Ifrit Goes Shopping.

It has been a long day for the doctor, and the sacrifice of so many RI operators in the Chernobog incident still weighs on his mind. He can't help but feel guilty for their sacrifice, although he had no control over the matter. The landship is getting ready to depart from Lungmen. He slumps back in his chair wondering how it came to this, wondering what Kal'tsit is thinking. Suddenly, he hears a loud hurried knock on his door. He quickly gathers his thoughts and himself, fixing his posture and putting on his mask, then he speaks.

D: "Who is it?"

I: "It's me, Ifrit. Open this door already!"

D: "Alright, alright, no need to be pushy." He says as he sets the door to open.

D: "How can I help you, Ifrit?"

I: "So, Silence is out on a field operation today and big sister Joyce fell asleep again. So, I thought that maybe I wanna go out today! You know, see this hole we've been stuck in for the past month.

D: "Don't you think Silence would be fuming if she ever found out? She definitely wouldn't like it if you went out alone."

I: "Yeah, yeah, I know. That's why I'm here right now. I'm asking you not to tell her about it. I won't be late, maybe a couple of hours at best! I've saved up some money and wanted to see what I can buy in this place."

D: "I see. Well, you appear pretty excited and I would feel bad if I let you down-"

I: "cut the crap, doc"

D: "Fine, I have a single condition. You take Eyjafjalla with you."

I: "Eyja?!" She exclaimed loudly.

I: "Why her? Come on, she's blind and deaf. You wanna make me babysit your pet rock too?"

D: "Calm down, Ifrit. Also, that's pretty rude. Eyja is usually stuck around here in a lab all day long and I think she needs to go out some. Otherwise, I won't let you go."

I: "Ugh, fine. Just tell her to do as I say, okay?!"

D: "Fine, fine. Just have fun you two. And watch out for Eyja, she might need some guidance. I trust you to keep her and yourself safe."

Ifrit curses under her breath as she slams down the door behind her.

D: "Did... she just slam my electric door...?" The doctor wonders out loud in confusion, before sighing and going back to his train of thought.

After that conversation, Ifrit goes back to her room. Her plans have just been thrown into chaos. Ifrit heard about a Rhine Lab facility in downtown Lungmen from some operators in the cafeteria and after inquiring a little, decided that it was time for some sweet revenge. She spent the last few days setting up a plan to infiltrate the facility and set fire to the entire place. However, now that she has to bring Eyja with her, everything just got a lot more complicated. She sits down on her bed, looking back over her notes waiting for Eyja to arrive. Shortly after that, she hears a light knock on her dorm door.

E: "Excuse me, is this miss Ifrit's room? I'm sorry if I interrupted you."

Ifrit rolls her eyes and walks over to the door opening it to reveal the petite Caprinae holding onto her stick with a few of her little sheep around her.

I: "Yeah, this is Ifrit's place. Are you ready to go?" Ifrit says in an annoyed manner.

E: "Is everything alright, miss Ifrit? You seem annoyed." she speaks softly.

I: "No, no, I just dozed off for a second there. So, you ready to go or not?!"

D: "Yes, I'm ready now. I just brought one of my little sheep to help me walk around. If that's alright with you."

I: "Yeah, yeah, whatever is fine. I guess it's finally time to go and have some fun! Follow along little sheep or you might get left behind!"

Ifrit grabs her large bag, in which her flamethrower is stored, then she grabs Eyja's hand and quickly walks down the hallways of Rhodes Island leaving to do some quality shopping.

Ifrit and Eyja swiftly take a cab to the downtown area of Lungmen. Eyja excitedly showers Ifrit with questions about their destination while Ifrit begrudgingly answers, knowing that she's about to absolutely ruin Eyja's day. However, there's a silver lining. Eyja is known for her very strong fire arts, capable of raining flames upon her enemies. That must be much more effective at burning down a Rhine Lab facility than Ifrit's flamethrower. Along the way, Ifrit contemplates how to get Eyja to help but can't come to an answer.

After they arrive, Ifrit takes Eyja all around Lungmen as they eat street food and go shopping for some new clothes and buy gifts for some of the operators back in RI. Eventually, Ifrit leads Eyja away from the main downtown area and heads toward the infected slums.

E: "Say, Ifrit, where are we going now? This area seems less uhh busy?"

I: "Oh, don't worry about it! We're going to a secret place to buy a gift for the doc of course!"

E: "Oh? A gift for Senpai? What will we be buying?"

I: "Oh, it's a surprise! You'll have to wait and see", Ifrit giggles to herself.

