Lilith crept along the hallway, careful not to let her cloak slip as she made her way to the next support beam within the mansion. The melta charges she'd brought with her were beginning to run low, but she still had more than enough of them to hold the entire building hostage if necessary. She jumped in surprise as six of the mansion's guards thundered towards her. Hissing she pressed herself up against the wall as tightly as possible, hoping against hope that her cloak stayed undisturbed, and that they weren't responding to her. While the many columns in the hallway were excellent for taking cover behind, they were considerably less excellent when faced with the prospect of five angry people with bolters. Sighing in relief as they charged past her, she raised an eyebrow as they took up positions right in front of a particular room. Just why they were set up right outside that particular room she was unsure of, but she doubted trying to place melta charges in their midst was the best idea. Nor was she capable of taking on six power armored goons with bolters and a massive taser. The hallway, for all its elaborate decorative columns and tasteful flora, lacked a whole lot to kill things with. She had plenty of ordnance on her, but not the kind that would be useful for this situation. The hallway was a hallway, no good sniping vantage points... But there was a turret. She grinned like a mad devil, sneaking back the way she had come to the Tarantula packing its twin linked heavy bolters, just sitting there at the end of the hallway. [i]This[/i] would do nicely. Very, very, nicely. Snatching one of her tools from the strap on her thigh, she set to work opening up its back panel to interface with the machine's inner workings. The security was honestly laughable. For all the effort they went into making the mansion physically secure, their electronic security was for all intents and purposes - not. It was a miracle this thing even had a machine spirit left after all the amateurish tinkering these imbeciles had aparently done. In less than five minutes it was her plaything. She sighted it in on the six guards and then, with considerable effort, picked it up. She carried it closer, as close as she dared really, setting it partially behind the cover of a plant before activating a timer and scampering to safety, behind several pillars, as she waited for the mayhem to ensue. Three... two... one... The turret opened fire with no warning, a hail of heavy bolts catching three of the house guards unaware in the first few seconds, ripping their armor to shreds as the storm of metal tore into them with unrestrained ferocity. The other team, sheltering behind a pillar, was safe for all of a few seconds before the high explosive shells tore straight through it, rending another apart and starting on the fifth before the sixth, who happened to be the one with the enormous taser, having somehow closed the distance, smashed his weapon into the side of the turret. The impact destroyed both his weapon and the turret, but he didn't seem too fazed - seeing how he simply picked up the bolter from one of his fallen comrades and delivered a few shots into the remnants of the turret. Lilith blinked, not quite sure if she had really seen what she had just seen. She spared a moment to replay the moment, confirming that yes indeed, it had actually happened. "Well... damn." She whispered to herself, reaching for the power blade sheathed on her hip. She crept towards the lone survivor, flicking the power switch on the weapon as she neared him. He was speaking into a radio, probably requesting reinforcements. Which meant she needed to be out of here as quickly as possible, but whoever it was they would be reacting to like this was, she wanted to meet them. She sprinted the last meter, catching the guard completely... off guard, and sinking the weapon up to its hilt in his neck. He wasn't a space marine, or special and any way other than wearing the armor, and she knew all about their weakpoints. Slicing out, she was satisfied that his spinal cord was completely severed as he crumpled to a lifeless heap, another quick swipe of the weapon taking care of the transmitter relay in the helmet. She dissipated the power field on the dagger, sticking it back in its sheathe on he belt as she walked up to the door and politely knocked. "The ugly fuckers in the cheap power armor are dead now, and you seem really popular, to have all this attention." Without warning, the sound of heavy bolter fire erupted from outside of the room. Aviza quickly took cover and laid flat upon the carpeted floor. As the turret outside fired, Aviza took notice to that fact that she was not being fired upon, instead the elite house guards were being cut down by their own security system. It was impossible for Adrainne to help her, and no one else in her squad could have known where she was at that time.The question of what in the name of the warp was actually going on ran through her head before the turrest fell silent. It wasnt over though, because the sound of a struggle ending with a grotesque snapping sound followed shortly after. Quickly movng to the door, she checked her motion tracker for any movement, there was only