Racing the Storm

[aabicus (LettuceBacon&Tomato)]

"I think that compromise is stupid..." panted Emilena, "but I don't have the energy to figure out why so let's do it. Go!"

She burst out of the waist-high mud at a crippled limp, making less than stellar time. If she didn't give Vergil enough time to prepare, he should be more than able to compensate with his undamaged body. This is giving me flashbacks to that Detroit sting with Agent Walters... she thought ruefully. Why am I always the one who gets the life-threatening injuries?

She slipped on a wet patch of leaves inches from the forest perimeter and went tumbling into the darkness of the foliage. "Eerghh..." she grunted, gritting her teeth and getting to her knees. "You know what I want to know?" she muttered in Vergil's general direction, not checking to see if he was even in audible range, "They had a security room with cameras and everything...but how come nobody was manning it?"

[Pterano]

You're stupid Vergil thought but didn't say to her whole "compromise is stupid" line. You didn't exactly serve under a world shattering strategist now, did you? Still, when she bolted, he was ready, and got up after her, running as best he could and ignoring the lancing pain in his side as he stumbled along... that was new.

He tried to figure out where it was coming from, but came up short, finally chalking it up to the fall he'd taken into the moat. Emilena went down shortly after gaining the treeline though, but Vergil didn't see it, as he was looking behind him in that instant to see if Stryker was scanning along the walls... he didn't see anything, so that was good... right? Unless of course they'd already been spotted... Vergil briefly wondered if Rex and Kalis ever had to deal with a situation similar to this; probably, given their many adventures and misadventures.

Then Emilena tumbled, and Vergil slid as well trying to reach her to help her up, sliding in a somewhat split-legged position as he brought himself to a halt beside her. "Ouch..." he said simply to his legs being split. Pushing himself back up, he reached down to help her to her feet. "They obviously don't have their shit together here... as we might say. Stryker seems to have idiots working under him. Or perhaps no one at all save for that single guard we killed on the way out. While you might call our escape easy... I ain't taking anything for granted. We are quite literally not out of the woods yet, and nowhere as far from the castle as I'd like to be. So..." Having helped her up, he looked around him now, brushing leaves off his body before pausing, and figuring it was a good idea to just leave the rest on him in case he needed to flatten himself out.

He looked like quite the crazy creature now, with leaves poking out of his white feathers and mud caking most of his body from  his midriff down; he could've been shooting a bad horror movie for all anyone knew. Panting a little bit, he nodded forward. "Well... let's go... get to so the castle is just barely in sight, then try to find a freaking road." he breathed. "Should stay alert though... they might have guard posts out here... or something." He said. As it turned out, they did have something... but not quite what either of them were expecting...

[bushwacked]

Staring at the pair through his scope, William smiled. Perched high up on an overhanging branch, he'd been watching as Vergil and Emilena ran... or rather, hobbled to the treeline. As they reached the forest, some distance away from him, William tracked their progress, slowly turning his head to follow them. Leaves crunched under their feet, branches snapped, the sounds as loud and crisp as gunfire to him. A gasp from the woman, then a crash as she lost her footing. He almost winced. Don't they know how loud they are?

His smile broadened as Emilena spoke. They had a security room with cameras and everything...but how come nobody was manning it? "Because I can't hear the screaming through the cameras," he said softly to himself. As the gecko spoke, William shifted the crosshairs to the side, pinpointing his position from his voice. You won't get to the road that easily.

He pulled the trigger. The bullet flew from the silenced barrel, rocketed across the forest, tearing through foliage as it traveled along its downward trajectory... and hit its mark, piercing the gecko's leg, the metal tearing flesh and ripping muscle.

---------------------------------------------------------

Triste didn't say anything as she pulled the DNA profile machine free. Carefully, she took the pen lid from the plastic wrapping and gently swabbed the edges of the pen lid. "Come on..." No way this is going to work... Chewing the inside of her cheek, her sharp teeth almost breaking the skin, Triste inserted the swab into the profiling machine, and leaned back, waiting as it extracted the sample and began preparing it automatically. The machine was state of the art - whereas normal profiling would take some time, the Federation had enough money to develop the technology so it only took 5 minutes. Once it was complete, it would then compare the DNA sequence it obtained to a database compiled by the Federation... and it was extensive - though it wasn't public knowledge, most of the population of Corona and it's neighboring cities were on there... whether they'd volunteered it or not.

5 minutes later, the machine started to hum as its run drew to an end. "How long is this going to take?" Rio complained loudly from across the room for what seemed like the hundredth time. "I'm bored fuckless."

