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Angela LobCorp had a facility in every District and that even includes District 14--also known as District N. It is presently run by Nagel und Hammer--a Wing that highly values 'experience' up to the point that you can purchase 'canned experiences' in a vending machine. It is also known for its particular architectural design decision of having exclusively pure white marble buildings the glare from which is blinding like the sun is dedicated to hurting you. District N is also very particular about access to the District which means long lines at a Warpgate Center to get inside. Fortunately, Petra has day passes for everyone to get everyone inside though Kukuru's horns get some stares. The goal: Collect Abnormalities and tech from the facility so that they don't fall into the wrong hands. Or, you know, so that the Abnormalities don't eventually escape and start murdering people on mass.

What you don't have is N Corp's permission to access the fallen facility in particular and according to Petra and Tennant's intelligence on the matter, it's not just Abnormalities and security you might have to worry about while investigating it. The 'Wrong Hands' are already present in the form of The Inquisition, the on-the-ground force of an extremist segment of the Nagel und Hammer government. They haven't been all THAT subtle about their movements in and out--and have been spotted retrieving Abnormality eggs and other items from the facility, according to Tennant.

Getting to the facility involves taking a tramline to Nachtigalplatz and then a twenty minute walk to a pit cordoned off with an electric fence. The gap in the fence is guarded by two N Corp Inquisitors. Inquisitors, by and large, look like they crawled out of a Darkest Dungeon game. They all wear heavy armor and helmets. The helmets have large white crosses on their face instead of eyeholes and a Nagel und Hammer symbol is marked clearly on their chest. They are both carrying massive hammers in one hand and a large spike in the other. It's difficult to tell how alert they are just by looking at them, thanks to the nature of their helmets, but it's probable they have SOME way to look through them. A large truck is nearby, presently closed up, though the engine is running.

The fact that they have been spotted the eggs from the facility means the facility can't be completely sealed and indeed--there seems to be an active elevator moving up and down through the rubble that was probably dug out by N Corp itself.

Coming with you today is Tennant who is wearing their Magic Bullet EGO Gear (a blue overcoat and sniper rifle). They have been eagerly talking about movies the whole time over and hasn't even commented on Sarracenia's presence amongst the Concord team but once the team gets close to the facility, they quiet down immediately, expression going cold and serious--businesslike, really, a rarity for them.
Petra Soroka     The Library isn't the only collapsed L Corp building that became something strange afterwards. The Singularities of Wings are inherently dangerous and unstable, and they're only barely kept relatively safe in the best of times. Abnormalities that self-replicate, Abnormalities that possess people, the uncontained Enkephalin that manifests Ordeals, or worst of all, Lobotomy Corporation's bespoke technologies, simultaneously pose a threat and an opportunity to the people surrounding the branches, and it's hard to say which of those is more dangerous.

    The travel permits that Petra flashes at the employees in the warpgate hub are unparalleled in their effect, and there's no explanation at all for why she has them. The moment the papers are shown, the staff practically fall over each other to stamp any authorization they need and part the seas of frustrated travelers for their convenience to allow the group to walk right out into District 14 without any hassle. Even Petra is a little stunned at how easy the process is, when normally travel through warpgates in the City is a huge headache, but she shrugs and tucks the permits back into her pocket once they're out.

    Petra herself isn't wearing EGO to walk through the Nest, just a plain black suit and the compact mirror chained in her pocket like a pocketwatch. On the tram ride to the fallen branch building, the other passengers unconsciously give their group as much of a berth as possible, so Petra takes the opportunity to chatter.

    "So, the monolith that I recovered from the Tae-Young Produce Company, the one that Distorted people by force. It wasn't just pure L-Corp tech, even though it looked a lot like an Extraction pillar, which means it was picked up out of a facility and then *modified*. So I've been keeping an eye on anyone who's trying to get their grubby little science fingers on anything from the ruins, whether that's people trying to use Abnormalities for their own purposes, study the eggs, study the *EGO* extraction tech, or stealing Cogito or the Light for themselves, and basically, you know, stopping them from doing that."

    Petra leans back, swiveling on her feet by hanging from the overhead rail in the tram. "N Corp, as an ideology, is pretty much totally opposed to us, so we don't need to worry much about the politics here. But, like, ideally we want to be able to take the warpgate back without being chased by a thousand Inquisitors, so we need to at least be a little careful in how we engage them."

    "Anyways." She offers a fist bump to Tennant. "Cool to get some of the Agents back together, right? I wanted someone with some more knowledge of working in the facilities, and basically all the Agents are either Librarians or retired. Really the only one similarly active still is, like, Yuri."

    When arriving there, Petra frowns while watching the Inquisitor guards, loitering out of sight with Tennant. "First order of business is getting in there, without starting a fight in the middle of the street. Once we are, White, you've got somewhere secure you could teleport a dangerous Abno in case of an emergency?"

    She hesitates, and then decides on a course of action. "I'm gonna distract them. Kukuru, be ready to help everyone get down that elevator shaft as quickly as possible, and also, wait nearby to take them out if they escort me down. And if they don't let me in, I'll come back here for you to teleport me down."

    Then she just walks out down the dirt path leading to the pit, raising her hand in a lazy wave to the Inquisitors.
"Heyo, morning. You guys got your boss on site, or am I good to go on ahead? Petra, former L Corp consultant; they wanted me to get an eye on something down there."
White      Admittedly, White is already rather used to the sun trying to hurt her, so the glare off white marble construction hasn't managed to dissuade her from being present. If anything, Petra's comment recently about her potentially ending up in the City's own gacha game is a better deterrent, but... Well, if she can overcome the fear of death, she can overcome that too. Probably. She showed up after all! Tennant's maybe a little chattier than White would care for, but she at least tunes in now and then with small nods when she hears a movie come up that she's actually seen... She grew up a little too late for a lot of what a film junkie would probably call 'classics', but it's not like she hasn't seen a few older movies. Or at least, it isn't like *she* hasn't... Nevermind. It's better not to think much about D. She tries to swerve moods with an approving little thumbs up at Petra given how well the papers she brought are working for the group in the warpgate hub, but it's as stiff as ever.

     On the tram, White feels badly lost while trying to absorb Petra's contextual briefing. This is just kind of what happens when you get involved late, but it's not something White is all that fond of feeling. It scratches up her nice shiny ego about being prepared, and all! Harumph! Just an inside 'harumph' though. And hey, Petra remembered she exists, so White doesn't even have to explain her own options that much to help out, yay. Though, there was still a question in there. Very quietly, like the tram is actually a crowded restaurant even after the other passengers have edged away from their group, she starts to answer Petra, "... I could... Put them... In the Labyrinth..? There's..."

She stops, hard, and her head tips upward like she's looking to replace a word. Eventually, she just says, "Guards."

     Petra's plan seems a little more dangerous for her than necessary, but it's not like White is going to countermand her for that. It'd be kind of hypocritical really. So, she just nods, letting one of her little spider-clones crawl out of her sleeve into her lap where she can wiggle it side to side indicatively. Or maybe she's just doing it for fun, but the effect is probably the same. Something will be around to keep an eye on Petra in case of an emergency at least!

     When the distraction is actually begun, White turns toward Kukuru, rubbing her eyelid for a moment as she opens those magic peepers up for work. She seems to be waiting to see if Kukuru takes the instruction to teleport people beyond the distracted guards first, or if she'll need help to get the rest of the group too.

     White did *consider* teleporting past the elevator altogether, but really it seems wise to keep everyone's mental maps consistent. If you appear inside somewhere and don't know which way the exits are, you can get in a lot of trouble later after all! So, elevator it is, if nothing goes awry.
Kukuru "I don't like their armor." Kukuru states plainly to those gathered for today's job to retrieve the Abnormalities and LobCorp tech. Although the idea of the canned experiences had been novel enough for her to purchase a few on the way to save for later, seeing the N Corp Inquisitors has actually managed to sour her mood audibly if not visibly. "It's so... Mmn. It's tacky. Who knows when the last time that was cleaned..."

At least she's got friends to bring her spirits right back up. As always, she's brought plenty of snacks and light dinners to share with the group, having put together little boxes of fried meatballs and the good kind of macaroni and cheese with the super dense cheese that hasn't turned into a mealy mush yet. Dressed in her usual bright white and green getup with the long ruffled skirt, Kukuru joins in the chatter even though she doesn't have a lot to comment on about most of the movies Tennant's bringing up.

