NationStates Jolt Archive

ooc: Hello, here is the start of my new Rp. The intro post is so long I had to break it into two parts.

Rpers:

Tarlachia
Assington
Ravea
Tom Joad
Imitora
Outer Heaven MK II
Nation of Fortune
Reformed Velmora
Arthaga Nova


ic:

Zachary Mackereth gave his Land Rover complete attention. Zachary was 47 years old and stood at 5’10; his clothes were black with oil as he slaved over the engine. He whistled softly to himself as he turned and looked at the town of Creswell behind him. The town’s old Germanic architecture made it seem that the people never advanced to the modern age.

Situated in the mountains and forests of the Golden Simatar’s western border, Creswell was a small town of only two hundred people. Zachary wiped his sweaty brow and turned back to his work. His house say a quarter mile from the town, his barn was one of the largest structures in town, next to the church and city hall. He stopped whistling as he saw something dart into his barn.

He paused and stared at his barn for several minutes before going into his house. He reappeared a few minutes later, an M-14 in his hands. The man walked over to his barn and carefully opened the door. Zachary figured it was probably his dog, or some wild animal. He walked carefully inside, checking every corner, nothing.

Something landed behind the man, he spun towards the sound. Something dark launched itself at him and Zachary fired. The .308 Winchester round struck the thing, and sent it tumbling back into a mound of hay, the dark shape convulsed for several seconds before lying still.

He saw something drip onto the rifle barrel, he reached forward and wiped it away…blood.

Zachary looked up into the loft and opened his mouth to scream.



An old man of about seventy years of age sat in a wooden rocking chair on his porch, whittling away at a bit of wood. He wore a pair of dirty blue overalls with a red plaid t-shirt underneath. His face was worn from years at sea; his fingers were long, and rough. He stroked his small beard for several seconds before going back to his whittling.

Bill Shideler had been a fisherman much of his life, but now getting on in his years, he owned Brighton Bay’s General Store. His store was small, nothing to be brag about, but it was the only store in town. Brighton Bay was a tiny fishing community of only fifty people, the houses either on the single dirt road through the town, or in the trees behind Bill’s store.

He licked his lips and looked up the road to see a beaten up green pickup bouncing its way towards his store. The old man smiled, put away his pocket knife, wiped the bits of wood from his pants and tossed the wood he had been whittling on into the grass next to the porch.

The truck pulled up and a man wearing a pair of khaki pants, sunglasses, a dull white t-shirt and a pair of hiking boots stepped out of the truck. Bill smiled and slowly made his way towards the man.

“Dirk Wolfe…been a while since I’ve seen you round these parts.” He said with a broad smile.

Dirk smiled at the old man and shook his hand. “Been about three months Bill, I finally got time to do some fishing.”

“The usual I take it, roast beef with horseradish and lettuce on Italian?”

“You have me figured out Bill.”

The old man left and the pair walked into the cool interior of the store. Several racks sat in the middle of the floor, mostly fishing gear, several small tables sat in the corner, near the small counter where Bill’s wife made sandwiches.

Martha Shideler looked up from a magazine and smiled at Dirk. Her white hair didn’t give off the shine it did out in the sun, yet she gave him a broad bright smile when she saw him.

“Dirk…it is always a treat to these old eyes to see you.”

Dirk smiled and gave the old woman a peck on the cheek. “Good to see you too Martha.”

He went to the back of the store and grabbed several boxes of beer and some camping food. Dirk also got some magazines and a cold beer while he waited for his sandwich; he also talked to several fishermen who were sitting at the tables. He suddenly heard something outside and looked out the window.

“Shit.”

A Black Hawk helicopter landed in a small field in front of the store, two men climbed out and headed across the street. Dirk cursed softly and put the cases of beer away. He paid for his sandwich, magazines, and the beer in his hand and left. He wasn’t pleased as he returned the salute of the two men.

“Sorry to ruin your trip sir, something has come up.”

“Yeah, yeah. Something always comes up. Alright, let’s go.”

Dirk paused and tossed his car keys to Bill who was standing at the base of his porch.

“Park my car Bill.”

“You got it Dirk.”

Dirk climbed into the Black Hawk and began to eat his sandwich as it lifted into the sky and headed north, towards the capitol of Clarence.

Clarence, Capitol of the Golden Simatar


Becky Kimble rubbed her temple as she stared at the four men at the table. Becky Kimble was the Golden Simatar’s third female President, and it was the start of her second term in office. She stood at 5’10, she had dark red wine colored hair, and her suit went over every curve in her slender body. Right now, she had the biggest headache of her life.

She looked up at the Joint Chief of Staff, Admiral Heflin, General Miller of the Air Force, and General Charbonneau of the Army. The fourth man was not dressed in a uniform, instead he was dressed in a grey business suit and sat quietly, absorbing the brunt of the attack from the Joint Chiefs.

“Are you telling me we lost not only a research facility, but also that this virus you made could threaten the rest of out nation?” Heflin barked.

“Gentlemen, I think we should wait till our guest arrives.” Becky said quietly.

The men stopped arguing and waited for another few minutes before Dirk came in, still wearing the clothes he had been wearing a few hours earlier. He sat down in a chair and smiled at the men around the table.

“You forgot your salute soldier.” Miller said coldly.

“Sorry sir.” Dirk said, and made a smart salute, though sarcasm was obvious in his voice.

Charbonneau could not help but smile, Dirk was Special Forces, and the Special Forces were known not to pay attention to most military regulations; and they could get away with it. Miller and Heflin obviously didn’t understand his reactions, but before Charbonneau could speak, Becky spoke first.

“Captain, I’m sure you know the Joint Chiefs, the man you don’t know is Doctor Liberty, one of our top scientists.”

Dirk exchanged a brief nod with the Doctor before turning to the President.

“Why am I here ma’am? I am supposed to be on R and R.”

“Well Captain, Doctor Liberty will tell you.”

Dirk shifted in his seat to the Doctor who pulled out a remote and aimed it at the wall. A map of the Golden Simatar appeared.

“Now, we lost one of our research facilities in the Glothlin mountains twenty hours ago. A virus escaped, and the military has made a barrier around the infected area...about two hundred square miles.”

“We sent in Giles’s team nine hours ago Dirk. We haven’t heard from him since.” Charbonneau said.

“Giles? He is missing? You want me to go find him?” Dirk asked.

“Yes.”

“Captain, if the virus mutates, it could become airborne for a much longer time and infect the rest of the nation…within a matter of days or weeks. If it infects someone on a cruise ship or air liner……I hate to think about it. We must warn our neighbors right now and….” Liberty said.

“And tell them of Rebecca? Like hell Liberty, if we do we will expose probably the most deadly virus to man, besides I doubt they will notice.” Miller said.

“Not notice? Man are you insane? When the first infected reach their hospitals they will start asking questions, sooner or later they will find us. We must tell them! For God’s sake man…we were nearly fried because of Silverback One; let us not make the same mistake again.

“Christ, are you blind!? We must halt all traffic coming into this nation and leaving it. We must contain Rebecca whatever the cost! We did a study that if the virus escaped, mutated, and left this nation….it could infect the whole world within a hundred years. And we are the only people with the vaccine, we know what it does. Mrs. President, we must tell the world about Rebecca.”

“I agree…” Becky started before Miller cut her off.

“Ma’am, I feel like you don’t grasp the situation….”

“You feel I don’t grasp the situation because I am a woman? General Miller, as I recall your predecessor was a woman. If you don’t like the way I am handling things then by God sir, you may turn in your resignation.”

Miller fell silent as the President continued. “We will tell the United Nations and other sates if Rebecca begins to mutate. Captain, unfortunately we cannot give you a Black Diamond team. Your group is halfway around the world, and you are needed now.”

“What do you want me to do ma’am?” Dirk asked.

“I want you to get a team of the best people you can find, research them, locate them, and bring them here.”

“Mercs? Ma’am, you cannot be serious.” Miller said.

“I am serious General, Captain...you have your orders.”

“Yes ma’am.” Dirk said.

Dirk stood, did a mock salute for Miller before leaving the room. He left the White House and hailed a cab. He to his studio flat and sat in front of his computer and began his research.


Three Days Later

Dirk looked over file after file with a young private. The man put a file into a pile of rejected people.

“Who was that?”

“A woman named Rikan Tansho sir.”

“The Viper?”

“Yes sir, one tough bitch. Hard to find her too.”

“Let me see.”

Dirk scanned Rikan’s file and smiled. “I like her, find her Childs.”

“Yes sir, there is also an American with her by last reports.”

“An American? If he is good, get him too.”

Childs stood and left the room. Dirk picked up a cell phone and made several calls, he hung up the phone, took a shower, left his flat and headed to dinner.

At the moment Dirk was sitting down to dinner at a pub, several agents took different flights out of the country. Each was assigned to get one of the mercenaries Dirk had chosen for the mission.

Tarlachia: Northeastern Territory

Shadows passed through the dark woods, moving quickly, just beyond the range of sight of mere humans. Two sets of eyes watched them carefully, tracking them.

The rifle moved with the shadows, waiting...

The radio crackled quietly in Nathan's ear, Rikan's voice clicking twice, signifying the code for Ready?

Nathan replied to Rikan with a click of his tongue. Yes...

Silence filled the airwaves for the next half minute as Rikan tracked the rifle along with the slowing vampire. Gerand, you're mine...

Suddenly Gerand roared, his vampiric fangs flashing in the moonlight. He raced to a nearby spot and reached viciously into the foliage, yanking a poor young looking man out by his throat.

Three sharp clicks...

"You will die for your spying mort--"

The sniper rifle shattered the silence of the night and shot its payload with a velocity powerful enough to throw a man twenty feet back. However, the modified ammunition held small explosives equal to C4s, and would detonate hardly a second after impact. Seconds later the bullet slammed into the backside of the vampire and entrenched itself into the skeleton of the vampire. His eyes widened in his pain and surprise.

Hardly a second later the explosion rocked the forest, leveling some of the trees. The private, shielded by most of the explosion by the vampire's body, was thrown far from the victim and into the darkness beyond his initial hiding spot.

Nathan leapt out of another large patch of foliage, bearing the longsword in hand as he approached the vampire. The explosion was powerful, and much of the vampire's body was gone, except for the head and upper torso. He looked down momentarily at the vampire with a look of disgust on his face. He spun around, bringing the sword around and downward, as if he were completing an extreme golf swing. The head severed completely, the last hope for Gerand's survival extinguished by the cruel blade. Rikan emerged from the woods and approached. She pulled a pair of pliars out of her pocket and bent down to the head.

The pliars gripped the canine teeth and yanked hard, severing them from the mouth. She pulled out a container of sanitizing solution and dropped them inside, sealing the container once more. She stood, smiled to Nathan and commented,

"Always have to be a show off don't you?"

Nathan grinned, but said nothing as he turned his attention back to the stranger that had appeared unexpectedly. He delved into the woods and pulled the man to his feet. The man groaned from the pain. He was brought back to where Rikan was standing.

"You've got some pretty good flash burns..."

The man sputtered, "I..I can't see!"

Rikan nodded, "Only temporary blindness...you were rather close..."

Nathan sat the man down next to Gerand's corpse. Rikan knelt down and looked the man in the eyes, though she knew he couldn't see her.

"Why were you out here? Don't you know it's dangerous to traveling alone with the moonwalkers all over the place, especially in these parts?"

It was a fall day in King's Market in Nova City. The store front was open, farmers from the outskrits had carts brought out, and people from all over town milled about, getting good ingredients and hand-made crafts. Though the ingredients interested him, Arthas Scipius walked through the market, his casual olive sportscoat and slacks and white buttonup shirt an odd contrast to the jeans and hooded sweatshirts that most people had on. He usually wore a black suit, but that was in the cleaners, was to close to his last target, got a bit of splatter.

It was normal, just as walking through the market was, just as life was. Not normal for a normal person, but the same old monotone that had taken up his life since the mafia fell. A little kid stared up at him in awe, holding a small balloon. Arthas' mind flashed back to when he was a kid, and his little brother was that small. Before his mom died, and his dad, and his girlfriend too. Before his life happened. A small cool breeze blew his long black bangs out of the way for a moment, and his grey eyes met the kids, blending in with his pale skin. The kid got pulled away back into the crowd, the balloon the only sign that he even ever existed.

Like I mentioned, Arthas was not interested in the market, but the restaurant at the end of it. A small restaurant, it was closed to the public today, for a lawyer was having a meeting there. That lawyer was the target of today's interest, and the target of Arthas himself.

He stood across the street, clear view of the front desk of the restaurant, namely its phone. And, just as normal, Arthas pulled out the stolen cellphone, dialed the restaurant and asked for the lawyer. And what normally happened, did happen. The lawyer got up, went to the phone, Arthas drew one of his Mac 11/9's and fired a short burst across the street, the normal burst of 5 that he had gotten used to. And, as normal, the 5 bullets traveled across the narrow alley, and two landed in the chest, one in the neck, and two more in the head. In all the normalcy of the routine, Arthas disappeared into the market crowd as the restaurant workers surrounded the fallen lawyer, it was futile. As Arthas walked away, he did pick out some various fresh herbs for a stew he planned to make at his client's, when he delivered the news.

But, for once, something happened that wasn't normal, and there was someone else in a suit in the crowd, looking around. And, Arthas assumed, looking for him. Little did he know, the job, too, wasn't going to be normal.

Ennis patiently waited, laying in a prone position, looking through the scope of his M40A3. Slowly he pulled the bolt back, and chambered the round. He wrapped the sling around his arm, and watched his arm turn purple. He glanced to the right of his rifle and saw his overly thick leather glove sitting there. He put his silver eye back up to the scope, and sighted the target, aiming at the critical point. He took his eye off of the scope and looked at a tree, and waited for the tip to stop swaying, "time is running out" he thought to himself. The tree top stopped moving, and he squeezed the trigger, sending the chunk of lead flying at the target. He stopped and thought about for a second, after he ejected the empty casing from the rifle, 2,500 yds is a long ways, just under a mile and a half. He let the sling slide off of his arm, and he looked back at the target, bullseye, and the target went down. He stayed laying down in the prone position, and would stay until the signal was given. Somewhere a loudspeaker went on and announced that Ennis had just won this years rifle shooting contest, held annually for a large sum of cash, and the recognition of the best shot in Nation of Fortune, a definate plus for the mercenary operatives that the nation was forcing on everyone they possibly could. Winning this contest would prove useful for anyone in the merc army, because snipers were amongst the most well payed. But winning this contest proves very difficult, because the snipers from Nation of Fortune are amongst the best in the world.

Ennis stood up from his prone position, and slung his rifle over his back. He pulled his glove on his hand, and whistled in a high pitch. He held out his arm, and heard "SCHREEEEEEECH" as a large bird landed on his arm. Holding Zephyr he walked out of the pit and up to the stage, along with the four other finalists. He stood there while they announced names, scores, and places. He looked into the crowd and saw a familiar face motioning towards him, and holding a phone with his hand cupped over the reciever.

After all of the formalities were over he went down to see Jack, the man holding the phone. "What is it" he snapped
"Sir, we just recieved an urgent call, and they want to talk to you," Jack said in hushed tone
"Fine then," DWAR grumbled and grabbed the phone
"What do you want?" he asked in a hostile tone. As he held the phone Zephyr let out a screech, DWAR attempted to balance the phone on his shoulder, and scratched the eagles head while the person on the other end of the line gave his response.

OOC: Tag, spot reserved for post when Im not longer drunll; Gondamnit where the fucin k...thare it s. Will post when not drunk. Tag.

Within the capitol city of Clarence, an armoured security van was parked at the back entrance to the major Bank of Golden Simatar branch. The first guard lay dead, locked within the back of the van. The other was inside...

Ruben kept a blank face as he followed the bank mangager into the massive vault, dragging a security trolley behind him. He waited until the manager rounded a corner before punching a code to close the vault door. Quickly catching up, Ruben brought the trolley up to the cash shelves and opened up the draws upon the trolley, revealing the cold, steel bottom of the draw. The manage seemed confused and was stunned to see Ruben begin pulling cash off the shelves and packing it neatly into the draw. As the man moved forward to block Ruben's attempts, he calmly withdrew a knife and plunged it into the manager's ear. The man died with a startled expression upon his face.

With the manager hidden amongst sacks of coins, Ruben went back to collecting his booty. Gold bricks, cash, property deeds, investment holdings, anythinig of acceptable value that he could fit within the trolley. Finally content with his withdrawl, Ruben adjusted his security guard's uniform slightly before heading back to the vault door. As he approached the thick steel door, Ruben with drew a bloodied hand from the trolley and proceeded to enter the correct door code. Tossing the hand behind a shelf, Ruben moved the trolley outside the vault and began his winding path of escape. It was almost over, he had almost pulled it off. Of course, one did not celebrate until one was safely hidden away.

Things had been easier than Ruben thought. Gathering the guad equipment and essential information was easy enough and after a few days of patrolling the bank, Ruben had gathered the general idea of how things worked. His biggest challenge was the security cameras. They were all over the vault and led back to a fortified security room on the floor below the vault. Fortunately, Ruben excelled when it came to challenges. All he had required was too cups of coffee. And now those security guards that are usually assigned to monitoring the cameras were glued to the toilets, spending their last hours in a rather unpleasant fashion as their inards liquified and exited their bodies. With them out of the way, Ruben had fixed the monitors to a playback of tapes from a few days ago, allowing evidence of his presence in the vault to be non-existent.

After ten minutes of navigating via memory, Ruben found the exit through the staff tunnels he had been looking for and finally exited the building, arriving directly behind the armoured van. Without any fuss, the imposter guard unlocked the doors, gave the corpse inside a glance and began rolling the trolley into the van. With everything secure, Ruben moved to the front of the truck and took a quick glance downwards as he prepared to enter the van. Shit. The tire was flat. Not only flat, but slashed. This would put Ruben back several minutes, wreaking his escape route timing. No matter, he would make it.

Back at the double doors, Ruben opened just as a voice emitted from behind him.

"Hey, have you seen the manager arou... what is that?"

Ruben turned to find another security guard gawking at the corpse within the van that just happened to be laying next to the spare tire. Withdrawing his knife with cat like speed, Ruben launched his blade at the guard and embedded it within his skull. The guard went down in a heap. Perhaps it was time to hurry. It took a further 23 minutes for Ruben to jack up the heavy van and replace the tire, but he eventually accomplished the task without any issues.

Inside the van, Ruben sped off down the exit alley and onto the street, the smell of near freedom within his nostrils. What he didn't notice was yet another security guard had come across his fallen comrade just as Ruben sped off. The guard prompty alerted local authorities within the area of an apparently rogue security van.

Twisting the copper wires together in to a cord he pushed them inside the tiny hole made in the concrete wall, the feedback he was receiving from his fellow operatives about the location of the targets was inaudible to anyone who did not have a speaker pressed in to their ear.
Wires connected to the detonator, itself connected to the charge, he slowly shuffled himself away from the wall and once behind the next rooms wall he began a slow trot to a safe distance outside. On his way he passed the assault team, he flashed them a thumbs up and received a nod in return, then hopped behind an outer wall and pressed the switch down.

The wall collapsed in on itself, crushing and carving the nearest target and showering the rest with pieces of concrete and plaster. The assault team crashed through the first two surviving doors, shot each target through the chest quickly and continued onwards clearing the building.

When the building was cleared Jared went back to inspect the results of his charge. He stepped through the man size hole he had created and on to the first victim, the nearest target had been lost most of upper torso, it had been completely taken away by the explosion and the rest of his body had been crushed under the debris. Those who had come out of the explosion alive if not unscathed had been then shot dead, every body cut from numerous shards with pieces visibly imbedded in the exposed skin.
The assault leader who he’d given the thumbs up came over to examine the targets himself, he failed to remove his mask as was appropriate to them all, kicking the first one he had shot dead he noted the surprise fixed upon his face.

* * *
Cleaning himself off back in his private quarters he stepped out of the shower, dressed himself in a contouring shirt, BDUs and his new boots designed specifically from various observations made by VDV personnel - VDV were the dedicated airmobile personnel of the Mobile Infantry and as such regarded themselves as an elite - the fit was smooth yet close fitting and he laced them up speedily, as he stepped outside he grabbed his belt, rifle and shemagh.
Fortunate that he had brought along those items as awaiting him were three representatives of Edgewood and none of them were wearing a suit, they gestured for him to enter a waiting vehicle by stepping back to reveal it.
“If you’ll come with us Mr Plisken”
The words may have been a request but the intonation was all command, nodding once he stepped forward and handed the AKIN over to the leader figure.
“Next time Edgewood want me at least give me twenty-four hours to have a breather and for Christ’s sake don’t use that bullshit company name, it really gets annoying.”

OOC: The rum is gone...*notes several blaring in accuracies, finds more rum, takles a couple shots* Ok, lets do this.

The wind was almost non exisitant from Andrew's rest. Thats what made life difficult for him. He inhaled, taking in the sweet tasting air, and held it. He closed his eyes, the opened them, his blueish grey eyes looking more like those of a caring older brother than a trained killer. He let his breath out, held it again, and squezed. The .338 Imitora Magnum round rocketed from the barrel, screamed down range, and impacted just to the left of the target's head. "Fuck," he swore quietly under his breath. The metal shiloette was still standing. He slowly rotated the bolt up, and pulled it back, slowly, catching the end of the empty cassing, keeping it from flipping out of the action off into the grass.

"It wasn't a bad shot," the man standing next to him said. Andrew rolled onto his side, and looked up, right at Robert Fortier, the man, the myth, the legend. He chuckled as Andrew gave him the bird, and stood. "Mind if I try?"

Andrew laughed. "No problem man. Go for it." He bent down, picked up the UMAC Custom made rifle, and handed it to Robert. He hefted it up to his shoulder, and set it into the little crook between his shoulder and collar bone. He inhaled, exhaled, and sqeezed. The target down range, just over a mile, clinked, and fell. He racked the bolt, and handed the rifle back to Andrew, and picked up the spent cassing. "Ya know what, fuck you," Andrew said, jokeingly.

"Thats why Im a certified bad ass, and your still in training. Lets go grab some lunch, my treat. We need to talk."

It was less than thrity minutes later as a black BMW ///M3 and blue Mitsubushi VR4 pulled into a parking lot of a mid level cassual restraunt. They found a table, and ordered their drinks and food. "So," Andrew started, "whats the deal?"

"How did you like Forthon?" Robert asked, taking a swig of his drink, a rum and orange juice.

"It was good. Helped me learn some new tricks, get a hang of the ropes. Stuff like that. Picked up some kills, some scars, but hey, chicks dig scars, right?" he laughed.

