AAANND wow this has been a productive weekend for me. i hope this streak keeps up, i'm liking it! anyway, hope you all enjoy this, kinda just going with the flow on this story, working my way up to the present, so to speak. please, drop them reviews!
A figure sat alone, up on a balcony overlooking the club, her eye's slipping through the crowd below. They bounced from person to person, looking for a specific person, her eye's freezing on a certain orange furred vulpine. She watched him for a few seconds, unable to believe what she was seeing.
"Oh no, Fox…. What are you doing here?" she couldn't hold back the single tear that slipped out, closing her eye's for a second as she steeled herself for what she needed to do. Without a backwards glance, she stepped off the balcony, disappearing into the maintenance corridor beyond.
Mira was knocked aside as Chris was slammed to the floor, her small carbine being sent skittering away. She scrambled after it, not taking long at all to reach it. As soon as her fingers gripped the weapon, she rolled onto her back, facing back toward the scuffle behind her. Whatever it was, it was at least as large as Chris. For a second, she thought it was covered in purple skin, but she quickly realized that this wasn't so, as her weapon's light unveiled the slight glint of moisture across the creatures exposed musculature. All but it's head and limbs were exposed, those being covered in deep purple plates that were eerily familiar to her. she instinctively fired, forgetting that Chris was under it. the blue bolt from her weapon nearly blinded her as the weapon discharged, deflecting off of the creature's armor, leaving a small black burn. The round deflected straight into the ceiling, small bright bits of plasma spraying away from it, a couple landing on Chris's exposed fore arm. He screamed, but the creature seemed to ignore it, it's eyeless head looking straight at her. Mira instantly reacted, firing again and again. All but one of the shots glanced off it's armored sections, that one round striking the exposed flesh of it's shoulder. It screamed and leapt at her, Mira trying to block the creature's swing with her rifle. Sparks and shards of metal blasted across her as the weapon was shattered, the creature's three claws, previously hidden under the armor, ripping through her vest, nearly ripping into her flesh. She shrieked and kicked at the creature, knocking it on it's back. As she scrambled back, Chris was diving on top of it, one of his arms limp at his side, the other with a small utility knife in his hand.
"Shoot it again, now!" she drew her pistol off her hip, seeing an exposed section of the head, underneath, under it's jaw. She rammed the weapon there and fired repeatedly, coring out a section of it's head. It shrieked one last time before slumping on it's back, dead. Chris slumped back onto his rear, clutching his arm were a large amount of blood was flowing, looking like a section of his tricep had been sliced off.
"Oh god, shit!" she scrambled for his small aid kit, quickly putting a turnicate on just under his armpit before covering the wound the best she could with the small bandage in his kit.
"Damn, what the fuck was that thing?!" he was sweating profusely, panting slightly, his uninjured hand flexing over and over.
"You need help. Well, better help then I can get you." She quickly keyed up her radio, quickly speaking. "Nezzie, I need help, we got attacked, chris is hurt pretty bad. Transmitting co-ordinates now."
"We ca… rely… ar… ou…. Sa… gain…reaking up." She cursed, wondering what could be affecting their radios.
"Chris is injured!" she tried to speak slowly and clearly, hoping they understood her. she cursed, quickly collecting his fallen rifle before helping him to his feet, one of his massive arms draped over her shoulders. He groaned as she lifted him, herself doing the same as he weighed down on her. "Come on you big oaf. Lets get you some help. He smirked at her, rolling his eyes.
"Watch it kitty, I'm still your still commanding officer." She almost stopped moving to glare at him.
"Great, now you are calling me that too." He chuckled as they shambled on in silence, stopping as they nearly tripped over a piece of luggage, unable to really see with their only light source hanging limply at their side. She cursed quietly to herself, her body still shaking with adrenaline, thinking back to the Aparoid invasion. The armor on that creature back there reminded her heavily of some of the tougher Aparoids in that conflict. A new noise drew her attention, her eyes flicking up ahead of them, straining to raise the heavy weapon with one hand. The attached light illuminated another cleaning bot. she breathed a sigh of relief before she struggled to keep moving, headed back to the terminal.