She does perk up every now and then when she recognizes a name or an actor, though, although her knowledge about any of those seems to be limited to the early 2000s equivalent.

"If someone's taking L-Corp tech to do this... Oh, that won't do at all. Even if they're making their own tweaks to it, they're stiiiill causing problems for Ange if someone sees the logos and points at her. We can't have that at all, nope. And if that comes back to us in any way... "

Kukuru furrows her brow, and then she slips into that ever-pleasant smile of hers. "Well. I'm sure they'll understand they gotta stop, one way or another~"

With Petra drawing up a plan, Kukuru nods slowly at her instructions on how to proceed. "We can be subtle, mhm... Nice and quiet, in and out before they can cause eeeven more trouble for us. The elevator should be real easy, mhm. I'll just get over there once it's clear, and then get eeeveryone down nice and safe before they know we were there."

She gives Petra a confident little thumbs up and beaming smile, and then she waits for Petra's distraction to kick in.  She's watching the Inquisitors' eyes, to gauge when they're actually paying attention to Petra before she can find a moment to safely teleport herself and the rest of the group over to the elevator shaft. She might not be able to see down that shaft from that starting point, however, so she's going to make it a two-parter: The first teleportation cloud, to get everyone right next to the shaft. The second, to get them to the bottom so nobody has to platform their way down or realize they've got rhythmic screaming.

It's only after that does she finally look over at White with a grateful smile and a little hum. "Easy as meatballs, right?"
Sarracenia      Sarra did not expect to be returning the call to action so quickly, but then Petra sent out a request for help. Probably not to Sarra specifically, but still the request was made. So, with Gregory's loss still fresh on her mind the princess makes her way to the meeting spot.

     She almost leaves when Tennant is spotted, but with an annoyed 'mmph' she joins up with the group. As this is not a Trideag operation and is probably dangerous, Sarra has opted for her battle dress. A black dress made of protective leather and with red plate armor with gold trim, one plate over the chest and four triangular plates around the waist in a flower-like skirt. Unlike most of her dresses the skirt of the leather dress has been cut into broad strips that preserve modesty well but allow much more freedom of movement. The sun's glare off the buildings causes her to reach into her purse and pull out her bob-omb parasol.

     Unlike Tennant, Sarra is quiet the entire way to the facility. She listens to the briefing while idly checking her purse, her Silver lotus, making sure her crown is in place...and keeping her eye on Tennant. She offers a friendly wave to White, though. "Lady White. It is good to see you again. I hope you have been well?"

     Much like White, Sarra is uncertain about this plan. But, as long as Petra is the distraction Sarra doesn't complain.

     Kukuru...receives a large hug as soon as there is an opportunity. She's one of the few elites...actually one of the few people at all now...that Sarra knows she can just hug and they won't mind.

     Once they have been teleported inside, Sarra is immediately as tense and serious as Tennant. She has plenty of Meltdowns and wars and Distortions behind her now. She reaches up touches her lotus pin, and her Silver forms into an approximation of her DK Hammer. Once Petra has rejoined them she asks, "So...are we grabbing just anything and everything we can that could pose a danger while we are here?"
Petra Soroka "I don't like their armor."

    "They're freaks," Petra agrees easily. "Lotsa 'return to greatness' type vibes with them. The Singularity's cool, though."

    Sarracenia is someone that Petra doesn't know how to talk to right now. She side-eyes her, probingly looking for... something, but since she hasn't worked up the willpower to ask her the thing that she meant to, and the last time she interacted with Sarra was embarrassing, she'd rather just be awkwardly silent right now.

"... I could... Put them... In the Labyrinth..?"

    Petra blinks at White, like she's said something surprising. "Er-- huh. I don't know why I assumed you'd have bespoke steel cube jails that you teleport things to when they're being a problem to you. I guess you just seemed like the type."

    "Either way, though. Labyrinth is good. Just, if we find an Abno we can't suppress, or another thing spewing out Distortionification gas, we've gotta drop it somewhere else as quick as we can."

"We can't have that at all, nope. And if that comes back to us in any way... "

    Petra gets caught on wondering whether she's the most altruistically motivated person here. Sure, that's not really the mindset of the Concord on average, but Petra's very used to being the *least* selfless person in a room, not the most. "Someone's also building tech to manually induce Distortions and use them to murder people. Which is bad, for its own sake, I think."
Angela ''N Corp, as an ideology...''

"Ableist mother fuckers." Tennant explains further. "They're extremely anti-prosthetic, particularly mechanical prosthetics. Says it takes away from 'proper experience'." Tennant fistbumps Petra back with a grin. "Like old times. Haven't heard from Yuri in ages but I'm sure I'll run into her again." They pause. #-1 INVALID ANSI DEFINITION: +37 "I'll go with your team, Petra. My old friend here--" They pat their rifle. "Knows who I want to hit." They nod to White's idea. "Not a bad plan and--" They do hesitate upon seeing Sarracenia's crown, like they are thinking about whether or not to say something. And then ultimately they say, "They're government backed fanatics. You might not want to be wearing a symbol of your office." But they won't stop her.

''They're stiiiill causing problems for Ange--''

"And deeffinitely don't mention her. They might not know her deal now but they might find out eventually."

But they are soothed by promises of subtlety.

The Inquisitors don't seem to ... have visible eyes that you can see. Of course, this doesn't mean they can't see but it does mean you can't really track where their eyes are going. Gear like this isn't TOO rare in the City, but it seems to be a particular design choice of this particular force. They seem to want to look intimidating and spooky and authoritative more than they want to seem clean and cool and respectable.

''Petra distracts the guards!''

The two guards turn to face her, allowing teleportations and movement to the elevator shaft to begin. Even once they are there, Tennant watches the Inquisitors carefully so they can fire off a shot quickly if they notice the Inquisitors spotting them.

''Heyo, morning.''

The Inquisitors haven't been heyoed in their lives. They ready their weapons threateningly but Petra's employment of her OFFICE CHATTER skill throws them for a loop.

"Hey. Did Guido or The One Who Grips say anything about this?" The left one asks the right.

"Stay put." The other tells Petra, before reaching to the side of his helmet and pressing into it with a finger--turning to murmur something into some unseen radio. A bunch of 'yes sirs' and 'no sirs' are spoken before he turns back.

"Come with us. The One Who Grips wishes to speak with you." Their guard is still up as they lead Petra towards the elevator. But Kukuru has teleported the group down into the shaft before they start leading her there. People who can teleport are rare outside of W Corp and the Purple Tear, they aren't expecting anthing like that. Another Nagel und Hammer guy comes out of the truck to take their spot guarding the entrance.

''Lobotomy Corp!''

It's dark down here. At some point, the Inquisition was able to get emergency lights back so there's a dull red glow, but the smell of blood is plenty present here. And the Inquisition isn't bothering to bleach it up. A singular Abnormality egg is already sitting near the elevator shaft, the monster from which it came recently slain. Three more Inquisition officers are sitting on the floor, playing cards nearby. The one facing the elevator startles upon seeing the group and raises his hammer when Tennant fires off a quick shot from Magic Bullet into his neck with a quiet FWIFF. He goes down, but the others charge, one intending to jab Kukuru in the eye with a large nail and the other attempting to cave White's head in with a hammer.
White      While it's still safe to be distracted, White does spare Sarracenia a small wave from waist-level. "... More... Or less. Likewise."

     Petra's imagined outcome, when voiced, leaves White uncharacteristically dumbstruck. She looks down, and slowly thumps her closed fist against her thigh. Inside her head, she's breaking an imaginary table in half though. 'Damnit! Why didn't I think of that years ago!! I mean, it's not like strong monsters are stopped by steel, but still!!!' The stillness of her inner pond has been disrupted, and it's enough to make her very *slightly* frown. "... I didn't... Usually... Take prisoners." That's the best excuse she has. Cope, cope, cope cope cope!

     White always appreciates a well-done teleport even if it's not accomplished through 'Spatial Magic' or what-have-you, so Kukuru gets a nod and a little pat on the head. After previous experiences, it seems like headpatting Kukuru is becoming a go-to way of communicating with her at this point... The would-be big sister type would have to work hard to escape the little sister treatment that White has habituated to now. 'Easy as meatballs' is a strange phrase, but White thinks about it, and yeah, meatballs are pretty easy. Fair enough!