"Yeah, really. You wanna do it again? We got another job. Much better paying than the Forthon deal. You might even be able to get a real car after this one, get rid of that Mitsu. One that can hold with me." He smirked, and took a bite of his burger.

Andrew finished his bite before responding. "Is it a real job this time, or did we steal another EO contract like in Forthon?"

"Legit job. Came right to us. Its in Golden Simitar. Guy's putting together a team, and he needs a shooter or two. Wouldn't give me to many details, but I talked to my ICI contacts, and from what I hear, someone over there really shit the bed. I mean, we're talking a massive cluster fuck. Its nasty."

Andrew nodded. "How much we looking at?"

"Standard fee from them, plus our hazzard pay. You'll probably come out ahead here about two point five more than Forthon."

Andrew nodded. "When are we going on this little pirate trip of yours?" he asked, changin the subject.

"So you'll take the job? Good. Coupla weeks after you get back, Fratelli wants to clear it with her people that shes gonna take some time off and that she wants Cohen to handle things."

Andrew nodded. "When do I leave?"

"Today if you want, you can take my plane. Its sittin fueld up at NHX."

Andrew nodded. "Right then, sounds like I'm gonna go me some ass."

They both stood, and left the table after paying. Robert headed back to his shop on the North side of Northampton, while Andrew headed in the opposite direction to NHX. There, he grabbed a duffle out of the back of the car, and headed towards Fortier's personel hanger, where a flight crew was in the final stages of getting the G5 ready for take off. One of the crew took Andrew's bag, and placed in the cargo hold.

In less than an hour, they were airborne towards Golden Simitar.

Private Childs didn't answer Rikan as he closed his eyes, hoping to get his vision back quickly. He knew about the existance of vampires, unlike most of his countrymen. His Para P14 was loaded with silver bullets, but he had never anticipated the vampire's speed.

Childs opened his eyes and he saw the blurry forms of Rikan and Nathan.

"I represent the Simatarian goverment Ms. Tansho. I have an offer for you. Are you interested in hearing more?"

*************************************

A dark haired man walked towards Arthas. The man smiled and motioned to a small table in front of a cafe.

"I have offer for you Mr. Scipius, I represent the Simatarin goverment. We need someone with your skill. Do you want to hear it?"

*************************************

"Ennis Duer I presume? Or DWAR I guess. I have to say you have a nice bird."

DWAR looked around and saw a woman in the crowd, wearing a plain camoflauge uniform that had no insignias on it. The woman smiled and flipped her cellphone closed. She walked forward and smiled politly.

"Mr. Duer, I have an offer I think you will be very interested in.

**************************************

Ruben exited the capitol and reached a two lane country road. He slowed down and took a deep breath. He heard something overhead and looked out the window, a helicopter buzzed the armored car before gaining altitude. Ruben stared at it for several seconds before realizing he had been buzzed by a Simatarian Tiger Attack Helicopter.

He swerved off the road and headed onto the rolling countryside. The chopper followed him, not attacking but kept at a safe altitude. As Ruben drove something large rumbled out of a grove of trees, Bradley AFV.

The man swung his vehicle out of the AFV's path and kept moving over the gentle hills. Ruben looked out his mirrors to see Humvees, armed with TOW missle launchers flanking him, behind him the Bradley and another Humvee kept up the pursuit.

He bounced over the grassy terrain and looked ahead of him and finally realized what had happened. He was being boxed in. Several hundred meters ahead of Ruben was a line of six Leopard 2 A6 EX main battle tanks, there were also at least fourty Simatarian soldiers with the tanks.

******************************************

As Jared climbed into the car, there was already a man sitting there in plain military fatigues, no emblem on them. The man looked up at Jared.

"Mr. Plisken, I represent the Simatarian Goverment. I wonder if you would like to help do a job for us. I am really sorry about my timing, but time is something that is very presicous at the moment."

******************************************

Dirk stood in the main control room of the Black Ops area of Kriegspiel. He looked up from a map of the infected area as a soldier walked into the room.

"Sir, got off the phone with Robert Fortier. He said he got us a guy named Andrew Lutz."

"Is he good Argento?" Dirk asked.

"Fortier says he is good sir."

"When will he arrive?"

"Don't know, he will come in on a private jet to the International Airport in Clarence."

"I want some men to get him before customs does...if we don't get him first, we'll never get him out of FFBI's hands."

Argento smiled, saluted and left the room. Dirk looked back at the map and sipped a beer.

"I pray to God this crazy scheme works."

Arthas turned, put back the herbs and gave a slow, polite bow to the shopkeep, and walked towards the man. In a qiuet, tad unnerving voice "Sure, but we can head back to whereever you are based out of, you can give me the details on the way there, I'll take the job."

"I must admit, you have piqued my curiosity. Lets discuss this in a more private area, I don't think a large crowd of people trying to congradulate me is such a good place for a talk such as this. Meet me at the barracks in 45 minutes." He said, fending off the crowds of people.

Ruben swore. He couldn't believe they would devote a portion of the armed forces just to capture a bank thief. This was just his luck. If only that tire wasn't flat. Ruben made a note to hunt down whoever slashed that tire and slash them open in thanks.

Within seconds a voice ringed out over a loud speaker, informing Ruben he was surrouned and to exit the vehicle or be fired upon. Considering that several tanks trained upon his single van, Ruben thought it best he step outside. He hated getting caught... it was so indignifying.

Stepping outside, Ruben placed his hands upon his head and moved away from the vehicle. He was already considering what he should do, how he would escape this situation. Ruben had already been in jail before and did not want to go back.

The criminal waited patiently as two guards approached him, both bearing G36k assault rifles. Ruben flashed them an unnerving smile and yet they continued. One moved behind Ruben to grab his hands whilst the other stood before him, looking straight into his eyes. Ruben matched the stare for a few moments before looking off to the side, just over the soldier's shoulder as if something was there. The soldier followed his glance and turned slightly to check it out. Ruben took this oppurtunity to launch his elbow into the face of the soldier behind him. He went down with a broken nose and a grunt. The other soldier turned around but it was too late as Ruben stepped around the soldier and grabbed him from behind, holding a sharp blade to the soldier's throat.

"Drop the weapon."

The soldier dropped his G36 and remained silent. Ruben was aware the soldier was probably trained for situations like this, but the other blade halfway burried into the soldier's back was probably deterent enough. All Ruben had to do was push a little further and the soldier may never walk again.

Looking over the fatigue dressed man Jared grinned blandly, “If you’re going to use the name at least make it formal, now start talking and lets keep it short because as you said time is very precious.”

The vehicle started once the three minders were aboard, two flanked Jared whilst the third drove, the direction was for a local privately owned airport and despite the request to explain the situation nothing revealed except that all would be revealed in due course.

“So, you want me to sign up for some mission that’s so fantastic that I don’t even get to know about it before I agree, give me something! I do not walk in to a job lightly, I need Intel.”

The fatigue dressed individual thought for a moment, letting his eyes drift for a moment until Plisken snapped his fingers in front of his face suddenly, “Alright, details are that an international team is being readied to investigate the disappearance of another team. We don’t know why the original team was lost, just that they were investigating a situation at one of our research facilities.”

Plisken looked at the man in disbelief, reached down for the chain around his neck and pulled it over his head. “Here you go little man, now you can act like a proper soldier until I come back to claim it. Who else is part of this public relations job?”

Dropping the tags in to the mans open hand Plisken watches him examine them, a slight look of puzzlement crosses his face as he gazes at the message and grinng skull embossed in to the steel.

-Mercenaries never die. They just go to hell to regroup-

The man smiled at Arthas and lead him to a SUV. The pair climbed in and the man started to drive towards the airport.

"You will go to Clarence first, then you will be picked up by the army for transfer to Kriegspiel for the briefing. You will be paid five million dollars, half when you get to the briefing, and the other half when you return from the mission. I cannot give much information to you right now, but I must press it is in the best interest of everyone on the planet. I must also say, the mission is high risk."

****************************************

The woman was waiting for DWAR when he entered the barracks. She shook his hand and got straight to business.

"Mr. Duer, research station was breached, something leaked out and it could threaten the whole planet....and we would like to hire you. I am ordered to offer you five million dollars to be part of a team that we are forming. I cannot offer much information, besides the risks are very high. Now....equipment and gear will be provided for you when you reach the briefing. Like everyone else we are hiring you will stay at the Hilton on Broun Street until contacted. If you accept, we can get going."

*****************************************

The soldier kept Ruben's head in his sights, trying to get a clear angle to kill the man. Ruben suddenly stopped moving, his eyes glazed over and his body shuddered before freezing. He crumpled to the ground and the soldier quickly dragged his comrade from under him; calling for a medic.

Another soldier stood behind Ruben, placing his helmet back on. He had clubbed the criminal with all his strength, being a wrestler in high school helped the blow.

Ruben was bound and gagged before being tossed into a chopper. Before he blacked out, he saw an armored train with several long flatbeds and passanger cars. On one of the flatbeds was another Leopard. Ruben had had the luck of bumping into a military train transporting equipment to the containment.

When he awoke, he was over the ocean, heading towards an island. The chopper landed and Ruben was dragged towards a large stone building. He looked around and saw dozens of other buidlings, he realized he was now going to prison.

*******************************

The soldier stared at Jared, hating his tone of voice. Jared didn't know the man was a Ranger, one of the best in the military.

"You will be offered five million in any currency you want, like everyone else. I do not know who we have right now, but I know one of our men is looking for the Viper."

The soldier glared at Jared, his voice became very hollow.

"I wouldn't be so relaxed about this. As I understand it....what was being researched in that facility could infect the whole world within a hundred years."

Arthas nodded at the reward figure when he heard it, which didn't seem like too big of a response but it was an action more than most ever got out of him while explaining a job. He thought for a moment. "With who, for who, against who?"

The woman was waiting for DWAR when he entered the barracks. She shook his hand and got straight to business.

"Mr. Duer, research station was breached, something leaked out and it could threaten the whole planet....and we would like to hire you. I am ordered to offer you five million dollars to be part of a team that we are forming. I cannot offer much information, besides the risks are very high. Now....equipment and gear will be provided for you when you reach the briefing. Like everyone else we are hiring you will stay at the Hilton in the Golden Simatar until contacted. If you accept, we can get going."

"Give me a minute he said, I need to get some stuff. I'll meet you out fron tin five minutes" he said. He went over to his locker, and placed Zephyr on the rail of the bunk. He reached in and grabbed his KA-BAR, and several other odds and ends for his bird. He met back up with the woman out front, and went to the hotel he was going to be staying at.

Ruben had noticed the soldier, yet it was too late. The shadow cast by the big soldier had gained Ruben's attention just as meaty fists clubbed down on the back of his neck, causing him to crumple to the ground. Ruben had been rarely knocked out and decided it wasn't an experience he'd like to get used to as he plunged into the abyss of unconsciousness.

Later on, Ruben woke up to find himself being dragged towards a large stone complex. Prison. Ruben cursed before passing out once again, the throb of his neck just too much for him to handle.

Terinez City, Ravea
The sun beat down on Terinez city as a lone man approached a seemingly abandoned warehouse. He quietly ambled up to the large building and turned left, walking until he got to its edge. An eye peeked around the corner to view a back entrance-just a simple wooden door with a pair of guards. Both were young punks-maybe twenty or twenty one each-armed with pistols. Still quite as a mouse, the man turned the corner to face the youngsters.

"Hey, who the hell are you?" The punks, startled, drew their weapons and pointed them at the man in front of them, then hesitated. Their adversary was dressed strangely. Who would wear a formal suit, a monocle, and a top hat outside in this warm weather?

"Hey, Halloween is over, Freak." One of the punks made a move to push him. "Get outta here." The man caught the punk's hand and looked him in the eye. The Punk almost fell over, staring at man's red eyes and manic smile.

The man drew his fist back and punched. The punk was knocked straight to the ground. The other raised his pistol, but his face was suddenly gone. The remaining punk got to his feet.

"Who are you?"

"Hootington. Edwardo Hootington." The punk lived just long enough to think, "What the hell kind of name is that?"

That was easy enough, Hootington thought. Now he just had to eliminate the target. Hootington kicked in the wooden door and jumped through the threshold. Inside were upwards to about eight men-all armed. Hootington could see the target clearly now; a drug lord, plump and mustached. The other seven men leapt in front of their employer; unlike the lowlifes outside, these were trained bodyguards.

Hootington shot his arm forward, and a bodyguard fell to the floor, disemboweled. A pull back, then a swing. Off went a guard’s head. Finally, he made an arm like he was controlling a lasso. Away went a third man's feet-all in the span of a few seconds. The remaining bodyguards finally reacted, lifting their weapons and firing. By that time, the mysterious man in the top hat was gone.

The bodyguards turned to make sure their employer was safe. What they saw was his already dead corpse hit the ground. Four shots rang out in the darkness; the warehouse soon only housed one living body in it.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Later...
Edwardo sat in his apartment, contemplating his recent kills. Here he was, a perfectly unique and competent assassin, and he was reduced to killing street trash. He needed a big break.

His phone rang. He held the receiver up to his ear. He listened.

He had gotten his big break.

He had a job to do.

Edwardo Hootington picked up the phone again and dialed for transportation.

Private Childs didn't answer Rikan as he closed his eyes, hoping to get his vision back quickly. He knew about the existance of vampires, unlike most of his countrymen. His Para P14 was loaded with silver bullets, but he had never anticipated the vampire's speed.

Childs opened his eyes and he saw the blurry forms of Rikan and Nathan.

"I represent the Simatarian goverment Ms. Tansho. I have an offer for you. Are you interested in hearing more?"

*************************************

Nathan sat down next to Rikan. Nathan had matured more over the years, gaining a minor scar or two on his face, but his hair was alot darker, and a bit longer. He was wearing his old Khaki Trousers and a Kevlar-padded top. In left hand, he held one of his trusty Desert Eagles, the other was in it's holster. The other hand was putting the sword back into it's sheath. When he heard the question, he tilted his head.

"An offer? For Rikan?"

Plisken did indeed look calm, he even folded his arms and crossed his legs -brushing some dirt across the clean uniform of the man. Ignoring the smear on his uniform he waited for Plisken to answer him.

“Mr Plisken, I said time was precious and it would really help me if you pulled that head of yours out of your ass, gave me something to report back with and realised that mercenaries are deadbeats who couldn’t make it with a real military” Had their been room he probably would of stood up to jab his finger in Plisken’s face.

Raising an eyebrow, starring at the man across him with mock surprise, “If you’re going to talk to me like that I think I’ll take my tags back.” He’d already snatched them from the unconcerned mans grasp before he’d finished.

“I said I would join your job, perhaps you missed that bit and don’t go assuming anything about me, it wouldn’t be polite. I’ll take your money, plus some extras, do your job and then do your women. However, this infection stuff sounds a little more than a PR job, I hope you’re going to give me something to recognise so I can run from it.”

The vehicle pulled up to an aircraft about fifteen minutes later, there was no customs checks at this airport as it was owned by the government and leased by Edgewood. There had been sparse discussion afterwards, neither of the more important men in the vehicle found the other good company, unfortunately they still had a plane journey together.

The man parked next to a grey Gulfstream jet and turned to Arthas.

"You will be under the command of one our special forces officers. He is considered one of the best in the nation. This is a matter of our national security and the world's security. What you will be up against at this moment is not very clear to me."

The man climbed out of the SUV and turned to Arthas.

"Lets get going."

******************************************

The woman contacted Dirk and informed him of getting DWAR on the team. Dirk told her to get him over to the Golden Simatar ASAP. She drove to the hotel where she had left DWAR, picked him up an drove him to the airport where another grey Gulfsteam was waiting.

She turned back to DWAR and handed him a small hotel card. "That is for your room in the Hilton in Clarence. You will be called and taken to our special force's base of Kriegspiel where you will meet the rest of the team. I wish you a happy flight."

She smiled to him as he climbed aboard the Gulfstream and it took off towards the Golden Simatar.

******************************************

Ruben was shaken awake and given some medicine to get rid of his headache. He was given a bright yellow prison suit and once he had stripped and put on his new clothes; he was escorted to another room.

Ruben's picture, fingerprints, and ID were all entered into a computer and his personal effects were placed into a locker. As he sat with his hand and ankled cuffed, the man in the room picked up the ringing phone and talked with confusion on his face. He hung up, and stared at Ruben for a few minutes.

He escorted the man to a bare concrete room, spare for a table and two chairs. Ruben sat down in one of the chairs as the man left the room. Another man, dressed in plain military fatigues was in the room. He looked at Ruben and sat down in the other chair.

"They got you for robbery, murder, assault and battery with a deadly weapon, assault and battery of a member of the Simatarian Armed Forces...that is just the start. You will probably get two consecutive life sentences with no parole. You will sit here and rot for the rest of your life. But, I am offering you a way out. Your skill has impressed my superior, and he would like to hire you to be part of a team. We will pay you five million dollars in whatever currency you want...and when the job is over, you are free to go. How does that sound?"

Ruben did not know it, he was facing the man who was behind the whole operation, Dirk Wolfe.

******************************************

The taxi drove Edwardo to the airport, but didn't stop at the terminal. It drove him straight out to the tarmac where a grey Gulfstream was waiting. A man stood at the base of the stairs leading into the aircraft and smiled at Edwardo approached.

"Mr. Hootington, we talked on the phone. Climb aboard and we should reach the Golden Simatar in a few hours. I can also give you a brief run down of the mission if you want one."

******************************************

The private nodded to Nathan, got up and lead the pair to a waiting SUV.

"We are offering each of you five million dollars, in any currency you want. We would like you to be part of a team that is going to investigate what happened to a spec ops unit several hours ago. I must also say, this mission is vital to the safety of everyone on Earth. Everything will be explained to you when you reach the briefing. Time is not on our side, if you accept...please climb in and we can get to the airport."

*******************************************

The man stared at Jared and didn't speak until the aircraft was in the air.

"I pray that you are right that this infection is not much. I really do...but...."

He pulled out a small tape recorder and placed it on a table. He had been under orders not to use it, unless Jared was being a hard ass. He pressed play. Static was heard until they heard a man's frantic voice.

"Help.....t****Rebe**********the fucking thing***********blood everywhere, people dyi*********someone help**oh God."

They heard several gunshots followed by screaming and the sound of animal like grunting. As the screams and grunts continued they heard something that sounded like a body being torn apart and flesh being devoured.

"That was recived shortly before we lost contact with the research facility. That doesn't sound like a PR job to me. But, you can think what you want. More information will be given at the briefing. When we reach Clarence, there will be a room ready for you at the Hilton on Broun street. Wait there until the army picks you up."

"Alright. Sounds perfect." and then in a sarcastic tone "Now you are going to ruin it all and tell me I'm working with a bunch of steriod-taking, Spec Ops. jarheads."

Rock music blared in the background of this crowded garage. It was not crowded with people, but with the machines of humanity, littered around in a haphazard fashion. Some were bound by chains, situated in the middle of the hair ready to be worked on, some were still in not so prestine containers, recently ordered or haggled for in some place in town. Motor oil was heavy in the air, and the rock music seemed right at home here, deep angry guitars strumming heavily in contest against the sound of the engine Cid was working on. The engine was giving out a steady rumble, a deep one which occasionally exploded into a loud outbreak of rage, adjustments and testing making this noble machine into a beserker at will.

"There we go!" Cid said in satisfaction as he turned a greasy switch on the engine off, signalling the end of his customisation session. The engine was deemed now acceptable for what he wanted, the new fuel systems allowing the engine to have speeds fast than what it should. Finely tuned and lovingly caressed by Cid's black gloved hands, the engine died down in it's battleroar, letting the rock music take predence.

"Good enough for Mad Max! And if it aint, screw him!" Cid said to himself, a chuckle coming from him as he did so. He tapped the engine which was exposed in the half-completed bike, the framework being across the garage in various sectons. Cid was now stood over the now resting heart of his machine, a certain degree of pride coming over him.

He walked over to his bench, one of many scattered around in convienant places, and took off his gloves and working goggles, the thick grime of his hobby and occasional profession still clinging to them. His work outfit was equally covered by all manner of machine vital fluids, which made him reek. But Cid loved the smells, the aroma's of his passion.

Cid had shortly cut blond hair, which was spiked up slightly. This was for a practical purpose, and a sort of an accident too. He cut it shortly so it would not get in the way of his vision when he worked, both in the garage and in some combat situation to which he allowed himself to be hired for. Cid was average in height, but well toned in body, his muscles being functional and used to labour, such as lifting heavy equipment or brawling in a brawl.

Wiping his not so well formed face with a not so white cloth, he looked at his current work of art. It was a bike which he was working on, various parts from various machines, making it a hybrid of a dangerous nature. Intented to be both enjoyable to burn around, and durable enough to take a beating in combat. Cid did not know when he would be called up for a job, and what sort of job it was. He always liked attending escort duty to a group of supply trucks, when all of his other co-workers have simple bikes or functional cars, when he had a monster of a machine which could take more damage than all them, and deal just as much as it back.

The garage now had a new sound in it, which beat down the rock music into submission. It was the sound of a large collection of bells, firebells which were situated all over the place. The sound was deafening, and there was a good reason for it. Cid, often when working in this noisy enviroment could not hear when someone rang on his door, or was making an illegal entry into it. The bells played for five seconds, then receeded to one in the section which kept the front door. Whatever bell played second, indicated where the individual was coming from.

Cid hoped it was someone wanting his employment, someone who might pay decently for his services. He had been doing cheap work recently, due to the lack of conflict in this area. It had been good in a way, it had allowed him more time on his machine. But, a good river of green coming his way was needed to fuel his passion and his machines, not to mention his ammunition.

"Wella wonder who that is?" Cid said to himself, as he opened the door by a lever by his desk. This was so that if the customer was not a customer, and someone not so freindly, he could dive for cover and pull out his guns with safe cover, although the stray bullet could blow this entire place up.

Andrew stepped off the G5, and stretched as his feet hit the ground. He yawned, and grabbed the duffle bag as it was handed to him by one of the pilots. Looking aorund, he noticed a few cars sitting on the runway. He assumed that those were his contacts, and began to walk over.

Taken aback by the sounds on the recording he looked closer at the uniform, “I guess you’re right, this isn’t a PR job. I take it everybody else is staying at the Hilton, you know the last time I stayed in the Hilton the top four stories got hit by shell fire, can you make sure my room isn’t near the top?”

The uniformed man didn’t smile, he was waiting for this trip to end so he could forget ever having met this arrogant man. Plisken grabbed the tape recorder and wound it back, then played the clip again.