Triste gritted her teeth, picturing how easy it would be to toss him out the window. "I told you. It'll be done..."

The profiling machine beeped. "...now." Sighing, Triste wandered back over and leaned over the machine's display screen. Her eyes widened. There was a match. She pressed a button, and the individual it matches the sample to appeared on screen, with what information the database had on them. Triste's eyes widened, and slowly the pieces of the puzzle started to come together.

"What? Did you find something?" Rio asked, wandering over.

"Shit... If this is true, this is bad..." Triste stood up, and turned to face Flora and Rio. "It's matched it to... well, we don't know his real name. He goes by the name of Stryker, and he's... dangerous. Very dangerous." She shook her head. "This is bad. I have no idea why he might want to take your friend, but he's been known to work for a powerful family, the Stracci's." She stared at the two of them, her yellow eyes narrowing. "Tony Stracci was a member of our team. He was helping us in our mission when -" her gaze flicked to Rio - "You pushed him over a cliff." Triste shook her head again. "There's no way this is a coincidence."

-----------------------------------------------------

Axel looked between Soren and Anne, then grinned softly. "Not bad." Nodding at Anne, he punched the numbers in, then rubbed a hand through his hair nervously. "Let's hope this works..."

[aabicus (LettuceBacon&Tomato)]

No sooner had Vergil finished badmouthing Stryker's hired hands when one of them sniped him.

"Now I realize why that was a stupid plan!" exclaimed Emilena as she dove for cover. "Because it's depressingly obvious!" She grabbed him and did her best to drag him down into the brush and out of the line of sight from the direction the bullet had come from. "We have to keep low and we got to be less predictable in the future; someone's onto us, and they've got a goddamn sniper rifle. I hate fighting snipers..."

She checked her wound. It was still bleeding badly, but Vergil's leg needed the wrapping more than she did. "And don't scream!" she cautioned as she tourniqueted and covered the bullet wound. "It's just a gunshot, take it like a man. You don't see me complaining about my knife wound, or my concussion, or my vaginal tract, or my leg or my feet..."

--------------------------------------

"Emilena had a run-in with the Straccis before!" gasped Flora. "She'd always brush it off when I asked, but Nairda told me the whole story!" Her voice hushed, as if telling a scary campfire tale, and she even dimmed the lights for dramatic effect. "Last year, the two of them were part of a group that had just rescued Tony Stracci from the Purifiers, and were bringing him home to his father's mansion in the forests outside Lanthae. When they got there, the don thanked them for rescuing his son, and offered to let them stay the night. The don promised hospitality...but delivered death."

Flora paused so her audience could supply a gasp, but they did not. "Just because they could, the mafia decided to tie them up as 'loose ends.' Nairda says they broke his knees with thumbscrews and strapped his eyelids open so he was forced to watch as Stryker tortured Emilena in all sorts of horrible ways. They were going to gouge her for information and then kill her. But then...Emilena just disappeared. Poof! Right out of the clutches of the mafia, from the most secure dungeon of the mansion. Nobody knows where she went...and nobody has ever learned how she did it."

Flora ended her story with spooky hushed inarticulate whispers, hoping to drive home the atmosphere of the thing.

---------------------------------------

Lily watched as the others messed around with their gadgets. Technology had never been a strong suit of hers, but she hoped Axel was enjoying himself. For a computer software support technician he'd had very little opportunity recently to spend surfing the web, she hoped he wasn't suffering from internet withdrawal.

[Pterano]

"It wasn't stupid!" Vergil shot back through clenched teeth! "This was random! They have a perimeter NEITHER of us noticed! YOU could've said something ANYTIME!" he pointed out to her. "We don't find a road, we wander for miles in these stupid woods, which is way more of a stupid idea." He ground his teeth as she began bandaging him. "Don't waste your time..." his hand shot out, resting on her own as she got to work. "I can't move with torn muscles... or at least not as far as you can. Your muscles are still intact... at least the vital ones are. You don't like snipers? Best way to deal with snipers is live bait... get them to reveal themselves, and snipe them in return... but since we don't have a gun... the ground dips a bit here... you can get away. I'll stay behind... and before you say it's a one way trip, I'm well aware of that. Me limping or crawling after you isn't going to get us very far. You can move faster than I can right now. We've got this far... no reason for you to stick around and get killed on my account."