     Now that they're inside, White takes a moment to take stock of the immediate surroundings; she gazes down halls and through walls, taking note of the layout of the place and where other guards or personelle might be lingering without looking at the trio that's immediately next to them. This probably gives the one swinging a hammer at her a lot of confidence about his odds, but her omnidirectional sight allows her to comfortably weave-step to the side, block his elbow from making a horizontal followthrough with her palm, and hold him steady for the other hand to sweep over his head and twine around his neck with her silk. Once she gets that far, it's trivial to slide back-to-back with the man and simply wrench forward, lifting his feet off the ground and holding him up until he stops moving from the strangulation.

     She's probably not even done with him yet by the time she's acknowledging the egg, reaching out one hand as if to grasp it before vanishing it away to another world entirely in a violet blip of light. The egg will come to rest in a broad nook in the lower stratum of the labyrinth where traffic is low, particularly in a spot where White once slept. Darkness doesn't hinder her, and blood barely bothers her, so really the lack of bleach is a plus for her. Even tossing her strangled attacker to the ground doesn't disturb her expression, though she does brush her hands off on each other... It doesn't seem like she's worried about them being dirty, as much as she's emoting 'done and dusted!'. Easy work is pleasing work, for her. Though, since Tennant is already firing off gunshots, she can probably afford to use some magic next time instead of fooling around again...

     So, time to check on her surroundings again. Petra seems to be BS'ing her way in just fine for now, going by what she can see from her spider-spy up top. Might as well wait for her come down and handle her escorts, right? A little Black Spear never hurt anyone but the target; she's got one charging now in fact, the glyph hovering her shoulder as she steps into a blind angle from the entranceway. Might as well take the ambush since Petra's handing it to her on a platter.
Kukuru Sarracenia's hug is returned wholeheartedly by Kukuru. Although she may not have been present for any of the events surrounding Gregory, she had heard of it through the grapevine, and she's not about to not offer whatever comfort she can to Sarracenia. "Are you okay to be here, dear? It's okay if you need to take a break from things, really. Although..."

A pause, and then she cradles Sarracenia's head gently to hold her close for a moment. "I know some people handle things better with looots of work, too. That's okay, if that works for you."

"Lotsa 'return to greatness' type vibes with them."

"Return? Was it better before?" Kukuru asks Petra with the sort of genuine curiosity that only comes from someone who has no idea what that might actually means. "Maybe that kind of armor means something different out here, then."

"And deeffinitely don't mention her. They might not know her deal now ..."

"Still?" Kukuru sounds rather surprised about that, but she still nods at Tennant regardless of her surprise. "Don't worry. Nobody'll hear a thing about anyone today~"

"Someone's also building tech to manually induce Distortions and use them to murder people."

"Oh, that's mean of them. They shouldn't be doing that kind of thing at all if they're trying to make things better here like it was... Before?" Kukuru comments with more confusion evident in her tone and on her face.

The confusion gets shoved away, of course, once it's time to head in. Deeper inside the facility, Kukuru wrinkles her nose slightly as the scent of blood hits her, and not from a source of food. It's all so wasteful, but getting irritated in that sort of way seems to be helping to keep her even more focused instead of looking every which way with her head in the clouds.

"Dark in here.. Oh, watch your steps. If you're having trouble moving along, don't be afraid to hold onto me." She offers, beaming considerably more at White's praise in the form of those headpats. Depsite styling herself as some kind of motherly or big sisterly figure for the Concord, she certainly does respond well to White's affectionate pats rather well. If it's a conflict with the image she's trying to cultivate, it's entirely... No, definitely possible that she has no idea about that whatsoever.

She just likes the contact.

Alas, she doesn't have that much time to enjoy that once she sees the Inquisiton officers nearby. With Tennant dispatchig one in short order, Kukuru advances rapidly on the one coming towards her without batting an eye. It looks like she's just going to tank that nail right to the face, too, but a pair of portals appear in front of and behind her that leave the Inquisitor just behind her.

Without missing a beat, Kukuru drops the portals immediately afterwards, then swings her arm around in a wide arc to smash her elbow full-force directly into the back of the Inquisitor's neck. Only someone looking at her face might notice she's briefly startled at that impact, but follows it up quickly with her other hand to their head right through the ground before too many screams or shouts can come out of them.

"Missed it..." She murmurs to herself after the fact, pouting slightly while rubbing her elbow.
Petra Soroka "Ableist mother fuckers."

    "I sorta meant the militant extremism and anti-Outsider stuff," says Petra, whose concept of intersectionality is built one brick at a time. "None of us have prosthetics, anyways." Petra hesitates and looks down at herself, like she has to double check.

"Haven't heard from Yuri in ages but I'm sure I'll run into her again."

    Petra's eyes slide away from Tennant. "I... don't know if I'd recommend that. I doubt she'll see the, uh, 'L-Corp traitor solidarity'."

"Hey. Did Guido or The One Who Grips say anything about this?"

    By now, Petra is strangely practiced at the skill of just fucking lying about things, despite her tendency towards reckless truthtelling. In particular, she knows how to avoid saying more than necessary, as liars often do, and so when the Inquisitor starts talking into his radio, Petra just nods and mouths 'no prob' with an acknowledging wave of her hand.

    And, it pays off! Following them to the elevator, hands in her pockets like she doesn't have a care in the world, "Awesome. I'd love to touch base with 'em, see what we've got."

    When Petra enters the elevator with the Inquisitors, the group is still topside, using the gap between guards to teleport right down into the facility. When Petra exits the elevator, one of the Inquisitors is sliced into ribbons on the ground, and the other is wrestling to bring his nail closer to Petra's head through a shuddering net of Silver restraints that make his armor creak. He's held in place perfectly for White's magic to go off, and when he vaporizes into dust, her Silver retracts into the bottle at her hip.

    "Right." She grimaces, looking at the number of other Inquisitors that were down here before the others got to them. "Ugh. They staffed this place way better than I thought. Good news, that means we'll be keeping them away from something they really want; bad news, one of the high-ups of the Inquisition is here and we might get swarmed."

    She picks up one of the heads and shakes it around a bit until the helmet slides off, digging out the internal radio with her fingers. She sticks a gloop of morphmetal onto it, attuning its radio frequency sensitivity to the channel that the Inquisitors used earlier, to peek in on their conversation network.

    "Not just scooping everything up, because, like, that means emptying out a whole facility. Anything that seems especially, uh, abusable, by bad actors, we should preemptively take, but our main focus is gonna be denying N Corp whatever it is they're trying to excavate out of here."
White      The Black Spear strikes the restrained inquisitor at a relatively low speed (to avoid overpenetration) and hits with a noticeable thud, embedding before consuming the body in that off-smelling flamelike decay. White doesn't pay the results much notice though, already looking Petra's way when she starts to explain her inferences.

     Well, 'swarmed' isn't too bad for White, really. A higher-up is a little more concerning, since White's experiences with notable threats in the City tends to revolve around mind-affecting side effects, or 'Unique Skill'-like abilities or items, and White isn't exactly eager to get lamed out by a gimmick power. She's not a shonen protagonist, she shouldn't have to deal with stuff like that!

     Still, one out of the whole lot doesn't sound *terrible*, so it's not enough to throw her mood in the dumps. When Petra starts to interfere with the radio to start listening in, White briefly steps over beside her to lean in for a listen too. She loves to eavesdrop, yayyyyy! Still, she nods at the further instruction. It seems like they'll have to be pickier than White thought with their loot... It's not like she can leave a bunch of abnormalities and other doodads in the labyrinth forever, even if there's enough space there. Okay. So, White just has to use the Evil Eye to try and tell apart anything that looks weird to her, and grab the stuff that seems extra-dangerous. Or whatever Petra points out, at least.

     "It's a little... Like cleaning... The park." she faintly mumbles, imagining those sharp little sticks you poke empty cans with to pick them up into a bag. You don't pick up every rock, just the stuff that stands out! Or something like that.
Sarracenia      Sarra might not care much about protecting Angela, but she does care about not letting the corporations or Abnormalities or rogue Distortions hurt more people. And after meeting Weather Report she also wants to help Distortions when they can be helped.

     Sarra eventually notices the side-eye from Petra and returns it. Oddly, the princess doesn't seem annoyed at Petra for it. She is just watching Petra back, wondering if Petra has something to say. The only thing that Sarra might say would concern the mentioned favor, but she doesn't want to bring that up here since she thinks Petra is likely to ask for yet another thing that will involve Sarra further submitting to Lilian in some way.