Sounds like another fucking experiment, scientists always screwing around with stuff us grunts know better than to look at, let alone play with. Least this one is an army job, I hate finance missions.

“Are you coming along for the ride or do I get to play radio games with you?”

Rikan raised an eyebrow as the private mentioned the pay. She looked over to Nathan and grinned. The bounty on their latest kill had only be set at two million stones.

She nodded to Nathan slightly, to show her approval of the monetary amount. She turned her attention back to the private.

"What are we waiting for?"

She picked up the rifle and slung it across her shoulders. "First, I'd like to collect a few things..."

The private nodded, "Of course. But we must hurry."

Rikan smiled, "Patience is a virtue...you won't be waiting long."

She led the two quickly toward her merc camp, went inside one of the constructs and emerged several minutes later. The sniper rifle was gone, and instead, she wore her favored weapons on her arms, the bracer blades. She focused on Nathan, "Keep the sword. I'd like to see you practice some more with it."

She turned back to the private, "Let's go."

There was a soft thump and the leather headrest exploded behind Arthas's head. The man had nearly pulled out a gun as he stared at his contact. A small, silenced pistol had appeared in his hand. His eyes were cold as was his voice.

"Don't you insult my comrades mate. Another inch to the left and the inside of this vehicle would be decorated in an interesting new color called 'hint of brain'. If you go to Kriegspiel with that attitude, the bullet won't miss."

The man pulled up his sleeve and showed Arthas a tattoo. Ranger. The man placed the pistol into his pocket.

"Come on, get in the damn plane so we can go."

******************************************

A woman walked into Cid's office and smiled to him.

"Mr. Cid Rosellalot I presume. I am representing the Golden Simatar. As I understand it you are freelance and looking for a good paying job. You will be payed five million in any currency you desire. Half when you get to Kriegspiel for the briefing, the rest when the job is over. I will give you more details on the flight over."

******************************************

The man walked up to Andrew and shook his hand.

"Good to meet you. You are the first to arrive. Come along."

He lead Andrew to one of the cars and drove him out of the airport. The drive was short, slightly less than twenty minutes. The man parked in front of the Hilton where the mercs would be staying till everyone had shown up. The man handed Andrew a key.

"Room 411..fourth floor. Feel free to explore the city, we can find you when it is time."

*******************************************

The man stared back at Jared and handed him his hotel key.

"You my friend, get the fourth floor. Room 419. If you want I can arrange for a Tiger to fly next to your window and plug a few rockets into it for a wake up call."

The man turned to a bar nearby and poured some vodka for himself.

"No, I am not coming with you. I am only a paratrooper. Please...make yourself a drink, we still have about two hours up left."

*******************************************

The private climbed into the SUV along with Rikan and Nathan. He started the SUV and drove out of the woods towards the airport.

"I don't think you will need that sword, small arms will do for this mission. Everything will be supplied by the army."

When they reached the airport, he drove out onto the tarmac to a waiting Gulfstream jet. The trio climbed on board and the jet took off.

Rikan spoke up from the backseat of the SUV, "I'll be keeping my blades, thank you very much. Anything else I need, I'll pick up from your armory."

She gestured over to Nathan, "I don't know about him though. He might just stick with his guns..."

When DWAR stepped off the plane, he was glad to be done with the long flight, so was Zephyr. He tossed the bird into the air before he walked through the busy airport. He would call him down before he hailed a taxi to go to the hotel he would be staying at.

Ruben stared at the the military man for several minutes. He didn't like this one bit. If they were willing to offer a criminal a chance to go free and with five million in his pocket, this must indeed be a high risk job. It really didn't sound like a good idea, yet what other choice did he have? This didn't look like the kind of place easily escaped unless one was prepared to have a lot of time and patience. Ruben had neither. Mind made up, Ruben kept his gaze upon the military man as he spoke.

"Perhaps we can negotiate these terms slightly. Keep one million of your generous offer and in return you also erase all records of me you took. Fingerprints, photo, DNA. I'm sure you'll keep reports on my presence, but destroy those three pieces of data and I will willingly dive headfirst into whatever this team is meant to do. Is that acceptable?"

It could be noted that Ruben seemed to remain calm throughout the entire situation. Even the undesirable prospect of going to jail would not crack Ruben's nerves of steel. He awaited a response...

Nathan grinned at Rikan.

"Well, I can't resist an all you can get armoury now can I?"

He then tapped his long sword.

"But I promise I'll use this, Desert Eagles s and rifles only work so well at close range."

Andrew shook the man's hand. He had always had trouble sleeping while flying, so he napped on the car ride to the hotel. He thanksed the men for their help bringing his stuff up to is room, where he collapsed on the bed, and slept, waiting to be contacted.

Raising an eyebrow he looked down at his boots briefly, “Airborne? Can always trust airborne to know the score, had my boots figured out by those guys. Strongest, most comfortable boots I ever did wear. Tell you what, when this job is over I’ll get you a pair, those army boots really don’t suit you.”

Having pocketed the key he lounged back, he ignored the offer of a drink and instead rested his head against the furniture and closed his eyes. Better to rest when it was available, store it away until he had to reach inside and come up with more energy.

For perhaps twenty minutes he did mange to rest fully, it was no use really trying to sleep now though. “So airborne, how come your boys aren’t taking this show? I mean you obviously don’t like mercenaries.” It was a tempting question, too tempting not to ask and perhaps not to answer.

Cid's mind was at it's normal train of thought, the idea of that amount of money appealed to it more than the idea of asking questions.

"Well for that amount of money, you could get me to do near bout anything. Tell me directions and how to get there, and I will be right there my freind! What do I need to bring?" Cid said cheerfully, already looking for his travelling bag, and various other equipment.

Rikan nodded and smiled as Nathan addressed her.

"I figured you'd see the value of keeping such a weapon, despite the claims by many to say that they are outdated..."

The only reaction Arthas made to the shot was to pick the shreads of seat padding out of his hair. He got out of the vehicle, looked over the hood at his client and said "I assume I'm right though, that I'll feel like Bill Gates on Muscle Beach in comparison."

He walked, the only sound he made was the light clomping of his boots on the tarmac, a sound which he had leaned to be able to turn off at any time for whatever reason. He got in the plane and sat down. Looking over he asked "I assume because this isn't a commercial flight that there won't be some stewardess coming down the line with some wine I could have?", pulling a small bottle of Merlot out of his pocket and offered some to his new business partner.

"So, I would honestly like to know who I am going to be walking off into the fray with, and maybe you have a folder with some info on what the hell is going on, that'd be appreciated"

OOC: (Please read this)

Ooooh, I would just like to remind everyone that you should keep an eye on all the RP posts, even ones for other people's characters. As most of our characters are almost to the 4th floor of the Hilton, if not there already, the characters will be having a good chance to run into each other.

Odds are that there isn't a gun show or a neo-nazi convention going on at the hotel, so it is going to be pretty obvious to everyone that these people are their new allies for a little while.

Except for maybe Ravea's character, Edwardo Hootington, everyone is going to believe him to be there for the Planter's Peanut convention. Just kidding. I get dibs on that reference in the RP though.

Also, I would recommend going back to our signup thread (Which Golden Scimitar informed me is our OOC forum too) and reading everyone's character bios, you know then what the other people look and sound like, which is a good thing, then maybe you will have some better posts, and get the Peanut reference from before. So, yeah, read the bios. People put time into them.

And if you are thinking that reading about the other people is bad because your character doesn't know all that stuff about them, pretend you get a folder that has everyone's files in it.

That is all. :D

DWAR stepped out of the Taxi, Zephyr sitting on his arm. As he walked into the lobby people were staring at his bird, but the second he scanned his eyes over them they mysteriously decided to look away. He walked across the lobby and into the stair well, climbing to the fourth floor.

The private thought over what Rikan had said about using her blades on the ride over. He considered them outdated weapons, he rarely carried a combat knife on a mission because he rather carry an extra magizine.

"Help yourselves to a drink, we are going full throttle and should get to the Golden Simatar in just over two hours. I need to make a call."

The man got up and walked to the cockpit, picked up the phone, called Dirk and told him he got the Viper.

******************************************

Dirk nodded to Ruben's request. It was sensible and it would save them a million dollars.

"You got it. I'm sorry, but you are going to have to stay here for the time being. A chopper will be sent when you are needed."

Ruben was taken back to his cell, nothing more than a small room with a toilet, bed, mirror, and small dresser.

Dirk got up and left the room, his cell rang and he listened to the good news. He smiled, gave his thanks to the man and hung up. Walking back outside, he climbed aboard his helicopter and took off. It was then he got a message over his headsets that the mercs began to arrive, things were looking up.

******************************************

The paratrooper sipped his vodka, and while Jared was sleeping, called Dirk and told him they should get to the airport shortly. Jared woke up when they only had another half hour in the flight. He smiled at Jared.

"We are taking part, my division...the 33rd, is holding part of the barrier. I was plucked because I have done things like this before. We usually dislike mercenaries because your kind fights for anyone who has a fat enough wallet; it is rare to find a mercenary who had any kind of allegence to anyone but themselves and money."

The Gulfstream landed shortly there after in Clarence and the pair climbed out and headed to a waiting SUV. The paratrooper took off his regular army boots and slipped on his jump boots.

"That is much more like it."

He drove Jared to the Hilton.

"Here you are my friend. I will probably see you at Kriegspiel."

******************************************

The woman simply smiled.

"Just bring a few sets of clean clothes for the time you wait unitl contacted. We will supply weapons and uniforms."

She lead Cid outside to a waiting SUV and drove him to the airport and a waiting Gulfstream. They took off and headed towards the Golden Simatar. She looked at her watch, it was already mid afternoon.

"We should arrive near dusk, everyone will arrive by night and the job won't start till tomorrow. Do you have any other questions?"

******************************************

The man climbed into the plane after Arthas and tasted the Merlot.

"We do have a fully stocked bar on board, if you desire something different. This is a very good Merlot."

The man leaned back in his chair as the Gulfstream rocketed into the air. They should arrive by dusk he thought. He turned back to Arthas as he asked about who he was going with. The man picked up a phone, dialed, and talked for a few minutes in Simatarian. He hung up and turned back to Arthas.

"The only mercenary I just confirmed is also going is Rikan Tansho...also known as the Viper. The rest I do not know about. You will be going with a man named Dirk Wolfe, a Black Ops officer. He will give you a run-down on what will be done at the briefing. I do not have a folder on what is going on, but I do have this."

He pulled out the tape recorder and played the exact same recording Jared had heard eariler; the screams, grunting, and gunfire filled the cabin until it finished.

"We lost contact with a research facility about twenty to thirty hours ago, we sent in a team and lost contact with them. The military has put up a barrier and has been evacuating people as quickly as we can. In terms of who you are up against...that I don't know."

He finished up the Merlot with the man and picked out two bottles of wine specific to Golden Scimitar, stashing them in strapped pockets in his coat along with a bottle of Asti. "One for later, one as a momento of this trip."

Sipping away at the wine, he jostled the names in his head "Wolfe, ah... poor guy, heard about Silverback 1, my opinion it is worse to lose your men than your life. And, the other one, The Viper, heh, one of the underbosses back in the family was in the merc group she was in. Wow, working with these two? I'm actually somewhat excited." His face didn't show it.

He took the tape player, plugged his headphones into it, and listened to it on loop for the whole trip, sipping the last of the Merlot. His face gave a combination of the fact he was memorizing the noises heard, and the fact that he was getting some sort of sick pleasure of hearing the killing. "Memories..." He said as they landed, unplugging the tape player and plugging back in an old RioVolt MP3 player. The opera piece Ave Maria could be heard silently.

Rikan declined the offer for a drink. If they were going into something nasty, she didn't want to be a staggering drunk, or even have her judgement impaired in any way. Contrary to what some might say, she didn't find it so easy to defeat multiple enemies at once. It was tough work, and it required her to be at her best she could be.

Instead, she turned sideways in the seat of the gulfstream jet and leaned her head against Nathan's shoulder, closing her eyes and falling asleep. The attendant came by to request her to buckle up. She opened her eyes and glared at the woman, before complying. She did not move from her relaxed position. Her thought was that if she was going to die, then she would die, nothing to stop her fate.

But the annoying attendant wasn't satisfied. She returned to request Rikan to sit upright in her seat. Snarling, she sat up, beckoned for the woman to come closer and then grabbed her hair with one hand, "Listen, you pompous bitch. You just go on back to your quarters, bring a bottle of water for both myself and Nathan, and then keep your cute ass out of my sight, and I won't bother y'all for the rest of the flight. Understood?"

Rikan released the woman's hair, still snarling. The woman nodded quickly and departed down the isle.

She returned to her previous position, folding her legs under herself as she turned and rested her head on Nathan's shoulder once more.

Ruben smiled and nodded to Dirk as he was escorted from the interrogation room. He was content now that at least he had a possible future, if he survived whatever this mission was.

Ruben lay down upon his bed and contemplated the future before falling into a restful sleep.

Im afraid Im gonna have to withdraw if this thing really starts moving...Im about to go to Washington DC, and wont be able to post till sunday

OOC: If you're only gonna be gone till Sunday, why don't you just stay in the thread, and we'll just assume your character is following along silently? A week isn't all that bad, and staying in the thread is manageable. If you were gone for like three weeks or more, then I'd say pull out.

Ok, that works

Nathan smiled, and rested his head gently on Rikan's. He stayed like that for a few seconds, before kissing her on the head and then sitting up. Putting his feet under the chair, Nathan flipped his backpack up onto his lap. Sighing, he opened it up, and retrieved a large book with a pen attached. The book was hardback. On the front, it said: Nathan's Logbook in thick gold letters. Using his knees, he pushed the backpack onto the floor, and then put his feet up on it.

Perfection...

The attendant arrived a few moments later with a bottle of water, and two glasses. Nathan snatc*ed the bottle, and declined the glasses. The attendant went away without another word. Smiling, he opened the bottle, and had a sip. he then passed it over to Rikan. Relaxing slightly (Nathan never fully relaxes), he ran his fingers through his long dark brown hair (straight hair, comes down to just over his eyes) and his deep blue eyes emerged from their cover for a few seconds. Opening the book, he clicked his pen. He wrote the date in, bit his lip, and then began to write.

We did it! Today me and Rikan finally caught up with Gerand deep in the woods, and put him to eternal rest, if there is such a thing for a moonwalker. I must admit I'm pleased, I'm getting rather adept with my longsword now. I ended Gerand's life with a lumberjack's cut to the neck, and now we have all the evidence we need to collect the bounty. However, we also saved a man's life. Gerand found him in the woods, and was about to kill him. Apparently he's from The Golden Simitar, a large nation from what I've heard.

Me and Rikan have been offered a substancial reward of five million (insert currency here). Apparently, something has gone wrong in one of The Golden Simitar's labs, and they want a mercenary team to sort things out. I must say it sounds alot like the epidemic the world had recently with those weird creatures me and Rikan barely escaped from, but only time will tell. I'm now on a plane heading to The Golden Simitar. I have a bottle of water, a comfy seat, and my love Rikan resting on my shoulder. My life has never felt more complete.

Grinning, Nathan shut the book and using his feet, pulled the backpack to him. Flipping it onto his lap, he put the book back into the backpack, and then put it on the floor. Putting his feet up, he leant his head lightly on Rikan's, and began to drift off.

As he entered the hotel foyer he brought the key out, standard hotel room key with 419 in soft gold lettering, making for the elevators he strode far from the reception desk and called for an elevator. He paced patiently working out some kinks in his body from the flight, only a simple kit bag holding his rifle had been provided so far, flexing his arms and shoulders under the tight exercise vest.

Edwardo looked at the man in the Gulfstream and nodded.

"Yes, I would like to know what type of mission I'm going on. Please, Fill me in."

Edwardo made his way of the plane's steps and took a seat in the aircraft.

The planes carrying Arthas, Rikan, and Nathan landed shortly after dusk. They landed on opposite ends of the airport. The private drove Rikan and Nathan to the Hilton, gave them thier key, and then drove away. A little more than twenty minutes later, the SUV carrying Arthas arrived and he was also deposited.

**************************************

The man looked at Edwardo.

"The mission is top seceret. We lost contact with one of our research facilities. We sent in a team but haven't heard for them in some time. So, that is why this team is being orgainzed to go in there and find out what happened."

It wasn't till after dark when Edwardo's plane arrived. He was also deposited at the Hilton, his contact giving him one last bit of advice.

"Get a good nights sleep...gonna be a big day tommorrow."

***************************************

Cid's plane was the last to arrive. After he was dropped off at the Hilton, his contact drove to a payphone and called Dirk.

"Sir, all the mercs are here."

"Good, let them have this night off. We'll start the operation tomorrow."

The woman hung up and drove to her flat to rest.

****************************************

Dirk hung up the phone and layed down on his bed. He had done it, the team was ready. Tomorrow they would be brought to Kriegspiel via chopper, they would be briefed, then the insertion.

He closed his eyes and fell asleep.

Arthas walked up to the hotel and walked in his room, that was the first one after the elevator. He walked in and found the room all too fancy for his taste, as he deposited the salary-breaking bottles of wine into the mini-fridge, made himself a tea, and sat at the table, leaving the door open, watching for anyone else who may be part of this mission. He plugged his MP3 player into the stereo system in the room and played various jazz and rock songs, speckled with the occasional quiet opera or piano piece. He turned the music up just enough so everyone in the hallways could hear it, catching their attention as Arthas looked out the door, keeping some tea ready.

(OOC Sorry for not posted as much as I should be, I will be from now on. My time has increased a fair bit. Preparations for Valentine's Day did kind of drain my time, along with other things :) )

Cid rubbed his chin, which held small firmly rooted strands of hair upon his chin and face. It had become considerably cleaner once he had actually prepared to leave his beloved garage, because he knew the smear of oil and the stench of petrol were hardly comfortable for long periods in a plane or car, and it hardly made him look professional.

And also, it was not attractive at all.

"Well, what I need to do wud be a good start.What equipment we are being givven. A rarity for me to be given guns, which, by the way, I must thank ya for. And what I can expect..and if any other cowboys will be riding with me. What equipment we are being givven. A rarity for me to be given guns, I must thank ya for it. Ya know, the ins and outs of the whole thing." Cid said, with his usual accent which indicated his poorer education and less elequent expression of ideas. He moved his gloved hands to put forward his ideas, often in a rather comical fashion. When he mentioned weapons, he mimiced shooting pistols with both hands at the flight attendant.

---

(After the plane of course)

Cid was shown to his hotel room, and Cid strolled over in his usual movements, as if he was judging everything. He was very appreciative of it all, it seemed as if he had been hired in something way out of his league. It was all clean, it seemed expensive.

Cid went into his room, and set about his things. He smelt the cleanness of the room, and was reminded of how others lived. Cid felt slightly out of place here, the engineer who had made his living by dodging and diving in the streets, existing where he could, sleeping wherever and eating whatever felt a wanting for the old motor oil again.

In the distant background, he could hear rock music blaring away, which made him smile slighly. "Well, at least that'll do for home comforts." Cid said humourously, putting a cigarette to his lips and flicking his chunky lighter to light it.

Soon he set about putting his things about, his clean clothes, and making sure he had his two small knives upon his person, and his backup pistol, which was within his boot. He was always careful when making buisness with rich people, or anyone for that matter. Cid might not be too well educated, but he was certainly not stupid about such matters.

When the piano pieces started coming on, Cid was annoyed, and he cursed silently, as he lay on his bed, watching the smoke from his second cigarette float gently upwards. He soon fell asleep...but of course, without the cigarette in his mouth. Cid might have been reckless, but he knew from experiance not to leave cigarettes unattended.


He almost had his garage explode for that very reason, and he certainly did learn from that!

A few minutes later, Nathan and Rikan arrived at their room. Grinning, he inserted the key into the lock, and opened the door.

"Blimey, they certainly didn't have this at bootcamp!"

Nathan walked in with Rikan following. They both looked around. Nathan opened the fridge, and whistled.

"Definately not at bootcamp..."

He grinned at Rikan.

"Want a drink?" He asked. She smiled and declined.

"Fine, champagne's all mine." He said grinning. He pulled out the cold bottle of champagne, and a glass. Setting them on a bedside table, Nathan threw his stuff into a corner, and took his top off. He stretched.

"Plane trips are always mean to me..."

Removing his boots, and throwing the into the corner, Nathan flipped backwards onto the bed. Getting the champagne bottle, he opened it quickly and flawlessly, and filled the glass. Putting the bottle to one side, he sipped the champagne, the nice bubbly liquid sending his taste buds crazy.

"I like." He commented.

Edwardo took some time to reflect on his breifing in his hotel room. Obviously the rest of the team was going to be full of mercs-why else would The Golden Simatar contact him? He sighed as he hanged his jacket on the coat rack and fixed his monacle.

Hootington lisnted carefully as music started flowing through the hall, mostly rock. Terrible, Edwardo thought. He was about to go complain when a piano Concerto suddenly started up, and he paused. Now this was music he could listen to. Edwardo jumped on the bed and relaxed, preparing for tomarrow.

Rikan could only smile at Nathan's actions. It was almost as if he were a child about to go on a trip to an "awesome theme park". She walked over to the double doors and opened them, bringing the fresh breeze into the room. She pulled a chair out with her and set it on the small balcony.

She sat herself down and rested her feet upon the railing, staring out into the distance, lost in thought. She sighed slightly as she watched a bird float lazily upon the heat waves rising from the earth.

And so she sat quietly, lost in her thoughts, thoughts of her past. She remembered the battles, the times of peace, the murders, and most especially, the faces of those that died under her assault. She would never forget those, they haunted her each morning when she woke up, and remained with her until she fell asleep. But usually, they didn't let her rest there. She would see them in her dreams, and often wake up with little true rest.

Nathan watched Rikan. When he thought she was asleep, he grinned, and sat up. Refilling his glass, he sat up and listened to the rock/classical music. Deciding it'd be a good idea to find the source, Nathan wal-, stumbl*d out of the room, and began to move toward the source of the music.

The elevator seemed to be taking ages, in silent despair Plisken began making for the stairs and no sooner was he bounding his way up than an empty elevator arrived.

Reaching the floor he scanned the room numbers, passing them by his boots making not a sound in the deep carpeting, he reached his room and clicked the door open. Single bed, single TV, single en-suite and single mini-fridge but it was all double the price of the whole lot, “Cosy. Very cosy.”

He left the bag on a corner chair, kicked the door shut noisily and began to rearrange furniture a bit, namely moving the couch in the room against the full length sliding door and tipping the bed up on its side. The bed thumped against the wall loudly, not that it mattered as next door was filled with the sounds of music.

