[hr][center][h3][b][u][The Abyss - Paracausal Research Facility: Muriel - Interior][/u][/b][/h3][/center] [center][A Fate001 / XianaEvermor Collaboration][/center][hr] Näs Castle, Sweden, Winter. The ruins of some Swedish king’s fancy home from the 12th century, and home to the Nordic Federation’s Parahuman Special Forces black-site, “[i]Valv Tre[/i]”… of course nobody would know that since it was buried deep beneath the island’s tourist trap. Research. Plasma? Senja… Every surface shuddered like crawling skin. The walls were bleeding? Covered in blood. The cloaked woman’s combat knife slid wetly between Captain Jamison’s vertebrae. She watched the light fade from his eyes before flicking the blade out through his jugular. All with that smile on her scarred face as his arterial blood sprayed across her skin. There was a pause. A moment to drink every detail before her. Everything she constantly ran through her head every night manifested around MG. There was a part of her that wanted to lash out at this, to try in some vain attempt to change what had already transpired . . . MG gagged and shot that part of herself long ago. Panic was an expected reaction when one’s trauma was staring them in the face. Nora only felt rage. A tempered hatred radiated from the woman before she finally spoke. [b][color=#7FFFD4]“Die Screaming.”[/color][/b] There was no squeeze of her shotgun's trigger. Instead, winter claimed everything before her. The only warning for what was about to happen was the sudden drop in temperature that could crack steel, with MG at its epicenter. Jagged ice surged outward from MG in a tide of biting and cutting cold. And it would not stop. Wouldn’t stop. Stop. [b][color=#db60b0]"Stop! Claymore! Ah fuck,"[/color][/b] ID muttered grumpily when the emergency countersign didn’t elicit a reaction. At least MG hadn’t pulled the trigger: she wasn’t sure she could dodge crystal infused enchanted buckshot from this range. A steel panel buckled next to her with a thunderous [i]crack[/i] under the thermal shock. Can’t stay here… They’d bring the whole place down, and if MG got into physical contact range… involuntary cryo-induced naptime wasn’t on ID’s itinerary today. A flick of her wrist primed one of her fuel sprayers and she raked the air between her and the suited giant, snapping a spark from the flint skin of her fingertips to ignite her breath. A gout of orange flames slammed into the curtain of explosive droplets. They burst into hundreds of tiny, brilliant explosions in MG’s face like a box of fireworks gone awry: just enough to engage the suit’s flare and noise compensation and buy a moment of hesitation. ID leapt through the entrance at an angle to generate transverse velocity, she trusted MG… but there was still a chance she’d shoot at whatever it was she was seeing. Fractal frost dogged her footsteps, freezing joints, hydraulics, and mechanisms in an instant. [i][color=#db60b0]Sorry, friend… can’t let you put me to sleep. We’ll both die. Gonna need you to sit down for a minute...[/color][/i] A click of her sprayer rewarded ID with a few droplets of explosive liquid, which she swirled into a compacted bubble of mana. She shot it back through the frozen blast doors, pausing only a moment to aim as crimson scales slithered across her temples and down her forehead. A brilliant ray of searing violet flames shrieked from her fingertips, thundering down the corridor as the intense heat slammed through the cold front and detonated the insulated fuel packet. An explosion rocked the corridor, throwing MG to the ground. Charges detonated deep under the island. Men in black uniforms with that signature red A badge on their shoulders rained lead to buy that wretched woman cover. Senja was suddenly on top of her, and the intense pain of a knife buried in MG’s eye lanced her skull from front to back. Senja smiled down at her as the walls wept, fire crawled across the ceiling, and the corridor walls began to buckle. Her eyes were four pointed stars of golden-green-gray and pink with a sclera of black from which squirming ink bled down onto MG’s face. [i]How’s that leadership role treating you now? Enjoying it as much as you thought?[/i] [b][color=#7FFFD4]“Never even wanted it, you petulant brat.”[/color][/b] The pain was real. Despite everything she tried she was forced to physically re-live this shit. The sudden flash bang and external heat had been irritating. Now she was here. There were white spots in what remained of MG’s vision. Her thermals had been turned off so that the cold could start to numb her nerves a bit. Wait, what the fuck was wrong with Senja’s face? [b][color=#7FFFD4]“The hell happened to your face?”[/color][/b] Things weren’t clicking. MG was one step away from putting herself in cryo to get out of this shit. But part of what ID had told her earlier came through the pain. Not to trust her eyes or ears. . . . Fuck it. She better have been right on this. MG shut her good eye and made the mental command to turn on the thermal cyber eye hidden under her eyepatch, that should be run through with a knife. The noise dampeners and compensators in her helmet were driven up to the point that she was practically deaf from the white noise. Gonna have a nasty case of tinnitus after this on top of the splitting headache. [i][color=#7FFFD4]Complain later. You have a job to do.[/color][/i] The thermal vision kicked in. The world was all purples and blues with some reds and yellows. It took some time for the vision to sharpen into more detail. No Senja, just a frozen room with evidence of a thermal shock having happened. Shit, she was being mind fucked. MG really hated psychic types. Carefully, she got up off the floor and did a pat down to make sure she still had everything. She took up her shotgun and let out more of a growl then a sigh of irritation. [b][color=#7FFFD4]“ID! If you're anywhere nearby I won’t be able to hear you! I’ve had to deafen myself and switched to thermals! We’re gonna have to work with hand signs and you're gonna have to be my ears here.”[/color][/b] There was a pause before a heavy book stomped the ice covered floor. [b][color=#7FFFD4]“Dammit I really don’t want to be talking to myself here. Can’t even hear myself talk.”[/color][/b] She then proceeded to curse rather colorfully in Finnish as she slowly made her way forward. [i][color=#7FFFD4]If this gets fucked with somehow I’m freezing myself near death and letting ID figure it out.[/color][/i] A thumbs up poked out from an intersection farther in, and ID cautiously peered around the corner to check on MG. Sensory blindness wasn’t optimal, but it was better than whatever full-sensory hallucination that had driven her to flash-freeze the whole complex. ID reinforced her Domain bubble, pulling it tighter against her skin. If that’s what was in store for her should her concentration lapse, MG might yet have a much worse day.