A/N: To Drake G. Reaper: Stick around and find out ;)! To everyone else who reviewed or stopped by: Thanks, for just even considering my story, it really makes my day to see people here!
Log 7777-06.
"Not only that, but there's any number of ways I could atomize, vaporize, or bludgeon you to death with my hands and my powers. I could summon a sword of pure solar energy to incinerate you, or call upon the powers of the void itself to delete you from existence." Juno says, counting off on her fingers, though it wasn't strictly necessary. The Lieutenant looked suitably pale at these revelations and was probably having second thoughts about being in the same room as her.
"However! I don't enjoy killing humans or even want to, as should be evident. How's your friend from earlier, by the way? I was a bit rushed on my shot placement, I hope he'll survive. I can heal him if you want." Perhaps she was overplaying the spastic, mile a minute personality? Maybe, maybe not, but every advantage she could get when it came to their estimations and expectations of her was good, especially if she wanted to get out of here without any loss of life or severe damage.
Not wanting to let Walker get his momentum back, she leans forward and laces her hands together, resting her chin on them. "So, what reasons can you give me that I shouldn't incapacitate you, vaporize that door, and leave so I can go back to trying to get home?"
Site 47, Blue Ridge Mountains, Virginia
Lieutenant Shane Walker
Shane was at a loss for words. Not a common thing, mind you, but this was quite the set of extenuating circumstances. The woman in front of him had just threatened to 'delete him from existence', something which he was rather fond of, and thrown him for a loop. Reasons for her not to leave? He didn't have any! She could go and steal another car and fuck off back to her own reality, for all he cared! Any reasons there might be were probably classified FAR above his level.
Just as he opened his mouth to say just that, his radio crackled and Doctor Martin ordered him back out of the room. He quickly gathered his papers and practically sprinted for the door(though he would later insist he did no such thing). Behind him, the woman from the future chuckled and waved, "See you soon, Lieutenant!"
Stepping out the door and into the hall, he felt far tenser than he probably needed to be. That woman practically radiated danger, and even without her weapons and armour, he doubted he could beat her in a straight fight. Hell, he doubted his entire team could beat her in a fight! One of the guards outside the door nudged his shoulder, shaking him out of his thoughts. "You alright, Lieutenant?"
Shane scoffs at the question, shaking his head. "Not in the fucking slightest, Corporal. This is going to get interesting before the day is out." He gathers himself and steps into the observation room, where the gaggle of researchers and scientists were talking loudly, arguing over what to do with her. Doctor Martin turned to the Lieutenant and asked, "What are your thoughts, Lieutenant? Best we can tell is that she's said nothing but the truth so far."
He grimaces, "She's dangerous alright, that last few minutes it felt like I needed to fight or run as far as I could. I've never felt anything like that before." Usually, he had a pretty good danger sense, when it came to these kinds of things, but his fight or flight reflex had been all over the board during that interview, though he hoped he kept it at least moderately well hidden.
"In any case, we've come to a decision…" Doctor Martin begins.
Site 47, Blue Ridge Mountains, Virginia
Warlock Juno
When Walker came back in, looking like he'd rather be anywhere else, and holding a hefty looking pair of handcuffs, she knew that they'd made their decision. The Foundation would rather keep her buried away in some bunker underground rather than let her keep fighting the good fight. They probably wanted those crates of documents she stole, too…
She takes a deep breath and draws slightly on the power of Solar, and while she outwardly extends her hands for him to put on the cuffs, they wouldn't stay on for long, but this was going to hurt, probably a lot. The cuffs click into place, and her Light recoils slightly from them. Interesting, they had suppressive properties, though nowhere near enough to actually contain her.
She lets herself be lead out into the hallway, well aware of the nervous tenseness between the guards and the Lieutenant. Solar Light begins to slowly heat the cuffs around her wrists, the change invisible to the plain eye. 'Surf, be ready to give me something punchy and use a little glimmer to synthesize some non-lethal ammunition for it. We can make more glimmer, and I don't want to rely on careful shot placement for this.'
Site 47, Blue Ridge Mountains, Virginia
Lieutenant Shane Walker
Shane knew something was wrong when the hallway started to heat up, the origin seemingly directly in front of him. A hand dropped down to the holster on his hip, even as the otherworldly woman in front of him slowed her walking pace, her posture changing. He swallowed nervously. "Well gentlemen, thank you for the tour, but it's past time I take my leave!"