He looked at her seriously, not expecting she'd argue with her own self-preservation instincts. He was giving her a much better way out than she'd get by currently sticking with him, that was for sure. He wasn't exactly sure how he'd get out of this one himself, but better one life be saved than both lives killed.

[aabicus (LettuceBacon&Tomato)]

"Christ, you talk a lot!" Emilena grabbed a stiff branch and lined it up with his leg. "And like hell you get to lie back and relax after your first injury, you big baby." Grabbing the knife, she sliced long ribbons off of his coat and double-tied the thick branch to his leg, making the worst splint she had ever seen. "There. Your hip still works, right? Put your weight on that and don't bend your knee. Grab my back if you need to."

She glanced at the ground. "You're right. It dips. Bottoms up." With that she rolled him down the small ravine to further shield them from the sniper's line of sight. "I'm serious," she winced as she banged her elbow on a fallen tree trunk, "I'm revoking your whining and dying privileges until you have at least three life-threatening injuries. Start crawling!" She gripped the knife and covered the rear; with the trunk and the ravine behind them, the sniper would have to significantly alter his position to see them, and if he got close enough, she might have a shot of ambushing him.

[Serris]

Soren yawned. "Excuse me," he said. he got up from the seat and ducked into his room.

------------------

Bypassing the shotgun that was leaning against the back wall of his room, the Human made his way to a small cabinet. He opened the cabinet and popped a moziafil tablet from its blister pack. He sighed. Three tablets left. He'd have to buy another pack soon.

Popping the tablet in his mouth and washing it down with a bottle of water on his workbench, he sat down for a moment. In just under thirty seconds, his tiredness melted away and he felt as if he had a full night's sleep.

------------------

"Hey Soren," Anne said. "You may want to look at this." She turned the computed towards him.

On the screen were the words "no match".

Soren rubbed his eyes and frowned, certain he had to be seeing things. "This thing shitting me!?"

He sat down with a sigh. "Well, any more ideas?"

Anne rubbed her horn and let out a breath of air. "Well, we could always go to the Bak Long Triads for info. I've bought drugs from a few of their low level gangsters; I'm sure they'll sell us info."

Soren sighed. He did not want to deal with more organized crime but the way things were going, he didn't have a choice.

[bushwacked]

William sighed contentedly as he heard the loud, pained shouts of the gecko he'd just wounded, as he argued with his companion. Loudly. You're just making it easier for me... More rustling now. William tilted his head as he overheard their hasty back and forths. The woman was right - he'd have to move. But...

Shifting his position, William slid from the branch and dropped to the floor, landing soundlessly on the forest floor. Focusing his vision, he caught a brief glimpse of Emilena before she dropped out of his sight, down the ravine. Licking his lips, he pulled the bolt on his rifle to load another bullet and started to follow. But they're heading further into the forest... my forest. And that's where the real fun starts.

--------------------------------------------------------

There was a couple seconds of silence after Flora finished her tale. Clearing her throat, Triste crossed the room and turned the lights back on. "I know that place. But I thought the property had been abandoned since..." She narrowed her eyes. "Are you trembling, kid?"

Rio wrapped his arms around his legs to stop them shaking, a pale tinge to his face. "N... No! I'm just... It's..." He bared his teeth. "It's just really fucking cold, alright?" He blinked, trying to take his mind off Flora's spooky storytelling.

"Yeah... In any case, it's worth checking it out. But we've got to move as fast as we can." Turning her back, Triste started packing a few things into a small backback in preparation.

Standing, Rio moved close to Flora and lowered his voice. "So Emi just... disappeared? So she's like a wizard or something! I knew it!"

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Axel swallowed as Anne mentioned the Bak Long. "Are you... are you sure that's a, ah, a good idea?" he asked nervously, putting the phone back on the cradle and turning to look her and Soren. "I mean, I like dealing with ruthless gangs who'll cut my throat while they eat their cornflakes as much as the next guy, but..."

His eyes flicked over to Lily. "I just want to make sure we're not just... stepping into the volcano over this."

[Pterano]

"It's called knowing when you're beat." He grumbled as he started crawling. "There's quite literally NO point to keeping me with you. I'll slow you down from this point on... we both know that. You can run. I can't. Ergo you're the one who should escape instead of wasting your strength ensuring I keep up. I don't fear death... never have. I accepted I was dead the moment I enlisted in Rex's unit. I've been through some of the worst hells you could think up... including nuclear war... and I'm saying you're better off on your own now that we've escaped."

