[center][h1]Escaping![/h1]

Wind Wild, Grin, Tracyn, Merlin, Monochromatic Rainbow

[h2]Day 1, Evening[/h2]

Ludelle, Crow, Calder, Adele, Marielle, Christian, Sirius[/center]

Soon enough everything was aboard a vehicle of some sort. As the last person climbed into the car (if that was even an appropriate name for it) a hand reached for the door, holding it open from the outside.
 
“Oopsie!” A cheerful voice exclaimed, “You [i]almost[/i] forgot someone.” His prison-guard uniform was immediately obvious, and seconds later, so was his face as he peered in. “Christian wouldn’t be happy if you forgot to bring back all of his faithful servants.” His lips peeled off into a grin, revealing two rows of crooked and yellow teeth. The man’s eyes seemed red and watery as they slid over the passengers, soon halting on Calder. “Hello, brother.”

“Forgot nothing!” Calder, sent a blast of lightening towards his brother, more to get Sirius away from the door than anything else. “Get your own ride!” Calder slams the door shut in his brother’s face, or on it if he was still standing there like a fool. Calder … seethed in the back of the car, waiting for Adéla to get us moving. He kept his eyes on his brother waiting for him to try something so he could make it blow up in his face.

Sirius had to be quick to duck out of the way of the lightning but he’d learned early on that speed was of the essence when dealing with reptiles of any kind. He let the door slam shut in his face but didn’t step away. Admittedly, he was slightly surprised at Calder’s reaction. He’d expected something a bit more… well, at least a sour crook to his mouth. Perhaps an immediate offence was a more satisfying display of shock? The guard pouted slightly. Perhaps popping up wherever Calder currently worked was losing its novelty. He crossed his arms and stared down at the people inside as if waiting for an invitation.
 
“I see you quite enjoy the sight of the little bird in all her glory.” He referred to Ludelle, whose transformed skin practically meant she was parading around naked. And Sirius was sure his brother had noticed exactly whose handiwork it was. That, or he was getting sloppy. “You could have just said so.”

Crow looked from Calder to Sirius. “Who the fuck are you?” The sentence was devoid of any emotion even given the swear word. The interruption had given Vulture enough time to return. Crow extended his arm and the graceless bird landed hard on the outstretched arm. The arm in question barely budged a fraction; giving away just how much strength Crow’s Shaitan blood gave him. “If you really do work for the Tower then prove it.”

A blast from the speaker came out of Marielle’s helmet. She was off the bike, strolling over to the chatter. “Can you all stop jerking off so we can go? Ludelle and I have been waiting for you fuckers to start the car so we can get the hell out of there.” Her eyes glance over to Sirius, realizing the disruption in their escape. “The fuck? Who brought the kid with mommy issues?”
She saw a soldier nearby, spotting them. He froze up at the entire party and reached for some kind of signal in his pocket before he was burned to a crisp from a level four fireball. Marielle’s fourth of spades was locked in her gauntlet and she growled with effort as she threw it fast to prevent the team from being discovered. She turned back at him. “Explain yourself fucker. We don’t have time for an orgy of your shit.” Marielle pointed a finger out at Sirius, her black thermal glove tightening with the motion.


[i]Farewell, Gartis.[/i] Sirius thought, shooting a last glance at the colleague who would never swap shifts with him again.

He seemed bemused by the hostility but not quite happy. He supposed it’s natural, given the circumstances. With so much testosterone and adrenaline pumping through everyone’s veins they strongly reminded him of a pack of wolves. His eyes took in Crow’s built body and Marielle’s guise with obvious interest. They seemed a bit more than the average run-of-the-mill knights he’d encountered so far.
 