     'Are you okay to be here, dear? It's okay if you need to take a break from things, really. Although...I know some people handle things better with looots of work, too. That's okay, if that works for you.'

     Sarra shakes her head lightly. "If I forsook people in danger because I was grieving for Gregory...I can just feel his quiet disapproval. And it does help to stay busy. The castle is..." She trails off and just shakes her head again. "No, I would rather be out in the Multiverse, helping."

     'Someone's also building tech to manually induce Distortions and use them to murder people.'
     'Oh, that's mean of them. They shouldn't be doing that kind of thing at all if they're trying to make things better here like it was... Before?'

     Sarra is a bit confused by this as well, but she nods in agreement either way. "It is quite mean of them."

     '.. More... Or less. Likewise.'

     Sarra smiles lightly. "That is good. It had been so long since I heard anything that I was starting to worry."

     '... I didn't... Usually... Take prisoners.'

     This isn't too surprising considering what White has said about her world, but Sarra still doesn't like the idea of war and killing people.

     Something that has her flinching as Tennant just fires right away. Her other companions leap into action as well, and Sarra finds herself just kind of...standing there, staring at the fallen Inquisitors.
Angela The immediate Inquisitors are dealt with either through Petrassassination, White-disintegration, stabbing, and choking, and Kukuru just smashing a dude's head through the ground hard enough his head bursts. Fortunately they're wearing helmets so you don't really have to get a good look at that. The bigger issue will be, as Petra warms, if they swarm you or if they have some heavy hitters with them. And of course, there's still the problems of heavy hitters from the group being present or just, honestly, really annoying to deal with Abnormalities.

But at least there's a moment to cool off.

Petra takes a moment to listen in.

"They've stopped responding." A man's voice over the comms.

"Hahh... Couldn't even escort her down properly? I wanted to spend some more time admiring these beauties... Well, take a couple Mittelhammers with you. I want the Lobcorp contractor alive but shatter the skulls of any backup if she has any. Oh---but she doesn't need to keep her arms or legs or anything. We're just about ready to move the Birth Canal as they called it out of 'Safety'."

Of course, this means that our heroes will have company soon.

White can start teleporting Abnormality Eggs if she wishes though, or she can leave them be. There doesn't seem to be any immediately relevant tech and if there's a Manual active, it's presently quiet.

Tennant says, "Let's have two teams." Tennant says. "White, since you're in charge of procurement, you go with Petra okay? Meanwhile I, and whomever else wants to, will make sure the Inquisition stays off their back." Tennant seems pretty comfortable assuming anyone in the Concord will stick by them to help out with their side of the job.

They notice Sarracenia is looking a bit shellshocked and poke her with their rifle. "Come on, you've been at Lobcorp long enough that this shouldn't spook you." They sound about one level or two below annoyed about it.

Three more Inquisitors are coming from the Research Sector, two look much like the Inquisitors you've dealt with before but more heavily armored, and the third is a massive--inhumanly so--man in plate mail, with wearing a cape with numerous red medallions hand talismans hanging off the mantle. They carry no hammer, just one very long nail--really more a spear if anything--with red cloth wrapped around where he's holding it. His helmet doesn't have the cross either, just a stylistic face with scars carved into it.

Tennant helpfully shoots him in the face with Magic Bullet. The man jerks back briefly, and then continues stalking forward with implacable inevitability.

"Leave the blonde alive." Petra will remember the voice from the radio. His two buddies charge forward, Magic Bullet failing to do little more than stall them thanks to their heavy armor.
Angela SAFETY

Petra and whomever else will start finding corpses of Inquisitors amongst Eggs and the occassional security trap. It doesn't seem like the Inqusition has any interest or ability to control the security protocols here through the Manual or otherwise.

It isn't too long, especially if you're in a hurry, before you run into more N Corp Inquisitors--and their target.

Leading the Inquisitors--seems to be a young woman with short white hair with her bangs covering one of her eyes. She also doesn't have a hammer and her armor doesn't seem quite as heavy as the others--she's not even wearing a helmet!--her grey eyes turn towards Petra and she whistles, another pair of hammer wielding Inquisitors lunging forward as THe One Who Grips quickly interposes herself between her and a large crate, wherein an egg-like (very large) is placed, waiting to be sealed up.

"So you're the one that worked with Lobcorp... Thank you for sparing me the trouble of finding you...!" The One Who Grips says while gesturing towards Petra with a hand--

--which results in Petra being pulled rapidly and telekinetically towards The One Who Grip's hand as she intends to choke Petra from a distance.

"Tell me... What you think of the Abnormalities... The flesh these magnificent beings represent...!"
White      So they do have company on the way. Alas. White straightens her back again and fixes her hair, glancing from Tennant to Petra and nodding at the suggestion. "One... Teleporter... Each." she says in affirmation; it's good to keep the mobility specialists spread out, if the teams are splitting. Plus, Kukuru staying with the team that's blunting the attack makes perfect sense, given she's a healer. Good team composition, Tennant! White does fret briefly over Magic Bullet failing to penetrate that armor, but... Well, Kukuru can probably give an armored fighter Shaken Baby Syndrome if you give her long enough, and Sarracenia always seems to have ordnance that'd work great against armor, so it doesn't make her hesitate long before beating dirt alongside Petra. And hey, maybe if they see Petra, who they're so fixated on, running away from them it'll make a good distraction for the others!

     As she goes, White quickly sweeps the Evil Eye of Analysis over various abnormality eggs and unfamiliar objects, looking for anything especially sketchy or dangerous to remove from the scene or at least pointing them out to Petra for further input. Her boots skid to a stop when met with the enemy leader- she's not wearing a helmet so *obviously* that's their leader!- and fixes her gaze on them. Just observing what they do gives her an idea of the gripping grabber's main abilities, but she's at least going to knock off any concerns about other hidden powers and maybe grab the woman's real name if she can.

     But, there's going to be a fight one way or another. White... Waits a moment, observing to see if Petra has a way to handle the supernatural attraction on her own! If Petra can handle it, then White can ignore that scuffle. If Petra ends up choked and doesn't escape immediately, White will instead teleport her away and out of the grasp of 'The One Who Grips', putting herself bodily inbetween the two of them.

     For one, she knows it'll probably make them mad, and therefor impatient and unwise. For another, White has several ways to handle forced movement abilities, so if she can take 'aggro'... Then Petra won't be in the firing line when White lets loose! If not, White might have to stick to precision magic and hand-to-hand for a bit. The banter is, of course, Petra's to have; White's not a chatty girl.
Sarracenia      'Come on, you've been at Lobcorp long enough that this shouldn't spook you.'

     Sarra lets out a little squeak at being poked, then mmphs in annoyance at seeing who it is and what she was poked with. "That is not...I do not kill people." she says, as much to herself as to Tennant. "Not even people such as these."

     'Not just scooping everything up, because, like, that means emptying out a whole facility. Anything that seems especially, uh, abusable, by bad actors, we should preemptively take, but our main focus is gonna be denying N Corp whatever it is they're trying to excavate out of here.'

     Sarra looks at Petra, then at the already fallen Inquisitors. "And...what of the plan to -not- be pursued by thousands of them upon our retreat?" she asks, though it seems to be more of a rhetorical question than anything.

     Teams are suggested, and it seems a sensible suggestion. As the three Inquisitors close in on them, Sarra hefts her hammer. "Nails and hammers. I seem to be encountering more and more people that wish to impede on my chosen motif." she says. She lifts her hammer, pointing the head at the incoming Inquisitors. Spikes grow out of it, then several fire at the incoming attackers, taking on the shapes of nails and focusing on their limbs as she walks forward toward them. "Let us see who's nails and hammers are superior, shall we?" She might not want to kill people, but hurting some evil badguys might be pretty cathartic right now.

     She looks over her shoulder after a moment at Tennant. "...try and remember who is an ally and who is an enemy this time." she says before dashing forward, aiming to hammer a few of her Silver nails into place. They are unlikely to penetrate that armor alone if a bullet didn't.
Kukuru "No, I would rather be out in the Multiverse, helping."

"mm. I understand. Well, let's make sure this all goes well, then. I'll be counting on you if anyone comes at me with anything bigger than a sword, okay?" Kukuru gives Sarracenia one more pat on the head, and then it's soon time to work.