He decided to cut this short though, as she'd most likely chide him for talking too much again, in which case he'd probably kick her in the jaw to shut her up. He smiled at that though... every time she had something to stupid to say, she'd get a kick... he wondered how long she'd tolerate that. Anyway, he was leaving a blood trail, even despite the bandage (which was slipshod enough it was barely that), and he knew they'd be tracked quite easily. Still, he could see what she was going for, and decided to just let her attempt her ambush if it worked out.

He managed to make it behind a second tree, and kept going. Oddly though, his thoughts drifted back to his nuclear war comment... maybe that's why he was sterile... ah well. There was no point in worrying about it.

[aabicus (LettuceBacon&Tomato)]

"If you have enough energy to prattle on like you are, you've got enough to keep moving!" Emilena scanned the foliage. "Why do you care if I live anyway?"

She scanned the trees. "On the other hand...if you're that motivated to lie around and look pathetic we could use you as bait. You monologue at any guys to come close and I scale a tree and drop on them. I didn't see anyone on those cameras in the castle so we might actually have a chance of picking them off one-by-one. But we're going to need to get further into the forest where the trees are larger, taller and thicker."

She hoisted Vergil onto her back and dragged him. "You keep saying you're a highly-trained soldier," she panted, "so act like one goddammit! Were you the company water boy or something?"

------------------------------------------

"That's the mystery!" Flora exclaimed. "Nobody knows! Of course, she's got a soft spot for you, so maybe if you ask she'll tell. But you better tell me if she reveals her secret!"

She jumped up happily when Triste mentioned checking out the forest.  "Yay, road trip!" she bounced happily to the door. "To rescue Emi!"

She grabbed her coat from the rack by the door and regarded Triste packing. She realized that the gecko was packing almost everything she owned into her backpack. "Not to jinx how lucky we've been in finding you," she said in a small voice, "but...why are you doing all this for us? Did you know Emi or something?"

-------------------------------------------

Lily gulped. "Asking the Chinese mafia?" She wasn't sure why they would do that, but she didn't want to disagree with Soren and Anne. Lily had noticed that they tended to wind up on opposite sides of issues leading all the way back to when Lily invited Emilena to join their party at the parking lot outside the clothing store in Lanthae, and this was a good opportunity for her to side with them in a meaningful way that could enforce group solidarity. Especially since she'd just revealed a major secret she'd kept from them... "If you really know them that well, Anne, this could be our best hope for information. I'm willing to defer to your judgment, as you'd know far more about this than me."

[Serris]

Soren immediately picked up the tension in the air and let out a breath. "I don't like doing this any more than you do but what other choices do we have?"

Anne tapped her horn. "Well, I may be able to tap into a secured wireless network with my horn and project it to a radio but since there are terabytes of data flowing through government wireless channels...well, we'd be wading through a lot of useless shit. Or we can hack into the phone company's databases and swipe all their records and then browse through them at our leisure."

"If Marita or hell, any of us, get caught doing that, we're bricked. We can't afford bail."

Anne shrugged and snorted a bit, shaking her head and sending her mane flying in all directions. "The only other way that doesn't involve breaking into every house in Corona would be to repeatedly call his house from a cellphone. Then I could possibly use my horn to find out where the nearest cell tower to landline link is. Then we break in and we eavesdrop on every line inside. Once we find a hit, we can then look up where that line goes to. If everything goes right, that should lead to Vergil's house."

"That's assuming the nearest link to his house even services his house or if he even has a landline phone. Seriously, those things are fucking old."

Anne smiled and tapped her horn. "If his home phone's wireless, I can also use my horn to grab the signal it sends to the phone company. I can then use it to pinpoint his house."

Soren nodded. "What's the range of your horn?"

Anne took a seat and grabbed the instruction manual for her implant off the bookshelf. The book was rather beat up but it was legible. She opened the book and began reading. "It depends on signal strength. With something like that, I could probably get a kilometer. Maybe two."

"Not helping." Soren rubbed his forehead. "Fuck it. I don't think we have any choice."

[Pterano]

It was at that that Emilena received a sharp whack on the back of her head from Vergil's elbow as he slid off her. "No... for your information." he responded bluntly. "Now then... first off, apologies. Second, I don't remember my role specifically, only that I was a soldier of some sort. Third, I care that you live because all life, even your own, is precious. Death is a part of life, yes, but right now, you're the fittest in our group. If one of us HAS to survive... better you than me. The cripple gets picked off... the non-cripple survives. That's just the way things go... I've seen it happen more times than I care to remember. Acceptable losses and all that... it's what Rex lived by. Anyway..." he looked around them.