“Firstly, I wouldn’t mind an orgy but I’d have to agree this isn’t the time. Secondly, I’d love to prove my allegiance to our noble tower but as we have no insignias that I’m aware of, I haven’t been able to get the appropriate tattoo. How about this: you’re all trying to make Southgate think you’re part of the Stygian Blade. Who would know the truth if not one of your own? By the way. ” He pointed at Crow. “I’d watch out for him. He doesn’t seem like a great team-player, letting the cat out of the sack so easily despite all the efforts to get disguised. Is that enough proof?” His smile turned from Marielle to Crow. “Of course, I’d gladly torture or kill someone as further proof but since this kitten already disposed of the quickest way to do so, you might be better off taking me with you and asking questions later. If it does turn out I’m a [i]“spy”[/i] or [i]”traitor”[/I] the worst thing that can happen to you is having a little hostage that huge reptile in the backseat would just [i]love[/i] to rip apart. It’s win-win for you, unless you fear you can’t handle me.” He chuckled.

Crow didn’t flinch at the remark about being a team player. “The reason I said something is quite simple. Either you are what you say you are or you aren’t. If you are then it hardly matters. If you aren’t then I’ll simply tear out your heart and eat it.” The emotionless delivery hung in the air. While Crow was a rather bland person most of the time, questioning his capability and his competence was always a dangerous thing to do. Afterall, he had the souls of five hundred Gorecrows to prove just how [i]capable[/i] he was. “Fine” with that he climbed back into the car. Caring little what the others decided to do with the new comer. If he couldn’t convince them then they would kill him. Simple as that. 

“He’s the fucker who turned Ludelle into a rubber duck! He’s also my half brother…. Why aren’t we moving yet? IF he’s actually working for Christian I’ll punch the fucking Stormlord myself!” Calder was in a particularly foul mood, merely at the prospect of having to work with his little half brother again. The first five years had been okay, then the twerp became obsessed, clinically obsessed, with fucking. That had caused some issues, and Calder had been quite happy to throw the unrepentant and highly twisted Sirius to the fae for his delusions. Somehow Sirius had survived and continued to haunt Calder to this day. Not that Calder had yet seen fit to properly attempt to end Sirius, but it was getting more difficult to ignore his petulant interferences. 

Adéla started, whipping around in her seat to stare at Sirius. “He what?” She growled, a dangerous edge in her voice, “This fucker did [i]what[/i]?” She looked at Calder for a split second and then back at Sirius. Her eye twitched as she sat there, “[i]He[/i] did that to her?” She demanded, venom dripping from every word as her hand subconsciously crept towards the hand cannon holstered on her hip. 

  Marielle suddenly grabbed Sirius, her helmet melting briefly to show her face as she lifted him off the ground, keeping his face close to hers with malicious force. “If you want a challenge then bring it pissoff.” She grinned predatorily. “I’d be sure to give you a decent taste of your own blood. That being said,” slumping him over her thin shoulder she carried him over to her motorcycle, and with her free hand the woman snapped. The motorcycle shifted out an extra seat behind it and she practically threw Sirius onto it. “Now is not the time for an orgy, you’re right, but when the time does come I’ll be sure to fuck you up with violence.” She gave a dry laugh. and climbed into the middle, keeping Ludelle inside her arms and away from Sirius as she caused the handles to stretch out to her and her helmet to merge onto her head. She mumbled into Ludelle’s ear. “If he gives you trouble let me know and I’ll turn him into a girl.” She turned on her speaker in her helmet again, the sounds of her voice coming through the speakers in the car.

“Problem solved. Now let’s make like a baby and GET THE FUCK OUT.” She revved the engine of her motorcycle and it roared with agreement. 

Calder glared at Adéla as he responded, hopefully while she was starting the car. “Are you deaf or just stupid? Sirius Dylan, the turd on the back of Marielle’s bike, is the one that changed Ludelle’s skin to the rubbery stuff it is now, and gave her a beak. He also changed her body’s resting temperature by knocking it down to just over freezing, so her body still functioned but only at an excruciating level of pain, like having severe arthritis, but everywhere instead of just in the joints. Now do I need to come up there and drive? or can we get his hunk of metal moving home, I’d rather not leave Marielle [i]and[/i] Ludelle at Sirius’s [u]pleasure[/u] any longer than we absolutely have to.” He leaned forward, ready to forcibly swap spot if [b]someone[/b] didn’t start the car and get them moving in the next three seconds.