“Time to work out those kinks properly and I even got some music, this place certainly beats the last Hilton already” Stripping down he stepped in to the en-suite and flicked the shower on, the water probably would of taken only a few minutes to warm up but regardless Jared showered in cold and then lukewarm water.
Still dripping wet he reached down to grab his toes successfully, after repeating the stretch a few times he began working on other parts of his body.

Within a few minutes he was nearly dried off and had begun moving on to toning exercises, much to the probable discontent of the room below and those to either side as the movements of a soldier exercising tend to be rather boisterous.

Arthas was sitting in one of the cheap table chairs, sipping at tea, the song "Gotta Knock A Little Harder" playing, when Nathan came around the corner. Arthas jsut smiled and pured another tea, waving Nathan in and pushing out a chair.

"Hello there, I believe you are... Nathan? Is it? You and your partner's reputatiom is well known,. It's an honor." He didn't hold out his hand for a shake, but he did do a small nod.

DWAR entered his room, and set his small bag down on the bed. He looked around the room, and set his bird on the back of the small wooden chair. Before he sat down on the bed he unslung his rifle from around his back, and leaned it on the wall in the corner. He could hear some rock music coming from a room down the hall. I'll investigate it in a minute, he thought. He sat on the bed for a minute and rubbed his eyes and forehead, thinking about the mission. After a few minutes went by he decided to check out the music from down the hall. He picked up his bird, and started walking towards the source of the music.

Arthas was still sitting, now "Comfortably Numb" was playing over the system. Arthas was a fan of classical music and classic rock. He saw another person come around, and poured another tea and pushed out another chair, and said in his Oh-So-Pleasent voice "I believe I am familiar about that bird, but all I know is that you are Deadly With A Rifle."

"Death With A Rifle," he said, "but I am quite deadly with one as well, at least they say I am." He set his bird on the chair's back, and sat on the floor next to it.

Edwardo was slightly put off. This constant moving of people and the music was interuppting his sleep. He sighed and looked out the door as another person walked by his room. What he saw suprised him mildly.

DWAR.

He knew of the man, and his reputation. This was going to be an interesting mission after all. He grapped his hat and monacle and slowly trailed DWAR to the room where the rock music blasted loudly. Hootington rapped on the door as he peeked inside.

"Care if I join you, Sirs?" Edwardo asked politely in his strangely high voice.

Arthas pushed another chair out and said "Sorry if we disturbed you, I'm just trying to get the gladhanding off to a start. This is good ol' DWAR, but I assume you know that already." He handed a tea to DWAR and poured another, pushing it over to the chair for Edwardo.

Sighing, Rikan broke away from her thoughts and glanced back into the room. Nathan was gone, so she pulled her feet back down to the ground and walked back inside. She left the chair where it was, and left the balcony doors open. She opened the main door and glanced down each end of the hall, noting that there was a rather loud song being played three doors down. She watched one man walk down the hall and rap on the door. Moments later, he was inside.

Probably where Nathan is... she thought to herself, as she made her way closer.

She too knocked and entered, "Hello boys." she said as she glanced between each of them with stern, cold eyes. To Nathan, she brightened slightly, but quickly resumed her cold look.

She made her way further into the room and pulled up a chair. She sat down and propped her legs up on the edge of the dresser and refused a drink.

Edwardo smiled and gladly took the chair.

"No, No, It's all right. Your music wasn't That loud. I suppose I just wanted to have a chat with the men I have no doubt I will fight with."

He took a cup of tea and sipped it, testing it's warmth.

"Ah, I forgot to introduce myself. Edwardo Hootington, at your service, Sirs." He turned to DWAR. "And yes, I do know of you quite well. It's an honor to meet you, friend."

Hootington swivled and saw the women walk in.

Looks like we're beginning to form quite a group here, He thought.

"Hello Edwardo. I'm not so sure I desreve the reputation I have, but i'll deal with it. I'm quite surprised anyone outside of NoF has even heard of me." he said as he sipped his tea, and set it down on the chair Zephyr was resting on.

"Nice to meet you, Edwardo." Arthas nodded.

He turned to Rikan and with a cunning smile "Ahh... the legendary Rikan, I've heard too many stories about you from an underboss I used to help yell at. Welcome to our little meeting here. We have plenty of other drinks if you want, mini-bar access my treat, and, well, a few nice bottles of wine I brought"

"So, maybe we can go around the table and tell a bit about ourselves." Arthas said, sipping the last of his tea and giving a smile emitting a combination of friendliness and malice. "Anyone can start."

Edwardo shrugged and gulped the last of his tea.

"I'm someone who doesn't really feel like talking about his hopes dreams-those are just words, after all. I've been working as a freelancer and assassian over the past decade after my brother was murdured. I guess the only thing you need to know about me is that I don't take kindly to rudeness, stupidity, or laizyness. Obviously I'm a proper fellow"

He smiled.

"I'll leave any questions about my worthiness in combat alone until after we start fighting."

Arthas nodded "You don't tolerate rudeness? Well now, maybe we won't get along well then." He turned "Anyone else gonna have a say?"

"Well, it appears most of you know me, if anyone here doesn't ask. I was born and raised to kill, entered the NoF military at the age of 5. Entered the scout sniper program when I was about 12, I don't really know anymore, the years just seem to blend together. I became a special operative for the government when I turned 16, about. Have been mindlessly following orders since. As for the bird, I raised him from a hatchling been following me for several years now." He said standing, and picking the eagle up.

Once again, Rikan refused the drink offered, "Not now. I don't celebrate until after the job's done."

Arthas suggested they tell each other about themselves. After a few spoke, Rikan took the opportunity.

"If you had read my file, you'd have known what I'm capable of." she commented, reaching her hands back and interlocking the fingers behind her head. She leaned back a little, and looked at each of them.

"Like Edwardo, I'll let you see what I'm capable of in combat. Then you can make your judgements."

Goddamn pricks of pride... she thought to herself.

"As for my interaction with others, I don't take shit from anyone. Not even the brass." She looked over to Nathan, "Remember Merrin?"

She saw him twitch slightly and a slight frown formed upon his face. She explained to the others, "The prick was rude, and overall, an asshole. Wanted to rape me. I cut his balls off. Literally."

Rikan grinned, almost sadistically.

Arthas started laughing at Rikan's story. "Well ma'am, any respect you didn't have from me, you have now. Very good story, horrorshow." He clapped once. "Anybody else left?"

Rikan smiled, "Good. I would hate to have to show you how Merrin felt personally..."

She looked over to Nathan and winked, smiling all the while.

*Ruben continues to sleep as there is nothing else for him to do in jail.*

Nathan grinned back, and shrugged.

"Well, until the outbreak the world had recently (City of the De*d), I was in the United States army. I was a Lt., I taught hand to hand combat, close range combat, and heavy weapons," He paused, "When the outbreak occured, I helped out at the Fort in Washington D.C., where I met Rikan," He smiled over at Rikan, "Lots of people died, but a few of us made it through, but after the whole incident, I guess I handed in my resignation when I shot Merrin in the kneecap..." He then leaned back a bit, "Then, before I knew it, me and Rikan were hunting a vampire called Gerand. We'd just killed the damn moonwalker when, we were approached by TGS. And so, here I am, with Rikan of course." He then looked over at Arthas.

Arthas laughed. "Well, we just met, Rikan. I still may have yet to have the displeasure."

"Oh, cool. You think this is another outbreak, I've just heard that infernal tape?"
He poured a vodka from the mini-bar.

"So, anybody else?"

Rikan narrowed her eyes and interrupted, "Wait a minute...you say there's a tape? We never were given anything of the like. Do you still have it?"

She glanced over to Nathan, the same thought shared between the two. They hoped to God it wasn't another D.C.-esque problem...

Continuing to exercise for a few more minutes he eventually let the bed drop down to the floor, he only provided scant effort in lowering it, unsurprisingly the bed thumped down heavily and rattled his windows.
“Hope the neighbours are as noisy” He began to get dressed again, the clothes were only slightly ruffled but they felt old regardless of appearances. Grabbing the key he’d left on a side table he swung the door open, grabbing a small brochure of the hotels facilities, and stepped in to the hall.

"No, I don't have the tape anymore. I do have a recoding of it on my MP3 player, I enjoy listening to it so much" He smiled in a way that a vampire would staring at someone's neck. He got up and walked over to his MP3 player and flipped it on, and everyone, even the newcomer in the hallway, heard the research stations last communique.

Rikan furrowed her brow in deep thought.

Just like the sounds victims made when the creatures killed them...back in the States...so similar...

She looked up at Nathan, transmitting her thoughts simply by the look in her eyes.

Instead, she lowered her head and planted her forehead in the palms of her hands. "Not again..." she muttered to herself, hardly audible...

"Jesus...I-, we left America because of an outbreak. I didn't...dammit."

Nathan comforted Rikan, and shook his head.

"Well, we signed on, not much we can do, but show off to these guys eh?" Nathan joked with Rikan. He looked up at the others.

"You do realise that these...things are really bad, unless they have a miracle injection that can cure you, keep your distance. You get bitten, and I'll blow your head off. Got it?" He said to the others.

Arthas smiled at hearing the tape again, taking a sip of the vodka before walking over to the sink and pouring it out, muttering "Damn hotels".

"You two" he said pointing to Nathan and Rikan with one hand "Do you care to share some previous information, or should I leave you two to bitter nostalgia?"

He was somewhat egging them on to keep talking, more to change the subject of telling about themselves, he knew it was his turn soon, and he didn't like talking about himself.

Nathan laughed.

"We did, it's your turn matey. Actually, I'm interested in who you are now."

Arthas kind of shifted his weight, standing next to the sound system which was just emmiting a low noise from not playing anything, to which he promptly changed to "Us And Them". Arthas was always a Pink Floyd fan, despite most people these days looking at that as classical. He seemed a bit nervous, now sipping more tea.

"Oh, well... heh. Does that really matter? I don't want to bore people. I mean, I've heard of all of you becuase you all have great pasts and are experianced mercs... if nobody knows your story, is it worth telling?"

Outside in the hallway Plisken flicked through the brochure briefly; spas, pools, gymnasiums and even a cinema, then the tape played through the walls and the doors all around him. Struggling to locate the noise he focused on a single door and knocked twice, then kicked it in heavily with his jump boots.
“Are you the people who’re getting five million for some job we only kind of know about?” Plisken burst through the door and then burst through his brief question, it surprised people to say the least. The last gasp of life at the facility ended and the next file played.

Something very different from the communiqué.

"It would seem so," DWAR said turning around quickly, holding his knife in his free hand. He looked at the man who had just burst in, deemed he was "mostly harmless" and put his knife away.

OOC: "Mostly Harmless" a little H2G2 reference?

IC: Arthas sighed a bit of relief, not because of being surprised, he just once again got out of telling about himself.

"Took you long enough to come down here, we've been making good conversation, which you've mixed, care for tea?"

OOC: you know it

IC:
DWAR set Zephyr on the chair once again, and stood next to the chair.

OOC: Guys, I would really like everyone to wrap up this meeting as soon as possible so we can continue to the next day.

ic:

The phone in Arthas's room rang and before he could pick it up, it had flipped to speaker phone. A man's voice could be heard over the line.

"I am suprised you all are up so late, but I guess it is a good thing that you all are getting to know each other. I am Corporal Argento of the Rangers if you are wondering. We do not have the rooms bugged, it is just one of our men can see the light is still on in Arthas's room. I suggest you wrap up what you are doing and hit the hay, we'll be swinging by at 6:30 sharp to pick you up. I wish you all a good night."

There was a click on the other line as Argento hung up. He looked at Arthas's room window from the apartment he was positioned at. The man smiled before collecting his things, going outside, climbing into his car, and driving away.

"Oh, well, you heard the Merc.-Fuhrer. Everyone get up and get out. It's about 2:00, we need to get ready. Apparently we are going to the playground before the little kiddies, if he's so excited to be swinging at 6:30. I dunno. Wasn't paying much attention" Sheepish smile.

He lead everyone to the door and let everyone out before closing the door, laying in bed staring at the cieling until 5am, and made tea and coffee and raided the continental breakfast, having a nice spread ready for people to go on the way out to stop on the street. "Damn insomnia" he could be heard muttering once or twice.

Rikan had her bracer-blades extracted, and clicked into their infamous locked position when Plisken rudely came crashing through the door. Had it not been for the fact that the guy starting demanding about their job, she would have unleashed hell.

She hated rudeness. It was classified under the one category she held: Bullshit.

The blades clicked back into their sheaths and she shoved past Plisken after hearing Arthas's report. She departed the room quickly heading back to her room. Minutes later, she had stripped down and clothed herself in more comfortable attire for the night. She turned out the light and instead of slipping underneath the covers, she returned to the balcony and sat down in the chair once more. Her eyes moved up to study the moon, then back to the earth to see all that was illuminated...

Nathan nodded at everyone.

"G'night everyone."

Getting up, he walked out of the room. Whistling, he went into his and Rikan's apartment, and shut the door. Striping down to his boxers, Nathan then picked up a robe and put it on. He didn't bother to tie it. Spotting Rikan sitting down outside, Nathan walked out onto the balcony. He grasped her shoulders gently. Rikan turned in surprised, but smiled once she saw it was him. Nathan smiled back. Rubbing his thu*bs into Rikan's back, he began to give her a massage.

"That any good?" Nathan asked. Rikan just sighed.

"Well, it's 2 A.M., and we haven't slept in ages. Do you think we should...?"

Rikan nodded. Both of them got up. Rikan kissed Nathan softly on the lips, smiled, and proceeded to bed. Nathan stood there with a dumb look for a couple of seconds, before snapping out of it. Walking into the room, he dumped his robe, and got into bed, along with Rikan.

The Next Day

Knocks came at the doors of the mercenaries. Several minutes later, they began to emerge and found several men in military fatigues in the hallway.

"Follow us please."

The soldiers lead the mercs down a staircase to the back of the hotel where several SUVs were waiting. The group climbed into the vehicles and the small convoy made it's way through the streets of Clarence. The large vehicles had no trouble navigating through the streets as there were few cars.

The convoy reached the airport, they drove straight out onto the tarmac to a waiting Mi-17 helicopter. It wasn't the primary helicopter for the army, but it was the primary helicopter for Black Diamond. Instead of having a golden scimatar stamped on the side of the helicopter like all of the others in service with the air force, it instead had a black diamond.

The mercs were moved inside, Rikan and Nathan quickly recongized a man sitting on one of the benches, Ruben Halifax. He had been picked up an hour ealier from prison, and now wore the same clothes he was captured wearing. The trio stared at each other for several seconds before sitting down.

The Mi-17 lifted off into the sky and darted across the airport heading north. The suburbs soon gave way to rolling forests, fields, and small towns. A half hour after passing the last town, all they could see is forest.

The Mi-17 began to descend and the mercs looked out the windows to see a large military complex, Kriegspiel; the home of the 1st Airborne and Special Forces Corp. It flew over to the corner of the base before landing.

As the mercs climbed out of the Mi-17, Ruben spotted his Dirk Wolfe heading towards them. Now his uniform had a symbol on it, a black diamond on his right arm sleeve.

"Everyone please follow me."

He lead the group to a large building, they moved through several long corridors before reaching a large room. Inside there were several tables and chairs. On the tables were urns of hot coffee and plates of hot sausages, bacon, eggs, buscuits, and cream chip beef.

In the center of the room was a large metal crate. There was no way to see into it, but it was obvious it held something, large locks were placed on the door, making sure no one could get inside.

Dirk climbed onto a small stage and pulled out black captain's bars, put them onto his uniform, and pulled out a black beret out of his uniform and put it on. It had a small white shield on it, in the center was a black diamond and black captains bars.

"Ladies and gentlemen, please get something to eat and sit down. I am Captain Dirk Wolfe, now I understand many of you are wondering why you are here. I will give you a brief run down on the mission, but I will field question right now."

Jared didn’t sleep that night, there wasn’t much point so he took advantage of the large television in his room and watched endless knowledge filter past on some local documentary channel.

* * *
At Kriegspiel he walked his way over to the bacon, scooped himself a large amount, proceeded to add some different sauces and then grabbed a rolls. Finding a seat at the edge he sat down, began eating and watched unsurprised as everyone gave him odd glances. He’d not made a great impression so far, not that it mattered yet.
Plisken looked over at Dirk, crisp uniform and that same logo as on the helicopter but otherwise he looked like every other person in the room. Lethally competent.

Arthas poured himself a cup of coffee and leaned against the wall towards the back side of the room. He was silent, but his face showed that A) He didn't sleep and B) He wasn't too happy with the java.

Hootington stood against the back wall a small ways away from Arthas, straightening his clothes and eagerly awaiting the briefing. In the meantime, he continued to obeserve all of his comrades-he was particularly interested in Rikan, Nathan, and Ruben, the other man who Edwardo had not met yet, who all seemed to know each other.

DWAR left the room, and went to his. After he set Zephyr on the back of a chair he layed in bed and fell asleep.

**************

DWAR stepped out of the bed, and pulled his clothes on.. After he was dressed he slung his rifle over his shoulder. He pulled on his glove and picked up his eagle.

**********

When they arrived at the hanger DWAR picked up some food, sat down. and listened to what they had to say.

Ruben had been thankful to finally get out of the prison and have his clothes returned. Unfortunately they weren't the sort of clothes he would pick for this sort of mission, but he didn't have a lot of choice as it was.

Sitting comfortably within the military chopper, Ruben awaited the other team members to be shipped onto the chopper so they could make their way to wherever they were going. Recieving quite a shock, Ruben found himself looking into the eyes of Nathan and Rikan. Ruben hadn't seen them since the incident in America and didn't particularly want to see them again considering what happened last time they had been together. Ruben merely watched the other two, not saying a word.

Finally the chopper landed and all were filed out and into a building. Ruben followed the others from behind and recognised Dirk as he entered the room. He was now wearing military unit and rank markings, of course that didn't surprise Ruben. He could tell this man was a leader, it was evident in the way he carried himself and spoke.

Eyeing the food, Ruben stepped forward, grabbed a handful of bacon and sausages, then moved to the back wall and began eating in solitude whilst Dirk delivered his speech.

With no questions, Dirk decided to start his speech. He pulled out a remote and pressed a button, a large screen behind him lit up, showing the two hundred square mile area they would go into.

"Right, I should say this first. This mission is top seceret and no word of it must leave this room or pass your lips. If word of this outbreak reaches the press, consquenes will be severe."

He let the obvious sink in for several seconds before continuing.

"Now, almost thirty hours ago we lost contact with one of our research facilites in the Glothlin mountains. Its research was top seceret, but since we are all here I can tell you what they were working on. A virus codenamed Rebecca, designed to drive the infected person to insanity.

"It was suppose to last no more than several days after a person was infected. On testing animals, this worked. When we tested on death row inmates with a slightly higher doseage for humans, many died from violent seizures and because of that we stopped testing for a few years. We restarted the program a few years ago, this time we had different results.

"The virus died after two weeks, and after sending the infected on a downward spiral to insanity, cannibalism, and finally to death. It could be transmitted via bites, scratches, or any other contact that leads to broken skin. The virus had a fail safe installed since it was man-made, it was suppose to die afte fifteen minutes airborne. Unfortunatly, that didn't appear to work.

"We do have a vaccine, which can only be used after you are scratched or bitten by an infected person. You have two minutes to inject yourself, this vaccine will be part of your kit."

Dirk paused for several seconds.

"Does anyone have any questions about Rebecca before I continue?"

"What are the effects on Raptors?" He asked, raising Zephyr up

Dirk looked at DWAR, he didn't consider the man bringing a bird.

"Well, so far the virus had left being airborne so you do not need to worry about your bird becoming infected; unless it gets bitten. In that case you better kill your bird. I do not know what effects it will have on it, but probably make it crazed and attack you. While on the subject, I must press the importance of keeping infected as far away as possible, try to stay away from hand to hand."

Dirk paused and licked his lips.

"If the virus is able to mutate and survive longer without finding a host, and becomes airborne.....if it escapes the barrier. The whole world, everyone you know, love, and care about will die. The whole world will be infected within a hundred years."

Arthas started laughing, almost maniacally, at the last bit. Especially the "everyone you know, love, and care about" part.

Ruben almost choked on his own food. This sounded dangerously familiar to those creatures back in America. Whilst that situation didn't have an answer as to what caused it, this one did. The idiocy of man. Finishing his breakfast, Ruben cursed as a scowl spread across his face. How could they do something so stupid?

Stepping forward, Ruben almost spat as he addressed Dirk.

"You are fools. Didn't you hear about what happened in the states? And now you've brought it into your own nation, by your very own hand. Those responsible deserve to die..."

Ruben didn't particularly care about the world or anyone in it, but he would prefer it stayed the same for the sake of his plans. At least for now...

Dirk glared at Arthas, a darkness seemed to formed around the officer as he stared at the merc. A man and a woman, dressed like Dirk, carrying HK UMP machine-pistols walked into the room to hear Arthas laughing. Both of them sat down on some chairs and glared at the man, they did not look pleased.

Dirk's voice lost any kind of kindess as it soon took the bite of an artic wind.

"If you think it is funny, by all means leave. We are trying to prevent a world catastrophe and all you can do is laugh. You can leave if you want and forget about the five million dollar payment."

Dirk fell silent as he listened to Ruben. He had heard of something happen in the United States, but thier problem occured under different circumstances.

"I think you will find that things here are slighlty different. For one, we are not facing zombies like you were in the United States. Our infected are not dead, they run, but they are also smart. Smart enough to use clubs and form crude hunting tatics."

Dirk smiled slightly and pointed to the large, sealed crate in the middle of the room.

"And one of them is inside there."

Edwardo raise an eyebrow.

"You extracted one of the Infected? That was a dangerous move, even if it is to show us what we are up against."

He looked at the sealed crate.

"Nevertheless....Let's see what these freaks are. I don't want to go to battle unprepared."

Arthas stayed where he was, a smug look on his face. "Naw, captain, I still want the 5 million. I was just realizing that I am probably one of the only people here who have money as the only motive. No offense, your speech was beautiful and all, but my whole world, everyone I know, love, and care about are already dead." He was a bit shocked with himself, hinting at his past like that.

Dirk scowled at Arthas as he was handed a UMP by the female soldier. He ejected the magizine, made sure it was loaded, slapped it back in, and cocked the gun. The trio stood several meters away from the crate.

"Back off everyone." Dirk said.

The mercs backed off and Dirk pulled out the remote, pressed in a few commands. The once solid siding began to slide upwards, revealing thick metal bars and inside something almost human shaped.