one entity remaining in the hallway. Grabbing onto her silenced pistol, she moved to a corner of the room and took aim, waiting for whoever was outside to open the door. Instead of someone barging into the room, there was a polite knock upon it, followed by a female voice declaring that all the hostiles had been taken down. "Walk in slowly or I will open fire, keep your hands up and away from any weapons you may have." said Aviza while looking down the sight of her weapon. The Sister of Battle wasnt completely sure but she could have sworn the woman who had knocked had an all to familiar sounding voice. Lilith froze momentarily as the person in the other room spoke. She knew that voice, her memory was almost infallible. "It would seem that the forces of Chaos had an unfortunate tendency to be chopped up by their own security systems." She spoke out loud, "You probably remember the beginning of that trend back on Amethyn." Pulling off her camo cloak, she slowly opened the door and walked into the room, "Fancy meeting you here. You still owe me a beer, by the way." She looked back out the door, "The last one was calling for backup, so we might want to hurry." She walked further into the room, "And... who is this? Seems there was quite the party in here." Quickly moving to her feet, Aviza opened the protective visor upon her armor and gazed in disbelief at who stood in front of her. There was a moment of doubt before Aviza spoke, "You are the last person I would have expected to see here, all across this galaxy anyone could have walked through that door to my rescue but it seems that once again we are meant to be at eachothers sides. The two men laying on the ground are Vastok, the cult leader and a random guard." Taking off her helmet, Aviza let it fall to the ground next to her, hitting the floor with a heavy thud. "If we keep this up, I am going to owe you more than a single beer, is this the second time you have managed to save my ass?" Moving to the doorway, Aviza looked outside then quickly grabbed onto two of the fallen elite houseguards bolters. "We can worry about what I owe you when we get back to the safehouse, but for now I think we should take care of those reinforcements you were talk about." More elite guards were now flooding into the hallway with heavy bolters, as soon as they saw Aviza, they opened fire upon everything in their way. Aviza barely had any time to pull herself back into the room as explosive rounds flew past her. "They sure are not messing around anymore, give me a moment to make us an opening Lilith." Pulling a frag from her belt, Aviza cooked the explosive before tossing it down the hallway, all the same time trying not to get shot. The frag flew through the air and detonated in the air, creating a cloud of white smoke as well as a disorenting flash of light. The gunfiire came to a stop, giving both Lilith and Aviza a moment to strike. Stepping out into the hallway once more, Aviza held down the triggers to both of the bolters she had in her hands and fired until the weapons clicked, informing her that she had ran out of ammo. Once the smoke had settled, the elite guards could been seen huddled upon the ground, their bodies shredded by the explosive rounds they had been unfortunate enough to be hit by at such a close range. "We need to find the rest of my squad before we shell the mansion Lilith, do you think you can hack the security in the command room? It's not far from here and I doubt we will meet much resistance inside." "Wait, you're going to shell the mansion?" Lilith raised an eyebrow, "Why did nobody tell me. you... whoever you're working with right now, was doing something here? I've spent the past day sticking melta bombs on everything." She smirked, "Well, I guess there's no kill like overkill." She pulled her two pistols from their holsters, "Actually, I already did, how do you think I've been getting around without being blown to pieces by the security system? “Why did nobody tell me that you were here planting metla bombs on the interior of the mansion? I wouldn’t have set up the artillery strike if I knew you were here planning to destroy this place the difficult way.” Aviza bent down and picked up a heavy bolter from a dead elite guard, looking over it to make sure it was still in good working condition. “Then again, the more explosions the better and I do not believe in overkill, I am a Sister of Battle after all.” The heavy bolters ammunition was locked into place before Aviza motioned for Lilith to follow her. As the two of them walked down the hallway, Aviza kept her finger on the trigger of her newly found weapon, almost wanting to find someone to shoot at. “I should of know that you shut down the security system first before entering the building. Where did you get that cloak anyway? I haven’t seen anything like it in many years.” After kicking the door open to the command room, Aviza quickly moved to the side, “Kill everyone but leave one person alive, I will need to have a chat with them.” "Why did nobody tell me there was somebody here, on my side, with the resources to shell the mansion?!" Lilith sighed, exasperated. "I was sent here to investigate rumors of a possible Dark Mechanicus cult on the