into the adjacent building's wall.

Meanwhile, the smaller crocodiles inside the building were both eating lead and eating ... candy? Yes, they were eating candy. Their jaws were snapping up and down furiously as they snarfed the ultra hot candies down. Confusion, candy, lead and pulse lasers were not a combination conducive to living life to the fullest.

Allison dropped an empty magazine from her IAW and snapped a fresh one inside. It seemed as though that was all that was coming out of the hole in the ground until Sieren and Allison saw a grenade fly in from behind them and land right in the hole. Aoi stood between them and a grin came across her face as she ticked the time down.

This wasn't a frag grenade. Seiren knew the sound - it was that horrible Gartagen-made flash grenade made to stun a building by the foundations. "That'll shut 'em up." Aoi grinned and cackled. A holographic jester's face appeared over her face for a moment. She lowered her gun and raised her empty hand and started thinking.

Holographic wireframes began appearing near the hole. Bright motes of lights and colour were appearing, dazzling to the eyes and distracting as hell to the targets. She looked over at Seiren and held out her hand for a candy, a pick me up. She snapped her fingers as she focussed on the holograms.

-

Alarums began spreading through Sargasso like wildfire, just as the howls of the ravenous mad were reaching the skies of Handler's reach. People were scrambling for blood and shelter. Irrespective of these goals, both cities were in motion as Tani, Karl, Lina and Peachtree begun spreading the word.

High above, a different scenario was taking place altogether. The charge was set. A thumb-shaped dab of explosive material was on the top of the compressed cylinder and connected to a blasting cap that was calibrated to a signal. He gave Scott the detonator since he had a steadier hand than Luca. "...also, how exactly do you say '...' anyway?" Luca asked Scott as some ice breaking conversation to ease the tension. "I never got the hang of it like the other guys do."

Luca grabbed onto the bulkhead of the ship as he peered out to the sky. The cloud was a low flying one, as the density of the particles in it meant that it couldn't go high. "We're about a couple hundred metres over the cloud," John reported from the cockpit over the ship's intercoms. "And we're about seven hundred metres off the ground, so if you can't fly, don't fall out!"

"Gotcha." Luca nodded to Smith and held on to the cylinder with his thumb holding onto it. He held up four of his fingers and then curled them down one at a time and nodded at Smith, to indicate a countdown for when the bomb was ready to hit the top of the cloud. "Alright, ready? Good."

"DETONATE IN THREE!" He tossed the bomb into the void and hung onto the bulkhead with one hand, using the other to signal numbers to Smith if he couldn't hear Luca. His index, middle and ring fingers were facing Scott while his attention was focussed on the Motiva Negative bomb.

"TWO!" His ring finger curled inwards as the bomb fell towards the virulent blue cloud.

"ONE!" It was only a couple of seconds away. Only his index finger remained.

He then clenched his fist a moment before the bomb would reach the top of the cloud, and inadvertently activated the electricity on the Grapple Stunner, lighting the interior of the ship and providing the clearest signal.

"Y'know..." Enzo remarked with his gun pressed against the head of his prey, "I'm suddenly seeming to remember a symbol I couldn't identify on a bundle of cash I founds in a drawer... Seeya, friend."

And with that, Enzo pulled the trigger on his inordinately large revolver and covered the ground in as much Lmanel brain as was possible with one blast from the conman's favored fang. Then he began the messy business of searching the newly created corpse.

"Honestly," He went on, as if he would ever say something honestly, "He talks likes I never been in trouble before. What on earth makes him thinks I gives two shits about being caught doin' somethin' wrong?"

Zeta blinked few times, before she shook a bits of bloody and brains off her hand. She frowned and looked at Enzo. "Damn you Enzo," she said. "He still did not tell us everything. Beside I wanted to hand him over to IPG so his boss would get into trouble. Can you at least ask before you shoot someone?" Zeta knew she should be a lot angrier, but she really did not give a crap about the lorath man. She was more frustrated then anything.

Bronzi was back on his feet. Guns guns and more guns as well as explosives did not seem to be doing nothing more more then irritating this raging monster. Bronzi using all four of his IQ points opted for an alternative solution to the issue.

He reached into his left gauntlet and presented a thick cylinder shamed object. He flicked it out and the cylinder was telescopic in construction. The crew in the house would see him Dash back out into the open with the staff in hand. He cleared the ground rapidly closing in on the monstrous mutation and leapt into the air. Bronzi came down onto the creatures back. Using his momentum, and backed by his bulk, Bronzi used on hand to stab the staff directly down into the base Crocodile's spine. His feet planted on the animals back, taking the staff into both hand Bronzi did a wide sweeping swing using all of his strength into the creature's massive head.

With Bronzi's rush, Makari quickly reloaded and re-holstered his assault rifle. He drew his HHG and loaded up some red shells. He most definitely was not going to fire red shells at the reptile with Bronzi at point blank. Teamkills were not on the shortlist of thinks Makari wanted to accomplish this mission. He drew a bead and waited...

Meanwhile Back in Sargasso

The Lightning from his stun-glove of doom, must have set of a huge release of static into the air. Mako heard the crack and saw the cloud practically above her. "Well Shit..." She stood there staring at it for a moment before she noticed a few kids down the road looking up at it too.

With all the speed she could muster she ran forward and grabbed the younglings and carried them under an awning, Holding them close with herself between them and the rain that started falling she started to sing a silly song she once heard.

The poor things were frightened of her and the fact she was holding them under cover. She continued to sing the drunken ballad, in hopes to calm them down