[center][h1][color=ac00e6]Khaliya, The Swordwind[/color][/h1]
[img]https://i.pinimg.com/originals/ff/f4/56/fff456a35e475ce133dc741789e686e0.jpg[/img]
[b][u]December 3rd, 2286
The Blue Line[/u][/b]
Interacting with - [@ONL][/center]

A relative point of safety in the interim, the group seemed to relax at least a fraction in the lobby of the station. Several spoke of the plan at hand and their opinion on it, mostly a unanimous decision to go for some fortifications and hopefully radiation free lodgings. Khaliya for the most part didn't pay the rest of them any mind. Only a glance here and there towards a few notable individuals and ensuring the one with the torn suit was still mostly intact. He seemed to be for now. At Marvin's suggestion to run to the bank, she was at first on board with it. It was even her suggestion to make a run for it once ensuring the coast was clear, but the more she thought on it and the possible threats above… The plan didn't sit well. The correction was half-formed on her lips when she heard a fairly distinct accent over the shared channel.

[color=9e0b0f]"Did someone say a bank? Sounds just like the types of banks they blew up back home far back! Let's go!"[/color]

Khaliya turned from the terminal, cord still trailing from the gauntlet of her power armor as she heard frantic bootsteps towards the stairs and shouted out to him.

[color=ac00e6]"Wait! Stand to!"[/color] If it was directed at anyone other than a mercenary collected by a third-party, then perhaps the order might have worked. Her tone was severe and cut clear across the channel, just over the sound of tile cracking as she was already bracing to move after him. Just as she had feared, one of the greatest dangers to this mission would be their companions, and here she was proven correct. Prism she could work with, and same for Monika and Bailey. They might not like each other, true, but at least they weren't foolish. As Brian turned the steps she heard his call back and grit her teeth, servos in her armor wheezing and protesting as she put them to work.

[color=9e0b0f]"Last one there is a road-killed coyote!"[/color]

[color=ac00e6]"Oh my god, he just ran in."[/color]

Not even waiting for the last word to leave her mouth, she was in motion. In the background she heard the rather callous words of Bailey dismissing the man to his death, but she was not going to lose someone this early to stupidity. With long strides she covered the distance between the information kiosks and the stairs at battle-speed, slamming into the wall with a thunderous crack and following by bounding up the first eight steps of the stairs. Few could claim to see power-armor at full speed, most assuming it to be relegated to the status of about as mobile as a steel wall and twice as durable. And in all fairness the Brotherhood was wont to correct people of that assumption. Standard tactics was to simply advance in formation, lay down heavy fire and if that didn't work, then lay down even heavier firepower. Rare was it for anyone to truly use power armor as it should and to its fullest potential.

Right then and there, Khaliya gave the group a good indication that when someone wanted it, power armor was [i]not[/i] slow and cumbersome in the slightest. Using the very same servos and pneumatics that allowed her to lift twice or even three times her body weight, it was a wonder she even touched the ground. Brian's foot had just touched the fifth stair down from the top, acid-rain splashing down all around him when Khaliya's hand grasped at the back of his collar and arrested his motion akin to one suddenly slamming on the brakes. It was almost comical how her grip forced his legs forward from his continued movement, while the rest of his body was pulled backwards from her jerking him back.

There was quite little time to react however, for as the two of them made their own mad dash for very different reasons, something had become distinctly aware of their presence. Even before moving into action, the sounds of the Necropolis above had filtered down to the group and already a few could have likely felt something very off. Everyone should have expected the creaks and groans filtered through the howling wind of the radiation storm, the cracks of thunder over head and intermittent gunfire of all things, but this was different. A soft buzz came from above, akin in a way to the cicadas of summer, but it felt very wrong. Brian's first step onto the stairs came with a click a hundred feet away, the sound gentle and echoing all around them. Then another as he began to ascend and Khaliya went into motion. It was harsher the third time, as if honing in on the group.

When both were nearly upon each other, the buzzing had gotten closer, a rumbling sound that no longer seemed as far away or as small as before. By now it could be felt shaking the walls of the station, dust vibrating on the ground and each click more insistent and violent as it pierced through their suits and to their very marrow. Khaliya's grip on Brian allowed her to yank him close against the chest of her armor, violently throwing herself onto her back and against the side of the wall. There she pulled him tight and made the two of them as small a target as possible as she hissed into the open channel.

[color=ac00e6]"Don't speak. Don't fucking move. Don't even breathe. Make a sound and I let you go."[/color]

Then there was a thunderous crash of something massive crashing down onto the pavement at the top of the stairs, claws raking and tearing apart pavement, and of course that infernal buzz. Here the two of them could tell very distinctly that it was something alive and something incredibly hostile. It pulsed in low and long beats, far too similar to that cicada song for her comfort, and almost as if calling to others nearby. That was answered as more sung back to the creature slowly descending towards them.

[color=ac00e6]"Everyone hit the fucking ground or hug a wall. Make yourself as small as possible and don't make a fucking sound."[/color]

Even though she hissed it through the open channel, there still came the violent click of the creature feeling out for them. It echoed off the walls, making her grit her teeth from the pain of being so close to the source, but it was nothing compared to looking up and seeing the creature.

In every definition of the word, it was an abomination. Hissing pools formed in the dense hide of the beast where the acid rain had carved rivulets, scale directing the flow down and to taloned feet that gripped each step until it broke into chunks of shattered masonry. Powerfully built legs carried it slowly from the top of the stairs, pounding into the staircase and nearly lifting the pair from their spot with each impact. Dust fell onto them, and for a moment Khaliya thought it was simply the passage of the beast alone that was making it fall from the ceiling, and then she saw the wings. Easily thirty feet in span, it had to scrunch down and stoop low in order to squeeze into the tunnel, the clawed ends of both wings gouging through solid stonework and working furrows down the stairwell. Then it paused, the buzzing ceased and it clicked.

[i][b]Click[/b][/i]

It was nearly thunderous in the confined space and so close, some internal organ within the beast cracking bone against bone to cause the sound. Echoing all around them, she realized why it was that it had been doing that as her eyes set upon the maw of the beast. Just above a mouth filled with multiple rows of serrated teeth the size of combat knives, there were hollows where once eyes would have sat. Instead they were smooth and rounded out, muscle tensing as it listened to the reverberations of that probing noise, mapping out its surroundings before once more beginning to hum back to the others. Steadily continuing, it moved past Khaliya and Brian, as if completely unaware of their presence and towards the main floor of the subway station where the group was waiting...

[i][b]Click[/b][/i]