The black thing jumped at the bars, an arm shooting out, the knarled hand grasping for the people just outside of reach. The woman inside moved with quick, jerky movements; she was also hunched over like an animal and her eyes were bloodshot.

The woman backed off from the bars, and jumped at them again. She was snarling and there was a slight foaming at her mouth. She bared her teeth like an animal, many of them were yellowed and had red on them.

Dirk looked at the mercs.

"This used to be Ms. Farrow of Maddox Street in a town called Creswell. She is now in stage three of infection. Don't worry, she cannot get out. But, stay away from the bars...for your own saftey."

Arthas's eyebrows went a bit over the top of his coffee cup as he saw the creature thrashing about. He had encountered many crazed and desperate people, but none of them were rampaging zombies.

Ruben nodded at Dirk's explanation and cursed again. It was the zombie situation again, they were just alive, smart and fast now. That really didn't give Ruben any more confidence in these people at all. Unfortunately, the only other option was jail, and Ruben wasn't going back there.

Ruben moved around to view the woman inside. She appeared just as rabid as the zombie creatures, but at least she wasn't decomposing. Behind the snarling, foaming and bloodshot eyes, Ruben could see it. A vague intelligence, an awareness that interpreted and judged.

Stepping back, Ruben looked to Dirk once again.

"This is worse. Far worse..."

Nathan got out both his Desert Eagles, loaded them, and pulled the hammers back. This alarmed some people, but Nathan looked at Dirk, and then the creature.

"Weak spots?" He simply asked.

As Dirk spoke of the facility, the consequences of infection and the fate that awaited the world. It was grim stuff to hear, it wasn’t everyday that someone told you that turning in to some animal creature driven by some insane urge was a very real possibility.

Plisken finished up the food despite it all, his thoughts were still thinking over the airborne factor. He lost track of his thoughts when the cage was opened, the laughter of Arthas hardly registered as he considered the options, it was something you didn’t want to see in reality but especially not dreams. If he lived through this then dreams would be one of many scars to bare.

“You stupid sons of bitches, is it never enough to simply be able to turn a man in to a bubbling puddle of burning flesh? Is it never enough to be able to tear a man apart, leave him alive and crippled? Jesus, you dumb fuckers in labs think you’re on the cutting edge, think you’re making great leaps forward in science and yet you never see just how screwed up you are.”
Plisken threw the plate at the cage, narrowly missing Dirk, it shattered and the creature inside flinched away only to scramble back at the bars again.

“It’s weak spots are that it’s still an example of homosapiens, bullets have a debilitating effect on homosapiens.”

Plisken unzipped the rifle bag he carried, mimicking Nathan but instead of just aiming he pulled the trigger on his rifle.

The magazine had been emptied.

“When do we go?”

Rikan sat next to Nathan, leaning back in her chair with her arms crossed as she stared at the infected in the cage. She glanced over when she heard Nathan prepare for something that might happen. Her eyes glanced back to the woman and a scowl appeared on her face. After several moments, she spoke, silencing everyone with her low voice.

"You are perhaps... the greatest mistake... of GODDAMN HUMANITY!"

The plate of food went flying under her rage and smashed into the cage with the infected woman inside. The woman clawed at the food, but did not eat it, as she turned her bloodshot eyes to Rikan and foamed at her mouth in hunger.

Rikan looked over to Ruben and Nathan and scowled. They had seen the same thing before, and they hadn't enjoyed it. Now, once again, she was pissed at "science." for creating this... institutionalized evolution...

Arthas started chuckling again as he sipped from his coffee, watching everyone's reactions to the former human being.

Nathan was irritated by Arthas' laughing. Sighing, he tilted his right hand to his right, and pulled the trigger. About a milisecond later, a bullet hole was in the chair, a mere centimetre from Arthas' crotch. Nathan laughed a little.

"Whoops, my finger slipped."

Hootington shot his arm forward, and his Yo-Yo smashed through a piece of wall less than an inch above Nathan's head.

"So sorry, It seems like my finger slipped as well. Let's see that it doesent happen again."

He pulled back, and his weapon returned to his hand. Edwardo spent some time looking at the infected women. Like Rikan, he blamed Science for creating this twisted monster. Hootington was glad that he had the chance to destroy these freaks.

Calming down he stepped forward to Nathan, then gently pressed down on the mid-section of the pistol till Nathan had lowered it a few centimetres and then he stepped back to find his seat.
The two UMP-45 wielding guards obviously wanted to take some action of their own but Dirk’s features told them otherwise.

Nathan was irritated by Arthas' laughing. Sighing, he tilted his right hand to his right, and pulled the trigger. About a milisecond later, a bullet hole was in the chair, a mere centimetre from Arthas' crotch. Nathan laughed a little.

"Whoops, my finger slipped."

OOC: Umm... I'm leaned against the wall towards the back. I'll just keep goin assuming you shot the bit of wall between my legs.

IC: Arthas though nothing of the little threat, and explained "Heh, you know? Seeing how everyone is acting here, how can any of us be assured that if we come running around the corner back to the group, half the people aren't gonna give them a few more holes in their body. It seems that some of us have had prior experiances with abominations. I think we should just leave emotions at the helicopter that brough us here and wise up."

Rikan scowled and moved toward Arthas. Her eyes blazed with anger at his nonchalance. She nearly screamed into his face,

"Don't you fucking get it?! These goddamn creatures were horrible...they wiped out millions of lives over in the States! MILLIONS! And now that these fucking assholes have had their go at them, they've made them fucking smarter! Who's to say that these creatures aren't the end of the goddamn world? An apocalypse of epic proportions! Hell on Earth!"

She closed her eyes momentarily, calming herself slightly for a few moments, then continued,

"But that is why we are here. We're here to save the oh so wonderful fucking world..."

She returned to her seat, noisily sitting down and muttered, "I just hope this fucking world is worth saving..."

"Rikan, He is talking sense. If you let emotions get the better of you, you are going to become one of them. If you become one of them, I will kill you personally. If you let emotions get in the way, I will kill you. That goes for anyone here, so listen to what he has to say." DWAR said stretching his legs out from the chair he was sitting in.

Even though Arthas was glad that someone was agreeing with him, he walked over from his place at the wall, up to the cage, just out of reach, and looked long at the creature inside before sitting at the other side of the table as Rikan, poured himself more of the crap coffee, and breifly flashed an apologetic glance at Rikan, before quickly looking down in the cup, catching himself.

Dirk stood quietly as the mercs railed on each other. He didn't act as they cursed the virus and what it had done. Finally, it appeared the fighting calmed down Dirk spoke.

"In terms of weakness, shoot an infected anywhere and they will get hurt. A shot to the heart will kill...imagine like you are shooting a person, but they will not back off when they are shot.

"We will go on this mission when you all stop acting like children. I know you are furious with what we have created. You are expecting me to defend its creation..well I am not. Our mission has three objectives. First, locate a team of men from my unit; second, go to the facility and figure out what caused the outbreak; third, to evac any survivors we come across."

Dirk turned and pointed at the map.

"This area is heavy in mountains and there a lot of forests, and several towns and villages. We have been able to evac many of the people in the area and those we have evac are being kept in quarienteen. Now....have you children finished arguing?"

Dirk pressed a button on the remote and the sidings on the cage came back down, sealing the creature inside. He put it back in his pocket when there was a sizzilng noise. He spun to see the light on the door turn from red to green.

Dirk moved into place with the two other soldiers and as soon as the door swung open, the trio opened fire. The three .45 caliber spitting UMPs knocked back the shape emerging from the cage. The creature howled and screech as it was riddled with bullets.

The Simatarians quickly reloaded and covered by Dirk and the male soldier, the woman carefully moved around the cage. She turned on the light and laser on her machine-pistol and carefully poked it around the inside of the cage.

Blood covered the walls and floor, in the back of the cage in a heap was the bloodied form of the infected person. Her breasts had been compelely shredded and much of her upper body had been torn away by the salvo from the UMPs. She turned back to Dirk and smiled.

"Doesn't look like she will be comeing to dinner Dirk."

"Well shit, that spoils his weekend Peg." the male soldier said with a grin.

"Na, I prefer redheads Alex...looks like one of the girls you hang out with." Dirk responded with a laugh.

Peg grinned and shut the door, she put all her weight on it till the light turned back to red.

"Looks like the lock fried for some reason Cap...its better now."

"Good, Peg..Alex, go to the armory and get everything set up."

The two soldiers simply nodded, slung thier weapons over thier shoulders and headed out of the room. Dirk turned back to the assembled mercenaries.

"Now...I understand your anger, but we need to put all that aside to work together. I don't want anyone dying on this mission. Now, any last questions before we get you all suited up?"

Even though indirectly prompted, Arthas kept silent. Though it was obvious in his eyes that he did have some comment to make, and it was obvious from the smirk on his face that it was sarcastic.

The dark scowl upon Rikan's face was quite evident, yet she did not explode and react to any more comments. She didn't move as the guards shot the creatures that came through the door, shaking her head slightly, the whole time. She looked over to Nathan who sat next to her, also obviously upset over the ignorance of the others.

Upon hearing Dirk's last question, she spoke up at long last, "Got the body bags ready? You're going to need them... You really don't know what you're dealing with."

She stood and kicked her chair under the table, not watching as it buckled under the table and clattered to the floor in a metallic declaration of foul action. "The longer we wait, the more those creatures will work to free themselves and wreak hell on earth."

Dirk stared calmly at Rikan, he knew she might be trouble but her reputation was unmatched.

"Everyone, please follow me."

He lead the group out of the large room and into a slightly smaller room. Military backpacks sat on long tables with each mercenary's name on it.

"Right, here is your pack. You each got the basics, four days' concentrated emergency rations; one drug issue containing antibiotics, morphine, vitamin pills, pep pills, sleeping pills, tranquilizer pills; nine packs of chewing gum, and vaccine for the virus."

Dirk pulled out a small packet no larger than a cigarette box and opened it to reveal five small metalic syringes.

"Simple to use, you pull one out, ram it hard into your arm and it automatically injects you with the vaccine. Downside is that only have two minutes to inject yourself once you have been infected.

"We'll be moving in Humvees, and they will be carrying more supplies and ammuntion for us."

The two soldiers Dirk had sent in earlier came back with large packages in thier arms. They began to hand them out to the mercs, each package had thier name on it.

"These are Simatarian Paratrooper uniforms, you also get a pair of jumpboots...very comfortable. Now, since this mission is top seceret...we would like you all to wear them until we get into the hotzone...then you can take them off."

Dirk walked over to a large, green, plastic crate and opened it. He pulled out a Heckler and Koch G36K with an AG36 grenade launcher, he also pulled out a Para P14-45.

"This is what you all will be using...G36K and it's greande launcher and P14s as your standard weapons. You all will also get an UMP which will be kept in the Humvees.

"You also will be issued with five M-67 fragmentation grenades, two AN-M14 TH3 incendiary grenades, and four M15 white phosphorus grenades. All the weapons are ready and ammuntion is already in thier pouches...just pull them out of the crates, put on the uniforms and meet me outside. There are changing rooms in the back."

Dirk slung his rifle over his shoulder, grabbed his pack and headed outside towards the Mi-17.


ooc:

Simatarian Paratrooper uniform:

http://www.hkpro.com/image/g36kberet.jpg

DWAR grabbed the suplies and went into the room in the back. He emerged from the room, with his rifle slung over his back, the new uniform on, his glove, and his bird resting on his gloved arm. He went out and sat in the Humvee after picking up his weapons. While sitting in the vehicle he held his pack and rifle between his legs.

So uh...where are we?

While Dirk named off what was in the pack, Arthas was digging through his and quietly said "Survival kit contents check. In them you'll find: one forty-five caliber automatic; two boxes of ammunition; four days' concentrated emergency rations; one drug issue containing antibiotics, morphine, vitamin pills, pep pills, sleeping pills, tranquilizer pills; one miniature combination Russian phrase book and Bible; one hundred dollars in rubles; one hundred dollars in gold; nine packs of chewing gum; one issue of prophylactics; three lipsticks; three pair of nylon stockings. Shoot, a fella' could have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with all that stuff. "

OOC: Ahh... what a great movie.

Ruben prompty moved up to his pack, slung it over his shoulder and grabbed the uniform off Dirk. Inside the changing rooms he looked over the military attire. It wasn't too bad, plenty of pockets, some combat webbing and the material seemed durable enough. He wasn't sure about the beret though and decided that could stay behind.

Ruben changed clothes and adjusted the pack to his size, leaving his old clothes in the changing room as he moved back to the main room once again. They were covered in blood, dirt and general filth anyway, he could always buy some more with a four million dollar payout, and of course there were his other funds.

It could be noted that Ruben was not emotional about this situation. He never got emotional about anything... ever. Of course, Ruben didn't like this situation one bit. Of course, there were no other options as far as he was concerned. And so he would follow this through, kill some people and collect some money... then go back to Assington.

Collecting his weapons, Ruben moved outside and jumped into one of the humvees.

Plisken followed through, look at the kit and then promptly ignored it all, kit was kit and that these were some syringes with some new vaccine inside hardly mattered. Instead he grabbed the new jump boots, then compared them to his own.

“You can keep your boots, I’ll stick with my own. No offence but you cut back your budget in the wrong place, men march to battle in boots and they’ll be on the ground long before then in these things.”

Examining the G36K he balanced it in his hands and critiqued it under his breath, “Solid enough, not sure about this stock though and this doesn’t feel too comfortable” The last part as he twisted his body, arcing the muzzle across the ceiling of the room and then in smaller arcs directly ahead.
He raised his voice once more, looking at Dirk whilst he held the rifle scornfully in front of him like foul smelling shoes.
“If you don’t mind I’ll stick with my own rifle instead of this, it ain’t much bigger with the stock folded and munitions the same. That’s another cash payment I just saved you, think I can get that advanced now?”

Getting the blandest of looks from Dirk he shrugged, set the rifle aside and left to change. Returning he walked just like every other paratrooper - Dress like the rest, kick ass like the best. Airborne knows no rest - and slung his gear, heading for the Mi-17 still parked outside.

Dirk watched as the several of the mercs climbed into the Humvees. He laughed and walked up to the group.

"Fellas...maybe I didn't make myself clear, we'll be taking the bird over to the barrier..our Humvees are waiting there."

The mercs climbed out of the Humvees and piled into the Mi-17. Dirk made sure everyone was in before the chopper lifted off and carried them northwest.

When the two and a half hour flight was over, the gigantic chopper landed in the middle of the speical forces area of the barrier. The mercs had expected a well oiled military machine of soldiers moving back and forth, getting ready for combat, what they saw suprised them.

Many of the men and women were lounging about in thier rifle pits reading comics. Many didn't wear uniforms, spare for their jumpboots and trousers; the women didn't wear any shirts of any kind, but thier bra was itself camoflagued. Others were listening to rock and heavy metal while they tended to the Leopards, Fuchs, Humvees, Luchs, and Bradlys nearby. In front of the first group of pits was several thick layers of barbed wire, claymore mines, and in front of them were motion triggered mini guns.


Dirk turned to his group of mercs. "This is the best in the Golden Simatar, the Speical Forces. I know we are a bit of a relaxed bunch, but don't let that fool you. Here comes our transport."

Three Chinooks flew overhead, each with a Humvee strapped underneath, the Chinoks flew into the infected area.. Dirk looked at the mercs.

"Last chance to turn back, if you want to come...get into the Mi-17."

Dirk smiled as they all climbed back in. The chopper lifted off and flew after the Chinooks. They landed a half hour later, the mercs and Dirk climbed into the threeHumvees which had been armed with Browning M2 .50 machine guns.

The convoy took off towards Creswell.

Hootington did not take anything but the Kit and a few grenades. He would not need anything else. He almost shook with excitement as the chopper took off again and they headed for thier target.

Rikan picked out two Berettas and grabbed a healthy amount of ammunition, stuffing them into a pack she had swiped from a nearby locker. She also took a dual holster harness and put it into the pack. Soon, they were on their way.

She glanced down at her uniform, noting that it was decently comfortable, but it still wasn't her clothing of choice.

"Definitely ditching this shit when we get there..."

Upon arrival, she glanced around at the Special Forces soldiers that sat lounging about. "Looks like stuck up assholes to me, can't even take care of their own affairs in their own nation." she muttered to herself, casting her gaze away as they headed to the Mi-17s.

(OOC Sorry I have not been posting, things came up. I will keep up from now on.)

Cid had listened to the whole thing with some sort of strange disbelief...and fascination. This sort of thing was in comic books, films and video games. Things which he had heard and seen from time to time. But this, was this real? Was this some monumental joke?

Cid had gotten over the oddness of the whole situation when the zombie had been shot as a demonstration. He did not make a word during the whole speech, and very little from then on, rather odd for the gambling devil may care attitude that he carried like a banner on his personality. His face held this grim determination now, thoughts were going through his mind now.

The troops here were more of his style, less strict and more experianced it seemed. This whole situation was odd, Cid admited, but it was just something new. This was a whole new league he thought, a league which people did not even know about. One minute he was guarding convoys with his motorbike, now he was going to save the world.

Cid had taken his share of equipment, marvelling at all of it. Most of these weapons he had rarely had the chance to use in actual combat, but had seen and practiced with one particular street gang which had strong ties with a supplier. He took the equipment quietly, his thoughts to himself.

This mercenary was acting very unusually. But then again, this was hardly a usual situation. Well, at least for him.

Cid clambered onto to Mi-17 with a small grunt. He looked around the place. He had never been on, or in fact, seen so many choppers in his life. He was starting to have a few doubts about if he was capable of even doing this mission, he seemed to be a small fish in all of this. The rest seemed to be hardened experianced warriors who seemed to know this situation, and not really be put off by the reality of things.

But, consider the alternative, he thought. Going back to that garage, little money, street fighting. Where he was born, the streets. This was a chance to get a better standard of living, better jobs. Hell, how long do you have left, Cid thought. Fighting in the streets....there are so many bullets you can dodge.

Cid perked up a bit, when he had the funny thought that the zombies couldn't shoot back. Hell, they would be clambering towards him slowly, as the whole group plugs into them. His imagination did do wonders for his moral, and he now had something of a calm smile on his face.

Absant-mindedly, he had taken a card from his pocket out, his lucky card. It was the Ace of Spaces, and on the back, oddly, it had the words scribbled on it, "Mr. Card.". Cid had found it on a busy street after a heavy gunfight, man that was a strange guy fighting with him. Cid played with the card in his gloved hand, looking at it with a strange eye.

"Well guys, this should be intrestin'. Damn fun I would even think!" Cid said, his voice in now high spirits. He chuckled to himself genuinely, as he thought of sitting in his garage which a high tech plane in it.

He was now subtly swaying to an unknown beat in his head, as if there was a guitar solo playing in background. That grin did not leave his face for a while, Cid was content with the ways of things, and the whole situation had gotten more tolerable.

Cid was back to normal. The situation, however, had not.

When they’d all grabbed their gear of choice then headed outside Plisken had been unable to suppress a grin as some climbed in to nearby humvees, his thoughts were hardly complimentary to them but they didn’t need to know that.
As the chopper had flown to the perimeter he had taken the opportunity to look over the countryside, it was substantially different in quite a few ways but it retained in his eyes that same stuffed full empty look most countries seemed to have these days.
“Hardly worth saving” He’d muttered absently at the thought, all progress of course.

“Well guys, this should intrestin’. Damn fun I would even think!” Came one excited voice, looks were scornful to say the least and Plisken‘s remark cut through it all, “You got a parachute in your bag?”

* * *

The barrier force was laughable if one had felt so inclined, it took true professionals to act so relaxed and yet remind the observant that they were far from lax or inept. “Nice barrier, lets hope they’ve left a way for us to get back through” No one said anything to that, perhaps distracted by the sights and their own thoughts of return.

* * *
With a fairly rapid exit from the Mi-17 it wheeled away quickly, obviously the pilot didn’t believe the area was safe enough to hang around, the vehicles looked pretty standard but you could trust them to be kitted out fully under the hood.

It was early afternoon before the convoy reached the outskirts of Creswell. Dirk stopped his Humvee and looked around at the forests and small ridges around the town. Dirk climbed out, bringing his G36 with him and summoned the group. He handed them each a walkie-talkie, and a one ear headset with a mic attached to it.

"Channel five everyone. Okay, Creswell is about another two miles up the road. This is the spot where we got our last communication with the team that was sent in here. I want Edwardo, Jared, and Ruben on the fifties. We'll move in slow and....listen."

The group listened and they could hear what sounded like a crunching sound. Dirk slowly pulled back the charger handle on his rifle and slid it back. Click. The crunching stopped, it was all quiet for several minutes before it started again.

Dirk pointed to a group of bushes near the road, but before he could take a step forward, a large man brandishing a lead pipe jumped from the bushes and charged. The soldier could tell the man was infected as the crazed man charged him. Dirk fired.

Three quick bursts from his rifle knocked the man over, dark red blood shooting out of several holes in his chest. The man fell to the ground, spasaming, blood gushing from his mouth.

Growling and howling could be heard from the woods.

"Lock and load."

No sooner had the words left Dirk's mouth before several dozen infected ran out of the woods brandishing knives, sticks, and stones.

**********************************

Back at Kriegspiel, the crate sat quietly in the room. No one had disturbed it. Inside the dark, blood covered walls of the crate, the bloody heap of the woman was in the corner; one of her hands firmly fixed forward, fingers outstreached grasping for prey.

One of the fingers twitched...

Arthas forgot that we was carrying some more fitting weapons, as he drew his sword in one hand and his pistol in the other and started, slowly but accurately, putting two in the chest, one in the head, just as was his profession's standard.

Take control of the .50's? You're kidding me.

Edwardo, slightly annoyed, aimed the large machine guns and started to spray fire into the mob of Infected that was now pouring towards them. He gunned many of them down ruthlessly, then slacked on his fire. An infected had already reached the humvee, and was now below the range of the .50.

Such Speed! Better than I expected.

Hootington drew his Casull and sent a large round through the Infected's skull, blasting it backwards. More were clambering towards the vehicle as Hootington hefted the .50 and sent another spray of deadly bullets into the crowd, beating them only slightly. It seemed that there were more than he expected. No matter how many times he squeezed the trigger, more Infected came. They were getting closer and closer...

Hootington put his hand on his Yo-Yo as an Infected women leapt and managed to grab hold of the Humvee. He spun his wewapon out, then thre his arm forward. The Yo-Yo blew into her head, sailed through another's chest, finally wrapped around anothers leg. He pulled; All three of the Infected creatures were torn to peices. He lifted the .50 again and continued to fire. He hoped they had enough ammo for this job.