He didn't see exactly what happened, too busy palming for his radio and his gun, but he did see a molten mass of metal drop to the floor in front of Juno, even as she reached out to either side and grabbed the Nu-7 Troopers weapons by their barrels, a groan of superheated metal accompanying the action as she melted the gun-barrels.
The Lieutenant had time to take a single step back before a heavy-looking green and gold shotgun dropped into the woman's hands, her body twisting to face him almost faster than he could blink. 'Oh fuck.' Was the only thought that went through his head as with a loud whump, a full scatter of buckshot slammed directly into his chest plate, knocking him onto his back with a wheeze. Surprisingly, he wasn't dead, or at least he didn't think he was dying.
Regardless, there wasn't much more he could do than to lie there and wonder why he wasn't dead, even if it did feel like his ribcage wanted to collapse in on itself…..
Site 47, Blue Ridge Mountains, Virginia
Warlock Juno
Juno stepped gently over the wheezing Lieutenant, the unconscious soldiers slumped on either side of the hall behind her. She expected the alarms to start ringing any moment now, so she needed to get moving. If memory served, there was only one entrance to the facility, and she needed to make it there before they could either lock it down or disable it. She pumped the shotgun in her hands, reassured by its balanced weight. Surf materialized a new shell in her hand, and she slipped it into the breach, glad that Surf could make rubber buckshot.
She was also incredibly glad that it was powerful enough to put these guys on their asses without hurting them permanently. She set off at a slow jog, and about fifteen seconds after the first shot was fired, the alarms started blaring through the halls, the sound ringing in her ears. Ahead of her, two unarmed men in lab coats stumbled out of a room on the right, giving her a bewildered and panicked look.
No weapons, no problem. She completely bypassed them, ignoring their shouts and twisting away from the braver of the two, who reached out to grab her hoodie. Slipping through a closing door, she continued on through the beige hallways, navigating purely on memory. Another researcher lunges out of a receded doorway at her, and for a brief moment manages to grapple with her.
Letting go of the shotgun in a shimmer of transmat, she meets the brave but clearly out of his depth researcher's attack, twisting him around and down onto the floor. A keycard of some kind slips out of his jacket and onto the floor, and with a final blow to his head, she knocks him unconscious and grabs the keycard. She had no idea what it was used for, but it might come in handy.
The next major roadblock to present itself was a group of what appeared to be security forces, stacked behind barricades in front of what was her only probable exit out of the base. They didn't seem very heavily armed and armoured, but she didn't really have anything that could disable all of them without injuring them, and she couldn't tank all that fire for more than a few seconds without her armour, maybe even with it.
Oh, what she would have given to use those Stun Grenades Titans were so fond of. Dawnblade and Nova Bomb weren't exactly suited to non-lethal fighting, and she'd have to severely underpower her other abilities to prevent herself from vaporizing these poor sods. Unless…
"Surf, can you get into their network yet, or do I need to find you a terminal?" She asks, backing off of the entrance and jogging back down the hall the way she came, to where she'd been attacked by the last researcher. She pulls out the keycard she'd picked up, a bright yellow plastic thing, with a scanner stripe on one side. Last time she'd seen something like this was an old Tech Museum on the Old American East Coast when she'd been tracking down a Rogue Lightbearer.
As if to mock her, the first time she tried the card she got a bad read, swiping it through too fast. She made a face at the scanner, rather petty of her, admittedly, but swiped the card again and the door opened. She stepped into what for all intents and purposes appeared to be an office and looked around. She was alone, thankfully, and there were no cameras in here that she could see.
Her Ghost appeared above her head in a brief shower of light, single eye scanning around the room to locate the terminal built into the central desk in the room. She watches the manifestation of Light shoots a beam of data into the computer, interfacing with it in a way no computer of this time was designed to, yet making it work in ways even Juno barely understood.
"I'm in!" Came the reply from her companion, and he flew back towards her and swirled around her. "I've got access to the cameras, doors, and a map of the facility layout."
Juno smirked, "Good. Now, just how far underground are we, and are there any other exits?"