planet. I didn't know the Adepta Sororitas would be here too!" She applied palm to face, "When did you even get here anyway...?" After a moment she shook her head, "Nevermind, we can talk later." She grabbed her bolt pistols again, "And yes, rule of thumb is - when breaking into a mansion, always disable their heavy bolter death machines first so you can continue to sneak without dying horribly. The cloak, by the way, is a camo cloak, made of cameoline, I'll explain later." Following the Sororitas into the command room, she let the power armored Sister clear a path before following up with her bolt pistols. "A lovely day to eradicate the forces of Chaos, don't you think?" She quipped as she reloaded a pistol. _____ "So, do you often spy on Lord Vastok?" Adrianne would inquire as she glanced sideways at the woman walking next to her, who was none other than Lady Zara. Upon hearing this, Zara would let out a hearty laugh and smile back at her! "Oh, whenever I get the chance, usually. I consider it justified. I am almost always under some form of his many security systems." Zara explained as they walked up a set of lavishly decorated chairs towards the second floor of the mansion. "He has this obsession with technology, always buying whichever system he thinks looks the fanciest. Truth be told, I don't think he hardly even understands how most of them work, the technophile!" "Aww, that sounds like a rather harsh judgement, don't you think?" Adrianne let tilt her head as she gazed at Zara, but Zara merely shook her head. "An over-reliance on technology is a hinderance. Vastok should've known, being a free man in the eyes of the warp." Zara spoke, before she eyed Adrianne's reaction. "You know what I mean... " Adrianne would pause for a moment, simply looking back at Zara. It didn't take much to know what she meant. Lord Vastok, Lady Vastok and herself were all psykers, and the sentiment she sported was hardly new to Adrianne! "I know... perhaps if he had relied more on his own gifts, he could have been better for it." "He would have been!" Zara was quick to correct, and Adrianne smiled. "I've told him so many times that... OH, here we are!" Zara would suddenly exclaim as they reached one of the doorways in the ornate hallway, this one being a solid metal door painted white and with a regal guardsman standing next to it. The regal guardsman nodded at Zara, but when he saw Adrianne walking next to her, he would raise a brow. "Guests are not allowed i,-" "SHUSH with that attitude! This is my house as much as Vastok's!" Zara would immediately snap at the guardsman, whom instinctively backed away in return. Placing one arm around Adrianne, Zara would look at the now quiet guardsman before raising a hand up to him. "You will let us in." " ... yes, Lady Zara." The guardsman said after a short pause, turning around and speaking into a vox receiver at the side of the door. The bulkhead soon opened with a mechanical swishing sound, revealing a darkened room filled with screens at the other side. "Shall we find what that no good husband of mine is up to, no?!" Zara would smirk as she glanced over at Adrianne. "Maybe get some footage of your friend too." "Preferably not anything too intimate." Adrianne would mutter, and Zara would let out a chuckle as the two entered the Hound Pit command center and the bulkhead shut behind the two. * "Everyday is a good day to kill massive amounts of Chaos, Lilith, the more of them we kill the better the day becomes." said Aviza as she noticed that some modifications had been made to the heavy bolter. "Ok look, there was a lack of information on both of our ends. We are here together and alive, that is all that matters at this moment." Falling silent, the sister of battled concentrated on the objective at hand, there was a large chance that the command room would be very heavily guarded, perhaps even a euphorian or two. "I have always wanted to know Lilith, are you able to construct turrets right at a spot if you have the materials with you? could greatly come in handy." Ahead of them, the hallway turned to the left and headed down a couple flights of stairs to where the main entrance for the command center could be found. Out front of it were two elite guards who were most likely freshly stationed there after graduating from training. The sight of a elite house guard walking down the hallway with a Mechanicus caused great confusion among the two who merely watched both Aviza and Lilith approach. "Two gaurds, let me handle this." clearing her throat, Aviza walked up to the two guards who quickly scrambled for their weapons and fired her taser pistol. The two men fell to the ground along side the buklhead door, completely unconscious. "If we had killed them, we would have made quite a bit of noise." said Aviza, justifying her actions. As soon as the bulkhead door opened with a loud hiss, Aviza took two steps inside and froze at what she saw. "Lilith, they arrived her before us." The Sister of Battle pointed across the room at Adrainne and Zara. "The non-daemonic one is part of my squad as you can guess. The other person though, Zara, is not." Turning to Lilith with a smile, she motioned for her friend. "Maybe we should go say hello?" "It