AN: New chapter.
"Trail ends here!" Canine kicked down the remains of the shattered door, had spotted where Bravo must've toppled through. He didn't enter the room, caught sight of the hole in the middle of the floor, the broken floorboards around it that must've crumbled under Bravo's weight, close to 300 pounds with all of his gear on. More than enough to shatter the floor if he fell on old boards like the ones in front of him.
"How far down does it go!" Alpha called out from the hall, a boom shaking this part of the castle as he blew another hole in the building, dropped the temperature closer and closer to freezing with yet another massive hole courtesy of his latest explosive renovation. He could dimly here something approaching shrieking, bit down on a grin at the fact he could cause pain to the BOWs who had taken Bravo, who had made this part of Hound Wolf Squad's mission so much harder.
He didn't get cocky, kept his rifle at the ready.
"Checking!" Canine took one hand off his weapon, Bravo's weapon really, to rip a chemlight off his vest, cracking it before he pulled it off. He shook it to activate it before he let it fall down the hole, watched its descent into the darkness with rapt attention. It fell and fell before it bounced, landed on the ground.
"OW! Fuck. Are they throwing shit at me now!" He recognized the voice.
"BRAVO! This is Canine!" He called down to the hall, dropped down to lay on the floor so he could shout down. "What's your status!"
He saw the dim speck of the light move, as Bravo picked it up.
"Switch channels!" Ethan hooked the chemlight to his vest as he shouted off the new number up to Canine, the one he found that actually worked down here. He also moved away from the hole in the floor/ceiling he probably should've moved away from about ten minutes ago. He went over to grab his helmet from the wooden, and bloody, table in the cell with them. Chris was probably going to give him Hell for taking off his helmet in a possible Mold exposed area but he would deal with that later.
It wasn't like they didn't come here ready, that they didn't have enough serums to go around for him and the civilians with him.
"Bravo, this is Canine, what's going on?" He could still dimly hear Canine's voice as it traveled down the hole, was surprised he had ignored it earlier when he must've been shouting.
"I'm still breathing. I'm also in a fucking dungeon. Civilians present, 8 in total. Bioweapons outside the cell that I've been beating off with a fucking stick anytime they get too close." Ethan spared a glance out to the darkness outside, debated throwing a chemlight out once again.
He decided against it. Again.
He just didn't know what would be drawn to the light, what he would need to deal with.
If he even could deal with whatever came next.
"What's your weapon status?"
"I've got a pistol, a knife, and my stick. That's about it. Those BOWs who attacked us must've managed to snatch my WCX, maybe they gnawed through the damn sling. I don't know what they did but I don't have it anymore. Lost my SYG-12 when they grabbed me so its somewhere in that dining room." Ethan spared a look to the table, the rest of his equipment he had stripped off and been going through when he wasn't fighting whatever was outside the cell. So far, it didn't seem like the flies had damaged much of anything. Even his armor was in better condition than he thought it would be. A 'perk' of his attackers being sadists. They didn't think being causing pain. "Still going through the rest of my gear but it looks like it's in pretty good shape."
"We've got your weapons up here." Canine closed his radio, Ethan guessing Alpha had walked up.
"Sit tight Bravo. We'll get a rope down to you. Haul you back up." Alpha came on over the comms after a few moments of silence, where Canine must've been explaining the situation to him.
"Negative." Ethan shook his head even if he knew they couldn't see him. "Civvies go first. From what they've told me, this castle isn't anything but a hellhole. No lab, no info for us….and no Pup. The village picked up around the same timeframe of when Ace would've shown back up with Pup but no one came up to the castle. They said a kid was never here, couldn't be here. Those psychos that's been chasing us have been the only ones here for the last week. We wasted our time coming up here. Well past time for us to go."
"…Alright. Your call. If we're going to do this, we need something to bring them up and send back down to you. You got a basket or something down there? We've got the rope and can work something out up here if you've got something down there for us to lift. What's their status?" Alpha at least wasn't arguing with him, disagreeing with getting possible hostages out of harm's way.
"Ambulatory. I've already treated them, cuts and bruises mostly. One broken arm." Ethan looked around the dungeon cell for something, anything to make this mass exodus easier. "As for the basket: I may have something." He turned to the floor, to the pile he had landed on when he had fallen down here originally.
"Good news for once." Alpha cracked and shook another chemlight, dropped it down the hole to see how deep it was for himself. "When you've got something, let us know. We'll sit tight up here."
"Roger." Ethan set to work, could hear Chris and Dion doing the same up above.
AN: New chapter next week.
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Peace.