"Good news," "bad news,"

"Oh, that's good!" Kukuru says with a pleasantly surprised hum, immediately followed by a somewhat pensive "Oh, that's bad..." and thoughtful grunting noise. "If they swarm down here, that could be a real pain unless... Oh, would traps work? Liiike if you and White set things up behind us to thin them out?" She suggests with an upward tick in her voice, but that took is followed be another troubled "Oh, but we don't want to stay here toooo long. Better to get what we're looking for and get out before they can be a problem, mhm. And now that I know where this is, we can always come back to dig out the rest when they aren't all swarmy. Then we can do some lawn care after we finish cleaning up the park."

That makes enough sense to her, at least, while she flashes White another pleased smile at the analogy. She also digs out a packet of Concord-branded Wet Wipes so Petra can have clean hands after messing around with the helmet and the head. She even takes one to clean her own hands off post-head smashing, too!

"Let's have two teams."

"That sounds like a good idea, mhm. If there's a fight, then I should be in there, too. That way, we can make sure everyone's healthy enough to hold them back suuuper long." She assures Tennant, flexing a little for emphasis even though she doesn't really have the look of someone that's truly Built. "It shooould be easier if we're just trying to stall them, too. Once we get the all clear, we can all even zip riiight out just like that~" She adds, snapping her fingers for emphasis and shooting White a knowing grin.

A pause, and then Kukuru taps her chin. "There's not too many fast ways from here to where they'll be going, right? Maybe we can block them off here, or force them to take a long way around that might take waaay too long." She adds without really clarifying much at all. She's a little distracted, after all, having also seen Sarracenia freezing up during the initial skirmish. "Sarra... Are you going to be okay coming with us? Even though we're here to stop them from copying homework, it's..."

Expecting a mess in the near future, Kukuru eventually lets out a pleasant little noise before patting Sarracenia's shoulder lightly. "Well. Just don't go up tooooo far, okay? I've got an idea, even if it might get preeetty messy." She says, apparently expecting an even bigger mess than before.

That seems more and more likely when the Inquisitors' heavy hitters come from the Research Sector. Noticing that Tennant's Magic Bullets aren't taking them down quite as at all as it did with the first group, the 'healer' has to readjust her plans on the fly. Turning the halls into rubble probably isn't practical with how quickly they're coming, but something else does come to mind roughly when she hears the implacable Inquisitor speaking.
Kukuru "Leave the blonde alive."

"Hmm. Dooon't worry. We'll make sure you live, too~" Kukuru speaks up with her more put-on politely smiley tone as she once again advances to meet the frontmost Inquisitors directly. Unlike before, however, she doesn't do any fancy tricks with her teleportation to try and catch them off guard. She needs them in front of her for the plan to work, after all, but taking a two pronged attack might be quite the problem for her even with her regenerating abilities! Thankfully, with Sarracenia on one side, Kukuru can focus on the other in the hopes that she'll have enough time to enact her ploy before the one in the back catches up. And so...

"Waaait!" She calls out while crossing her arms in front of herself defensively, showing the Inquisitors her empty palms while the telltale lights of her nanites spread rapidly around the hall. It's not just the usual green that would come from her nanites in their healing mode, either, even though plenty of that is already pre-deployed to aid Sarracenia and Tennant.

No, there's also an odd blue light floating around the hallway as well. She's not expecting it to hold them back forever or for much at all, of course, so she doesn't speak further while moving ahead to meet one of the Inquisitors head on once more. None of the Inquisitors would actually be punished right away from entering the Blue Zone, though, and the first one to come in might even feel stronger and beefier than ever for the first few seconds after stepping in. It's like the light is actually filling them with strength to bursting, and they can even feel Kukuru buckling when she moves in to let them throw the first swing and catches it directly with herself. Even the bleeding isn't stopping as fast as it normally does, probably because her nanites are everywhere but herself!

For Sarracenia and Tennant, however, they might recognize that the blue nanites are coming from the mode she normally uses to make herself and her allies grow to fight far larger opponents. Rather than using them carefully to manage the growth, however, Kukuru's using them in a different way this time while swarming the Inquisitor with them: To cause rapid and random growth, to make a hand or a leg or a shoulder large enough to contend with a kaiju, but without regards to things like 'the fit of their armor' or 'the hallway being big enough'.  
Petra Soroka "Oh---but she doesn't need to keep her arms or legs or anything."

    "I'd disagree, personally," Petra mumbles to herself, tucking the radio away with renewed urgency. Scraping her memory for Angela's knowledge of every Abnormality ever extracted, she recites, "Birth Canal, that's... T-09-117. Tool Abno, so no worries about it attacking us, just the Inquisition."

    It's eeriely familiar to be back in a Lobotomy Corporation facility. Similar, but different, with the same tan colors of CONTROL on the walls, the same concrete, the same blood, but every step landing subtly wrong on a mental map that doesn't quite match up. The dim red emergency light is supplemented by Fourth Match Flame, adding the smell of heat and sulphur to the hallway and glowing orange to light Petra's face from below.

"And...what of the plan to -not- be pursued by thousands of them upon our retreat?"

    Petra shakes her head. "Teleport up top when we're done, blow up the elevator. Should give us enough time to get out of here, probably."

"White, since you're in charge of procurement, you go with Petra okay?"

    "Mm. As long as Kukuru's with one group and White's with the other, that's fine." Ever since the one week war, Petra's been especially acutely aware of where 'her' teleporters are at any given time, even disregarding the need for White to relocate the target Abnormality.

"One... Teleporter... Each."

    White's so smart about some things. Abruptly, while carefully navigating concrete and bloodsoaked stairs down to Safety, Petra has the realization that it might be Nika's influence that leads to Petra's thoughts lining up with White's so often. After all, even though D gets off on making the rules of her game obtuse and unbalanced, they're still rules translated through the logic of a game, and that encourages a certain kind of pragmatism.

"Leave the blonde alive."

    Petra clicks her tongue. Disengaging to leave the big armored guy to the other Elites, she snarks back, "Try and stop me." This seems to not be in reference to 'stopping her from escaping' but instead an automatic rejection to being left alive.

    Petra comes to the same conclusion as White does, upon seeing the one un-helmeted Inquisitor here. In the eerie quiet of a nearly-empty facility with no working electricity, every footstep and word echoes off the concrete, and Fourth Match Flame's soft crackling is just barely audible in the gaps between sentences, when she raises it up.

    Without taking her eyes off of The One Who Grips, she says to White, "That's Birth Canal. Anyone who dies, do your, evaporate thing so there's no corpse."

    Petra has her own pseudo-teleportation, but the Inquisitor's grip isn't light enough to be broken just from that. As she's dragged closer, Petra keeps skipping backwards like a lagging video, only to be caught by the telekinesis again. She redoubles her grip on her EGO weapon so it doesn't get yanked out of her grip.

    "Funny. I'd say that they represent anything *but* flesh. But if you don't even know that much, maybe you can try hiring me for my introductory consult?"

    All of a sudden, her lagging resistance to the telekinesis lets up, rubberbanding her towards Kromer much faster than expected. She ducks under the outstretched hand, interposing Fourth Match Flame between her and the Inquisitor, thrusting the flaming sword into her face to break her concentration. While flashbanging her with the sudden light, Petra spills Silver from her waist onto the ground, forming a puddle that lunges up around Kromer with dozens of spikes closing in on her.
White      'Destroy the bodies', huh? Simple enough. Unresisting flesh and metal are easier to seat the rot on than living or entirely artificial bodies anyway. And Petra's handling herself pretty well right now, so... Time for outfield work!

     White leaves enough space between herself and the Boss Fight so that Petra can concentrate, and devotes herself to handling adds. She doesn't bother drawing her scythe for now, instead darting long walls or the ceiling, or even springing between barely-there magical platforms midair with faint glassy crunches under her boots, using the advantage of elevation to string silk around and make a sort of informal 'arena' for Petra. It's not a complex barrier, just a vertical circle of webbing that sticks to those who try to move through it, but it's enough that anytime one of the Inquisitors gets fussy about their boss fighting alone and tries to barge through it, White can blink over and hit them while they're distracted and snared up.

     Otherwise, she's running circuits around the available space, truly thriving with a ceiling over her head instead of open sky; Black Spear glyphs charge and fire in intervals from beside her like she's some kind of Super Robot with accessory weapons, inbetween aggressive pouncing punches and axe kicks from above, rarely broken up by abrupt teleports to ground-level where she sweeps the legs or thrusts a high-kick up into a gut or jaw. She's not in a hurry here, and she's constantly keeping an eye on Petra while controlling the crowd. If things get *really* bad suddenly, a quick beam of the Evil Eye with a nice mixed concoction of debuffs can save the day... Otherwise White kind of just wants to see Petra fight normally while she has the opportunity!
Angela ''I do not kill people.''

