Shimmying through the air ducts like a Candorlian tetrapede, suddenly got the feeling that something was very, very wrong. Coming to a stop, Tesra listened carefully before something became audible over the distant winds outside. With an ear finely tuned to pick up the soft sounds of a guard's footsteps, the Lanun began to hear a great mass of movement with shuffling footsteps and low murmuring groans, accompanied by an occasional wet squelching sound that made her stomach turn. Moving so as to not make a sound, Tesra shifted over to a vent to take a peek and nearly cried out in shock. 

Words seemed to fail her as she saw what was happening to the bodies that were lining the hallways. Tesra looked on awestruck as the dead eyes began to glow an unnatural blew. Their flesh crackled and popped as limbs regrew from fleshy, discolored masses growing like blisters and their teeth and fingers distorted themselves into vile looking weapons. Shaking so hard that she was worried about rattling the walls of the vent, Tesra mouthed a single word as the creatures began to move almost as one towards the Gladius.

[color=SlateBlue]"Samshi..."[/color]

The sensible part of Tesra knew that there was no such thing, of course. The actual Samshi were horror stories told to frighten and amuse young Lanun. They were said to be the corpses of the Lanun Precursors, reanimated into monsters by their dead Gods, their flesh twisting and crawling as their claws wrapped around their victim's arms, dragging them to the bottom of the oceans, never to be seen again. Tesra had long grown out of those old tales of monsters, having learned their are worse creatures out there then undead ghouls, but her stomach still gave an unpleasant lurch at the sight of them. Partially because those old stories still gave her the creeps once in a while, but it was mostly because, with her light armor and precision focused weaponry, she was woefully unprepared to be fighting creatures like this.

Which of course made things complicated when a pair of them looked upwards and trained their glowing blue eyes right at her.

[color=SlateBlue]"Uh oh..."[/color]

Tesra abandoned all semblance of care and caution as one of the creatures that spotted her let out a piercing, guttural shriek, followed by the thundering chorus of footsteps that meant they were bringing friends along. The vent shook as the creatures began to pound against the sturdy metal covering, pinpricks of light showing through as the metal began to crack open in some places. Breathing heavily as she desperately tried to keep her head, the thief crawled along the vent as fast as she could before something hit the bottom where she was crouched over so hard that her whole body jerked upwards, slamming her head on the top of the vent. Spots blinking in front of her eyes, Tesra tried to focus and ignore the growing din of shrieking. Stumbling forward, the shrieking was joined by the harsh sound of ripping sheet metal somewhere ahead of her, followed by the appearance of that ethereal glowing blue. Desperately searching for an escape route, Tesra spotted a branching off vent shaft and followed it, praying to as many ocean deities as she could think of that it wouldn't drop her in the middle of a crowd of not-Samshi. In her desperate scramble, she was caught by surprise as the vent suddenly declined sharply, losing her grip as she slid into a metal grating with a painful thud. Hoping that the room beyond was safe from those creatures, she engaged her shiv and quickly pried the grating off so she could tumble into the room.

Landing on her rear, the master thief took a few moments to look around and try to get her bearings. The red emergency lighting overhead didn't reveal any more of the not-Samshi lurking in the corners, but it did reveal quite a few control panels and darkened monitors lining the walls. Taking out her LanuPlay and turning the backlight on full, the impromptu flashlight gleamed as it reflected off the silver gun rack next to the security door. Tesra grinned like a child who discovered where the Wave Festival treats were being kept.

[color=SlateBlue]"The Security room,"[/color] Tesra announced, rubbing her hands together deviously. [color=SlateBlue]"Or at least a checkpoint. Either way, this should be VERY useful."[/color] Darting over to an undamaged console, she immediately went to work breaking into the system. Without main power on the console was very much dead to the world, but this wasn't Tesra's first time dealing with a blackout, and she knew that rerouting some of the emergency power into the main system again could be enough to circumvent the dead console and plug into the mainframe itself. A few minutes of furious, rough electrical work later and a shower of sparks from the exposed console innards indicated the power supplies had been crossed over. Plugging into the system with her bionic arm, the Lanun's face lit up as her Neural User Interface confirmed a connection. She was in! There was just one teensy problem...

[color=SlateBlue]"Oh fuck me, not this stupid Cryllic shit again,"[/color] Tesra moaned as she recognized the blocky human lettering. [color=SlateBlue]"How the hell do humans even use this to code?"[/color] Tesra rubbed her temple with her free hand to soothe her already frayed nerves. [color=SlateBlue]"Okay okay, focus...alright that's a word I know, activate...operational...shutdown...alert...bear...vodka...turrets! Yes, that's it, we want the base turrets to go on! Activate!"[/color]

Tesra jumped as something heavy slammed behind her, which turned out to be a security hatch for the vent she just came out of.  [color=SlateBlue]"Okay, vents. Shut the vents. Which would have been SUPER helpful a few minutes ago but still, baby steps."[/color] Grumbling, Tesra continued to work intently with the difficult system, not noticing the unnatural blue hue that the lighting seemed to take on.

"Still working this late Tes?"