Fox gently rapped his bare knuckles on the door to the room before him, realizing that it was only a couple of rooms away from his own. There was a few seconds before the door opened, a white canine Fox didn't recognize standing in the doorway.
"Um hi, did you need something?" she looked a little confused.
"Yeah, there's a human that is staying in this room, I need to speak with him." She glanced back into the room, clearly trying to think of what to say.
"Uh, he's…. well, asleep right now. I don't want to disturb him." Fox tried to stay calm, feeling himself slowly growing more and more anxious by the second.
"Can you please wake him, this is important." She bit her lip. Looking back at the room.
"Um, I'm not sure that's wise…."
"Please, it's really important." She sighed and closed the door in their faces. He was just about to turn away when the door opened again, a groggy looking human standing in the doorway.
"The hell do you want McCloud?" Fox couldn't help but take a step back at the human's sudden and fairly vehement words. Even so, something about the human seemed familiar to him.
"Hey, don't I know you from somewhere?" he grunted, leaning on the doorway with his arms crossed.
"Yeah. Aparoid's invasion of Corneria. I was decked out in armor at the time." Fox grunted, his mind flashing to his fighting on the ground, remembering helping cover a group of civilians to a bomb shelter, a human soldier helping fight off the Aparoids. "Now what do you want?"
"It would be better to speak behind closed doors." The human shrugged, gesturing for him to come in. they all sat clustered around the room's small coffee table, the canine he had met at the door setting a laptop on her lap, focusing more on that than the group.
"Alright, the hell do you want McCloud." Fox's eyes fell to the floor, unable to really look him in the eye as he thought of what to say.
"Well, I'm hunting a criminal. One who has known ties to some rather large bio-terror incidents. And he was here, on this station, not too long ago. If you can, I'd like your help with finding him." Fox glanced up at the human, shocked to see him changing from his groggy almost bored demeanor he had before to one of rapt attention.
"Tell me more, everything you got." He opened his wrist computer, pulling up the image Katt sent him, flipping it around so the human could properly see him.
"his name is Wolf O'Donnel. He worked in direct contact with Andross during the Lylat threat, and has been seen working for Oikonny and a whole list of other criminals, several of which were attempting to create bio-weapons based on Andross' work. This photo was taken three days ago, with in the club Solstice. I was sent the photo yesterday. And that's all I know for the moment." He nodded, tapping a few commands into a small phone like device that Fox recognized as a law enforcement issue tactical pad, a device able to be carried in one's pocket or mounted on their wrist, depending on the situation.
"Alright, I just checked the database, he is flagged as a high priority target, and I just notified the security staff to inform me if they spot him on camera. Not much else I can do for now. sorry. I'll let savannah know if I see something. If you'll excuse me, I'm tired, so I'm going to go sleep. Fay, update me if you find something." He stood as he spoke stepping into the bedroom area, out of Fox's sight. Fox took that as his que to leave, nodding to the canine before stepping out, headed for his room.
Fay's eyes were drooping as her program ran, having finished it only a few minutes ago. She expected it to be an hour or so before it provided any viable results, sighing as she leaned back in the chair. Before she could slip off to sleep, the laptop beeped, already finding an area with in the parameters she had set. She pulled the computer closer, curious as to what it had come up with. A puzzled expression crossed her face as she saw what part of the station the area was in, a seemingly large black zone on the schematics, drawing a fair bit of power. It said it was owned by Solstice, powering a distillery, but Fay knew from past experience that no distillery needed the amount of power being pumped into there. She glanced down at her watch, seeing that it had only been an hour or so since Will had gone to sleep again, and deciding to let him get some sleep, she stepped out into the hall, locking the door behind her. she pulled her phone out, typing in Miyu's number, it ringing for a few seconds before the feline answered.
"Hey, whacha calling for? You score with that human?" her voice was both whispered and slurred, making her difficult to understand.