"The trees tend to be thicker in the center of the forest... which judging from the direction we're heading, isn't this way. The older trees are off in that direction." he pointed to her left. "So we should be heading that way." He began hobbling forward, grinding his teeth as he did so. "Ugh! Sonofabitch! I'll have to repay that guy one for this..." he murmured. He looked quite the sight, half caked in mud with leaves sticking to him at odd angles. He certainly looked like a swamp creature of some kind.

"Shouldn't have hit you..." he said now, shaking his head. "It wasn't... necessary."

[bushwacked]

The ground was uneven, disturbed, and as William looked down, he could see the broken twigs and shifted dirt led up to the slope in the forest floor, the ground dipping down into the ravine and sinking into the darkness of the thicker foliage. William closed his eyes and took a deep breath, his nostrils flaring, pallid face creasing in pleasure. He could smell, taste the two of them, those who had been here only moments before. Of course he could detect the rich, copper of the gecko's blood, but more than that - their confusion, their fear, their panic and frustration was tangible to him. And it made William feel alive.

He felt a pleasurable shudder run through his body, and he turned his face upwards, feeling the light breeze on his skin. William let his breath out slowly. "Thank you," he whispered, feeling a rush of genuine gratitude towards the two that he was about to hunt down. After a moment, he made his way down the slope, and started on their trail. He didn't need to bother with his augmented hearing - the blood leaking from Vergil's wound was more than enough for him to go on.

----------------------------------------------------

Triste zipped up her bag and hoisted it over a shoulder, turning to look at Flora. "I'm not doing all of this for you. I don't know Emilena, and I don't care what happens to her. But the fact is, both her and Vergil, the person I'm looking for, were there when Stracci's son died. They went missing almost as soon as my team arrived back in Corona, close by to one of Stracci's old bases of operation. And now, we know that Emilena was taken by one of Stracci's men. This can't be a coincidence."

She tilted her head. "I can't afford to take my time on this, and you want your friend back. So we both stand to gain from this." She frowned. "What's confusing is why they'd take Emilena when you were the one to kill him," she said, glancing at Rio as she moved past and started for the door. "But I don't have time to think about it. And on the subject of you, you're staying here, kid."

Rio's eyes widened. "What?! But I've gotta help, she's -"

"No. You're about 7 years old. You could screw up the entire thing."

"I'm 12!" Rio grimaced. "And I won't screw anything up. I'm not new to this kind of stuff, trust me. If you need someone to sneak into somewhere, to break into some shit, I can do it. It's what I'm good at. Flora can vouch for me." He clenched his jaw. "I can do it, and I'm coming. Emi's my friend, and I have to help save her."

Triste paused for a second, then sighed. "If you do anything, anything, that compromises us, I'm taking you out of the situation. However I feel is best." She walked out the door. "Let's move."

------------------------------------------------

Axel's ears curved uncomfortably. "Alright then, I, ah... I guess we've gotta do it." He looked at Anne. "So... how do you contact them? What're you gonna say? It's not like you can just dial up the Chinese mafia advice helpline."

He glanced around at the rest of them. "And we should probably prepare for if something goes wrong because... I mean, our track record of things going smoothly isn't exactly, ah... well, it's non-existent."

[aabicus (LettuceBacon&Tomato)]

"If that's what it took to get you moving again, you can hit me a few more times," groaned Emilena. "Hardly matters at this point."

She crawled forward and then yelped as she tripped over an almost invisible wire strung across two tree trunks. The ground in front of her collapsed instantly, greeting her with the sight of a spiked pit. The only thing that saved her was that she kept her foot locked inside the wire, which left her dangling precariously over the edge with a twisted ankle instead of with a dozen new perferations.

She didn't recatch her breath until Vergil had her back on solid ground. "The bastard booby-trapped the forest..." she panted. "We need to be more careful..." She tried to put her weight on her ankle and yelped. "Dammit, this is only going to help them catch up to us faster..."

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Flora was not present, having already exited quickly to the parking lot. We need the best car possible for this trip! she thought resolutely. Emi's life depends on it!

Before meeting up with Emilena's gang, she had spent most of her youth breaking into cars, driving in random unknown directions until the gas ran out, and repeating. She may be partially responsible for some much fiercer automated detection systems that were being installed in newer models coming out in these areas of the country, but at a glance she saw a number of cars in the lot that were clearly still ripe for the picking.

Low mileage for the size of the tank...cannot handle off-road travel...no radio... As she walked past potential targets she noted to herself missing features that could jeopardize the success of the mission.

