To Mark's pleasure, he didn't have to wait long for the proverbial shit to hit the proverbial fan. As the guards moved to provide Mark some new bench mates, the two servers burst into action... somewhat clumsily in the veterans honest opinion. Effective, but clumsy.
Tzvi shoved her arms and hands out with all she had, for all its worth, flinging Kygg at Orish at an angle that she didn't have time to even hope had an advantage. The quarian already had the omni-tool up and switched focus to the desk jockey with terrible security. A flare and a shock leaped from Ret's own omni-tool. The fire slammed and ate away at Lonnie in a second and soon pried a scream out of him, and the shock seized Ret in an instant, dissipating the shields as the turian's body buckled and hit the wall.
Kygg, however, was lighter on his feet than his frame suggested. Flowing with Tzvi's push his shoulder struck the salarian's torso causing the Quantum boss to stumble. Kygg readjusted his balance, sliding past Orish and delivering a firm punch to his stomach once he was at the man's side. Orish recoiled but his omni-tool flared up to activate his armour's shields. Kygg responded in kind, the searing hot blade ejected from his omni-tool raking down the mercenary's back, reducing the shields to nothing in an instant. However it had done nothing to Orish's stance or form and he, just as effectively, threw an agile punch which collided with Kygg's jaw.
Despite the thin frame of most salarians, Orish included, his punch hit like an Isaac Newton. Kygg's back hit the wall, feeling his mouth sting and a little blood run across his tongue. He looked up just in time to see a second punch aimed at him, this time one that struck his stomach with a heavy thud. Kygg was winded, gasping for a breath. Oh, how he was going to enjoy making this salarian's life a misery later. When Orish tried a third time, Kygg threw his head forwards, his skull crashing into Orish's flat nose. It bought him a few moments to react.
Tzvi quickly dragged the slumped, limp Ret from the chair he leaned against, away from the desk. Lonnie had done the favor of running off and rolling away on the floor, and with any luck that guard was unconscious by then.
Her head whipped back to a strong thud behind her, and then a second. Tzvi turned in time to catch Kygg caught in a corner of the wall and the floor, bashing Orish's face with his own head, now painted in green. The vorcha’s sea of needle-sharp teeth spread out for display with a grin at Orish’s renovated face - whatever that was. The salarian leaned and fell back, but his hands didn’t reach for the new wound. A scratched, guttural growl grew into an unnerving scream.
“Alright then-” It was due time her partner got some help. With two hard tugs on the groaning turian and a rush of steps - “Hey, buddy -” Tzvi dumped Ret next to Roland. “Sit on this guy for a sec.” Roland played his small part -- sitting on the guard when ordered -- and had tried to lend a hand to Kygg's brawl in the form of biotics, but without his hands free, he couldn't even conjure the normal Stasis field that he had been so accustomed to using. Damn mnemonics, the thought struck him through clenched teeth, and just as suddenly, an epiphany struck. It looked like he would momentarily be delaying his training sessions with Kosso, for now.
Mark's eyes glanced over at the table where his weapons had been placed and considered making a move, but decided against it. He wouldn't be able to do anything with his hands cuffed behind him, and it was still too soon to determine who he should be rooting for. As he thought, and the salarian tussled with the vorcha, the quarian dragged the dazed turian over to the bench and told Archie/Roland to sit on him with a measure of familiarity.
Thought so.
The Quantum boss was already swinging another punch. Tzvi ran on impulse with shoulder front, slamming against the left of the boss’s back as he began to lean down to take a crack at Kygg’s face. The sudden ram interrupting Orish was enough to lose balance. The two plummeted into the ground and the salarian’s head rattled as he was banged up by the floor.
“Goddammit!!”
Tzvi jumped at the sound, ripping her arms from the entanglement until they popped out. The gust of force from the momentum spun her backward until her body caught itself, recklessly launching forward and landing her hands on the ground to stop. Orish thrashed out as he untwisted himself from the ground, missing the quarian by a thread’s width. The suited girl scuttled back arms and knees, shakily pushing her arms, then legs, against the carpet along the way to clamber to a stand.
With the moment to catch his breath long since gone the vorcha put one foot up against the wall and used it to push himself forwards. He tackled Orish, once again bringing him to the floor. The man was swept off of his feet, wrestled to the ground by an angry vorcha and already having a clenched fist forced into his stomach. Kygg grinned, throwing another and another. Orish groaned in pain with every strike, even his armour failing to soften the blow.