Positively pleased with the heavy .50 Plisken twisted himself in to place, reaffixed the ear piece and adjusted the mouth piece, “Plisken in place.” He sounded off across channel five, the .50 chugged in to life as he depressed the thick trigger.

Cutting in to the swarm he spun to his left, being on the far edge of the convoy he had the groups flank in his sights, there was no movement on that side yet but considering the speed at which the infected were moving it could only be a matter of time. Turning back to the front the aided Edwardo, the infected were indeed fast, not fast enough to escape a Yo-Yo sailing towards them.

Thumping on the roof of his humvee he spurred the other in to moving faster, though in fairness they were hardly bystanders but simply ill-positioned.

The rattle of the .50s continued mixed in with the screams of the infected and the lighter sounding bursts from the 36s.

Arthas got to his sense as he fell back to the line, not before dropping a few with his pistol and getting his sword dirty via some former banker's neck. Once dropped back into the formation, he finally remembered the H&K on his back and tried out the grenade launcher on a nice group of five that burst through the brush.

DWAR threw his bird into the air when the infected burst through the bushes, grabbed the H&K and started firing at them in short controlled bursts. After about 30 seconds of firing, Zephyr swooped out of the sky, decapitating one of the infected. When the flood died down. Zephyr landed on DWAR's arm after he switched to the pistol. DWAR retreated to one of humvee's, hopping inside.

Rikan had brought one of the Berettas up and had been blasting the creatures with precise shots to the head. Her demeanor was cool, but tense. Her arm held true to the shots, and kept firing. If one managed to get past their defensive assault, she would decapitate it quickly with a swing of her bracer-blades.

Soon, the attack died down, but the occassional infected leapt through the foliage toward them with ravenous hunger. These were dissected with the .50 guns.

"Floor the damn truck, damn you!" she cried to the driver.

Before Dirk could jump back into the Humvee and get the convoy rolling, the attack stopped. There was strange quiet for several seconds before several deep calls from a horn came from the woods. The infected stood, listened and ran back into the forests.

Dirk stood there for several seconds, stunned at the sight, but also at the call from the woods. Something caught his eye to the right, he spun and fired his grenade. The explosion tossed up a cloud of red and brown, moaning and growing could be heard from the cloud. Dirk's eyes went wide.

There was quiet for several seconds before a single gunshot broke the silence. Dirk's voice came over everyone's headsets.

"Come here for a moment."

Everyone climbed out of the Humvees and moved to Dirk who stood several meters in front of the first Humvee.

On the ground nearby was a body, its legs blown off, leaving bloody stumps and bits of muscle hanging behind. The person was wearing a uniform like Dirk's, but the face was disturbing. The skin had turned a greenish color, and the stench of death lay over the body.

"Look at the explosion, and look at where I shot him in the head."

The mercs looked, about ten meters away was a small depression in the ground, blood and gore surrounded the blast zone. That was not the disturbing part, the disturbing part was that there were finger marks on the ground from the blast zone to where the body was.

"I blew off his legs, and this fucker crawled over. We got problems. Well, to put it correctly....it seems like we have a dead zombie."

DWAR looked at the corpse, and said "Well, they appear to be hardy little fuckers, don't they?" He looked at his bird, and wiped some blood off of his feathers, gettting nothing more than a screech in protest.

Arthas looked at the trails and kind of smiled "Well, we are going to have to turn our guns from chop to puree it looks like, otherwise we are going to have half-a-zombie's nibbling our toes. Kind of reminds me of Sorceror's Apprentice, except the damned reasearchers did the spell casting."

Ruben had manned the third .50 with ease, mowing down several of the infected as they approached his position. It wasn't long before most of the zombie like creatures were on the ground, dead or unable to move anymore. Ruben made a point of shooting in the head as it had been effective against the last bunch of these creatures he had faced.

When the horn sounded, Ruben cursed. These creatures were smarter and faster. They weren't actually dead, but crazed. He didn't like this one bit, and it seemed even worse when he approached Dirk to see what the commotion was about. They were resilient little buggers as well.

Bringing his G36 to shoulder, Ruben spat at the corpse.

"A bullet to the head should settle things. Keep that in mind."

The barrel sagged forward as Plisken relinquished the mechanical movement he’d exhibited earlier; turn, aim and fire. Repeat as necessary. Climbing out he stepped around the mangled limbs that had been cut free from torsos and then stopped at the latest finding.

“So, not only are they rabid, immune to pain and capable of thinking but they’re also more than capable of trying to rip us apart even if we remove every single limb? Great work assholes, remind me to string up the family of every guy responsible for this mess.”

As Ruben spat on the corpse, Plisken was already heading back for the humvee and solid presence of 38kg of machined steel but stopped as he reached the vehicle, "That uniform looks awfully familiar. Your team is dead Captain and I’d say so is everyone else, lets cut our losses and just hit this place with a few dozen thermobaric warheads.”

Climbing on to the humvee he continued, “Course that isn’t really an option, we gotta’ tick them all off the list before we can go home, that being the case we need more munitions. I figure we can expect more infected and in tighter concentrations the closer we get to the facility plus they'll be smarter, this was just a screening or a probing force and that horn wasn’t a friend in disguise. These things are a lot smarter then you told, Captain.”

Dirk knelt next to the corpse and pulled out his knife. He brushed off some of the blood on the sleeve of the corpse and sighed.

"Black Diamond....yeah, this guy was from Gile's team."

Dirk stood and stared at Plisken through the window of the Humvee.

"We are not going back. You are being paid for this mission, if you want out I can radio in a chopper to pull you out and you will receive only half the pay. If we need munitions or supplies, I can call in a supply drop."

Dirk went to his Humvee and pulled out the radio. Several minutes of talking in Simatarian to the man on the other line, he put the radio back. He pulled a tarp out of the back and covered the corpse of the zombie soldier on the ground.

"I got off the phone with Doctor Liberty, one of the men behind the Rebecca project. These things are smart, but luckily this was the only zombie among them. They aren't smart enough to use horns or things of communication like that. So.....that means on thing. We're not alone."

Dirk pulled out his canteen and drank. He closed it and reloaded his G36.

"We'll be pressing to the research facility. It is about fifty miles northwest of here. Now, anyone else have anything to say before we get moving?"

********************************

A dark figure stood deep in the woods, watching the group with even darker eyes. An ornately carved horn hung at the figure's side, along with a black scimitar.

The figure turned and disappeared into the darkness...

Rikan looked darkly at Dirk and replied simply, "Let's get moving, unless you'd like to stop for tea and crumpets?"

She slipped back into the Hummer, into the front passenger seat and propped a foot up on the dash. She stared forward, yet her ears were searching the area around them for sounds of more of the zombies.

Arthas looked around, not wanting to get left behind, he shouldered the rifle, drew his pistol and hopped on the back bumper of the humvee, other hand holding on.

Hootington thought for am moment, then raised his hand.

"Actually, I'd like some Tea and Crumpets."

Everyone stared at him.

"Er, or mabey we could just keep moving," He muttered as he hopped back into the Humvee and swivled the .50, searching for any more Infected Zombies.

Rikan shook her head with a sigh, muttering to herself, "Smartass..."

She pulled out her Beretta and checked the mag, and noted one bullet left. She completely ejected it and replaced it with a fresh full clip. It clicked back into place and she lowered it to sit on her lap.

Arthas reached down and scooped up a pebble from the road, throwing it at the back of Edwardo. "There's your crumpet." He said with a chuckle.

Dirk climbed into the Humvee next to Rikan and gunned the engine. With the other two Humvees following behind, the soldier swung his vehicle onto the grass and headed off road. The Humvee moved to the top of a small ridge before stopping.

Dirk pulled out a pair of bonoculars and looked down into the town of Creswell, something didn't seem right. He scanned the town for several minutes before taking the wheel back. He picked up a mic that connected via radio to the other Humvees.

"We're going into the town, keep your eyes and ears open."

Dirk turned his Humvee around and drove down the hill, the other two following. The convoy moved through the old streets, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Dirk drove to the school and parked in the small lot. The school was two stories tall and a large gym. He sat there for a few minutes before picking up the mic again.

"Okay, Gile's team came in here with two Humvees...only those are missing. It is not possible for the infected to of driven them away so there is a group here who knows how to drive. Since we only found one dead, it is possible the others could still be alive. Dismount, boys and girls we are going back to school."

Dirk climbed out of the Humvee and checked his G36, before taking a look around the deserted town, and began to move towards the school.

The town didn’t look particularly smashed up, dirty and decidedly empty of most everything but it looked as though everything was coated in something, in a bizarre kind of way, as though the death and insanity of the residents had left a presence behind.

“I always hated school, least if one of the teachers tries anything they’ll be the ones staying behind after class, no?” He slipped off the roof of the humvee, landing silently except for a soft crack, swinging the AKIN in to his arms he double-checked the security of the folding stock, currently fixed against the weapons side.

Following a few paces to the side and behind Dirk, he kept the rifle at the ready and tracked it across the outside then across the entrance. As he was walking he disturbed a small group of shell casings and paused to kneel down and examine them, “No bodies but for brass, your boys obviously had an encounter, if they’re alive and in the vehicles how come they haven’t called for help or signalled?”

Rikan walked with both bracer-blades drawn and locked into position. She also held the Beretta in one hand, as a secondary weapon that could be used at the same time.

She heard Plisken's report and with a grin she replied, "Maybe they're in detention? God knows you boys love trouble..."

She added a moment later, "But so do I..."

She lowered her eyes to scan the ground. At first she noticed nothing out of the ordinary. Then her eyes spied something. She bent down and lightly touched it with her fingers, turning the dirt over.

"At least a day or so old..." she muttered to herself. She looked up in a particular direction, lifted a small handful of the dirt and raised it up. It funneled out of her hand to the ground, shifting slightly on the wind.

That's when she smelled it. The smell of fire. Smoke.

She took off at a slight jog, keeping her eyes on the ground. She was, in fact, following a set of tire tracks that led to a football stadium on the other end of the school lot.

She tapped her comms set and spoke, "I think I know where at least one of those humvees might have gone. Over and out."

She didn't bother to tell them where, for they would see her making her way across the field toward the stadium. The tall concrete and steel stadium rose upward, harboring several buildings under the bleachers, surrounded by high, heavy duty chain linked fences. As she neared she inspected the fence, and checked its posts visually. Nothing seemed out of place. She made her way to the padlocked gate and lifted the lock. It had scratch marks, and dirt on it, but other than it was perfectly intact. She looked around and saw something that looked favorable to them, sitting right on the edge of the far side of the field. It was near a bleacher overpass that undoubtedly led to one of the team locker rooms. Across the pathway into the lockerrooms, there lay a trail of objects ablaze, though the flames had died down a bit.

A tap to the comms unit once more, "Found one of the trucks. I think we've got a group holed up inside the lockers...Not a bad place I'd say. Restricted access...multiple guns aimed at the door. Fences surrounding the stadium. A makeshift fortress almost. I'm going to check it out. Over and out."

"Things get lost and broken in a fight. Plus, sometimes you get better things to be doing than radioing in a close situation." Cid said loudly, his gloved hands occupied with two standard pistols, his berettas by his side now. He had his goggles on his unkempt blond hair.

Cid was currently keeping close to others. He was not like most of the others where this was routine, this mission was not going to be hard. Or at least, this was what it was to Cid. Cid was being highly cautious, his pretence of being calm and rather relaxed obviously false. He moved his hands a lot, as if he had never been in a gunfight before.

This was extremely far from the truth, he had been born in a gunfight, but these opponents were not extremely unnerving. But...he knew that he would have to overcome this fear for the unnatural in order to survive.

When they pulled up in front of the school, Arthas started chuckling. "Ahh... shooting at school, how familiar, it'll bring back memories." He pulled out a small pack with a long wire hanging from it, and set it in front of a side door near the gym, and walked backwards, sword in one hand, and a small trigger attached to the wire in the other. "Anyone want to make an interest, or are you going to go play a spirited game of two-hand touch, err... should I say, two-bullet tap, with Ms. Rikan."

Rubebn jumped on the back of a .50 as the humvees took off once again, moving deeper into infected territory, towards the town of Clarence. He looked down upon the town and could immediately tell something wasn't right. There wasn't any real signs of violence, yet there wasn't any real signs of anything. That was disturbing.

Dirk announced his intention to enter the school and so the convoy made their way into the town, Ruben swinging around on the mounted weapon, waiting for something to bombard with a metallic doom. Finally they arrived at the school and the party moved into the grounds, searching for any signs of the missing team.

It wasn't long before Rikan's voice chimed in over the comms, drawing their notice to the stench of burning. Ruben unslung his G36 once again and began a casual walk towards the source of smoke.

Dirk paused and sniffed the air, smelling the smoke. He didn't like the idea of Rikan running off alone, though she was good, he didn't want to lose her. He turned to Arthas, who seemed ready to blow the gym wide open.

"Arthas and Ruben, go with Rikan. We'll enter the gym through the school. Everyone else, follow me.”

Dirk led the rest of the team into the school’s main hall. The locker filled hallways were quiet, nothing stirred or moved. He looked at the mercs behind him.

“Ennis, Jared, Edwardo…check the upstairs. Cid, you come with me.”

The pair moved down the hallway, looking into each room, yielding nothing. The pair moved down a flight of stairs, down a short hallway to the large double doors of the gym. He looked around before talking into his mic.

“Okay, how is everyone else doing…?”

Dirk paused as he looked at the floor; there was something crimson seeping from under the door. He knelt down and touched the crimson liquid.

“Oh my God.”

****************************************************

As Rikan walked through the locker rooms, she had not found anything yet. She paused as she heard Dirk’s voice over her headset.

“Everyone, get to the school and get to the main entrance of the gym…..I think I found the team and some civis.”

Before Rikan could respond the locker room door closed behind her. She spun and looked through the rows of lockers, shower, and bathroom stalls. Several of the showers turned on, the hot steam slowly filling the room. She looked around, and just managed to dodge something black that charged out of the steam.

She jumped back and stared at her attacker. A finely crafted scimitar with a black hilt was in his hands, the man was clothed completely in black, and she could only see his dark coal colored eyes. The man was obviously not infected; he gave a harsh cry and swung his sword down, Rikan just managed to parry and try to jab at him. Though his clothes seemed like they would slow him down, he moved with complete ease and had great agility.

The man cried out again and charged Rikan…

****************************************************

As Ruben and Arthas moved across the field towards the stadium, something cracked over their heads; both men took cover behind a tree. They looked up and at the top of the stadium; they saw a cloud of smoke disappearing. Two more puffs of some appeared from the top of the stadium, they heard the crack of the rifles a second later, and the bullets struck the ground a few inches in front of them.

They looked up again to see another two puffs of smoke come from different positions on the stadium.

High above them, two men dressed the same way the man was who was attacking Rikan; were firing flintlock Baker rifles down onto the pair.

The dual blades crossed upward to form an X shield, catching the scimiatar with equal strength. Immediately, she kicked hard, sending the man flying backward into one of the shower poles. His force was strong enough to destroy its intended use for the future.

The man got up quickly, surprised at the strength of the woman who had, by this point, reassumed her fighting stance, ready for him. Moments later, the two were back at each other, swinging their deadly weapons toward each other. Rikan did not attack just yet, but rather waited for the mysterious stranger's strength to wane, to tire. Blow after blow was deflected with ease, and the man could see her smirking at him. Still, she said nothing as she bided her time.

Suddenly, another powerful kick was sent across his face, nearly snapping his neck from the force. The man spun in air, colliding into the wall behind him. He didn't move for a moment as he gathered his senses and then look back up at her. He snarled and picked up the sword once more. It remained low, almost as if he were going to support his gait with it.

He charged forward, swinging the blade upwards, attempting to slice her in half. Rikan instantly reacted by sidstepping the attack and completing a wall run, to land with her back to the man.

The sound of metal clattering to the shower floor rang out clearly in the misty room. Still Rikan did not move, but rather replayed the scene in her mind, which had occurred only moments before. The stranger lowering his sword a fraction of an inch. His breathing somewhat ragged, but still strong. His finger twitch to tighten upon the grip. The flash of light upon the stranger's blade. The narrow miss of the attacking blade to her chest. The sound of her own blade sinking with voracious attempt into his face.

She replayed the kill once more in her mind. Death. Something that was her friend in this godforsaken place. She turned to stare cold, emotionless eyes unto his face. His flesh had been deeply cut away to the very bone in line that ran diagonally across his face and down his throat. It had been a precise, and deadly attack that had worked to its effect. His left eye split in two and nasty looking flesh and gore spilled out and slid down his face. His cheek slipped away as he died, revealing his very skull and muscles. Blood lay everywhere about him.

Rikan swung the blade and buried it into the man's throat. Another few more hacks, and the head would be completely severed from the body. She knelt down to study the man and ripped a symbol off his arm sleeve.

And even for the zombies, death was death.

The showers continued running, steam rising to her upper torso and remained there. She left the lockers, soaking wet from the showers, and holding the symbol in her hand.

One blade still held blood on its edges, the assassin's blood...

Ruben cursed as he watched two bullet holes appear upon the ground, inches from his position. It took him a few moments to realise where it was coming from but eventually Ruben pinpointed the two attackers, atop the stadium. Another curse escaped his lips. Right now he merely wished for a tightly strung composite bow. With that and two arrows, the snipers wouldn't be much trouble. Unfortunately, a bow was nowhere to be seen.

Firearms weren't exactly Ruben's forte and he wasn't sure if he G36 could do the range, yet he tried nonetheless. Rolling out from behind the tree, Ruben unleashed half his clip at one of the snipers, hoping his array of bullets would find a path leading through the flesh of his attacker. Behind the tree once again, Ruben turned to Arthas.

"Got any ideas?"

Great, why did I have to get only one person with me? Wonderful. Although, they might go for the larger group first.

Cid looked at the blood silently whilst moving his jaw in a odd manner. He fingered his two pistols in anticipation, and felt somehow inadaquate. His hands felt clammy, his forehead cold and his heart unusually fast. Cid told himself that once the combat started, he would get back into the usual swing of things.

He pointed his pistols at the door, swaying slightly backwards and forwards, ready to move in...or move back. He barked irritably, "Well, you gunna burst those doors open or wait til they do!" wanting this to get started. He hated this waiting.

He had once met a man, a strange man who enjoyed these quiet moments before a storm. Cid hated them, he prefered the adrenaline during combat, not the nervous anticipation before them, where the mind wondered and doubted. The guy said it reminded him of Beethoven.

Cid said it reminded him that he was going to die one of these days.

As Dirk and Cid moved down a flight of stairs, Plisken along with Ennis and Edwardo were moving upstairs. Their feet moved slowly up the steps each man hugging the inside of the stairway, providing them with the best view to look up the stairs, Plisken was moving ahead in an unconscious leader formation.

As they reached the next floor and swiftly began checking each room, all three were working together without spoken communication but that first encounter had fused them all in to something stronger. The radios sparked in to life, “Okay, how is everyone else doing…?”

Taking a moment to look at everyone else Plisken was about ready to respond that their situation was all quiet when Dirk came back on the radio, as they began heading back Plisken covered the floor ahead until the other two were able to cover him from the stairway.

Arthas had his head down in thought. "I wonder why they let Ms. Rikan through but not us..." He clicked his mic off for a moment, just long enough to say "She probably looked like one of them from a distance." After a moment. "Did you hear the crack of the rifles? Definitlly not your run of the mill rifle, sounds old, almost like a musket, maybe newer. We can use that." Arthas flipped out a pair of binocular goggles. "Handy buggers." He turned, sure enough, old flint locks. "Alright, we hose them like we are about to charge, they fire, then we charge while reloading, get closer to the stadium, duck behind a tree, lather, rinse, repeat. We keep running until we see them bring their rifles up."

Hootington checked Classroom after Classroom as he passed through the halls. Nothing unusual met his gun barrel as he kicked in another door and swung his pistol around, searching the room. Still nothing. He scratched his head and turned to Jared and Ennis.

"This is starting to get boring," He said apatheticlly.

The radio suddenly started to act up as Dirk came on the line.

"Finally, some action. Lets get going!" Hootington started to backtrack quickly in order reach Dirk quickly.

Dirk heard something outside, a G36. He looked over at Cid and raised his eyebrow as he heard the crack of the Baker rifles.

“Shit, little detour it seems.”

Dirk turned to a large window next to him and pulled the trigger on his rifle. The glass shattered and he smashed the butt of his rifle into it, the glass fell to the ground as he climbed out.

“Change of plans folks, looks like we are being engaged. Get to the stadium.”

Dirk ran hard across the grass and took cover behind a trash can as a bullet snapped by his head. He spotted Ruben and Arthas several meters ahead of him behind a tree. He brought up his sights and fired a quick burst at the top.

****************************************

The two men bent down to reload their rifles. They had years of experience and had brought the whole process down to slightly less than thirty seconds. One finished ramming his ball down as Ruben’s burst snapped over his head. He laughed and stood, aiming his rifle down.

Dirk’s burst caught him off guard, his bullets cut through his clothes yet his flesh remained intact. He fired, his bullet striking the tree though not hitting anyone. He bent down, cursing in a strange language as he tried to reload. His companion aimed and fired down at the men below, the round striking an inch from Dirk’s head.

****************************************

Dirk cursed himself and spoke into the mic.

“Rikan, get to the top of the stadium, there are two shooters up there.”

"Why is it I've always gotta clean up after you lot?" Rikan muttered to herself as she looked up to the top of the stadium. The shooters were out of sight, but she could see the wisps of smoke detailing their position.

She walked toward the football field and made her way to the stairs leading up to the stadium seats. She moved quietly and swiftly as the two shooters were gloating and firing down below them, oblivious to what was behind them.

She came up behind the men and stopped, removing something off her person. She stepped forward a few more steps and paused once again. She watched as her shadow fell into their range of vision, at their feet.

Both spun as soon as they saw this. Both were suddenly google-eyed as they beheld a partially nude woman before them. Then, at long last, they looked at her face.

To say she wasn't happy was an understatement.

Each man recieved a deep slash across the chest as they looked at her in pained shock. They dropped their rifles, instantly clutching their chests. A military boot delivered a kick to one man's face, knocking him out cold.The other man suddenly felt his throat spilling more than it ever should. He died within minutes.

Rikan bent over the unconscious man and brought her blade to the man's eyes, pausing right before them. Within a few minutes, the man came about once more, only to freeze as he saw the woman above him. She spoke to him softly,

"Lust is one of the seven deadly sins. You're going to hell. Give Lucifer my regards."

The blade dove into one eye and sliced horizontially, slicing through the cartilage and skewering the other eye as well. The man spasmed, but was held down by Rikan's hand. He died soon as well.