Then she saw a jet black Zwingz 381-hp V-8 SUV with remote reservoir shocks and coil-link suspension and got such a huge erection she almost passed out.

"Ohhh my god..." her hand shuddered as it caressed the massive 265/75R16 tires wrapped around beadlock wheels. The car was new, produced smack-dab in the middle of the era of tighter security, and she'd never tried to break into a car like that before.

First she checked under the SUV for a magnetic box containing a set of spare keys. Some people have those; this owner did not. Then she tested the back door to see if there was enough room for her to wedge a removed car antenna through and jimmy the unlock rod. There was, but before she inserted anything she scanned the dashboard. She noted a subtle black circle of glass embedded into the rearview mirror and recognized it as a motion sensor. She'd never broken into a car with a motion sensor, but she'd seen them advertised on TV, and she'd always wondered about the most obvious way she could think to fool them.

The sensor can't go off just because it's nighttime, right? she thought, borrowing the car cover (and antenna) from another vehicle in the parking lot and draping it over the SUV. Now in the dark, she bent the tip of the detached antenna into a hook and slid it between the door seal and the chassis. But after unlocking the car door she held it open only a crack; some cars have shock sensors that notify the owner because the interior lights turn on, simply due to the ease of the car checking for that status. Rolling the car window down, she fingered the inside until she found the button that, like the one inside a refrigerator, turned the lights on once depressed. She held it down with her finger until she could close the door behind her.  

Now inside the car, she checked the steering column and quickly determined that it was safe-guarded against hot-wiring. After allowing herself a few minutes to sit in the driver's seat and imagine the sheer power of driving such a whip, she borrowed the jumper cables and maintenance kit in the glove compartment and left the car, taping the light button down. Popping the hood, she located the plug and coil wires at the rear of the engine and ran the jumper cables from a positive battery terminal to the wire leading the coil. This activated the dash-board, which let her locate the starter solenoid behind the steering wheel. Delicately connecting the solenoid to the positive battery terminal, she skipped with excitement when the 12 volt shock activated the solenoid and the starter cranked the car.

"Oh you glorious stallion, you're mine..." she moaned throatily, stroking the steering wheel and rubbing herself against the powerful vibrations of the engine. Then she realized Triste and Rio were standing beside the car staring at her. "Here we go!" she announced happily, whipping the cover off the SUV. "Check out the six-speed automatic transmission and locking differential on this thing!"

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Lily yawned. "Let me know when we're leaving...I need to relax for a time..." she politely excused herself from the room. Physically, a night in a morgue rested the body but mentally it only exhausted her more. She knew they'd probably be leaving soon, but even five minutes of meditation can do wonders.

[Pterano]

Vergil reacted quickly, his reflexes only marginally slowed by his pain. He lashed out, grabbed hold of her and preventing her from meeting her certain demise in the spiked pit.

"Ugh!" he groaned out, hauling her back up. "OK... well.... way I see it... two options..." he said, looking behind them now. "We keep going at potentially greater risk to ourselves trying to escape but possibly blundering into traps OR... we figure out a way to confront this guy, and kill him. Get him off our backs and that way... we can take our time with the escape." he outlined.

Looking down, he noticed he was already partly camouflaged from all the leaves and mud covering him. "I dunno... maybe I could blend in. He's gonna have to approach over that rise in order to see us... might be able to get the drop on him."

[bushwacked]

Reaching the bottom of the slope, William bent and ran a long, thin finger through a small spatter of blood on the ground. Smearing it between his finger and thumb, he smiled to himself. The gecko was bleeding nicely. He wouldn't be able to keep going much further...

He tilted his head as, from further on, he heard a cry of surprise from the woman. So she's run into one of my surprises... He could only hope she hadn't been hurt too badly. Or at least, not so badly that he wouldn't be able to play with her for a bit. William cricked his neck and stood up slowly.

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"That's awesome!" Rio exclaimed, running up to join Flora. He climbed up and peered into one of the windows. "Fucking cool!"

"Yeah. It's a car. Good," Triste said flatly as she walked around the car and pulled open the front passenger door, climbing up. "As long as it gets us there, that's what matters."

Rio followed her. "Hey! I want to ride shotgun..." He trailed off when Triste turned around and fixed her eyes on him. "I'm sitting in the back," he stated after a moment.

Climbing in all the way, Triste pulled the door shut and called across to Flora. "You're driving. Get us there as quick as you can." She paused. "Actually... we need to make a detour. I'll give you the directions." They've already shown they're somewhat dependable in a firefight... and it's better to be prepared...