Adéla grumbled, “Preoccupied, and as magical as a rotten potato.” She glared balefully at Calder before finishing her preparations as she linked her suit and bionics with the vehicle - the wonders of technology would never cease. But Calder’s words still stung regardless- she was the magical blank in a world saturated with it, in an organization with some of the most fearsome magic users out there, and she couldn’t do [i]anything[/i]. Not a single cantrip. It didn’t matter if she became nigh godlike through said technology, she would always be Adéla, the woman with no magic. She sighed internally before starting the car shaking off the darker thoughts clouding her mind, “And we are go.”

“Ask Sirius nicely and he’ll happily fix that for you...” Calder’s voice was suddenly dark, and oily, somehow offering an extra dose of menace on top of the already sinister words. Sirius could, and gladly would, allow to touch magic, even to become a mage to rival the Stormlord himself, Though there would be… consequences wasn’t the right word, side effects fit better but was far too benign for what would follow. Calder sat back and boiled as he waited very impatiently for them to get back to the tower. As an afterthought he turned back to watch for the inevitable pursuit… again.

Adéla snorted. “I’ll pass. I’d be too tempted to rip his head off.” Her visor flipped down and she called back, “Ready?” Taking off before anybody would’ve had a chance to answer otherwise. She was keenly aware of the weapons accessible to the driver, and immediately armed them, just in case. Pressing the accelerator down, she sped off after Marielle. 

Crow sat silently as the car raced after the bike before he suddenly broke the silence. “He’s not Fae, he doesn’t wear a Wyrdmask.” Crow turned to Calder, “It’s the other half, yes?” This was less than surprising considering having more than a single child was pretty rare among Fae. “Seems like he’s pretty fucked up” Crow considered his silent contemplation. Calder had really been the one to place Marielle and Ludelle in danger since he had kicked his brother from the car. Thus forcing Marielle into taking Sirius, a pity that this one was clearly a monster of the highest order. No matter though, there were plenty of monsters lurking in the tower to begin with. Always a bigger fish.. Crow drifted back into contemplation, it was high time to return to the safety of the morgue

Calder gave a hissing chuckle at Adéla’s response, before responding. “That wouldn’t be an isssue misssy, not for him. In fact, he’d probably consssider it a persssonal favor.” Calder’s only response to Crow, was to box the nearest ear. He’d deduced and said nothing more than most vanilla human five years olds could deduce and say. Calder expected better from a man so studied, even if he spent most of his time dissecting, reassembling, and treating corpses. Calder continued to watch behind them for pursuit.

Suddenly Marielle’s voice blasted through the speakers of the car. “Hey guys, I forgot to tell you a little detail about Xav’.” They couldn’t see her grin but they could tell she was through her voice. “Adele, press the button with the ‘UP’ arrow. The fucker can fly.” With that Marielle’s motorcycle wheels contort and the sides face the ground, and before they knew it the machine was floating in the air. “Good luck. You all should follow me the best you can but if you get lost be sure to use the GPS. The coordinates are already locked onto the tower, I made sure of that. Don’t you all fucking die on me or I’ll rip your corpses a new before Crow can say: ‘Yes please.’” With that the woman took off, the two strange new members of their coup in tow. 

Adéla smirked, “Don’t need to press buttons when you’re directly connected to the car - I was just getting some good velocity going, I know everything this beauty can do now.” With a sudden lurch the vehicle was airborne, and they sped off through the sky towards the tower. 
__________

“Alright, everybody out, the magical flying car express has arrived at the mothership, disembarking, choo choo!” Adéla called to the rest of the vehicle, disconnecting herself from the car as she too left it. “Well, that went better than expected.” She muttered to herself. “I got to kill that motherfucking Warden too - bastard won’t be making more jokes about my ass anytime soon.”

Crow climbed out of the car and stretched before wrinkling his nose at the air in the hangar of the Tower. “It smells like old death and fresh corpses.” The Fae frowned as he peered around the hangar. “Guess I was wrong. There are new monsters.” He gave Adéla and Calder a look, “Probably best to make sure Ludelle and Marielle are safe. I have an autopsy waiting on me and a mystery to investigate, don’t wait up.” And just like that with Vulture reperched on his shoulder Crow stalked off towards the morgue, his head turning to a frow as though he were scenting or searching for something unusual.

