On his way back to the ballroom floor, he spies Harley's sparkling gown out of the corner of his eye. He slows and then stops, unconsciously, and just watches her for a minute. She's talking to a troll with the biggest horns he's ever seen. She's grinning, green eyes sparkling. In slow motion, she tucks a lock of black hair behind her pale ear with one finger, laughing. Details blur into a series of snapshots. Shimmering pink lips. Adorable buck teeth. Pale, freckled shoulders. She leans forward slightly, puts her hand on the troll's shoulder.
A wave of heat washes over him, from his ears to his toes. He can feel blood rushing to his face. This is unacceptable, he tells himself fiercely. Get yourself together, Dave!
He heads over to the two figures, hands slipping themselves into his pockets. He notices Jade's features come into focus as he gets closer to her- God, she's turned him into a drooling schoolboy. It's bloody pathetic. "Darling? A moment please?" he asks, smiling quickly and dismissively at the large-horned troll. "In private?"
"Uh, okay, sure. It was sure nice talking to you, Mr. Nitram!" She gives him a little wave.
"Uh, Goodbye, Ms. Harley, I hope, you'll call me about, uh, things…"
Strider's eyebrows narrow. He puts and arm over possessively and leads her to a hallway. He looks both ways, check his smart shades readout for signs of bugs or observation equipment. There's mics every few yards in the ceiling and a camera at the end of the hall, in keeping with the security plan for a hotel like this. Better be careful.
"Greg, what is this about?" she asks. It takes Dave a second to realize she's using his cover's name. He hadn't even been thinking about it. He literally didn't read his cover folder at all.
"Thought you'd want to know our friend is here, probably in a suite. I don't know where though, so let's focus on finding him instead of messing around, alright?"
"Messing around! You've been drooling over everything with breasts in this whole building- all night, Mr. Smoothy-Smooth Ladies' Man!" Her freckled cheeks are turning lightly pink with anger- or something more?
Focus, Strider.
"I- well. My methods, however they appeared to you, are effective. I got the data we needed. We can proceed now. Focus on finding Fins."
"'Kay. Let's meet up in an hour to compare notes."
"Sounds good." They get going. Dave holds the door back into the ballroom for Jade, and follows in after her. They split up among the other guests, and Dave immediately heads through the mezzanine and finds an elevator to take him to the top floor. PDFs begin popping up on his shades display: the manual for this model of elevator, the occupants of every suite in the hotel. The manual flips itself to the page on police procedures. Seems holding the 1st and 4th buttons on the second row will cause it to travel to the destination floor nonstop. Every elevator in the US has this kind of function, it's a legal requirement. The agent devil-horns the buttons and focuses on the guest roster. No Ampora, no trace of any common aliases. Was Feferi's information a false lead? Can't rule it out.
As the words appear in his mind, they simultaneously appear on screen. Really amazing, this technology… Strider grew up with IBM model Ms and ball mice and now you can control a computer with your brain. He doesn't take it for granted. He sends a quick message to CQ concerning the validity of the data from Feferi's email. It'll be a few minutes before he can expect a reply, 256-bit encryption is a pain in the ass. Floor numbers go by on the display above the elevator doors. 13. 14. 15.
He absently goes over the list of suite occupants but his thoughts turn to Jade immediately. Where had the Americans find a peach like her? His shades helpfully brought up a dossier on her, but reading the on-file info of an intelligence officer is a pointless endeavor. The only information they provide is the Geneva-required stuff: name, rank, and service number. In the picture provided she's wearing a blue flight cap that clashes horribly with her beautiful green eyes. She's grinning, buck teeth protruding slightly, almost matching the captain's bars on her cap. Her hair is pulled back in a tight military bun. Dave finds himself staring and has to shake his head once to focus up.
He checks the floors. 26. 27. 28. This is taking forever: his fingers are starting to hurt from holding the buttons.
The shades flash an alert. He's received an urgent message from CQ. "Email address in question has received no email since start of mission." What the hell? Then what was she doing earlier on her phone? He quickly reaches into his dinner jacket and pulls his iPhone out. 2 missed texts.
First one's from a number not yet in his address book. Overheard security talking about you, might want to leave 0_0 Aradia. Must be the waitress from before.
Second one's also someone he doesn't know. How're you enjoying the party? I remember you saying you wanted to sea Eridan. He's on floor 40, forgot to tell you. Pods of love! Feferi.
Forty? Dave looks up. 34. 35. 36. He un-devil-horns the buttons and clicks 40, and texts Jade to get there as quick as she can. As soon at it's sent, he looks up again. Floor 38.