The others down below had noticed a lull in the rifle shooting at this point and peered carefully around their hidden locations, just in time to see a body shoved over the edge and falling with a sickening thwap on the concrete sidewalk below. They looked up to see Rikan standing there, her top back on once more.

She waved.

No sooner had they managed to move back down the stairs and begin moving in pursuit of Dirk then the man was on the move again, ignoring Dirk’s less than tactful approach to exiting a building Plisken broke through a door and found himself in an open area between a few low buildings, the stadium was only behind them and it was clear all the way.

Clear and open areas tended to be murderous and quickly filled areas all too often in combat, “Why is it I’ve always gotta’ clean up after you lot?” Sensibly resisting the urge to make a remark about women’s work Plisken faded the other chatter out and instead focused on everything else he could hear.

Gun fire. Nothing except sporadic gun fire and an enveloping silence, not even birds or something natural. Laboratory engineered pathogens tend to create such silence, it wasn’t exactly his first clean up mission but this was a first in most areas, he made his move as he began to reminisce, trusting in the clarity of doing something would clear his mind and prevent any unfortunate slip ups, stepping around the corner and making for the nearest corner ahead of him.

He never saw Rikan stand atop the stadium, never heard the body hit the ground and didn’t consider that the other two might not be right behind him.

Arthas watched as Rikan snuck her way up the stadium aisle, but realizing what she was doing, flipped the goggles to the back out his head out of respect. Arthas' voice cracked over the channel for once, after the two gunmen were down, sarcastic tone "Well, I can honestly say, Rikan, that you are the only one on our team that can successfully pull that little stunt off. At least they died seeing what they probably would want to die seeing. You gave a new meaning to the term 'show-off'."

Rikan replied over the comms with her own message, "I hardly think they'd be just as shocked to see your little Johnny getting a breath of air..."

A pause for dramatic effect...

"Besides, as much as I hate it, I can, and will use anything to my advantage. It just so happens that men are too easily distracted..."

Arthas during the pause "You do know why they were distracted from your little show? They were still looking were you intended, but they were thinking "Now, is that a guy? I can't tell." After Rikan's second comment: "Well, you know the rules of combat... 'Use all your assets at your disposal'"

DWAR had left Zephyr on the Hummer, something about carrying a 15 pound bird in a close quarters just diesn't cut it. As they went in side they made a beeline for the stairs, shecking around each corner, covering each other up the stairs. When they got to the second floor, they got a message from Dirk telling them to meet in the stadium. Jared and Edwardo covered the second floor while he made his way to the landing, and in turn covering them. When edwardo made it back to the landing they motioned for Jared to come down after them, DWAR covering the forst floor, Edwardo the stairwell. DWAR went the bottom of the stairs, and waited for the other two. As Edwardo came down he stepped on a long discarded can causing a loud, echoing crushing sound. DWAR didn't look back, but kept his eye's on the surrounding area. Down the hall he heard the "Thud, Thud Thud" of fast moving footsteps.

Arthas during the pause "You do know why they were distracted from your little show? They were still looking were you intended, but they were thinking "Now, is that a guy? I can't tell." After Rikan's second comment: "Well, you know the rules of combat... 'Use all your assets at your disposal'"

Rikan scowled slightly, but knew that Arthas was kidding. Or, he had better be kidding...

The last one to insult her had been deprived of the only thing that distinguished his sexuality.

"Real cute Arthas. Keep it up, and you'll end up like Merrin."

She looked up to the school in the distance and watched as a few more of the group made their way to the stadium.

"You boys just coming in now would be dead meat if this place were swarming... next time, get your asses moving, or we'll leave you behind. And I can promise you that you'll not be missed by myself."

She looked down to Nathan, who had already made his way near the others by the tree.

"And where the hell have you been, Nate?" she demanded with a slight scowl.

His reply was instant, "Keeping the hell away from you...you she-devil."

Rikan grinned.

OOC: Outer Heaven's been busy lately, so I'm taking liberties to move his character with us. When he can get the chance to post again, I'm sure he'll not mind, as I've RP'd with his character before and know how he would react.

Edwardo burst our the door and dove for cover before he looked up and saw-In addition to Riken's "Assets"-that both riflemen had already been killed. He watched as Riken rolled one off the top of the stadium. Not Bad, He thought. He holstered his pistol and rejoined the group.

"So, It seems we have more than Infected Freaks on our hands. Someone-obviously alive and well-was or still is tracking us." He spread his arms out. "Any theories of who it might be?"

DWAR was out right behind Edwardo. He pointed his G36 at the door, waiting to determine weather the footsteps were a threat or not.

"I have no idea if it's a threat or not, but I'm not gonna chance it being one of those things." He whislted slightly after saying this, and Zephyr started flying off of his perch on the Hummer.

Dirk walked forward and knealt down next to the crumpled form of the man Rikan had killed. He gently rolled the man over with his rifle and looked at the bloodied holes where eyes once were. He looked over the black garb the man was wearing, it was loose, giving him plenty of room to manuver, and it was definatly thick enough to provide warmth.

He carefully unwrapped the clothes, exposing a muscular body, his skin was a like dark bronze, little hair covered his body, yet there were many black tattoos instead. Dirk looked at the tattoos, all were ancient Simatarian runes and strange pictures.

He picked up the man's Baker rifle, it was in perfect condition. A fresh flint was in place, the weapon was perfectly mantained. Dirk also examined the scimatar, the bright, shiny, steel blade was also covered in Ancient Simatarian. He looked at one on the black grip, his eyes went wide.

Dirk looked at a symbol on the man's sleeve. It was a red dragon skeleton, it's wings incircling many human skulls, inside the mouth of the dragon was a deep crimson colored skull. Snake skeletons were wrapped around the dragon and the skulls.

Dirk held the symbol in his hands, looking back at the gym, his face pale.

"Oh my God..."

Dirk held the symbol in his hands, looking back at the gym, his face pale.

"Oh my God..."

Hootington raised his eyebrows as he saw Dirk go pale.

"Something you want to share with the rest of us, Dirk?"

Rikan had made her way back down to the others once more and approached Dirk as he studied the dead man whom she had kicked over the edge. She heard him curse, or call out to his god and instantly her attention was focused.

She looked down at the dead man's tattoos and raised an eyebrow.

"Dirk...whatever it is, God ain't here to save you."

Arthas, to Rikan's reply "Oh, really, I'll keep that in mind, or, according to the information that you seem to have, you'll take a pair of safety scissors or fingernail clippers to me." He said, walking over to wear the tossed body lay. He saw what Dirk held and chuckled "Dibs on the souvineir" Obviously not knowing what Dirk knew.

Rikan turned to Arthas, her eyes narrowed. She walked up to him and called out.

"Hey Arthas..."

He turned, only to hear the sounds of two blades unsheathing and clicking into place was heard. She quickly moved them to Arthas's throat, holding them against his flesh.

"I don't know about you, but in my line of work, these are my 'safety scissors'..."

She withdrew the blades and sheathed them moments later. Arthas looked at her. She looked back with an emotionless face. Suddenly she grinned, something uncharacteristic of her.

Nathan merely grinned as he watched Rikan deliver her words. She turned back to Dirk,

"Well?" she kicked him in the foot lightly, "What's got you wetting your pants boyo?"

Dirk didn’t look at anyone; his eyes were fixed on the gym.

“Oh God I hope I am wrong.”

The man started walking across the field, to the double doors leading into the gym from the outside. He put the symbol into his pocket as he brought his rifle up. He went to the doors and carefully opened one. The stench of death and decay nearly overpowered him. Dirk pulled out a flashlight and carefully entered, the door shutting behind him.

Several minutes later, Dirk emerged, his boots and uniform coated in blood. His face was whiter than a vampire’s as he stumbled out of the gym. He bent over and vomited.

The group moved forward and carefully opened the doors, a river of dark crimson blood flowed down the stairs from the gym. The sunlight and the dim lights inside allowed the mercenaries to see the scene of carnage.

The once clean hardwood floors were covered in a thick layer of blood; more began to flow out the open doors, turning the green grass black. The stadium seats, neatly folded against the wall dripped with human blood, and humans.

Naked bodies of men, women, and children were strung up on the walls, their bellies cut open, and their insides hung down like ribbons in a parade. Their faces twisted in pain, they had obviously been awake at the time of their demise.

Many of the women had their vaginas had been removed and now were laying on the ground in front of them. Several pregnant women were among those on the walls. The fetuses, at various stages of development hung in their open mother’s bellies, themselves mutilated.

Many of the men had their groin removed; they now lay at the bottom of the sea of red. The children faired no better. Unlike the adults, the children had had a large section of their head cut away, exposing an empty skull

All the bodies shared on thing in common, the hearts were missing.

At the far end of the room, painted in the blood and sculpted from the gore of the victims on the walls, was the dragon symbol, standing nearly the entire height and width of the wall. At the base of the grotesque symbol, was a crude altar made from human bones and skulls, at the center of it was the missing hearts.

Rikan strode slowly into the gym, taking care to not step in corpses around them. She had a look of disgust on her face and finally, she too could not take the sight anymore and left.

However, she managed to keep her stomach in check. She shuddered as she thought of the torture the innocents had gone through. And it made her mad...

She walked over to Dirk and lifted him up and gripped his shirt, "What the hell is going on around here?" she demanded, "Who the hell were those guys I killed?"

She remembered the item in her pocket and brought it to Dirk's sight, "Who the hell attacked me in the goddamn showers?"

DWAR glanced upon the scene inside the Gym, and didn't even flinch. On his arm sat Zephyr, who screeched at the scent of the blood. He looked at Dirk who was vomiting and asked "Are you really sickened by it?" He had seen many massacre's since he was a little boy. He had long forgotten how many kills he had. He had forgot everyone he had killed, except one. His first kill was when he seven. Part of the training was a battle to the death. Those who survived moved on to the next part of training, those who didn't not only failed, but died. He had been partnered with his best friend. He remembered the scared look on his friends face as they fought. He remembered the piles of young boys bodies who had their eye's gouged out, and various other horribly painful deaths.

Arthas pulled his goggles back on, flipping a switch, activating a couple of small, powerful LED lights on the corners. He decided to take his turn in the gym, he walked in when he would be alone, and as the door closed behind him, his nose could be seen twitching, he was taking in the metallic scent of the blood, looking oddly vampiric as the door closed behind him. After a minute or two, he still hadn't came back out, but a voice could be faintly heard inside.

Ruben and Arthas were about to execute Arthas' plan when Dirk chimed in over the comm system. He had noticed their predicament and provided a distraction to those upon the stadium. Ruben fired the remainder of his clip at the two men upon the stadium as he edged closer. Finally word of some help up there was heard and so he took cover once again and reloaded.

Soon enough, Ruben was fortunate enough to watch Rikan dispose of the two shooters, in a fashion only she was able to. Ruben gave Rikan a slight salute, grinning as she threw the pair off the stadium. They had learned to get along during their last zombie experience and both shared a mutual respect for eachother.

He waited in silence as Rikan made her way down to the others and Dirk began inspecting the corpses. Within a few seconds Ruben noticed the extremely distressed look upon Dirk's face. Whatever it was, it couldn't be good. Remaining still, Ruben watched as Dirk made his way into the gym and finally emerged, as did the contents of his stomach.

Never one to shy from a little blood, Ruben moved into the gym and surveyed the sight himself. Ruben had never seen a slaughter quite like it. He payed close attention to how the cuts were made and noted certain things within his head. It was an unnerving sight, and by the looks of the alter it involved some sort of religious rights. Thus irritating Ruben even more, since he hated cults.

Moving outside again, Ruben kept his straight face. He wasn't sickened, more... curious.

Hootington laughed out loud and brushed dust off his top hat as he entered the gym. He spread his arms wide and grinned as he looked around the dead bodies piled around the walls.

"Finally, we're having some fun here. What next? Vampiric assassians? Mysterious Cults? Satanic worshipers? The plot keeps getting thicker and thicker-even thicker than all this blood."

Hootington bent down and ran a gloved finger through the wide pool of blood on the hardwood floor, examining it. He smiled. He turned to Dirk, who was vomiting.

"What or who do you think could have done this? And yes, who did Riken kill out there?"

Arthas was still in there after 5 minutes. He had waited for everyone to have their peeks before going in himself. There was still the voice faintly heard from inside the closed exit.

Dirk took what Rikan had in her hand, it was the same symbol as the one he held. He looked at them, not believeing his eyes. He walked up to Hootington, disgusted by the man's attitude. He grabbed him by the collar and tossed him into the outside wall.

"Show a little respect for the dead."

He turned to the group as they waited for an explination.

"These men, the two shooters, the one you killed in the showers...the ones responsible for this. Little is known about this group, but...back in the early middle ages there was suppose to of been a dark force in these moutains. Several kingdoms gathered thier armies and marched on theses lands, followed by monks and other holy men..to purify the land."

He tossed the symbol to Hootington.

"The name of the group I don't know, they supposivly died centuries ago. They terrorized the lands, butchering, human scarafices to thier god...this dragon. They worshiped death....that is about it. These moutains are full of legends about death and...other things."

Dirk leaned against the wall and looked around. Arthas was gone. Dirk got up and walked to the door and opened it.

"Arthas! Get your ass out of there!"

Arthas was out in the middle of the gym, his goggles off but holding a candle, perhaps makeshift, he was quietly singing a song, sounded almost like a hymn or another choral piece. He was knelt down in the pooled blood with the candle in front of him. He finished whatever he was singing, it seemed to be an old language, and got up and walked out with a solemn look on his face, his pants and boots a dark red hue. His hand also had some blood on it, as did his pale face. He walked out, leaned against the wall, and slumpt down into a sitting position and remained silent.

Hootington slammed against the wall and slid down it, coughing. He grinned and wiped a trickle of blood off his white cheek. He got to his feet and brushed his clothes off. He turned towards Dirk and smiled.

"I'll show my respect to these people by destroying whoever murdered them." He motioned around the bloody gym. "Until then, They deserve only my sympathy, not my respect. Besides, everyone dies. It's just the natural circle of life. But have no mistake, I will get them thier respect."

He looked down at the symbol he was holding in his hands.

"So then...Any idea how we should go about finding these killers?"

Continuing his way forward moving from the edges of the smaller buildings back to the side of the larger main building he found himself stepping on to the edge of the car park where they’d arrived, except he was now on the opposite side. Across from him he could see most everyone else crowding around the gym entrance, if he recalled correctly, “I take it your little gathering means we‘re clear for the time being, correct?” Plisken was beginning to lose the relaxed attitude he'd had previously, now he was on a long-term job and so it was time to blank it all out.

As he waited for their answer he trotted over to them, his boots making the odd crunching noise whilst his head scanned across to the stadium where the gunmen been before being dispatched and then bringing his back to look at the group again before looking off to the humvees. Slowing down as he reached midpoint between humvee and himself he marched himself over, giving the vehicles a glance over and seeing nothing unusual continued marching on over. He could see them all there now, except for Arthas but then Dirk’s command suggested the other man was inside.

Dirk looked around the back of the school. Several miles away was the forest, that slowly crawled its way up the slopes of the Glothlin mountains. He turned to Hootington and smiled.

"Don't worry, if they want to fight us...they will come to us."

He looked at Plisken.

"We are clear for right now, but we got to get moving. The shots might of attracted the infected."

Dirk looked and saw Arthas leaning against the wall. He prayed the man wasn't having a breakdown.

"Arthas...what is wrong?"

Arthas looked up. "Wha, ah nothing. Isn't the first time I've seen something like that..." He trailed off for a moment before seeming to mentally slap himself silly. "Wow, that was kind of deep blood in there, kind of reminds you of The Shining when the elevator doors open. Got my souvineer" He said, flashing one of the symbols on a chain around his neck, it was obvious that he got the blood on his hands from picking it up. He got up hastily and walked to the other side of the group, forced smile on his face, but it was obvious it was fake as he went over to a small tree and sat back down again, same as before.

Dirk's calm eyes turned to the color of blood as he saw the chain on Arthas's neck. He watched as Arthas walked to a tree and sit down. The soldier stood and walked over to the man.

"Arthas?"

When the man looked up, he was greeted by the Simatarian's fist. He was knocked over onto the ground and Dirk was instanly upon him. The soldier slammed his fist into Arthas's face again and he ripped the symbol from his neck.

"You never take suvieniors from the dead you ****! If I see you going through the bodies of the dead I will shoot you on the spot."

With that, Dirk turned around and marched back to the gym. He threw the chain back into the darkness and shut the door. He turned back to the group. His voice was much calmer now.

"That goes for everybody, unless it is something of vital importance to this mission...the dead will be left in peace. Am I clear?"

Arthas stayed on the ground, sputtering some blood. "It was on the ground. I wouldn't stoop that low. Besides, I did need it." He had kind of a smile on his face from the reaction, welcoming the setting pain.

Rikan watched as Dirk suckerpunched Arthas. She sighed, shaking her hand. Suddenly her eyes widened as she saw Arthas spit the blood from his mouth, and bringing his hand up to wipe the mouth.

She moved quickly and delivered a kick to the man's hand. It flailed away and fell down. She knelt to Arthas' face and growled into his face, "You're an idiot...you almost infected yourself!"

She gestured to the man's hand covered in blood, which possibly had infected blood mixed as well.

"Also, you better cut this bullshit you're pulling, or I'll personally see that you don't walk straight ever again..."

She stood and called over to the others, "I'm taking a goddamn shower...getting this goddamn blood off me..." she indicated the blood from the Simatarian on her clothes.

Dirk nodded at Rikan's idea.

"Hit the showers in the stadium. I'll bring the Humvees around, and bring some fresh clothes. All we got is military fatigues."

He slung his rifle over his shoulder and glared at Arthas.

"It belonged to someone..you never take anything from someone without asking. Anyway..why would you need it?"

Ruben shook his head as he watched Dirk beat down Arthas in a fit of morally induced rage. Morals, the cause of so much needless action. Ruben liked to see himself as a man without morals. Whilst he had personal standards, he didn't want anything to do with the so called morals of today's society. Taking objects from the dead did not bother Ruben in the slightest. Afterall, they weren't ever going to use them again.

He waited for Dirk to calm down and watched as Rikan saved someone the trouble of having to kill Arthas after her became infected from the blood upon his hands. As he hadn't come into contact with any foreign blood, he merely jumped onto the .50 of a humvee and waited for a driver.

OOC: Arthas never went to wipe the blood from himself. Hence "stayed on the ground" and "welcoming the setting pain." And he was still in his daze from coming out of the gym. ((Gah! Sorry. This sounds ruder than I meant. I meant it all polite.))

"To let them go." He simply said, pointing into the gym. He got up and pulled a wet-nap out of a sealed pack and used it to wipe the blood that had run backwards out of his eyes, careful not to get the stuff smeared on his cheeks mixed in. "I'mma... I'm gonna walk over to the stadium. Plus, sir, next time you want me to take something off, just ask. Besides, spoils of war." He said walking out, pistol in hand.

Mildly disappointed at the level of sense some people were demonstrating Plisken held his comments back none the less, no sense in making people get in to the idea of self-examination. Least not on duty.
Catching Ruben shake his head out of the corner of his eye, Plisken watched him climb up on to the humvee and the behind the .50, the barrel of which was comfortingly pointing away from the group.

They were fragmenting in front of him, Dirk was a soldier with belief and obviously wasn’t too concerned with giving everybody death threats. Rikan just seemed to have it in for anything human, anything that went on in her mind usually verbalised itself as some threat to a man’s genitals. Then there was the rest of them, a mixture of professionals bloodied by experience and yet at odds with their status to some extent.

As Plisken was considering his fellows he was pacing towards the entrance they had all drove in through, he was looking at the town around and looking for a sign. He found two of them soon enough, boot prints squashed in a mud-ridden patch of grass between main road and parking lot.
The boot prints were fresh, as they had been made upon the tracks one of the humvees had made, he confirmed this moments after looking at the boot prints more closely by casually examining the tires of the very humvee Ruben was sitting atop, oblivious to anyone else though who were busy chewing the fat or cleaning themselves up.

Ruben continued to wait as the others cleaned themselves up. He was starting to grow impatient. He wanted to be done with this situation and get back to Assington, where he had structure and security.

Looking around, he noticed Plisken eyeing the very Humvee Ruben happened to be sitting upon. Giving Plisken his standard glare, Ruben voiced his curiosity.

"Something wrong Plisken?"

In examining the wheels he’d been relatively careful to disguise his intentions, not intentionally to be secretive but rather to develop an idea in his mind, Ruben however had noticed the intense gaze his vehicle was receiving.

“Something wrong Plisken?” Unready to discuss his thoughts about the boot prints and who they might belong to he readied an alternative, “Don’t you ever wonder how tires manage to pick up certain things but not others?”
The glare flickered to bemusement on Ruben’s face, without waiting for answer Plisken returned to the same patch of ground he’d come across the boot prints and attempted to discern a reason for their close proximity to each other.

Two people perhaps walking in each others foot steps yet accidentally screwing up, possible he reasoned but more likely was two people who had paused to perform the same survey as Plisken had.

(I'm going to France for 2 weeks. If anything gets hairy, someone can RP as Hootington for me.)

After those who wanted to change or shower had finished, the group walked back out to the Humvees and began to load thier gear. Dirk looked out a side mirror.

"No one look back, just act normal."

As he climbed into the drivers seat of the first humvee, he knew at least one person looked back.


Slightly over a mile away a single horseman, dressed in the same clothes the others were sat calmly on a black horse. He stared at the vehicles as they sped off. The man simply turned the horse around and galloped towards the woods.


As the humvees passed through the town and onto the open road, Dirk calmed down slightly. He knew the mercs were probably wondering what he meant by 'dark forces'. He picked up the mic.

"Okay, we got about another hour or so before we reach the facility. If you have any questions regarding Rebecca...or anything I might be able to answer...ask now."

Arthas was back to standing on the back with apistol in his hand and grabbing on with the other. He had his goggles on this time so the wind wouldn't sting his eyes too bad. He happened to be looking over at the horseman, bt didn't get his goggles into zoom in time.

"Heya sir? I got a question? Is there like a riding stable nearby? Or are we being watched?"

Dirk continued to drive and scanned the forest. He spotted movement, and knew it couldn't of been the regular wildlife. He heard Arthas's question come over his headsets.

"We're being watched Arthas. The question is, when are they going to strike."

They drove for another half an hour with no incident. As Dirk crested a hill, he saw the facility below them. Spread over several acres, several low buildings dotted the area, and a large five story office builidng sat in the middle of the clutter. A smashed chainlink fence surrounded the complex, and in the parking lot sat several destoryed cars.