"Um, no? I was building a program to help them in their investigation. Where are you?" she giggled, obviously still trying to be quiet.
"That officer dude's room! He's asleep right now, but I gotta tell you, he was wonderful!" Fay groaned, smacking her palm into her forehead.
"Miyu, you didn't do what I think you did, did you?" Miyu responded very proudly, not a bit of shame in her voice.
"Hell yeah I did! Best sex I've had in years. Mmm, if only he was awake, I could go for another ride." Fay attempted to not gag before she responded.
"Miyu, just meet me in the hall, I need you to come with me. I want to check something out, just not alone." Fay hung up the phone before Miyu could respond, still with a disgusted expression on her face. It was a few minutes before the door beside Will's opened, Miyu staggering out, her cloths not quite even on properly, showing anyone who happened to walk by half of her chest. Fay instantly rushed over, attempting to fix her top as Miyu spoke, almost fighting her.
"Hey, what are you doing? First you hang up on me, and now you're trying to pull my clothes off? That's not very nice of you!" Fay groaned, starting to regret her decision to have Miyu join her.
"I'm trying to fix your outfit, you're showing the whole damn station what you got." She purred as she smiled, Fay having only just gotten her top into a relatively normal position when she staggered back.
"But what if I like that thought?" Fay just shook her head, grabbing her friends hand and pulling her away.
"That isn't a good idea Miyu. Now come on." Fay's voice dropped to a mere whisper as she muttered to herself. "Shesh, how the hell did the two of us ever become friends?" they continued on, Fay having to stop every now and again for Miyu, who seemed to be able to be distracted by the smallest thing, even a maintenance bot drawing her attention for almost a minute. By the time Fay reached the maintenance shaft she had chosen to use, she was about to punch her friend. Where her drunk antics were usually fairly funny, at the moment, they were driving Fay up the wall. She tried her credentials on the access, only to have them denied. One of her eyebrows raised, having never been denied access to a maintenance shaft before. She quickly hacked into the system, using a back door she knew of to override the security on the door. The door slid open and she dragged Miyu inside, letting the door close before she spoke. "Miyu, I need you to be really quiet, okay? No talking. Please." Miyu nodded instead of speaking, Fay breathing a sigh of relief at that, the shaft was smaller than a normal corridor, even with Fay's relatively short height, she had to stoop slightly to move through it. it felt like it took them forever to move through maze of air shafts, pipes, and electrical lines before Fay froze, hearing voices somewhere ahead of them, just loud enough for Fay to hear them.
"-Cloud is here, on the station. I saw him myself." The owner of the voice was feminine, but Fay had no idea beyond that, not even able to tell the direction it was coming from.
"Then I believe now is the perfect time to test our new toys. Release the prototypes. You know the order." This voice sounded like it was coming from a speaker, the sound of it chilling her to the bone.
"I will. You sure we're immune?" yet another new voice joined the conversation, deep and course, and definitely male.
"You will find out, O'Donnel. Notify me when there are results." Fay gulped, moving back down the shaft, Miyu looking as scared as she was. Even drunk, she seemed to understand what they had just heard, trying to move quietly through the shaft. They reached the exit, stepping out into the hall only to hear some yelling the second they did so.
"Freeze! Turn around and place your hands on the wall! Slowly!" Fay cursed as she complied, the stations security guards weapons leveled on them.
Will slowly slid the white ceramic cartridges back into the magazine in his hand, one at a time, counting out the four shots. He had already refilled his other mags with the stash of rounds he had found. Thankfully, there was a box of rounds matching the caliber of his weapon, most of the rounds in the stash being rounds for an assault rifle of some kind. He sighed as he slipped the half full magazine into the weapon just before racking the weapon.
"Forty-four rounds. Not gonna last long here. Damn it, if only I could make it back to my room….." he groaned as he stood, every muscle in his body protesting the movement. "I hope Ramirez has been having better luck." He sighed again before shambling out of the maintenance corridor, heading for where they had agreed to meet up.