His phone buzzes. Another text from Feferi.
One more thing...
Floor 39.
BY-E!
Floor 40. Elevator doors slide open. Suddenly there are a lot of trolls aiming a lot of guns at him.
Awesome.
The agent drops to his back, prone and providing as small a target as possible. His Walther is cocked by the time he hits the floor. He manages to take aim by the time any of them have fired, and by the end of the first volley there are splatters in two shades of green blood on the cheap suits of the remaining five trolls. Where he was standing a second ago is now a jagged hole in the wall and the explosive noise of gunfire has deafened him, but Strider isn't disoriented. This ain't his first rodeo.
That said, things aren't looking good. Five trolls, no exit, elevator- kind of an end-of-the-line situation, even for the great Dave Strider. But as he levels his gun at a third thug, the one on the far left pretty much explodes in a candy-apple explosion of troll blood and viscera, splattering the others with innards and drastically altering their priorities. Before the thugs get themselves fully turned around, the second one's stomach bursts outwards like a overmicrowaved marshmallow peep and stringy yellow organs carpet the ground in front of him. He emits a burble and collapses.
From somewhere, a voice. It's so loud he can hear it over the sound of the splitting pain currently occupying his ear canals. "OH YEAH, YOU MOTHERFUCKERS LIKE THAT? YOU WANNA FUCK WITH ME SOME MORE! I'M READY TO PLAY!" There's a low thoonk and a grenade flies into the chest cavity of the yellowblood, passing his ribcage like it's candy floss. The voice laughs maniacally. The troll is still alive enough that his expression of shock deepens. Dave flips the fuck over and covers his eyes and ears, just on the off chance the grenade wasn't frag or HE and thus wouldn't kill him immediately. The predictably ear-shattering BOOM splashes him with a small wave of yellow gore. The smell of burning troll guts is overwhelming.
His ears, now completely useless after the flashbang's phosphoric assault, don't pick up the events that follow, but when he turns back around there's one troll left. Before Strider's permanently shaded eyes- still working, motherfucking miracles- he's firing both revolvers at whoever or whatever just killed all of his buddies. When all twelve of his chambers are empty, he throws the heavy guns down and attempts to reach into his waistband. With a pakpakpak a zigzag of holes appear in his torso, each one emitting a deluge of brown sludgy blood. He falls to his knees, then facedown onto the floor.
There's about an inch of thick, awful-smelling blood in the elevator now, and Dave slips as he tries to rise to his feet. After a minute, he regains his balance despite his eardrums feeling like party crackers full of thumbtacks. He hobbles over the corpses to see who or what saved his life.
God.
Damnit.
It's Jade fucking Harley, still impeccably dressed in her evening gown, long hair fluttering out like a banner in the breeze of a broken window. At her feet is a small armory's worth of large, heavy machine guns, most still emitting smoke.
She's holding a compact and fixing her fucking makeup. Women.
She looks up at him. "Oh my god, Dave! I'm so glad you're alright!" She runs forward and throws herself into his arms. He reluctantly catches her, smearing multicolored blood over every inch of her that touches him. "I was afraid I'd be too late!"
"That was a hell of a thing- how did you even?" Dave began, then decided he didn't really care. "And one more thing. Whatever happened to Aikido?"
She winks. "I lied. A girl's gotta have some secrets, you know. And I used the Iron man suit. I flew up the building when I got your text. I just knew they'd be setting up an ambush- I don't know how but I knew."
"Jade… If you hadn't shown up I'd be a goner. I don't know how to thank you."
"No need. Just doing my-"
Strider sees the troll coming around the corner behind Jade before he can see them. As soon as he sees the handgun lead the rest of the troll out, he has his Walther lined up and takes the shot the instant he can see the black hair and gray skin of the troll's head. Boom, headshot.
"We gotta go!" he shouts. He realizes that he's still hugging Jade, and shouting right into her ear. "Er. We really should be going, love," he repeats, at a more conversational volume.
He grasps Harley's hand in his and starts towards the end of the hallway, littered with broken glass from the window. Before he's made it even halfway, the sound of heavy footsteps echoes from both directions. Hallway full of heavily armed thugs or 40-story fall? No, leaving isn't an option until he's found Eridan Ampora. Sliding the half-spent magazine out of his Walther, he releases Jade's hand and reaches into his coat pocket to withdraw another. He heads toward the sound of angry trolls out for his blood, sliding the fresh ammo into the magazine well, meeting the resistance and relishing the mechanical click.
"What are you doing?"
"Reloading. I suggest you do the same."