Calder slid out of the car, and glanced over towards Marielles’s bike, and moved to help with Ludelle as necessary. He’d have time to find Stormlord later, right now he wanted to finish the mission professionally. And if Sirius happened to give him a reason to flatten him along the way, so much the better. Experience, however, indicated that such an occurrence would be highly unlikely, so Calder didn’t get his hopes up and largely ignored Sirius. His current priorities were getting Ludelle comfortable and restoring her to her own form. He wasn’t above using Sirius to achieve that end, but he also knew that he had no real leverage to get Sirius to do the job beyond the blatantly obvious, which he would not deign to point out.
     Marielle was nonchalantly leaning back in her bike, munching on a bag of what appeared to be potato chips. “Yo tank face” She waved Calder over, half of her cheek stuffed with junk food like a hoarding chipmunk. She swallowed and held a chip up to her fingers, the tips of them emitting a candle-like flame to burn the fragment of food to a crisp. She climbed out of her bike and looked far up, glancing over at Raven’s ship. The girl muttered something unintelligible under her breath, her eyes hinting at the violent orange she loves. 
     “I’ve got a bone to pick with a certain someone...don’t wait up for me. I’ve programmed my shit to go back to my workshop after ten minutes or so.” Her eyes flicked over Calder and her lips twitched to the smallest of smiles. “Wish I could have used more magic, but what can ya’ do?” With that she kicked out her foot, fixed herself on her metallic skateboard and blasted towards the ship, the words: “Cya shit stain!” blasted out of her mouth. Some would find the words extremely insulting, but Marielle added warmth to it, almost endearing.

Sirius’ eyes followed the girl with keen interest until she disappeared from sight and then set on Ludelle. For whatever reason the girl was asleep.. or possibly unconscious. If it wasn't for Calder, Sirius would have assumed she was comatose, but sadly that was too much to hope for under these circumstances. Sirius felt like waking the girl if just to see her reaction to the first thing in sight being his handsome face, but he knew better than pull his brother's tail like that. So he got off the bike and let Calder scoop up the girl in his hands.

“Like a real hero. Or should I say knight? It strikes me as rather ironic that after all the trouble everyone went through, they just left the girl like this. They must really trust our teamwork. That, or they were just using the mission as a chance to show off and never really cared for her. What do you think, brother?” Once the word was pronounced with admiration. Now there was a sweetened note of mockery in it.

Adéla crept up behind Sirius, her armor could be surprisingly quiet when it needed to be, and now that there wasn’t the imminent danger of heavily armed pursuit… She’d never met Sirius before, having spent most of her time in the Tower not meeting, well, anyone. Simply confined to the room she’d been assigned to until something happened that merited her inclusion - such as breaking into the prison. Even then, she barely knew anybody here at all, save for Ludelle, and since she didn’t seem to trust her anymore…

But from her recent albeit brief experience with him, she knew all she needed to. Delivering a brutal power armored roundhouse punch to his head, she spat out a, “Fuck you.” as she did so.

“Aich!” The man exclaimed, grabbing his head and whirling around to look at his assailant. He could taste blood in his mouth – he’d probably bitten his tongue. He stared at the woman in front of him and a smile twitched on the corner of his lips. Of course it hurt but it wasn’t the worst pain he’d felt. If anything, it only made Adéla more interesting in his eyes. 

“Gee for some reason I thought maybe you could all get along.” Shard walked into the hangar as Adéla landed the punch to Sirius head. Walking over to the unconscious Ledelle he peered down at her. “Not exactly pristine condition, but I hardly expected as much. I should think congratulations are in order, Adéla.” Turning towards her Shard ignored Sirius. “This is the correct woman yes? It would appear she’s hardly in a normal condition.” Shard waited for the explanation patiently.

As Shard appeared Sirius stepped back and leaned on the motorbike, wondering if his boss wanted him to undo the spell he’d placed on Ludelle sooner or later.