does not look like the date went as planned." Adrianne would comment with a smug look on her face as she stood next to Zara, the two of them staring up at one of the grainy green computer screens where they could see a picture of the room with Vastok simply lying on the floor. "It is hardly surprising." Zara would scoff at the image. "The man used to have charm, but it has really declined lately. I've always told him that the whole accent thing he tried out was spelled for certain disaster from the get go, it is truly... " *Swwiiish* The two women would immediately pause to look to their right just as the bulkhead door to the control room just opened, and a royal guard wearing a notoriously ill-fitted suit of power armor just walked in. As soon as this happened, the other security officers in the room would have turned around. The two secrity officers at the far side sitting by their terminals would exchange glanes, before immediately running towards the bulkhead on the other side of the room! James, the head chief, would snap a look over his shoulder at Aviza, before throwing himself under his desk, bringing his vox device with him. "Control room compromised! Send immediate assistance!" The man would scream into his small microphone before slamming a button under his desk. A mechanical whirr could suddenly be heard from the roof of the room as a small hatch opened and a roof-mounted multi -aser turret fell down from it. A red blink appeared in the eye socket of the targeting skull attached to the side of it, and it'd whirr around immediately with mechanical proficiency, aiming itself straight at Aviza as the coils on the side of the turret lighted up as it initiated its firing sequence! Adrianne was left dumbstruck for a moment, simply looking at Aviza and the strange figure behind her. The same with Zara, except that the security officer James would grab out from below his desk and pull Zara down as the multilas turret fired itself up! "Uhhh... hi?" * "I thought you said you turned off the security system Lilith, that turret seems to think differently." said Aviza as she quickly ran for cover behind a large metal desk that would give her roughly four seconds of cover before it became a pile of glowing ash. "I [i]didn't[/i] turn them off." Lilith muttered, "I modified their IFFs to recognize me as friendly and grant me administrator access. I didn't include you in them because I didn't even know you were on this planet!" She ran over to the turret, bringing the two security officers with the claws on her arms as she began to interface with the system. "Give me a second give me a second..." she muttered. "I would love to give you a second Lilith, but if you haven't noticed, this weapon turns any and all cover into a pile of glowing embers. No rush though, not if you don't mind your friend ceasing to exist." Reaching down to her belt, Aviza toyed with the idea of tossing a stick frag but decided against it. The turret spun down and retracted back into the ceiling. "There, disabled." She grumbled, "If you're looking for the security to be friendly to you that's going to take a little while to change." She continued grumbling under her breath about ignorant brutes who couldn't be bothered to learn the basics of IFF systems or technology beyond how to clean their bolters. "Now, whoever it was you wanted me to kill, they probably know we're here now." While she at first did not realize who the power armored stranger who had just barged through the door was, she soon recognized the slightly metallic voice of Aviza when she spoke to the other tech priest in the room. "Aviza?" Adrianne would utter, looking towards the desk where Aviza was hiding. Though given how big her power armor was and how small the desk was in comparison, it was a rather amusing image. "You didn't need to barge in here, I had everything under control!" Adrianne would speak, placing her hands on her hips as she looked down at Aviza. But while Adrianne was talking, Aviza could feel a slight sting through her mind, as a white flash rolled over the back of her eye sockets. The sensation was only temporary, before quickly abating once more. Whenever she might look back up from her desk, Aviza would be unable to see anyone else in the command room. To her, it looked completely empty, aside from a single person standing close to one of the interface ports to the system, wearing the abyss black, gold trimmed armor of the euphorians. The euphorian was doing something with the system, before she turned around and gazed back at Aviza with her deep, purple visors. "Die, false sister!" The Euphorian would exclaim, reaching to a heavy leather bag at the side of her power armored leg that carried a bolt pistol and unholstering it! To everyone else in the room except Aviza, the room looked completely normal and everyone were still there. Only in Aviza's mind was the room empty, with the only remaining figure she could see being that of Lilith, now appearing as an Euphorian Knight instead! Aviza would cringe lightly as the string went through her mind, vanishing almost as quickly as it had appeared. Her vision had gone completely white as if she had gone blind, but that also subsided in time. When she could