[b]“Roger roger,”[/b] Lenny responded, before she truly brought the pedal to the metal, the Patriot rumbling with ever-increasing power. Without its escorts, and presumably without any gun turrets built into it like the others, the vehicles were soon side by side with each other, running abreast as they sped down the winding path. Now, it was just a matter of baiting them into opening the window!

But whoever drove the truck didn’t do so, even as Tetrad opened her door, practically baiting them with her own body. The windows remained opaque, as was the standard for preventing any Spawn spells from passing through, and the Transplace melody that she wove would have no effect if she simply struck the armoured truck itself with it. In that moment, it was as if she was bullying an MMA fighter’s pet turtle while the owner was sprinting towards her with a golf club in hand. So long as the truck didn’t pop itself open, it could delay indefinitely.

However, this wasn’t [i]just[/i] a turtle, after all. Indeed, from size and mass alone, it was a couple degrees greater than the Patriot.

Yes, this turtle was Bowser, and with a screeching of rubber, the truck swerved into the SUV, slamming into the rear passenger exit with enough force to cause the Patriot to go into a dizzying spin, while the truck itself ended up screeching to a stop as well, just a meter or two before it slammed into the roadside ditch. It would be an opportunity, while both vehicles were stalled, for Tetrad to run in and bust open the back door.

But before then, the central question had to be answer.

Had she been wearing her seatbelt?

[hr]

[sub][@SilverPaw][@Majoras End][/sub]
There was some hesitation on the part of Timekeeper, but in the end, did he truly have a choice? He was, after all, the most junior member of GEMINI, and he was on the rocky situation of having been a Maverick-hired Freelancer just some time ago. In circumstances like this, could Leroux’s suggestion [i]merely[/i] be a suggestion? It was unlikely. He would [i]have[/i] to do this then, regardless of all the counterarguments he thought up but didn’t voice. What was the worst that could happen, in the end? He had a new Silver glamour, and he had both Blink and Speedster. His options for extricating himself out of a tight spot were pretty good, so long as he didn’t mess around and instantly die.

It did not take him long to go up the staircase. It was reckless, perhaps, to do so. Who knew what sort of traps could be established here? What sort of devious designs an educated man like Dr. Sycamore could come up with to thwart the operators? But Timekeeper didn’t have the know-how to know what not to do regardless, and when he reached the top of the staircase, the door was unlocked. He entered.

The residency up on the second floor was, put simply, a minimalist mess.

There were few pieces of furniture, no appliances beside a single-burner camping stove, and the only electronics in the room was a wifi router and a laptop, placed atop a cardboard box. Large garbage bags were rounded up in one corner of the room, with a bottle of air freshener appearing to be the only bastion present to prevent the place from stinking to the high heavens. The bed was a sleeping bag on a foam mattress.

This was a strange place for the doctor of a well-visited health clinic to be. Stranger, considering his connections with the infamously wealthy Justin von Carnage.

His shoe stepped on something.

A credit card statement for this month, with large payments made to a medical supplier.

Now, what could that mean?

…

Breacher entered alone.

The door closed, and the elevator began to descend slowly. It must be poorly constructed, for it to be so slow.  Perhaps two whole minutes elapsed while she was inside. But despite the circumstances, despite how massively suspicious this whole set-up was, the elevator neither stopped in the middle, nor did it suddenly explode or drop. And certainly, no monster burst inside and tried to kill her, like every other cursed elevator in the horror genre.

No, when the doors finally parted, there was a much simpler problem before Breacher.

A barricade laid right in front of the exit, craft of aluminum bed frames and weighty mattresses, all jumbled together in such a convoluted mess that she was incapable of actually looking past the barricade to see what laid beyond it. How many thralls awaited her? How many weapons pointed? This must be the place, then, where Justin’s army was gathering up again, prepared to rejoin the conflict at their dark master’s orders.

Should she charge in alone? Or should she radio for the others to join her first?

Time continued to pass either way, and the elevator, despite all circumstances, still functioned.

[hr]

[sub][@The World][@Ponn][@ERode][/sub]

Things were starting to heat up now.