A chill ran down Tesra's spine as the faint voice echoed through the room, almost like a soft breeze. Putting it out of her mind, the Lanun returned her focus to the task at hand, attempting to discern which Cryllic phrase was supposed to be the auto turrets. Besides, that couldn't have been real anyway...

"Keep that pace up and you're going to hurt yourself, you know..."

Tesra froze in shock. That voice. The saccharine charm. The lilting Vaxir accent. But...he was dead. Gone. Never seen again. It couldn't have been him of all people.

"Or you might just end up dead again."

Slowly, Tesra looked up. She could see her own reflection in the thick glass between the console and the hallway beyond. Retracting her headgear and lowering her hood to reveal her own terrified face, she glanced at the other figure reflected in the mirror, a Vaxir in a snappy business suit standing just over her shoulder, a bemused smile on his charming, handsome face.

[color=SlateBlue]"L-leave me alone Cardaleer, I'm trying to work."[/color]

Cardaleer Echass Zadra chuckled darkly, a sneer crossing his clever face. "But we're a team, remember Tes? We started this together. That's always how it is at the beginning."

[color=SlateBlue]"C-come on, where's that file..."[/color] Tesra said, her voice shaking in terror.

"So young, full of ideals and great plans for tomorrow, for the future," Cardaleer continued in the same sickly sweet tone of voice. "So easy to work with. So easy to manipulate..."

[color=SlateBlue]"Can we talk later, I have some crazy mutants to deal with,"[/color] Tesra snapped, wincing as the wires attaching her to the computer went taut with her sudden movement, causing her pain receptors to go off.

"It was all going so well too," Cardaleer went on wistfully. "But I guess all good things come to an end."

[color=SlateBlue]"Shut up..."[/color] Tesra muttered impatiently, trying to redouble her focus and failing utterly, her hands shaking too hard and her mind too unfocused for precise control. She blinked as her eyes started to water.

"You did everything right, and you still lost everything," Cardaleer taunted, leaning forward slightly as the quivering Lanun tried to regain the interface she lost. "And it all started...with a bang."

[i]"This is for crossing the Switchblades, bitch."[/i]

Tesra screamed and clutched at her head as she heard the gunshots ring out. Six shots, each louder then the last, each bringing back to memory the sharp, unbearable pain in her chest. The console lay forgotten as she stood there whimpering, tears flowing down her cheeks as distant voices echoed in the wake of the gunshots.

[i]"...this court finds you guilty on all counts..."

"...can't believe she sold out her clients like that..."

"...we all trusted her..."

"...do you really think you're welcome here anymore..."[/i]

"Such a shame, to lose everything...to lose everyone like that..." Cardaleer went on with fake sincerity, placing a hand around Tesra's shoulder in a comforting gesture. "You got me back in the end though. You started over...but I wonder..." The Vaxir leaned in close to sensually whisper in Tesra's ear. "How long until you lose everything this time?"

[color=SlateBlue]"S-shut up..."[/color] Tesra repeated, the hint of anger rising in her voice.

"All these friends of yours, this team that you've become a part of..." Cardaleer went on in that same snakelike tone. "How long until you lose them too?"

[color=SlateBlue]"Shut up,"[/color] Tesra said, a little more firmly this time, shaking with rage rather then fear or despair.

"Nothing lasts forever..."

[color=SlateBlue]"SHUT UP!"[/color] 

With a burst of anger-induced adrenaline, Tesra roughly shoved Cardaleer back, ignoring the brief fuzziness as she disconnected from the system and turned to face her old partner, drawing the Eastwood in one fluid motion. Fury welling inside her, she aimed her gun at Cardaleer only to find that he had vanished. In his place stood a fair-skinned human girl with unkempt brown hair, smiling innocently at Tesra despite the gun leveled at her head. 

[color=00aeef]"How long until you get me killed, Ghost?"[/color]

Someone was screaming. It took a moment for Tesra to realize it was her. By the time she realized that she was shooting, the clip in her gun had run dry, leaving her helplessly clicking the trigger over and over again. As the hallucination subsided, Tesra realized she had unloaded her gun not into Henrietta or Cardaleer, but a human corpse in a security uniform, not unlike the other mutants she encountered earlier. Unlike those mutants, this one did not have the same claws or distorted features, instead emitting that blue light from its body more intensely then the others, so much so that even its skin was glowing. Finally lowering her gun, Tesra looked on in repulsion as the corpse, still glowing despite its head and upper torso being in tatters, twitched as though it were trying to get up. The gun falling from her hands and hitting the ground with a clatter, Tesra dropped to her knees and vomited all over the floor. As the heaves subsided, Tesra tried to weakly pull herself back up before giving up and sitting down again. Still shaking, Tesra wiped sweat from in front of her eyes as she heard the distant shrieking of those mutants again. Grimly determined to make it out of this alive, Tesra climbed back to her feet and began to reenter the system with her NUI.

[color=SlateBlue]"Not going to get me that easily,"[/color] Tesra declared with grim but fierce determination. [color=SlateBlue]"Come on guys, don't let me die here trying to translate this stupid Cryllic..."[/color]