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Axel sighed as he leaned back on the counter. Well, we've gotta make up our minds quickly, if -" The phone besides him suddenly rang, and he jumped with a slight squeak. Hesitating slightly, he glanced around at the others and picked up the phone. "Hello?"

"Whent?" Triste's voice came through, momentarily confused, but then returning to its business-like tone almost instantly. "I assumed the police had arrested you. You and your wife must be taking refuge."

"Yeah, we... we saw that our house was bugged so we left..." Axel squinted. "How did you have Soren's number? Why're you calling? What's -"

"Vergil's in trouble," she interrupted. "I think he's been taken, and I think I know where he is, but if things go wrong, I need to know that I have back up I can rely on. Will you help?"

Axel's tail flicked. "Wait... hang on..."

"Good. Get down to the street as soon as you can. I've already got what you'll need. And there's only space for 3 of you, so choose who you want to come quickly. I'll explain more when you're here." There was a slight pause. "And we've got some help."

The dial tone buzzed in his ear as Triste hung up. Frowning, Axel stared at the phone for a second, then put it down. "Alright, ah..." He looked at the others. "I guess that solves the Vergil mystery. That was Triste. She, ah.. she says that Vergil's been taken and she needs help to get him back. And there's only room for three of us to go. So... yeah." He blinked, his brain trying to process the information that had just been thrown at him.

[aabicus (LettuceBacon&Tomato)]

"The traps...changed things, I agree..." panted Emilena. "We could try an ambush."

She regarded Vergil. "You could blend into the ground, yeah," she nodded. "But I might need to be a bit more out-of-sight." Despite all the foliage they'd dragged themselves through, her blood-stained orange fur was still a bit too bright to easily blend in with the forest floor. But the setting sun was another matter entirely...

Her gaze steeled. "Let's do it. If he targets you, try to get shot in the coat." Grasping her dagger in between her teeth, she dug her claws into the tree trunk and hoisted herself up the first yard of trunk. Then she fell off of the trunk reflexively as a pressure-activated spike strip swung out of the tree and embedded itself where she'd been seconds before. "Always spikes with this bastard..." she gritted her teeth, but the strip also gave her the handholds she needed to assume a hiding place in the canopy. She kept the sun behind her so that anyone approaching from the castle would find it even harder to spot her.

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"Quick as you can, got it!" Flora switched the radio to a heavy metal channel and popped the car into gear with a wild whoop.

The SUV peeled out of the parking lot before anyone even the chance to even look at their seatbelts. Grinning, Flora revved the engine and careened through a red light directing traffic in the wrong way. A tow truck swerved to avoid her and she flipped it off as she pumped the brakes and sent the car spinning in a perfect bootlegger's turn to hop an island and face the freeway.

Cutting off of the road and barely making a 270 degree spin onto an off-ramp, Flora took a bridge just long enough for it to level out with the highway below and allow her to drop onto the traffic flow in the opposite direction. "We'll be there in five minutes!" she announced, when even the most optimistic GPS would predict a 25-minute drive at best.

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Lily returned, yawning. "Who was that on the phone?" she asked, before the shredding scream of tires outside made her jump.

A jet black SUV went from peeling into the parking lot at 60mph to an almost perfect parallel park in the closest space to the apartment. "Hiiii!!!" waved the fuchsia folf in the driver seat, rolling down the window so the heavy bass could reverberate the parked cars in either direction. "Did Triste warn you we were coming? C'mon c'mon we gotta go, Emi's counting on us!"

"Flora?" gasped Lily. She looked at the other occupants of the apartment. "Why is she here?" Another part of her brain realized that because Flora had mentioned Emilena, it would be in the rescue team's best interest to distance themselves from Soren as quickly as possible, so she wasted no time booking it to the car.

[Nick22]

I'll come too ' Marita said ' there hadnt been really time to absorb the info about Vergil's capture when the loud music announced the SUVs arrival, and since there was only room for 3, Marita figured that she volunteer.' Hold down the Fort girls ' She said giving Marie and Rose a Hug and kiss each before throwing on a coat from the rack near the door . ' Hopefully We'll be back soon, although with our luck to date, i doubt it.'  she pulled her phone from her pocket and checked, it was fully charged. " I'll call you guys when we get  more information about what exactly is going on. " She said before heading out of the apartments front door. Within a few minutes she was outside. the SUV was parked close to the curb, so it was a simple matter of walking up to it.' She cast Flora a smile as she got in. ' Hi I'm Marita' she said as she got in the back seat." I'm friends with Lily." she paused as she got in.' nice car." She moved into the middle of the seat, to give enough room for the third member of the rescue group to squeeze in.