"You still haven't. But don't worry," They add to Sarracenia. "I don't let pleasure get in the way of business."

''The plan to -not- be pursued by thousands of them upon our retreat?''

"We'll just have to get out before the word gets out." Tennant says.

Sarracenia can launch out spikes and nails of her own just fine. Their leader casually smacks the one heading his way out of the way but the other two have to rely on their armor, which only prevents them from being impaled--not stabbed--by the launched nails. Sarracenia can close in and slam the one through one of the Inquisitor's arms but the other blocks Sarracenia's hammer with her own, throws a knee for her gut and swings his hammer up at her chin with enough force to send her flying into the ceiling.

"A crown...? Captain Guido--" He murmurs in disbelief.

The leader, no doubt the Guido being referred to, takes a moment to examine Sarracenia before moving past her towards Kukuru, along with the other Inquisitor who moves on from Sarracenia after striking at her. Neither seem inclined to stop just because Kukuru said 'Wait'.

The Inquisitor who struck Kukuru steps into the blue light, followed by Guido. Rapidly his body bulges and grows at random intervals and even then he raises his hammer with a too-large hand intent on smashing her with it--

--but he's bulging out of his armor now, allowing Tennant to shoot him with their rifle, causing a hefty burst of gore to explode out of his neck. He stumbles forward before collapsing into a mess on the floor.

Guido walks into the blue light but doesn't seem to be immediately effected. No, he's getting bigger, and occassionally as imperfectly as Kukuru hoped, but something is preventing him from just going out of control like the other one. The nail juts forward for Kukuru's stomach while a hand reaches for one of her horns, gripping at it with crushing force as if that horn offends him in particular. Or both, and he's just getting started.
Angela SAFETY

''White analyzes the Eggs''

Information hammers into White's mind about each particular Abnormality. She learns how to take care of them properly, how to properly fight them, their weaknesses, information about their Egg immortality, their regeneration timer back to being reborn as a functional Abnormality, and their names. There's 'Let's Open 'Er Up', an Aberration of Silent Girl that is passive most of the time but will go berserk around stressed out individuals and attempt to pierce through their skulls with her drill. There's Grasping Bush, a mass of tendrils that attempts to pull Agents in and 'consume' them, forming more tendrils upon consuming the Agents in question, and others. Some seem plenty dangerous, some seem moderately dealable with.

A quick look at The One Who Grips reveals her name as Kromer, has the status effect 'Glimpsed Through The Mirror', and has a title 'The Dreamer of Human Wholeness' along with 'The One Who Grips'. That's probably not a good thing, whatever that is. Some of her abilities are 'locked' away, but she seems to have strong telekinetic force (not psionic, it's from her gauntlet), bioaugmented strength, durability, agility, and so on. she has weapon masteries in nail and hammer as you might expect despite only carrying a nail on her right now. She has a high willpower and tenacity, so she's probably not going to give up on her goals easily--unless this is not something those traits of hers are aimed at.

''I'd say they represent anything *but* flesh.''

"Now why would you say a thing like that?" Kromer says.

Petra propels herself forward rapidly towards Kromer. Kromer jerks her head back to avoid the fourth match flame, but her vision is briefly interrupted by the sudden flare of light.

She swings her nail around, shattering spikes around her body as her eyes water from the flame. She steps back to get some clarity back into her vision.

Meanwhile, White snatches up Inquisitors into webs. They don't seem to be, even with their augmented strength, able to break free... At a certain point, there's going to be too many to keep webbed up, but she's buying a decisive amount of time for Petra to do her business, but their own fervor is working against them--they're rushing to Kromer's aid disregarding their own wellbeing--right into White's trap.

Kromer hisses at the Silver, finding it particularly offensive. She glances over towards White's firm webbing, lashing out with a hand to telekinetically grab at a chunk of it, rip it free without risking it getting herself stuck, and then fling it at Petra in an attempt to use her ally's strength against her!

"Who even are you people?" Kromer asks. "If you really worked for Lobcorp, I'm really grateful for your work, but I won't let you get in the way of my destiny... Or his."
Sarracenia      'You still haven't. But don't worry, I don't let pleasure get in the way of business.'

     Sarra eyes Tennant for a few more moments, then nods lightly. "Then, I will trust you with my back."

     'Teleport up top when we're done, blow up the elevator. Should give us enough time to get out of here, probably.'
     'We'll just have to get out before the word gets out.'

     Sarra isn't entirely satisfied by either answer. She lets out a soft huff. "I suppose that might work."

     Sarra's hammer lets out a resounding clang when blocked. Her teeth clench in annoyance. When she had HER hammer things like this happened only rarely. Was her hammer that strong? Is she actually that weak without it? The Inquisitor hammer comes up at her and Sarra brings her hammer in to block. She still gets sent flying upward, but at least her chin is intact! She somersaults as she flies upward, landing with her feet against the ceiling.

     She braces against the ceiling for just a moment, enough time to pull out a bob-omb. "You know...people like you are why Gregory is GONE!!" she screams before throwing the bob-omb and following it down. The explosion is followed closely after by a gravity-assisted spinning hammer smash. "Why do people do these things?! Just leave people alone and let them live in peace!!" she screams as she continues a series of leaping somersaults even on the ground, rains hammer blows down on the two smaller Inquisitors.

     Sarra doesn't fully appreciate what Kukuru is doing with the blue nanites. Has she been around when Kukuru used them to grow someone? Her eyes go wide as she sees it, and as she sees Kukuru bleeding. "M-miss Kukuru? What are you doing?"
Petra Soroka "Now why would you say a thing like that?"

    "My tragic need to be right all of the time, I guess."

    Despite her posting, Kromer isn't really someone Petra can fuck around with freely. She winces when the Silver is shattered by her nail, broken tips softening back into droplets to splatter across the ground, and when her foot lands on one of those small puddles, the morphmetal surges to give her a push and abruptly changes her direction. She dodges the nail, slides one hand down to the pommel of Fourth Match Flame and rapidly levers it upwards, catching Kromer with a sudden slash from below and putting Petra in a position to parry the overhead that follows.

    Despite the Silver, there's no augments or protheses that Kromer can see on Petra's body, even though she moves like she is. Each step or swivel of her foot preserves momentum in whichever way she chooses, rhythmically in time with each attack from Kromer to match each of her attacks, like a metronome attuned to the breathing rate of the person across from her. The Silver serves as the syncopation, telekinetically launching sprays of flechettes at Kromer when her back is turned or wrenching her ankle out of step.

    Petra's not prepared to have something thrown at her in a similar way, though. With her biggest strength being her freedom of movement, even having White's webbing catch one leg slows her to a crawl. The extra exertion needed to pull her foot off the ground makes her stumble, flickering away from the incoming nail strike but not able to move her foot from where it's anchored. The unarmored suit puts up no resistance, and Petra makes a strangled noise in her throat when nail meets simple flesh.

    She draws up her free foot and stomps it into Kromer's chest, sending the Inquisitor staggering away. Fourth Match Flame is brought down towards the webbing, flaring up into a small sustained fire that shrivels the webs away and leaves her pant leg smoldering. She skips several more frames of walking, skittering further away from Kromer in an instant like there was a backlog of flashsteps queued up, ending up right by the box.

"If you really worked for Lobcorp, I'm really grateful for your work, but I won't let you get in the way of my destiny... Or his."

    Petra smiles lopsidedly. "You know, you wouldn't believe how rarely I hear that. Unfortunately, though, my work didn't end with L-Corp, so I'm taking this. Feel free to make a wish, though; if I like whatever destiny you've got in mind, maybe it'll come true."

    The next time Kromer tries her telekinesis trick, Petra doesn't resist it. All the regathered Silver geysers out of the bottle on her hip the moment she's drawn towards Kromer, becoming a razor-sharp barbed net of metal that collapses around the Inquisitor's outstretched hand and torso, tightening of its own accord.

    "White! Teleport it out of here! Then we've gotta go!"
Kukuru "We'll be fiiine, dears. Even if the word gets out, it'll take a while for them to get here, and then we'll be loooong gone. They'll spend a whole bunch more effort keeping watch here than we will just showing up whenever we want to grab more, anyway, so don't. You. Worry~" Kukuru chimes in after Tennant and Sarracenia, apparently already expecting to come back here another time!