Extending her middle finger in Sirius’ direction, Adéla turned to face Shard. “Indeed she isn’t, thanks to this fucker.” Pointing at Sirius she continued, “We did manage to get her out though, and she wasn’t harmed in the process, albeit rather concerned. Whatever [i]he[/i] did to her though, I don’t know. You’d have to ask Calder, I’m as magical as a potato.” She stood aside and let Shard do whatever he felt the need to do, glaring at Sirius.

Christian nodded before he calmly walked over to Ludelle and began examining her carefully. “What was the intention?” Shard frowned, talking to himself as he checked Ludelle over. Turning to Sirius he raised an eyebrow. “Why?” He let the single word hang in the air as he turned from Ludelle. His look wasn’t threatening. Yet.

“Why what?” The man in question cocked an eyebrow. “Why the alterations, why save her or why not kill her outright?”

“Why the alterations?” Shard ignored the fact that Sirius was being highly pedantic and purposefully avoiding the obvious question by using others to cover for it. 

“There’s a multitude of reasons. The short story is: this strategy was the best two-edged sword I could think of. The Stygian blade want her dead, I wasn’t able to figure out why exactly unless it’s as simple as “she knows too much”. Anyway, when they framed her they completely falsified her files to make her seem like an individual capable of highly effective offensive magic, thus indirectly requesting she be contained in the highest security wing with no direct contact with anyone and without any opportunity to cast. I was merely complying and twisting their goals to our ends. There was a chance of the Blade attempting a similar raid in which case they’d be confused  when they didn’t find the pretty elf they expected in any of the cells, giving us time to react. Beyond that, it’s personal curiosity and, obviously, the desire to keep both my jobs…” His sentence cut off suddenly when he realised he’d just admitted to working in Southgate [i]and[/i] was still wearing their uniform. He blanched slightly, cursing himself mentally as he eyed Shard carefully, some semblance of unease flickering in his eyes for the first time. 

“Disentangle the spell, then get out of my sight.” Christian all but delivered the comment with a smile as he stood. Suddenly the room seemed an awful lot colder and as though there were a distinct electrical current running through it. “As for Calder. I think that is all. Adéla, my office in two hours. As soon as we’re done here take Ludelle to the infirmary.”

Part of Sirius really wanted to drag this out but the larger part cared about his own skin more than it cared about his mood. Not to say that messing with Christian Highfell was impossible, but for now this was enough. He bit down any smartass comments and grabbed Ludelle’s arm gentle enough to avoid a lightning in his face. The spell was much easier to unravel than it was to create and within seconds the beak, feathers and rubber melted away to reveal a young elven-looking woman with tangled and matted red hair. “Good thing about the coat, huh?” He muttered with a small smile as he got up, glanced at his brother one last time and retreated to his room.

Christian rested his hand on Ludelle’s head gently [i]A gift from your Lady[/i] With that he turned and walked from the hanger.

Calder ignored Sirius and was never addressed again except to be dismissed. He hoped Stormlord wasn’t naive enough to truly believe that this was all, but then the man had started life as a half-dragon, and a male half-dragon at that… so perhaps it wasn’t his fault that he couldn’t see the threads still being woven. So Sirius had acted to save his skin yet again, and it technically had also saved the life of the woman in his left arm. Still, Calder held no illusions about the fact that her life was just a bonus for Sirius, in more than one sense of the phrase. 

Calder stood in the hangar, a moment more, silent and thoughtful, staring off after Stormlord. He would have to see the Stormlord again, but now was not the time for it. So he turned to Adéla, “Sirius will remember that punch, but for him that was an invitation, so watch yourself. If you want to get back at him, give him nothing but oil and take as much as you can from him. Punching him is like punching water, it doesn’t do much in the long run.” With that he turned and move towards the infirmary with Ludelle securely in his left arm and his right dealing with doors and absent minded knights in his path. Calder did a second check to make sure Sirius hadn’t left any surprises or back doors, and to be sure the woman was okay. She just needed rest and plenty of it. He would see that she got it, maybe Stormlord thought Calder’s part was done, but Calder’s part was never done before everyone was back at 100 % and ready for the next job.