[bushwacked]

The sound of another trap activating reached William, and he smiled again. It sounded higher up, not like the previous one... Trying to climb trees? They usually try that last... As he approached the source of the sound, the smell of blood grew stronger, almost overwhelming. Either they were slowing down, or the traps had killed them.That would be a shame.

The ground started to slope up. William followed, tracking the stumbling footsteps and disturbed dirt left behind by his new friends. Higher... and then the ground dipped down again, leading into a small clearing. There, almost in the middle, one of his floor traps yawned open - and inside, nothing. On one of the trees creeping into the clearing, a spike panel had been activated. But again, no body. William stopped at the top of the rise and took another deep breath. The blood was thickest here. They were here. Even their tracks stopped, and he couldn't hear any more movement... He paused, then looked up slowly at the spiked tree. William winced. The sunlight bore into his sensitive eyes, blinding him. Looking away, he shook his head to clear the pain shooting through his skull, then crouched down.

"Clever," he whispered. But it won't be that easy.

Reaching a hand back into the small pouch around his waist, William pulled out a fist-sized metallic canister, then pulled back the pin on its lid. Sliding his sniper rifle off and propping it in the crook of his elbow, he tossed the can lazily into the center of the clearing - listening and watching closely for any movement as the tear gas started to leak out, spreading out in a noxious cloud.

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"Alright... crap." Axel looked at Soren and Anne. "I'll go as well, but... well, if this turns out to be a waste, we might still need our friendly neighborhood yakuza. It might still be worth trying them..." He rubbed his ear. "Alright, we'll be back as soon as we can. We'll let you know if anything comes up. Be careful guys."

When he emerged out of the building, he didn't exactly need to take a long hard look to see where the others were. Approaching the car with the booming music pouring from it, wincing from the noise, Axel squinted as he saw who was in the driver's seat. She looked familiar... wasn't she one of Emilena's gang?

"What's going... Rio?" Axel grimaced as he climbed in next to Marita.

"Hey fucker," Rio called back, squashed on the other side of Lily.

Shaking his head, Axel pulled the door shut behind him and look up front at Triste. "What the hell's going on? How do you know Vergil's been taken?"

"It's almost certain that he's been taken by a member of the Straccis," she shouted back, struggling to be heard over the heavy metal music.

"What?!"

"I said..." Giving up, Triste slammed her palm on the radio's off button, shooting a glare at Flora before glancing back at Axel. "I'll explain it on the way. Just get us there quickly," she instructed Flora.

[aabicus (LettuceBacon&Tomato)]

Emilena's eyes grew wide as she recognized the unmistakable sounds of a gas grenade. God, I'm glad I'm not Vergil right now... Luckily, since she was off the ground she had a few scarce minutes to possibly escape the cloud radius. Plus the cloud itself might provide the cover she needed.

She leaped from her current tree to the next one and bit her tongue when a razor sliced through her bicep. This tree was filled with razor-sharp wires to dissuade attempts at hiding in them. Only her thin frame gave her the area she'd already obtained. Who the hell booby-traps a forest to this degree? she thought in amazement. With no other options, she tumbled out of the tree and went crashing into a bush. A bear trap smashed shut on her tail and she almost bit her own tongue off in a teary attempt at keeping silent.

As the vestiges of the gas sent tears running down her face, she blindly tried to free herself from the bear trap and recollect her senses.

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"M'kay!" Flora pressed the pedal to the floor and sent the car squealing out of the parking lot.

Lily yelped as her forehead smashed into the headrest of the shotgun seat. "Could someone explain to me how the three of you wound up in the same place?" she asked bemusedly, staring at Rio, Flora and Triste.

"The hands of fate!" Flora pulled up to a red light and revved her engine suggestively at the muscle car beside her. The driver revved his engine in response, and the second the light turned green they sped out of the city limits. The muscle car soon found itself outmatched as Flora cut him off during a turn and he had to hit the brakes to avoid plowing into a chevron.

"Flora, your turn signal!" Lily suggested meekly.

"Turn signals are giving information to the enemy!" Flora gained a few seconds of air time when she bounced off the paved road and began plowing through a cornfield. "Lanthae forest in exactly fifteen minutes!" she announced, hitting the radio back on and increasing the volume as high as it went.