Dirk gently eased the Humvee down the hill and drove towards the fence. The gate had been torn wide open and blood covered much of it. He pulled in front of a two story white building and stopped the humvee.

He climbed out and checked his assault rifle. Dirk looked at everyone, he guessed they might be nervous because the virus was suppose to be airborne.

"Don't worry, this area has been sweapt by ariel equipment..no trace of Rebecca remains. Lets go."

Dirk turned and headed into the building.

Arthas hopped off the back of the humvee and was the first in behind Dirk. He still had only his pistol drawn. He clicked off the headet and whispered over to Dirk, with a tone of embarassment "Sorry."

Dirk moved into the reception area, magizines, chairs, cups, newspapers, coffee and blood stains covered the floor. He moved to the reception desk and poked the muzzle of his rilfe arond it, nothing. He looked down the dirty and destoryed hallways before looking at Arthas, he cupped his hand over his mic so only Arthas could hear him.

"Sorry for what?"

Arthas thought for a moment, his eyes darting about as if they weren't attached, watching for anything. "About back at the gym. I wasn't necessarily being the epitome of empathy and understanding."

Ruben followed Dirk and Arthas into the main building, G36 at ready in case anything remotely zombie like crossed his path. Things didn't seem to be getting any better, which meant Ruben's chances of escaping this alive were falling.

Cursing under his breath, he continued to prowl around, looking for something to shoot.

Dismounting like the first three Plisken did not follow immediately behind them, instead as they entered the building he walked around to the side of the two story structure, another wrecked car was rammed in to the side of the building. Other than the crash damage the only sign of wear on the vehicle was the dozen or so bullet holes through the windshield, along with accompanying bloom of blood.

Wrenching the door open he expected to see a body inside, instead there was only blood and shattered pieces of windshield. The car had crashed right in to a solid looking side entrance, “This is Plisken, I think the rescue team might have been here already. It’s not much but there’s a smashed up vehicle and evidence of a fire fight.” Whilst he waited for a response Plisken kicked the car door shut and leant back again the vehicle, careful not to lean in anything sticky or wet.

Dirk shrugged to Arthas.

"Its alright, the labs are in this building..first we need to secure it, go and check the back."

Dirk heard Plisken's transmission, then tried to raise the other Black Diamond team.

"Black Diamond four to Black Diamond two..come in please. Giles..come in you Windport bastard pick up. Giles..Giles."

Dirk stopped transmitting with he saw a long streak of blood that extended down a hallway. He carefully moved down, following the trail and makeing sure the doors behind were closed. The hall lead to another partically open door. The stench of death grew as he moved forward.

Dirk exchanged his rifle for his pistol as he carefull pulled the door open. It was another side entrance, at the base of several stairs was a a pile of half eaten human bodies, all wore uniforms like Dirk. A small figure was bent over the group, the figure was clawing at the corpses, bringing strips of meat to its mouth and eating.

"You ugly fucker."

The child, no more than thirteen slowly stood. The zombie was in heavy decay and its clothes were almost gone. It moved slowly across the corpse field. Dirk leveled the pistol with the head and fired. A burst of blood erupted from the hole in its head as it fell acorss the bodies.

Dirk moved down into the carnage and pulled out a pair of dog tags. Giles, Andrew.

"I found the team."

Dirk looked up at the sound of screeching and moaning as nearly thirty infected assaulted him. The soldier darted back up the stairs and slammed the door closed. The electronic lock wouldn't work and he felt the force of the group ram into the door, nearly knocking him over.

His rifle and pistol were knocked away as he put all his weight behind getting the door shut. Dirk began to yell down the hall and into his mike.

"I'm at the east entrance! Someone get something to barricade the damn door!"

*********************************************

Outside, another large group of infected assualted the people still outside.

DWAR heard Dirk screaming into the mike

"I'm at the east entrance! Someone get something to barricade the damn door!"

He looked around as the others stood dumbfounded by what was going on. He quickly rushed for the door, his pistol drawn. When he go to the door several infected had already made it through. He fired several shots into two of their head sand slowly backed away as the other infected slowly advanced. He took aim at it's head, and started squeezing the trigger. Suddenly the infected dashed for him, and he pulled the trigger quickly, hitting it in the upper chest, knocking it back a little, he fired again and hit it in the head. He looked around for something to barricade the door with. Finding nothing he leaned his back against the door and said into the mike

"Some one get down here with something to block this door with"

While waiting for someone to come he thought about how he should have spent more time training with a pistol

Arthas came running down the hallway with a large desk on his back. "I got you a barricade right here sir." He got the table wedged in tight with a few loose chiars. "What is it?"

"Apparently there are a ton of infected right through that door," as he said this he pointed at the three infected that were no longer moving.
"I have an idea, why don't one of us hold the door open and the other lob a grenade in there. That should clear it out signifigantly."

As he’d slammed the car door shut a part of Plisken had regretted doing so, not a regret in that it might disturb the scene but more than it might energise the scene. So to speak.
The scene became fairly rapidly energised as the two calls for barricades went out, breaking in to a trot to aid them was all that saved Plisken from being hauled over the roof of the car and getting intimate with several infected. They snarled at his movement, then they began jerking backwards as he opened fire, still they poured forwards over the car and now around it.
Never for last stands Plisken released two short bursts in to the group and then ran for the humvee, safe in the knowledge that Hell was indeed behind him.

“They’re running up my fucking ass, someone grab that .50!” He was running like mad, at the same time he was fumbling to remove one of the grenades they’d all received, it was a standard fragmentation device and came with the less than appealing spoon handle release.

Ruben came racing down the hall, a large chair being dragged behind him. Eventually he arrived with Dirk, DWAR and Arthas and sat the chair upon the desk barricade.

"This may help as well."

Looking back down the hallway, Ruben sighed.

"We better do something quick, there are more outside and we don't want to get stuck between them."

OOC: um dirk is actually down the hall infected filled hall in a room at least I thought so

IC: DWAR looked at Ruben and said "We need to clear this hall so Dirk can come through. I think the bes tcourse of action would be for two of us to hold the door cracked open and the third lob a grenade in there. After the grenade pops, we open up and spray fire at anything that moves, run in and get Dirk out." He pulled a grenade off his vest.

OOC: I took it as Dirk being on the hall side and the zombies in the room whilst he holds them back...

OOC: I took it as Dirk being on the hall side and the zombies in the room whilst he holds them back...
OOC: I guess that works, now enough OOC

OOC: Tw ogroups of about 30 infected, one are hitting the people who stayed outside, the other 30 are hitting whoever went with Dirk, oh yeah, Dirk as well.

OOC: Dirk was in the hall, holding a door against the zombies trying to barge in from the outside from a side door. But, now let us continue with the Rp.

IC:

Dirk smiled as the barricade seemed to be holding off the infected. He scooped up his rifle.

"The only problem we have is if they overrun the people outside, we need to get them in here."

Dirk took off down the hallway, back to the main entrance. He skidded to a halt and blasted an infected woman as she lunged at him. She tumbled back, screeching and spasaming in a pool of blood. Dirk continued to fire, shouting into his mike.

"Get the fuck inside! Get the fuck inside the building!"

Arthas had followed Dirk down the hallways and got a reception desk ready for another barricade of the main entrance once all got inside. He stood at the door, taking potshots at any infected trying to sneak around Dirk. That's when he realized his mike was still flipped up, which he promptly fixed. "That's right folks, come in here and be sealed off between two forces of infected dumbtards. It's alot safer than engaging one in open terrain." He looked over at Dirk, who obviously wasn't finding Arthas funny, so he added. "But seriously, get in the god damn lab"

Rikan leapt up and delivered a kick to one of the infected running toward her and swinging a crude stick of sorts. She followed through with the bracer-blade decapitating the dead man. Just then, she heard Dirk's call over the comm set, followed shortly by Arthas's own.

"On my way." she stated as she started running toward the location given by Dirk. "Open the door, I'm coming in fast with a few of the fuckers behind me!"

She looked over her shoulder just then to gauge the distance. "Fuck that! I'll find another way in, keep that damn door closed! They're too close!"

She veered away from the door, sprinting and remaining close to the building. She saw the fire escape ladder along the wall and leapt upwards, swinging herself up and over the railing. She glanced down to the infected who were trying to reach the ladder that hung just out of reach of their leaps. "Later asswipes..." she muttered as she continued moving up the stairs.

Once on the roof, she darted toward the nearest AC unit and blasted the padlock away with her pistol. Lifting it, she peered down, and could see the rotating fan below, pumping air into the building. She groaned slightly, then crawled into the vertical duct and braced her back on one side and her feet on the other, wedged into the corners. Slowly she moved down and stopped just above the fan. Gusts of air blew her hair about, whipping her in the face as she thought of what to do. She pulled her pistol out, ejected the clip and positioned it over the fan's edge.

"Here goes nothing..." she muttered to herself before dropping the pistol. The metallic clang was heard as it snatched between the fan and the frame, abruptly halting the groaning fan. Seconds later, she dropped through the fan and landed inside the second air duct. Looking up, she watched just as the pistol began to screech and rip apart with a horrible sound of ripping metal. She dove off into a side duct, just as pieces of metal shot about and embedded into the ducts. A fragment punctured her boot's heel but thankfully didn't travel far. Rikan glanced back to the area behind her, which now had a number of metal shards sticking out of the sides of the air vent.

She turned and began to crawl carefully through the ducts heading to God knows where. She called out on the comms, "Hey, somebody get to a nearby air vent and pound on the metal so I can fucking find you!"

She hoped to God she didn't have to backtrack and move over the danger area beneath the fan.

Arthas drew his pistol and fired a few times in to the vent, to which the bullets pierced through the vent shaft, and a couple inches away from piercing Rikan who was in them. "If you can't find a way out, I'll cut you a hole" he said, placing his headset next to his sword and drawing it, the metallic sound over the headset.

Rikan nearly went cold when the bullets started piercing the vent just ahead of her. She screamed into the comms unit, "Damn you Arthas! Do you have a fucking problem understanding the definiting of pounding on the vent?!"

She waited until he was finished trying to put a few slugs into her, before crossing over the bullet riddled section of the duct.

She crawled further on until she found a drop in front of her. She peered over the edge and saw that it angled away underneath her. Right for the room she was attempting to get into.

"Coming down!" she called out as she slid forward and suddenly plunged downward. Seconds later, she burst through the vent cover and fell another six feet. She rolled in her fall and returned to her feet at the same time.

She cast her eyes toward Arthas and approached rapidly, delivering a punch to his jaw. "You fucking asshole..." she roared at him.

He let his head stay turned to the side, a masochistic smile on his face. "I knew where you were, you aren't the most stealthiest person at times, plus, the vents were thin, and not to call you fat, but you could see the metal flex ever so slightly and the light play off of them in a slightly different way. Well, if you don't trust me, I at least knew about where you were, the rest was fate."

Dirk heard the screeching metal and turned away from the door at the Arthas's shooting. He arched his eyebrow as Rikan came down from the ceiling and punched the merc. Dirk glared at Arthas and Rikan.

"Arthas...stop wasting your ammo. Rikan...control your fucking temper."

He opened the door again and continued to fire, covering his team as they moved to the entrance. He fired a grenade, blasting the legs off one man. He watched as the body continued to crawl towards the entrance before he put a bullet throught its head.

Dirk watched as several of his team manned the .50s.

"Abandon the fucking Humvees and get inside!"

Ruben merely checked out the side rooms for any traces of zombies yet found them clear. It appeared they were all either outside or behind the barricaded door. He watched in amusement as Arthas fired into the vent and Rikan dropped out to deliver him a punch in the jaw.

Leaning back against a wall, Ruben waited.

Rikan was about to give Arthas a demonstration of only a fraction of the pain that Merrin had suffered, but Dirk's words stopped her. She raised a finger to Arthas's face and snarled, "You better watch your fucking mouth boy, or I swear to your God that you're going to be meeting him much sooner than you think. I hope your ducks are in a row."

She lingered for a moment longer, silently daring, even wishing that Arthas would press his luck. She walked away, still fuming over Arthas's actions and heartless comments.

"Fucking asshole." she muttered to herself as she took up a position in a chair, propping her feet up on the nearby desk. She remained silent, working to ease the anger out of her system.

Arthas covered up his mic again and whispered over to Rikan a feeble apology. It was obvious he wasn't famous for giving those. "I know this is a... bad time... but... sorry." He had a genuine, yet embarrassed look on his face.

After everyone had made it inside, Dirk, Arthas, and Ruben quickly barricaded the front door with furniture. Dirk smiled.

"Well, here we are. Mostly offices and lounges here, the labs are in the back. Take a break if you want, you have all earned it. Don't bother putting money in a vending machine, just break it open. And...don't start fighting each other."

Dirk headed down a hallway and stumbled upon on office. Dr. Rapp. He castiously opened the door and looked in. There was a desk with a computer, chair, two bookcases, and severals PHds and diplomas on the wall. He entered the office and leafed through papers on a desk.

Dirk picked up one file. Harte, Todd P. He leafed through the man's file and found nothing of use about the virus. He put the folder down on the desk and left the office.

He continued to explore a series of offices before finding what he was looking for. A plain steel door blocked his way and a keyboard hung on the wall next to it. Dirk remembered the combintation he was given and typed it in.

The door opened and the soldier walked into a small dressing room. Protective gear hung on the wall, but he knew he wouldn't need it. Dirk opened the other door that lead into the labs.

Dirk began his search for the possible cause of the outbreak.

Having successfully managed to pull a grenade free from his vest, then run even harder whilst he let it fly from his grasp in to the chasing zombies. Fortunately in some ways they’d been so packed together that the concussive effects were mitigated by the bodies at Plisken’s distance but closer to detonation the bodies were spread around bits of them missing whilst they desperately continued to crawl around using stumps or in the case of one it’s head.

Finding himself abandoned Plisken burst his way through the main entrance and immediately threw another grenade outside, then sheltered in the side of the entrance as the door was severely shredded by fragments and then put Arthas’s unfinished barricade in to effect. The group outside thumped in to the doors and walls, their bodies then thumped with bullets and eventually the butt of Plisken’s rifle.

As Rikan and Arthas exchanged sentiments, none particularly friendly Plisken was fairly amazed to see them both then saunter vaguely for a moment till Dirk at least grabbed Arthas and Ruben in to sorting out the main entrance whilst Plisken continued to pluck away the besieging forces outside. “Just marvellous work, team and don’t forget there’s at least one side entrance. You got maps for this place Dirk?" He looked around for sight of him "Dirk?”

Ruben saat down next to the agrivated Rikan and gave her a nod. He remained silent for several minutes before making a single comment.

"Nice to see you're still the charming young lady I met back in America."

"Hello AWACS, hello AWACS...this is Black Diamond four come in."

Dirk stood in the small radio room in the building, trying to raise the air force.

"This is Black Diamond four...come in please. Over."

He released the key and listened for any response. Nothing, not even static. Dirk shouldered his rifle and headed to a small staff lounge. He walked over to the snack vending machine and smashed the glass with the butt of his rifle. He grabbed a bag of salted peanuts and walked back to the radio room.

Dirk picked up a metal briefcase and went to the main reception area where everyone was. He opened the peanut bag and popped on in his mouth.

"Got some good..and bad news. Good news is we have plenty of food, water, electricty..and a radio. Bad news, radio doesn't work and we are surrounded by god knows how many zombies and infected."

Dirk sat down in a chair and tapped the case.

"Another good thing....we have Rebecca."

He turned his attention to Rikan and Ruben.

"You two know each other? Well, please let us know your history."

Ruben looked back to Dirk, his expression blank as usual. He didn't particularly fee like telling everyone his history and so he kept things brief.

"Rikan, Nathan and I happened to be bunkered down in the same military fort back in America when it was overun by creatures much like these, save that those ones were quite literally the walking dead. There isn't much to hear. We were both there and we both got away."

Rikan pulled out a combat knife from a hip sheath and began to clean some dirt from under her fingernails as she waited for the others to finish realizing what she and Ruben seemed to have known already.

When Ruben responded to Dirk's question, she was surprised slightly to hear him actually give any response. You'd think that a government would try to find 'footprints' to previous travels before hiring a group of the most highly trained mercenaries of the world...incompetent morons. she thought to herself critically. She spoke, just as Nathan came over and sat next to her, pulling out his pistol to inspect it.

"Damn good hunting thought eh Ruben?"

She turned to him and grinned slightly, remembering the mall battles...before Merrin had lost his cool. Before she had to...do what she had to do.

Ruben gave Rikan a slight grin and nodded. He had enjoyed the oppurtunity to refine his skills with a bow and various other weapons, even if they were slow moving targets. Rikan's abilities and no crap attitude had appealed to Ruben enough for him to count her as a neutral aquiantance.

"Indeed it was. This new lot are proving to be more of a challenge, I take it you're up to it?"

There was obviously some humour in Ruben's comment, something rarely seen from the generally serious man.

Unimpressed with the situation Dirk laid out for them all and even less interested in some incident back in America Plisken remained standing at the edge of the soon formed huddle.

“Well, that’s just great isn’t it? We’re trapped until we find an alternate route out, so I’ll ask again. You got any maps, Dirk? Like I said before there‘s at least one side entrance and probably more, if we‘re going to stay here we need to rig every outside door and window, so hand over some explosives people.”

The former residents continued to hammer and bang on the main entrance, it was almost tempting to ask them to just give it up for a few moments. Except they were throwing themselves at the door and unlikely to stop to listen.

((OOC: And then Arthas ran over, grabbed the virus from Dirk, ran back into the labs, and created the cure, loaded it into aerosol canisters and sprayed it hrough the cracks around the doors and cured all the infected, woohoo!!!))

((More OOC: Just kidding))

Arthas got bored so he stole a Sharpie from one of the offices and drew a Go board on the counter. He walked over to the vending machines and shot the change holders, catching the cascades of quarters and bringing them back to the counter. He colored half of them black with the marker and had himself a whole game set up. He didn't think anybody would play (or know what the hell he was playing) so he stacked up the makeshift 'pieces and started and started writing on the wall:

"These people were the last line of defense between the safety of the human race and a gruesome, painful death. Though very few knew each other or had anything in common, and many had their disagreements, they were united in their determination and motive. Their methods, though different, were also united, forming the bastion between the world and a metaphorical hell. Their names may fade into obscurity, but not their accomplishments."

He then counted up everyone in the room and made a series of blank lines under this message equal to that count. He signed his name on the final slot and set the marker on a small table next to the wall.

DWAR watched Arthas write his poem on the board, and then put lines for names below it. After Arthas signed his own name, DWAR threw a knife at the spot below it. Arthas turned around. DWAR walked up the wall and pulled his knife out, before turning to Arthas and saying, "We are soldiers, weather or not we survive is not important. All we need to worry about is getting out of here. If my guess is right then after a bit they will quit banging on the doors in search of another way in."

Arthas flashed his sadistic grin. "I know. Hence the fact I never said if we were successful or we died."

((OOC: Folks, I'd like to say a quick note, from the unwritten rules of RP'ing. Don't control another's character, especially on things such as emotion and reaction. A person develops their character and gives them a personality. Those things, even though well built, can be destroyed. Case in point: NoF here wrote that Arthas was startled by DWAR's knife. Now, Arthas is indifferent to life and death, especially his own, having two attempted suicides under his belt. The knife could've landed right between his fingers as he signed his name, he probably would've kept writing, whether that would cause him to cut his hand or not. Arthas isn't macho or fearless, he's far from it. He just really doesn't care about life. And if a knife stabbing near him would startle him, that reaction would be contrasting to that. I'm in no way attacking NoF, trying to make him look bad, he isn't the only one who has done it, I'm just taking a moment to give a tip. Sorry for the interruption, let's get back to the show.))

Dirk looked up at Plisken, nodded and pulled out a map of the area from his pocket and layed it on a table. His finger tapped the reasearch facility.

"Right, here we are at the station. Now, if we can get those cunts off the...."

Dirk heard a smashing and tearing and stood up immediatly. He checked his rifle and went to a window. He gently moved the curtain with the barrel of his G36 and cursed. Outside, thier vehicles were swarmed by the infected; they smashed in windows and began to tear away at the engines. Dirk cursed again and went back to the map.

"Right..fuck driving outta here or calling for help. Radio doesn't work. Now, there is a large forest that starts only a mile from here..it goes up into the mountains. Now, if we can shoot the infected off the Humvees long enough for me to grab a radio and a pack or two, we stand a chance of surviving. Get up high enough and we can call for help."

Dirk looked at Plisken.

"All the other escape tunnels and doors are sealed shut...apparently this building's security system went into lockdown completely. And, unless anyone knows how to find the trap door...we can't get out via an underground tunnel."

"Indeed it was. This new lot are proving to be more of a challenge, I take it you're up to it?" Ruben asked with his own grin.

Rikan finished cleaning her nails and looked up at him smiling, "Damn right! I love a good hunt!"

Ruben rested back against the wall as he thought over recent events. He couldn't say he particularly enjoyed hunting, but he was competent and the alternative was far worse.

"I can't say I'm here because I want to be, but I'm here nonetheless and intend to make my way out of here alive."

"Well...getting out was never a question. Getting out alive is."

She stood and walked over to the board, inspecting the writing and snickering to herself.

"Bloody fools are writing their wills..." she commented to Ruben.

Ruben watched as Rikan inspected the poem and markings and shook his head as she stated what was going on.

"Agreed. I'd prefer not to have any records of me being here anyway. A reputation can be a dangerous and irritating thing."

"Yes, reputations are something a good soldier should be with out. Something I have tried to avoid, but seemed to have utterly failed." DWAR said, getting an irritated look on his face.

"Hey sir, what was that about an underground tunnel?" Arthas asked, crossing out name blanks as people gave their disapproval.

Rolling his eyes as Dirk pulled out the map and needlessly pointed at the facilities location, before he could correct the confusion he joined Dirk at a window and let his shoulders slump as he saw the humvees go from thousands worth of machinery to hundreds worth of scrap.

Trailing back to the map he followed the rough route up to the mountains, “Before we think about going up through forests and mountains, lets find a map of this place which is what I meant in the first place and then lets find the best way to skip out of here.”

Pausing to look at Arthas and DWAR he continued whilst looking Dirk in the eye, “Like I said before give me your explosives and I’ll make a way out of here, just because tunnels and doors are sealed shut doesn’t me I can’t get through. These things are always meant to keep people out but even in a lab complex only some areas keep you trapped inside. So, show me a map of this building.” Waving an arm forward like an escorting host he waited for Dirk to leap in to action and give him something he could deal with, light infantry he could handle but demolition was still his forte.