Site 47, Blue Ridge Mountains, Virginia
Lieutenant Shane Walker
Shane woke with a pounding headache and a very sore chest. Pushing himself up with a wince, he notes that the other Nu-7s(not members of his team, thankfully), are still unconscious, their melted guns fused onto the floor and rapidly cooling. Thankfully, his own sidearm was still intact, on the floor a few feet away, where he'd dropped it when he'd been shot in the chest.
Speaking of, the lack of any actual damage to his chest plate was rather surprising, especially considering the calibre of the shotgun she'd shot him with. Regardless, he was beyond happy that she'd decided to load non-lethal ammunition, though it still had hurt like hell.
Pulling himself to his feet, he swipes up his gun, and steps off in the direction of the entrance, intending to find the damned woman and do something he'd probably regret.
Ten minutes of walking and several unconscious researchers later, Shane was almost shot as soon as he rounded the final corner to the exit, saved only by the fact that the Facility Security in charge had better-held trigger fingers than some MTF Operators he'd known. After grabbing a spare rifle, and briefing them on what he knew, he set back out with the company of two Security personnel to search for Juno, while the rest kept the facility locked down.
Nu-7 reinforcements were on the way, but apparently, someone had found their way into the security systems and was playing hell with the security doors and internal comms, making it hard to communicate internally or externally. He would bet that it was Juno and her 'Ghost', probably having found an unlocked computer somewhere.
Speaking of, he glared at the security door in front of him, blocking them off from actually passing back into the central area of the Site, as he swiped his keycard repeatedly, to no effect. Just as he's about to go for yet another swipe with the card, the gate sounds its opening alarm and the door slides to the side. Shane's vision is filled with white as a junior researcher is thrown bodily through the doorway and into him.
Wheezing for a moment, he shoves the groaning woman off of his chest and reaches for his gun again, then freezes. He'd found the Warlock alright, but she'd at some point put her armour back on, and he was suddenly much less confident. (Later, he'd look back on this and realize that she could've summoned her armour at any time)."Hello Lieutenant! We just keep running into each other, don't we?"
Site 47, Blue Ridge Mountains, Virginia
Warlock Juno
Any other time, Juno would've made a joke about fates intertwined, but now really wasn't the time to be lackadaisical. Shotgun held across her chest, she sighs as the two greys wearing security personnel start yelling for her to drop the gun. Pumping the action, she raises Felwinter's Lie and puts a scattering of rubber buckshot into the closer of the two's chest, and he goes down with a pained cry.
Her shields flare as the remaining one opens fire with a submachine gun of a model she didn't recognize, doing minimal damage to the protective energy layer. She ejects the spent shell casing and fires another, winging the poor man and sending him to the floor. She draws out two more shells and slides them into the gun, then secures it on her back.
Juno reaches down and heaves the Lieutenant up, his armour and size irrelevant in the face of paracausal strength and endurance. If the fates wanted him to keep running into her so badly, she'd oblige them this once, and bring him along for the ride. The word kidnapping left a bad taste in her mouth, so she silently decided, much to Surf's endless amusement, to refer to the action as 'information gathering'.
He protested rather feebly(in her opinion), but given the beating he'd taken over the last hour, and the fact that he was a plain old standard human, there wasn't much of a comparison to be made. She did, however, make sure to pluck his gun from its holster and have it transmatted into her inventory. It was probably incredibly weak compared to Light-Forged weapons, but it would be an interesting piece to analyze.
The man on her shoulder drives an elbow into her back, and she winces beneath her helmet, jabbing him in the side with her other hand. "Oi, knock that off."
The grunt of "No!" sounded almost petulant, though she couldn't really fault him for struggling. With the man on her shoulder trying to unbalance her, escape, or just generally be an annoyance, a steady walking pace was the best she could manage, and so walk she did, straight towards the entrance.
It didn't occur to Juno until she was near to the entrance that the Lieutenant was well within arms reach of her shotgun, and by that point, he'd noticed it too. She cursed and tried to drop the now armed soldier, but the sound of the slide pumping and the subsequent gunshot put that on the backburner.
