The door to Ingram's office flew open without ceremony, slamming against the wall behind it and sticking, the doorknob forcing itself through the formerly pristine drywall. The doctor himself was startled, jumping from his seat and dropping the pen he had been holding previously after making a brief show of juggling it. Lyla stormed across the office with Reno struggling to catch up in her wake, wild-eyed and looking as though he was caught somewhere between concerned and confused as Lyla slammed both hands down against the desk.
"What do you know about Project Pandora, Charles," she demanded, leaning so that she met him at eye-level. Ingram rolled back in his chair to distance himself, giving her an astonished look.
"Pandora? We've located it?" he asked, eyes widening. "Remarkable. Really!"
The rest of the group filtered in a step or so behind, assembling in the doorway with an oddly practiced ease. The make up of two longstanding groups, falling into line together.
"You were looking for this?" Lyla asked him, her voice little more than a low growl in her throat. "I thought we were cleaning up after Hojo!"
"Pandora and Prometheus are a part of that," Ingram began calmly, rising from his seat and speaking as one might to an angry child. Slowly, carefully. No sudden movements. "With two of the project directors dead and one retired, someone has to take care of them. Two years already-" he paused. "Were they alright?"
She stared at him a moment, stunned. "No," she said icily. "We pulled the plug and put them out of their misery. That's what this whole thing was supposed to be about."
Ingram looked for a moment as though he had been slapped across the face. "You what?" he asked after a brief silence, horrified.
"We killed them," she snapped in reply. "Like all the rest."
"No," he shot back, "Not like all the rest. Kill the monsters, the ones too far gone. That's why I chose you, Caraway, you're too soft to kill the people! You were supposed to bring them here unscathed like the others!"
"There weren' much tae bring ye," Cait Sith volunteered from Vincent's shoulder doubtfully, watching the exchange.
The dark man lifted a hand, letting it linger between the pair at the desk and the small robot when they looked up.
"Were you also hoping to get to my father about this project?" she demanded, leaning further and drawing a sneer out of Ingram in reply.
"He's the only surviving director. I had hoped that once we were working on his former project he would help us to locate the missing prototype," he explained, his words short, clipped, far colder than she had ever heard from him before.
Lyla pushed herself from the desk and took a step backwards, nearly colliding with Reno - a narrow miss only because he jumped back to allow her space, though did not retreat to fall in line with the others, one hand clenched into a tight fist at his side, the other creeping towards his nightstick. Just in case.
"There's no need," Lyla spat in the doctor's direction. "I'm her."
Ingram went perfectly still, watching the pair of them for a series of moments that seemed to last an eternity. His rage dissolved, scowl fading to be replaced by something else entirely. A smile. "Of course. ... of course. No one would ever think to look so close, would they?" he mused aloud. He chuckled, once. A second time. "That's... divine," he laughed. "Perfect. A shame... aside from being so soft, you showed great promise. ... consider this a greater contribution to science, my dear, than you could have ever made otherwise."
"Lassie!" Cait Sith shouted, displaced with a bump into the President's lap as Vincent darted forward, drawing his gun.
"You're taking her nowhere." He growled softly, leveling Cerberus at the scientist's skull.
Rufus closed both hand around Cait Sith's middle, shifting him to the crook of one arm so that he could lift his own gun, aiming it at the man behind the desk. "Professor Ingram," he began coolly. "Consider yourself fired."
Ingram let out a peal of laughter; perhaps most unsettling was the fact that it was warm, congenial. "You realize that won't stop me from salvaging the project, Mr. President."
"I can think of a few things that would," Lyla snarled, causing Reno to whip his head in her direction as she leapt across the desk, grabbing hold of Ingram and slamming him against the wall soundly, a sharp crack splitting the air. "I admired you. Defended you, trusted you. I wanted to be like you," she hissed, shoving him a second time. "You're another Hojo. Another monster to be 'neutralized,'" she paused, "sir."