During the fifght, meanwhile, Kukuru's not surprised at all when the inquisitors don't wait. She's only known the Inquisitors for less than an hour and she already has a dim view of their manners. One goes down thanks to Tennant's timely intervention while the other tangles with Sarracenia, leaving her to face down Captain Guido and his confounding resistance to her normally-helpful nanites.

No sense wasting more of them on something that won't work, then, and especially not when she's gotten some new information about just how closed off that Inquisitor's armor might be. Instead, she draws those nanites back to refocus them on healing, and the timing could not be better as she's quickly met with that nail-spear coming right at her. She narrowly avoids getting run through entirely by twisting sideways and only getting the nail straight through where her kidneys or something might be instead.

Worse yet, that puts her right in convenient grabbing range for Guido, and with her body going limp briefly as the painful haze from getting stabbed blots out her vision. In a rare moment of clarity, however, Kukuru also realizes this is right where she wants him to be: directly next to her instead of having to contend with a range disadvantage! After letting out a genuinely distressed noise when her horns start getting crushed in the captain's grip, Kukuru staggers forward, both in an effort to try and dull the pain around her head, and to make sure that she's close enough to get a firm hug on Guido if she wanted to.

She doesn't, of course, but the distance is just right. With her footing steady again, Kukuru thrusts both of her hands with her fingers tightly pinched together upwards at the captain's armpits, aiming to drive them through the sides of his chest and towards his neck. Focusing all of her monstrous strength directly into those two spots, she tries to core her way directly through his armor and ribs, apparently aiming to turn this into a race on whether she can tear through his chest before he can crush her head.

"M-miss Kukuru? What are you doing?"

"Head!" She shouts, although she's not sure if Sarracenia or Tennant will get what she's calling for there. It's something shouted in partial delirium, partial misdirection, and partially because her head really hurts right now. She'll have to explain later if she remembers to, but she just really wants to ram her hands through the captain's chest first.
White      Glimpsed through the mirror? What mirror? White... Hasn't heard of any magic mirrors, she doesn't think? Hmm. Something to ask about later, when they aren't preoccupied. The abnormality information is relayed to her standby spyders at home to copy down with their cardboard box full of touch-tablets for later, so that White can clear her mind and focus on the moment at hand.

     She takes notice of Kromer's gauntlet, wonders about trying to disarm her of it, and determines that'd be tricky mid-fight. The other inquisitors she's fighting find their mistakes compounding, every one of them that bumbles into a bit of webbing or gets sent sprawling becomes a hazard for the others to avoid; webs don't stop being sticky just because one person got caught, so the adhesive snares spread more and more over time as she keeps repairing her web between attacks.

     White *does* get quite indignant when a piece of her web-wall is ripped out remotely and used against Petra, though. It doesn't matter that it's disposable, she worked hard on that damnit! It could be seen as unkind how much White is self-assured that Petra doesn't need her help yet even as she's being stabbed, too... But it's not like she was proven wrong! Petra wins the battle, and curiously calls for an immediate retreat. Hmm. There's a moment spent weighing whether she should swoop in to double-check that Petra's foe is finished off, but... No, it was Petra's fight, and Petra gets to make the call. Especially since White is just here to help her, and by extension maybe give Angela a little peace of mind. She'll overlook it.

     While suspended from the ceiling, White pauses briefly to fire a handful of Black Bullets- the lower grade but somewhat explosive black magic spell she typically favors- into the defeated inquisitors without risking hitting the egg, Petra, or Kromer. The egg vanishes as requested, and she drops from the ceiling and turns upright again, inviting Petra to join her with an outstretched hand. "To... The others? Or... Above?" Either seems like a perfectly valid option, since White has been keeping track of their relative position this whole time.
Angela GUIDO

''You know...people like you are why Gregory is GONE!!''

"...You are... Princess Sarracenia Sundew of the Sundew Kingdom." Guido says. "I do not know this Gregory, however..."

BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLHTmex4etM

Sarracenia rains hammers down on the backup, though only one of them is in any position to resist--the other goes down under the flurry of hammer blows. The implacable man seems unmoved despite Sarracenia landing plenty of solid hits upon his body. He stumbles and grunts with each strike against him--he does FEEL the pain. It's just not slowing him down.

He swings his blade at the bob-omb--he can tell by looking at it it's a bomb, and it explodes behind him, thrusting him forward and allowing Sarracenia to slam her hammer into his chest.

"But you forget you came here. You attacked us." There's no emotion behind his words, no heat, just cold as if the words were spoken by a statue. "The one...calling for disaster to fall upon her and her own here... Is you." Guido says heartlessly. "Confess your sins ... so you do not die with regrets."

He slams his blade forward with vicious strength while Sarracenia is distracted with Kukuru. "You'll have the time."

But he seems focused on dealing with Kukuru quickly. Perhaps his resilience to her nanites has a limit. Though whether Kukuru has time to reach that limit is a question all its own.

Kukuru slams her hands into his body. The armor is durable, but it slowly creaks against Kukuru's incredible strength.

The contest becomes a question as to whoe can hurt who the fastest. Kukuru focused on Guido's chest, Guido attempting to crush her horns with his hands.

Tennant is still fond of Kukuru--hard not to be fond of the sort of people who kept you alive at Lobcorp and outside of it. They say, "Keep talking shit!" as they bring the rifle towards the back of Guido's head and fires three quick bursts directly into his helmet.

He stumbles, and in that moment, Kukuru's hands drill through the armor and into Guido's chest. He grunts in agony and kicks Kukuru away, stumbling back and collapsing into a seated position, breathing heavily--but still breathing. Familiar looking green fluid drips out from his wounds, rapidly healing them--

--and indeed, some of that is on Kukuru's own hands. She recognizes this immediately. It's the same color as the K-Corp ampules. No wonder he's so annoyingly tough. He's already starting to get up again as his wounds knit themselves shut.

"You can be assured... Your people will pay the price of this transgression." Guido says. "Unless you repent. Then it can just be you."
Angela KROMER

Kromer doesn't need to be correct about her guesses about the Silver's interactions with Petra to be sour about them, but she seems largely focused on Petra which lets White dispose of agents as she wills. So long as those exploded Inquisitors don't get too close to the egg, it's nothing White has to worry about. Kromer might be a little rude. Or at least clever enough to make use of her surroundings in a fight. It's easy to imagine her kicking the corpses of her own guys to supply herself with additional backup. Petra's knowledge and White's skill at keeping the Inquisitors at bay is making this battle a much tougher fight for her. Unfortunately, no explanations about the 'mirror' is coming from her. She doesn't even know to monologue about it.

''My tragic need to be right all of the time.''

Kromer's lips twist into a sharp grin. She blocks the Silver when she can, and when she can't she at least attempts to direct them away from vitals. But she's just one person, and keeping the Silver back when it's so malleable is difficult even for her.

All those glancing blows are adding up, giving Petra the opportunity and strength needed to kick Kromer back away from her before she can turn that stabbing into a crime scene. She watches Petra 'skip' away from her.

"Not so easy as you expected, mm? " Kromer asks. "I bet you don't get thanked often, you have the thankless little tasks--"

''So I'm taking this.''

"Try it--" She reaches out for Petra once more and pulls her towards her. She surely expects her to turn the Silver something deadly and she grips her needle in preparation only--

''White! Teleport it out of here! Then we gotta go!''

"What?! NO!!" Kromer shouts, distracted in the moment, the Silver snagging her around her hand and Torture, stabbing into her as she collapses to the ground, working on using her Nail to pry herself free--though not quite quickly enough. With the mission complete, they are free to go.

GUIDO

"Every gang says shit like that." Tennant murmurs and looks like they want to say more, but doesn't. "Let's get ready to head topside. Petra's got White." Tennant says. "You doing okay, Kukuru? Sorry I don't got any ampules on me, but you can lean on me if you gotta. It'll be cinematic as hell don't mind me."
Sarracenia      'A crown...? Captain Guido--'
     '...You are... Princess Sarracenia Sundew of the Sundew Kingdom." Guido says. "I do not know this Gregory, however...But you forget you came here. You attacked us. The one...calling for disaster to fall upon her and her own here... Is you. Confess your sins ... so you do not die with regrets. You'll have the time.'