Soon, the duo arrives at a small street where the RL lab is. However, it's disguised as a waste disposal facility. Ifrit looks around and can't find any obvious entrance to the lab, so she decides to sit around and watch the entrance, hoping that someone scientist-like walks in that she can follow.

Ifrit looks around her for a second before spotting a restaurant nearby. "Huh, There's a restaurant here. Should be a pretty good place to stay for a while, dontcha think?" She says as she turns to Eyja who seems distracted.

"Say, Eyja, are you hungry? Cause I'm STARVING here!" Ifrit exclaims loudly, startling Eyja who was deep in thought.

E: "Eek! Uh, sure! I'm sorry, I was distracted a bit. Yeah, I'm also hungry. Let's go!"

I: "Distracted? By what, you can't be thinking about boring lab stuff while you're out here with me! Leave all that boring stuff behind!"

E: "Oh, Uhm, sorry, but I was wondering what I wanted to get for Senpai. I don't know where you're taking us or what they sell, but I was just letting my mind go."

I: "pfft, booring! Come on, trust me here, won't you? Tell you what, we race to that restaurant over there and whoever gets there last has to pay! See ya there!"

E: "Wh- wait for a second! I can't see!"

But before Eyja can get her sentence out, Ifrit already started sprinting toward the restaurant and got herself a seat. A little after that, Eyja slowly found her way there.
Eyja shouts at Ifrit; "What was that!? Why did you get all sprint-y all of the sudden?!"

I: "It's because you just stood there like a rock, so I thought to get your blood pumping for a second. Sit down, I was joking anyway. I wouldn't make you pay."

E: "That's not what I was talking about," Eyja shakes her head while sitting down
E: "I'm just confused why you'd do that out of nowhere. You know It's already hard for me to follow you."

I: "Yeah, yeah, I getcha. Sorry."

They both sit down and order some food, while Ifrit closely watches the entrance to the facility. A while later, Ifrit spots a man dressed in a white lab coat walking toward the back of the facility.

I: "Sorry, Eyja, I gotta go to the bathroom real quick. Don't eat my food okay!?" Ifrit says as she practically jumps out of her seat and runs off.

Eyja doesn't even have a chance to respond. Quickly, Ifrit moves over to the disposal facility and starts shadowing the man. She places one hand on her flamethrower back and clutches it tight as she slowly follows the white coat. The man walks behind the facility and walks up to a black steel door and enters a code on a small device on the wall before the door opens and he enters. Ifrit can see the code and quickly recites "3758" to herself. She slowly gets up from her hiding spot and slowly walks towards the back door. She types in the code and before her, the door clicks open, allowing her to walk inside. As she enters, the door slowly closes behind her.

Ifrit stands in the corridor, a sterile white with small light bulbs extending 100 meters or so ahead of her, sloped downwards, with nothing but the dim light from the lights. She takes a deep breath as she begins walking forward.

As ifrit slowly descends the stairs, the stench from the waste facility slowly vanishes, and she can breathe again easily. Further down, she starts to see the lights pick up in intensity until the tunnel downwards opens into a large room. It seems to be a reception area of sorts with a few scientist-looking dudes resting on some benches and some infected-looking folk tied down on some stretchers being transported. The room has two guards resting and two mechanical-looking frames standing beside the wall, however, they look empty. Ifrit quickly concludes that she can't take them by herself, at least not all of them. She retreats back up the stairs and starts to think of her next move.
I: "Well, it's not gonna be easy to get this place burned up. I can at least get it exposed. The waste disposal facility covering up this place might be a much easier target."

She leaves the corridor and walks back to the door of the facility. However as she opens it, she sees a man outside. He looks similar to the other guards inside the facility, and he looks down at her in surprise. Immediately, Ifrit's flamethrower finds itself in her hands as she hits the man in the stomach with it. Before he can react, he's suddenly engulfed in Originium-fueled flames. his screams are drowned out by the fire that burns him. Ifrit quickly runs off leaving him to deal with his problem. she jumps into the facility through one of the ground floor windows with a simple goal in mind. Find the most flammable part of the facility. As she breaks in, she hears alarm sirens all over the facility, as guards run towards the back to check on the screaming. Determined, she runs through the facility, hitting anyone in her way and setting fire to the piles of trash and waste all over the facility. until she sees the originium reactor room. However, with guards outside, a traditional entrance won't be easy. Ifrit grabs her flamethrower and takes off the gas tank, manipulating flames near the fuel of it and throwing it at the guard, causing a massive explosion that lets her run in as she readjusts her backup fuel tank. Quickly, she starts firing up the reactor, causing it to overheat. alarm signs flare up as fire catches onto the fuel pump and fire spreads across it.