He laughed again, even with her hands pressed against his throat. Just as suddenly as she had leapt at him, he wrenched himself from her grip and pusher her downwards, grabbing her by the hair and slamming her head against the top of his desk. "So foolish. Where is your moral high ground now, woman? Kill me and you're no better than any of those you're always speaking out against. Though I doubt that you could achieve it if you tried."
"You get the FUCK back," Reno shouted, lurching forward to strike at Ingram with his nightstick, a flicker of electricity sending sparks along the shaft.
Rude cleared the wheelchair with surprising ease, though he lingered by the president's side rather than leap into the fray. Fists were too close a call at this juncture, he could serve the purpose better by blocking the door.
For the moment.
Vincent shot without pretense, moving to the side in a crouch to avoid the off chance Reno might throw himself into the line of their fire.
"Not all of us claim the moral highground." He said simply, unblinking as the rounds went off with a deafening bark. "Doctor."
The shot caught him in the chest, causing him to stumble backwards and release his hold on his former assistant, leaving her to crumple to the ground beneath the desk. Ingram merely looked down at his wound, disbelieving, snapping his gaze upward when another shot connected, this time with his abdomen - from Rufus' direction.
The president's face was calm and emotionless as it had ever been.
"Inconvenient," Ingram remarked, looking down again to watch as blood blossomed over his shirt. Even from where the others stood, his skin could be seen knitting itself back together through the hole the shot had made in the cloth.
"Reno." Vincent's tone was warning. He shot again, twice. These aimed at the shoulder and the gut.
"Grabber, Laddie! Grabber!" Howled Cait Sith, pulling his megaphone free of- well. Where ever he pulled it from.
"Yeah, yeah, I'm on it," Reno shouted back, already in the process of diving to the floor to collect Lyla from beneath the desk. She resisted at first, trying to use the floor to push herself back to her feet, but her head swam and she collapsed against him when he hoisted her up, pulling her back towards the door.
The bullets struck, hitting their mark perfectly. With each strike, he stumbled back. Each time he bled. Each time, he healed. He looked up and met Vincent's gaze, laughing. "You'll waste all your bullets," he lectured. "Seems a silly thing." Even as he spoke, something about him began to change. He grew taller by inches. His features longer, his countenance growing somehow darker. He raised his right hand as it erupted into spindly claws, skin turning to pitch black, nails like knives that gleamed, dully, as though slicked with oil. The rest of him followed suit.
Vincent narrowed his eyes. "Nice trick." He said evenly, tucking his gun away. "Reeve."
"A-aye?" Cait Sith asked, clambering up on the back of Rufus' chair to inspect Lyla worriedly as Reno reached their hold.
"I need you to make a phone call."
If the robot needed to know who, he didn't have the chance to ask. The dark man howled, his body buckling in against itself as his joints reshaped, color soaking into his skin and erupting at the ends, taking shape in sharp, white horns and too many needle teeth.
"W-whoa!" Reno yelped, moving to give Cait Sith better clearance as he carefully propped Lyla up against the wall. Rufus moved his own chair in front of them, aiming and firing off three more shots at the professor. Even if they didn't hurt him, they would slow him down, for a moment at least.
Lyla groaned as her head lightly connected with the wall behind her. "Nn. Stop him," she murmured, her head dropping.
"Yeah, yeah, we've got this, princess," Reno assured her, awkwardly patting one shoulder as he looked over his own to see Vincent complete his shift. "... looks like Vincent has this pretty under control. Hey, stay conscious, alright? No passing out!"
Ingram smiled at the change, showing teeth laced with the black ooze of pollution, malleable strings that stitched his lips together over so many white knives beneath. "Oh. I knew you would be perfect. Cutting you up will be a pleasure, indeed. I ache to see how your insides work," he hissed, and that stitching broke and reformed itself with each word, dripping, so much like the rest of him.
The Galian beast snarled at him, all razor blades and tightly controlled force, leaping across the desk with a shift of it's powerful, bent legs.