The burning bone wall had enough water slosh in front of it that Marrie didn’t slam into it, even if she did slam into Ashley. But that just made it easier for her to throw the GEMINI agent over the counter. She might have had the body of a highschooler, but all espers came equipped with olympian level physical qualities, and getting Ashley over the counter was easier than she might have expected.

But while she underestimated her strength, she overestimated the amount of time she had to cast her melody. 

While Marrie was able to get off her portal melody, Her body straightened out like a board as electricity poured into it. Were she standing in fresh water her heart might have stopped, and that might have even been preferable to enduring a slow, agonizing electrocution. The cord on the toaster was pulled against the skull wall, and Marrie was not lucky enough to have it pull out of the wall. The toaster hung both below the floor and just under the ceiling, its connection with the water not having been broken. The salt water was starting to drain, but it was all falling right back into the tub Sofron had created. She wouldn’t be able to remain standing for long, as it was just a matter of time before her rigid body fell into the depths of the tub and she drowned. [s] This is why it’s so important to have ground fault interrupts on all kitchen outlets.[/s]

But a gentle hand touched Marrie’s jacket, and she was able to move again.

Regardless of how powerful the electricity was, all physical harm was treated the same by protection melodies. As such, Marrie would have more than enough time to climb out of the tub. But both rookie espers would be alarmed when a flaming skull came out of the wall. The projectile had been aimed where the rookies were prior to the wall coming up in front of Sofron, and thus wouldn’t land a direct hit. But it didn’t need to. Everything the skull hit caused it to explode, igniting everything in the vicinity. Ashley’s fading defensive melody prevented her from getting burned, but Marrie’s upper body as well as her immediate surroundings were set on fire. The exception being the pool of electrified water. Though both espers would find their heads filled with the baleful screams of some wrathful specter, and wouldn’t be able to focus enough to cast melodies that exceeded 50 MP. Though if they were looking to cool off, Sofron hadn’t quite walled off the entrance entirely, and salt water was pouring in by the second. 

Klava realized early on that a single knife was not a good matchup against two tonfas. While they lacked popularity, they weren’t intuitive weapons and could hold their own against much bigger weapons. Not engaging was a smart move, but the squirrel woman wasn’t going to give her that choice. 

Even if Moya-no-Yume had the handle for it, swinging a knife like a broadsword was awkward. Almost all large weapons owed a lot of their power to leverage, which just couldn’t be found in a blade of this size. Alternatively, the short nub on the tonfas was just a few inches longer than the end of the squirrel woman’s fist. She would recover quickly from this attack. Not that it would matter, as a follow up from her other hand would come out swiftly. Though short weapons were also easy to escape.  Klava had the dexterity in spades, and wasn’t shy about putting it on display.

When Klava kicked the chair back, the rodent woman was able to bat it aside without hesitation. The rodent barreled forward, her speed matching if not surpassing Klava’s own. They prepared their next melodies simultaneously. The rodent woman threw her projectile, and the snowball fired an icy blast. Neither esper missed their target. 

For the rodent woman, this meant that her arm was now shrouded in icicles, binding her arm in place. Damaging melodies were never the most effective on an esper, but this one did drive an icicle into her shoulder deep enough to draw blood. At the very least, the pain was enough to make her flinch. 

Though it wasn’t an opening Klava would be taking advantage of. 

A scattering of poppy seeds peppered Klava’s back, and she could feel something welling up inside of herself. Was it opium? Unlikely, but it was some type of [b]poison[/b]. She could feel it inhibiting her muscles, making her a bit slower than she was prior. 

The rodent woman dove between two counter tops and rammed her tonfa into the ice sculpture on her arm. It shattered quickly, but had earned Klava a brief reprieve from the rodent woman. [b]”I’m not too poppy about how that went.”[/b]

Though Sofron had plenty of time to grab a Thompson sub machine gun from one of the kitchen cupboards and greet Klava. As soon as he stepped out from behind the counter, he fired what little ammo remained in his SPAZ-12 before grasping his Thompson with both hands to finish the job. [s]He had a box magazine loaded. No low hanging fruit here.[/s]