From the outside, Eyja notices the commotion near the facility and can smell the intense fire and heat coming from the factory. Workers are rushing out and guards are rushing in wildly. Eyja notices a unique smell in the fire, something that she had helped the engineering department with back in the day. This fire has the special agent used to facilitate Ifrit's control of her flamethrower, it must be Ifrit. She jumps out of her seat and rushes towards the factory. She slips in during the chaos of the people at the entrance and tries to glance around looking for Ifrit but her eyes fail her, suddenly she hears the loud echo of an explosion and the loud footsteps of mechanical bodies running towards them. The smoke causes Eyja to cough wildly but she holds her breath and does her best to follow the mechanical sounds.

on Ifrit's side, she's successfully gotten the reactor overheating and she quickly tries to escape. However, her path is blocked by three approaching guards inside those large mechanical suits she saw in the facility. They see her and one of them launches a rocket towards her, barely missing her and slamming against the reactor. Ifrit holds tightly onto her flamethrower as her body heats up. She aims it at one of the mechanical bodies letting the flames from it melt the metal, but it's not enough. A hand reaches through and grabs onto her shirt, pulling her up. Ifrit quickly uses her flames to slice the part of the fabric being held as she jumps back into the reactor room. another two rockets fly into the room sending her flying to the back of the room. She grabs her flamethrower and dashes to the door, sliding under the large mechanical soldier in front of her, before being caught by another rocket launched by one of the soldiers. She aims her flamethrower at the rocket launcher mounted on their shoulder, setting it ablaze. The fire catches onto one of the rockets causing it to detonate, splitting the soldier's armor in half and killing them. the mechanical soldier behind Ifrit grabs her from her arm and raises her up, crushing her arm as it tightens around her. Ifrit lets out a scream that's suddenly drowned out by a fiery explosion that splits the man's arm off his body, Eyja slings one of her fireballs at the soldier causing him to drop Ifrit, who grabs onto her arm in pain. The third soldier tries to stop Eyja but Ifrit quickly jumps on his back and blasts her flamethrower through the cracks in his armor, melting it onto his body. Ifrit clutches her flamethrower with her surviving arm and runs back towards Eyja, the two of them running away from the facility as the reactor reaches critical condition. once ifrit and Eyja reach the exterior of the facility, a massive roar is heard from inside the factory as it all explodes in a blaze of originium-infused flames that rises up into the skies of Lungmen.

an hour later, Eyja and Ifrit are sighted walking back toward Rhodes island. Eyja and her sheep are helping Ifrit walk back towards the landship when they were encountered by three guards that were out on patrol outside the landship. They were quickly moved to the infirmary and the doctor was informed.

Ifrit and Eyja are sitting in one of the infirmary rooms receiving treatment. The doctor knocks on the door and walks in, looking at Eyja and Ifrit in disappointment.
D: "Ifrit, Eyja, how do you feel?"

E: "We're alright, senpai. Th- thanks for coming to check on us."
Ifrit sits in silence, holding onto the cast on her broken arm.
D: "I assume you girls weren't involved in the fire that happened in the slums earlier, are you?"
I: "I already reported it when sister Joyce questioned me, there's no need to question us."
Eyja stares at Ifrit in stunned silence.
D: "Honestly, I'm just wondering why and how. Why do this, Ifrit? Are you trying to get us on a bad food with Wei?! We're already there dammit!"
I: "I'm sorry dammit, I didn't mean for it to come to this! There's no way they know it was me and Eyja. There's a reason I blew up the damned place!"
D: "You know, I kinda follow the logic here, but I'm still not convinced."

I: "Look, it happened okay?! I have my reasons."
D: "Okay, well why bring Eyja into it then? You got her injured!"
E: "Senpai, it's okay. I just wanted to help Ifrit.'
I: "No, Eyja… it was my fault. Also yours you bastard! You're the reason Eyja's here! I wanted to go alone for a reason!"
D: "Well, I didn't know you were gonna do this!"
E: "please, it's alright, I'm fine."
D: "Ifrit, I imagine you're gonna give me a *very* good reason for why you did this. Cause I need a good one not to tell Silence."
I: "Y- Yes! I'll make sure to. Please don't tell her…"
D: "I'll be waiting for you in my office once you're better. For now, get better…"
I: "Fine, I'll try my best anyway..."