Reaching across the small divide the robot grabbed Reno's phone from his breast pocket, flipping it open and punching a number by memory.
"Hello?" He called into the receiver. "H-hey! M'callin' for Vin!"
In time with the sound of his name the creature howled again, the sound echoing off the walls in jarring vibrations that shook the frames against the walls. It lashed out, sinking one clawed hand deep into the ooze of the professor.
He was met by the pierce of blades, Ingram shoving one hand up through the beast's stomach from beneath, grinning his tar-blackened grin as he twisted his hand and clawed sideways, ripping it from the flesh a moment later only to reach out and strike at the beast's face. He brought his own legs up to thrust hard against his opponent's stomach, an attempt to force his way out from beneath.
It grunted, letting itself be moved rather than take the brunt of the hit, circling back to leap again, sinking claws and teeth into the creature from another angle. Dark energy pooled around the wounds, dripping acidicly.
Rude frowned, pulling his gloves into place. "...Can't hurt it." He observed, touching a finger to his own materia.
Beneath the claws and teeth the ooze began to reform, covering the wounds in the solid flesh and bone below, filling the holes and knitting itself back together. The creature laughed, a strange howl of a sound, and as suddenly as they had locked horns, Vincent founds his claws empty, and his opponent hovered on the opposite side of the room, grinning broadly.
"I'm very interested to see what will happen when Prometheus returns," he thought aloud, training gleaming black eyes on Lyla's crumpled form even as she struggled to sit up straight. "Will you find each other as you were meant to? And of what nature will such a meeting be... perhaps one will kill the other." The grin softened to a dripping, knowing smile. "Or perhaps not. I eagerly await the results."
And then he was gone, a faint ring of acidic ooze left on the floor in his wake.
The Galian beast howled it's frustration, the sound as shrill, somehow, as it was deep. With a cracking thump it slammed taloned hands against the hardwood of the man's desk, shooting a crack down it from three sides.
The rage subsided, black seeping out of the bent shape as it retracted inwards. Horns and muzzle fading back into the rounder features of a human face.
"Not exactly," Rufus began, "The sort of 'untrustworthy' I was expecting from him."
Lyla groaned softly as she rocked forward to her hands and knees, struggling to her feet despite Reno's attempts to force her back down, though she did use him to steady herelf. "... we have to find Prometheus before he does."
She watched for a moment as the beast reverted to his original shape, and she stumbled forward a step, Reno catching her arm before she could fall. "V-Vincent. Are you alright?"
He said nothing for a moment, breathing heavily into the table. His posture too much like a wounded man. Then he straightened, his face impassive as always.
"We need to get outside." He said simply, stepping around the ruin of Ingram's workspace. "Lyla. You have the report on Pandora?"
"Yes." She reached to gather up her bag from its place on the floor, easing the strap over her shoulder. "Everything's in here."
He nodded, passing the group of them with the faintest hint of a limp. "Then we'll make the most of our headstart."
"Yo. Drac," Reno interrupted. "Here." He ran his fingers over the materia socketed into the bracer beneath his jacket, pausing when he found the right one, casting a green glow in the dark man's direction.
"Outside," Rufus echoed finally, turning his chair towards the hallway. "Who did you call, Reeve?"
Cait Sith opened his mouth to reply, but Vincent's turn cut him off. "Back up." He said.
Rude glanced at his partner.
Hopefully backup wasn't a blond headcase, desperately in need of a piece of clothing that wasn't the color blue.
"What the FUCK is goin' on in here?" a gruff, accented voice asked from the hallway. Reno looked up to see a stubbly man wearing a pair of goggles atop his head and holding a brown paper lunch sack in his hand. "Reeve didn't mention you were havin' a party. Vin, Shera sent you a sandwich and some potato salad, says you need t'eat more."
"...Thanks, Cid." He said after a moment, dubiously accepting the package. "Afraid we might need some help."
"Figured as much. Lucky for you I was already in th'area," Cid informed him. "Made for a short trip. Wanna explain to me what's goin' on, then?"