Felwinter's Lie was an interesting weapon. Forged by the Iron Lords during the Dark Age, the shotgun was capable of killing far more powerful beings than Juno. Though loaded with rubber buckshot as it was, it still was a Light-Forged weapon, and when Shane fired it, it nearly dislocated his arm with the recoil, even as Juno's shields shattered and she fell to one knee, her left leg numb and aching.
"Bloody fool! That gun will shatter your bones if you're not careful!" She shouts at him, instinctively casting a Healing Rift to counter any damage the shotgun may have caused beyond the superficial. The Nu-7 Operator grimaced from his own position, pushing himself onto his feet and grabbing the gun again before the Warlock could take it back. He rolls his shoulder and winces, that really had hurt.
Internally, Juno is slightly concerned that her escape might end more abruptly than planned. Even loaded with non-lethal shells, Felwinter's Lie could stop a rampaging Titan in their tracks, and it would probably be able to knock her onto her ass just as easily, if not knock her out. Luckily, there was a very easy solution. "Hey Surf, put Felwinter's away, would you?"
The Lieutenant cried out in surprise when the gun in his hand disappeared in a shower of light as if it had never been there in the first place. At the moment that he was distracted, Juno was suddenly in front of him, moving faster than a standard human possibly could. A palm strike to a weak point in his armour drove the breath from his lungs and quite possibly broke a rib or two, too.
"Sorry, but you're too much trouble awake." She mutters, throwing his injured and now very much incapacitated form over her shoulder again. She steps around a corner and immediately twists around, covering the Lieutenant as a fusillade of fire sweeps over her shields, the immediately hostile greeting not unexpected. "Surf, tap their comms, put me through."
She can see several soldiers wince as two completely foreign communications systems momentarily clash before her signal goes through and Surf gives her the okay. "Unless you want your Lieutenant dead so bloody much, stop shooting at me!"
It took about thirty seconds, and Juno had grown concerned they might actually break through her shields, but they did stop shooting, and she let out a silent sigh of relief. Turning back to face them, Walker still on her shoulder, she glares at the security forces surrounding her in a half-circle. "Let me leave, and no further harm will come to you all. I have no quarrel with you, and I do not want to fight you."
One man steps forward from the line of barricades, a rifle held slack in his arms. "What do you want with the Lieutenant, then? You're not leaving with him, not today."
Juno raises an eyebrow, this one was brave. Not terribly smart if he thought they could actually stop her, but brave. "Don't worry, he's simply….insurance. I'll leave him outside, but the chances of you letting me past without a hostage or some other bargaining chip are….low."
The still-unnamed Security Officer seems to concede that point readily enough. He sighs, "Sorry, but I cannot let you pass without authorization from the Site Administrator, which I currently don't have."
The Warlock smiles under her helmet, getting his hint. There's a faint flicker of purple over her armour as she flips the 'switch' in her mind from Solar to Void Light. She steps forward, slowly picking up the pace as she drew nearer. The man tenses, and someone, probably panicking, fires a single, hesitant shot. It goes nowhere near her as she jumps up, and Blinks the 10 meters through the line of barricades, appearing behind the Security Forces as shouts of alarm echo into the room.
Someone tries to take another shot at her, but the man from before shouts for them to hold their fire, not wanting to risk hitting the Lieutenant. She slips into the elevator with the still unconscious Trooper and mashes the up button, a well of relief rising up in her chest. She wasn't out of this yet, but the biggest hurdle was over with.
The elevator dings and the doors open a moment later, letting her out into the mountain air once more. She slides the man off her shoulder and onto the ground, resting him against a wall. She pats him down for a moment, and draws out a small electronic device, a cellphone, she believed it was called. "Surf, can you interface with this?"
Her expression took on a mischievous tone, and as the Ghost appeared, she explained her plan. When Surf asked for her reasoning, her simple answer was, "There's something special about this one. He's interesting."
A/N:And that's a wrap! Bloody hell, this chapter was a rough write. I'm not entirely satisfied with it, but this is going to be the best I can do without pushing it back another couple days. Classes have been beating my ass recently, so I apologize for how late this is anyways. As always, reviews, comments, and criticisms are always welcome, and Juno and Surf (and Shane) will return!
FYI: This chapter is un-edited, and will likely be updated once I can actually motivate one of my muses to get off their asses and check it over.