The salarian swung both of his arms upwards, his palms open and striking both sides of his foe's head with a bell clap. Kygg's hearing screamed at him but it was not enough to open him up for a second strike. As Orish tried another lunge with a closed fist, Kygg responded in kind as his omni-tool formed around his fist a second time. The searing blade cut along Orish's gauntlet as it dragged down, never breaking the salarian's skin but cutting through the wiring of his armour and served as a strong reminder just how dangerous these weapons could be.
One of many reasons why Kygg chose it over a gun.
Orish predicted a killing blow and his body froze as the blade grazed his neck. Yet the vorcha never continued, holding his arm in place with the omni-blade tickling his leathery skin. The blade was hot, burning his flesh as it was held in place. Orish considered it a better alternative to dying but how long the vorcha would keep him there. He spat in Kygg's face, an action the vorcha responded to with a smile.
"Not a good idea to taunt a man'ah with a knife to your neck'ah..."
Kygg had bounced back into combat with a zeal that didn't logically follow his entrapment or the wounds he took moments prior. Tzvi wouldn't have known what happened, if it wasn't for all the red blood that trickled down Kygg's chin and the salarian's. Orish never made a stand before he smacked against the floor again. The quarian took a deep breath and threw a small thumbs-up. "We're gonna need his omni-tool."
"Got it'ah," replied Kygg, his free hand moving to the salarian's left arm.
Orish struggled as Kygg expected but he simply pressed the omni-blade lightly against his neck, breaking skin. He winced and, after a few seconds, his arm relaxed, allowing Kygg to activate his omni-tool. It flared up around the salarian's wrist and, Kygg grabbed it, dragging the device from him. He tossed it in Tzvi's general direction, focusing on keeping Orish down.
"Fantastic." Tzvi beamed, downright giddy as she scooped up a Quantum boss's small device and slapped it onto her opposing arm. She sent a two-fingered salute Kygg’s way, “Thanks.” It was about time Roland get out of those cuffs. The pair on Roland were straight plates of metal, no actual keyhole to be found, so the bet was for electronic locks.
Lonnie was not in a much more dignified position than Orish was, little more than a large lump of splayed limbs teetering between temporarily and permanently unconscious. He wasn't about to cause Nova strife beyond the smell wafting over. Ret, however, was moving with louder complaints of pain.
Tzvi's hand shot down for her pistol, falling through empty space and hitting her hip. Her shoulders tensed in pain. "Riight." No weapons into the party. A quick check of the room revealed the heavy pistol on the security room's desk and a knife, barely visible in the dark under the table, laying on the floor. Tzvi darted to the screens, going for the Phalanx first. The gun slid off the surface with a quiet whir. Ducking, it took a second to slip the knife into an innocent-looking pocket of the servant suit.
Ret's eyes were open.
"Move and you die," Tzvi barked, speaking fast and winded. "Trigger an alarm, and my vorcha friend gets to finish you slow."
"It's like a birthday present'ah," replied Kygg. "Turians are the best toys'ah," he added, just to give his sentence the extra kick it needed.
The turian irritatedly grumbled, a slow glance rolling up to the barrel pointed at his skull. Today was not the day he wanted to put up with a security breech but he didn't have much of a choice.
The shields had partway recovered, but it didn't take long to fix that, and Roland had already kicked off the pistol while the two were carpet buddies.
"Alright, up, hands away from you. On the wall."
Tzvi kept a safe distance, close enough to ensure a safe shot, and kept a near constant eye on the bodyguard as she returned to searching through Orish's omni-tool. They didn't need the chance of a maverick hero sneaking a look and catching a thug turning from their target.
'The locks on the cuffs are on here somewhere...'
“Ah,” she chirped, “Theerre it is.” There were two active, but Tzvi only clicked the one dedicated to her tethered teammate. The other man was a merc, or at best a problem individual. Both ways he was a complication Nova didn't need.
A soft couple of clicks came from her right. “You're set.” Her head tilted slightly Roland's way. The ex-cop proved to be a little worn and bruised, but pristine compared to most everyone else in the room. “You alright?”
Tzvi took a long, wary look at the turian in front, and sighed in exasperation. A few lessons about close combat from her mother would have been worth slipping in before leaving home. Tzvi had no idea how to knock someone out, and Kygg was preoccupied.
“Hey, 'Archie,'” Tzvi nudged her head her way to bring Roland over, backing a step or two away from Ret. The medic walked over with a hopelessly lost and confused look on his face, but still stood too far. Tzvi's head echoed the last gesture, dovetailed with a theatrical swing of her arm in the same direction, trying to usher him next to her. She muttered low:
“...You know how to knock someone out, right?”