finely see once more, her world had changed around her, everyone in the room had vanished leavigng a long Euphorian Knight bent over at the console where Lilith use to be. The world felt wrong, something was trying to push through the back of her mind but it was just out of reach. The whole event felt as if it was a dream, a nightmare of sorts that she could not wake up from. Stil under the desk, or at least trying to be under the desk, the Sister of Battle remained. Leaving the cover of the desk would allow the Euphorian knight to shoot her, and if she was merely losing her sanity, the turret would make very short work of her. To huddle and wait, that was the first option that crossed her mind, death was not an issue to her but she was not going to give up. The second option that crossed her mind was the fact that she still had almost all of her grenades upon her belt. An emp frag would shut down the Eiphorian and leave her vulnerable. "But what if it's Lilith?" she asked herself, what if she was hallucinating? There was only one way to find out, and no one would benefit from what she was about to do. Pulling a stun grenade from her belt, she pulled the pin from her belt and tossed it into the middle of the room. "Three...Two...One..." Aviza counted down the time before it would go off. She focused on the grenade until it detonated. The all to familiar ringing in the ears, only being able to see white, the force from the grenade would effect everyone in the command room, even more so the people near the middle of it. Opening her eyes, the room no longer had a sickly feel to it, not that the feeling she was experioanceing was any better but being back in her own reality was all she wanted. Aviza was merely laying upon her back, looking up at the ceiling as the effect of the grenade wore off slowly. A voice came from Aviza's com, it was the sound of an Imperial Guardsmen asking why there were Valkyries fly around a random mansion in the city so early in the morning. "Well, our radios work again..." said Aviza while she pushed herself up off of the ground and onto her feet. Adrianne stared at Aviza with a look of disbelief as the sister of battle primed a stun grenade and threw it right in the center of the room - which happened to be just a few steps next to Adrianne - for no apparent reason whatsoever! "What in the warp are you, EMPRAH!" Adrianne's attention would be fixed on the stun grenade lying next to her, causing her to step back and raise a hand up in front of her as she conjured a rapid, invisible force barrier between her and the stun grenade. The stun grenade would go off with a blinding flash. Although the makeshift psychic barrier that Adrianne had erected between her and the grenade succceeded in shielding her from the concussion, the light still went through, and the world momentarily became white for Adrianne as she remained upright after the grenade had detonated, fumbling around in a temorary state of half-blindness! "This is our chance, let's go!" Officer James said following the the stun grenade knocking everyone flat on their asses. Although Zara and James had avoided the brunt of the knockback as they were hidden behind one of the consoles, their ears would still be ringing a bit. "Aww, I hate to leave the party on such a short notice!" Zara would comment somewhat disappointingly as she followed James, turning to give a quick glance back at Adrianne. "Sorry about that, girl. Maybe I'll see you another time!" As James darted out the bulkhead, Zara would turn around. Pointing at the surroundin screens and consoles, she'd step back through the door just as the electricity in the room burst into flames as she cast an incineration conjuration, beginning what would soon become a flaming inferno! "Ta-ta!" Walking backwards, and almost tripping one of her heels in the doorway, Zara would step out of the room just as James closed the bulkhead behind her. As the metal door clamped down, James would raise his las-pistol and fire a quick burst into the nearby console, frying it to bits! "We need to hurry, my lady!" "Why do you always have to be in such a hurry, James? Can't we ever stick around just to enjoy the show?" * "The hell!?" Lilith shouted as Aviza primed and threw a flashbang. She personally had no need to shield her eyes, and she reflexively covered her ears, running for the door as fast as she could. The blast disoriented her for a few seconds and sent her sprawling to the ground not far from the open bulkhead. She continued crawling, pulling herself past the bulkhead and slipping under the camo cloak as she tried to put as much space as she could between herself and Aviza - whatever was up with the Sororitas she didn't want to find out the hard way. While Lilith couldn't exactly hear well, she could see just fine - and for the moment that was enough to see the security officer and the woman ,who was apparently the Daemonic one Aviza had mentioned and yet failed to specify, running from the room. She unfortunately lacked almost any knowledge of the situation, but all the same she broke out in a run, doing her best to stay under the camo cloak as she whipped out her bolter, firing a hail of silenced shells downrange at the fleeing pair.