     Sarra's teeth clench. "So, you have heard of me. Then, you know what I represent! We came here because we heard what was happening here! This is exactly what Fixers do! Or at least SHOULD do! Fix things! Deal with the problems that threaten the people of the City! There would be no disaster to befall anyone here if you and yours were not doing such despicable things with the powers to be found in this place! The only sins being committed here are yours! Perhaps YOU should confess, for tarnishing what knightly armors like these should represent! Honor and nobility and chivalry! Not fear and control and destruction!"

     Sarra doesn't really care what her crown might mean to these guys. What she does care about is that this Captain Guido walked right past her to Kukuru. It annoyed her slightly at the time, but there were two other Inquisitors to worry about.

     'Head!'

     Sarra is not confused by this, but definitely misunderstands. To a warrior princess who has steeped herself in heroic tales there is only one thing it could mean when an ally grabs an enemy and shouts like that.

     She is holding the dangerous enemy for a fatal strike! Of course, Sarra doesn't do fatal strikes. But, he is hurting Kukuru and Sarra really likes Kukuru! And now he has really made her mad by suggesting that he is in the right here.

     'You can be assured... Your people will pay the price of this transgression. Unless you repent. Then it can just be you.'

     Still filled with grief over Gregory, the implication that more people might be hurt because she was trying to help people triggers Sarracenia quite badly. The memories of what happened after L-Corp fell and with the Black Silence add grief and self-hatred. Sarra's teeth clench harder, as do her fists around her hammer. "Well...I suppose I will have to ensure that you are in no position to demand that price, then." she says, her voice reaching that calm that is only reached when one surpasses rage and enters into dangerous resolve.

     The princess reaches into her purse and pulls out a fragment of her broken hammer. She grips it, and prismatic energy starts to swirl from it. She pushes it into her Silver hammer, and that energy starts to flow over it and then over her. Her hair starts to float lightly, almost like a wind is blowing upward around her. The light infuses her blue eyes with prismatic brilliance.

     Then, she starts to hammer like a person possessed. The somersaulting assault holds no candle to her hammer fever. Blows rain down, shaking the ground with each hit. Hits that flow at least one a second for a couple dozen seconds while the princess howls in rage and grief and righteousness.

     The call that they are leaving is lost on the princess for now. She might simply have to be grabbed and forcefully teleported if they don't want to wait for the hammer fever to end.
Kukuru Hearing Sarracenia's frustrations and anger blowing out so loudly against Guido tells Kukuru plenty about where she's at right now. Although she's probably as strong as she's ever been, Kukuru still feels some anxiety in her chest over how that might also be a risk if the fight's allowed to drag on longer. A conundrum, to be sure, considering that the purpose of this fight is to keep the Inquisitors here from reaching her allies elsewhere in the facility.

She just needs to keep his attention off Sarracenia, then, or to keep him so off-kilter that there's no chance of focusing on her nor Tennant properly. Tennant buys her time to drill into his chest, but it doesn't quite feel right. It's not going in deep enough even though she knows she's feeling flesh, and there's not nearly enough time to push all the way in before she's punted backwards and rolling a few times before stopping in an awkward stagger by a wall.

"Keep talking shit!"

"Green..." She murmurs to herself as she notices that the blood on her hands isn't quite blood at all, but something else. A familiar something else, too, and several things start to dawn on her at once. Is this what it's like to fight against herself?

That really is kind of annoying to have to deal with. She giggles briefly despite herself, and then her expression settles back into the false smile again while she faces Guido once more. "Repenting, huh...? Hm. Naaah. Don't want to. Too bad, but I don't like you or your people~" She chimes in while sucking in a slightly wet breath, letting the nanites work their magic on her even while she's certain Guido's ampules are doing the same. "The way you dress and talk feels suuuper gross, and everything I've heard isn't any better. If anybody should be repenting, it's all of you. Now..."

"Let's get ready to head topside. Petra's got White."

Holding in what would otherwise be a sigh of relief, Kukuru forces herself to stand while ignoring the pain around her cracked horns, and the blood running down the back of her head from those cracks. "I'll be okay, dear. Nothing a meal and a nap won't fix." She replies to Tennant with a gentle laugh that both they and Sarracenia might recognize as a fake one. She needs to keep the facade going so the captain doesn't realize they're preparing to leave, after all, and Sarracenia gives her the perfect cover on how to do that.

"But first... I'm bored. Sarra, dear, would you keep him still for a second?" She calls out, holding one hand forward with her palm facing Guido. A lower whisper is uttered to Tennant: "Catch me and fall backwards once I have her."

And then she stomps forward, palm still aimed at Guido like she's preparing for something. "There we go... Right there! Take thiiiis!" As Kukuru shouts and poses like she's about to fire something out of her hand, a portal appears just beneath Sarracenia, fully aimed at just dropping her right onto Kukuru unceremoniously. In one smooth motion, she wraps that extended arm around Sarracenia's waist, then tugs her backwards and falls at Tennant in just the right way to look like they're catching both of them dramatically! It might look less dramatic in a few seconds, though, with another portal appearing behind them poised to reunite them with Petra and White, but she's pretty sure Tennant already has a plan for that.
Petra Soroka "Not so easy as you expected, mm?"

    Petra raises an eyebrow at Kromer, circling her at a distance. "Why would I have expected this to be easy? No one fucks around with the Inquisition. Though, it's a bit unlucky that I'm ending up on your hitlist when you only turned out to be slightly relevant to what I'm looking for."

"What?! NO!!"

    Wrestling with Kromer is only made somewhat possible with the assistance of the Silver, the net clamping down around her while Petra struggles to pull away from the telekinesis. The Silver tightens around the nail, tangling with a mind of its own and gripping with supernatural strength, as Petra takes the opportunity to drive Fourth Match Flame down into The One Who Grips while she tries to twist free.

"To... The others? Or... Above?"

    "Up top." Petra shoves Kromer away, snapping her Silver back so it's not left behind when they vanish. "Kukuru will bring Sundew and Tennant up when they get a chance."

    To that end, she taps her radio to wire over to the other group. "We're ready to go. Get one of Sundew's bombs ready and we'll be out of here, okay?"

    Once teleported to the top of the facility, Petra directs Sarracenia to take the cathartic option of dropping her biggest bomb-omb down the elevator shaft, collapsing it to delay pursuit. While hurrying back to the warpgate to take it before word gets around, Petra says aside to the others, "Oh, we're definitely gonna have to be careful about showing our faces in District 14 ever again. But I barely ever had a reason to come here anyways."
White      White gives the good old nod and warps the two of them to the surface as asked, sparing Kromer only the briefest glance. It's very much a 'not my problem' kind of look, regardless of the reality. Once they're up top again, White spares a moment to quietly note, "Nice fight." She even says it like 'naisu fighto' like it's a Natsuki-ism. Sure, there weren't any rider kicks or finishing moves, but oh well.

     She keeps pace with everyone else during the run for the gate, holding her skirt with her hands in a way that's a lot more deliberately girly than she typically does when there's like, any amount of danger to be focusing on instead of appearances. She could teleport them all away without bothering with the gate, even, but nobody's asked her to... And this is kind of like, a bonding activity? Or something like that? Something about physically running away from your crimes feels a little more sporting even if she could just vanish instead.

     "Let me... Know... Where you... Want... The stuff." The stuff she teleported, she means. The eggs and such! "The..." She fishes for a word again, looking up at the sky suspiciously. "Guards... Might get... Curious... If we wait... Too long."
Angela ''Then, you know what I represent!!''

"Hardly.... You just wear a crown and tell everyone you run into you're a princess." Guido says though Sarracenia's speech smothers his speech balloon about halfway through what he says.

Guido uses his needle to protect himself as much as he is able, but eventually the hammer blows beat past his defenses and knock him down. And she gets a few more strikes in before--

''Catch me and fall backwards once I have her.''

"Aye aye." Tennant is agreeable. "Love your sassy side by the by." Tennant is a little leery of people who are ALWAYS sweeties after all.

But as Guido tenses as Kukuru prepares...something. But instead pulls Sarracenia away from the target of her fury, Tennant tilts back and falls and thinks how this is just like the trust falls they used to do and boy it'd be really embarrassing if Kukuru was tricking them into cracking their skull...

But when Kukuru appears, that's that. They wrap their arms around Kukuru and--

BWOOP. Topside.

Meanwhile, Kromer can't really defend herself against the Fourth Match Flame. She hisses in pain and screams though it feels more like 80 percent rage and 20 percent pain, like the pain is not generally the thing that infuriates her. But the being foiled? Yeah, she's real upset about that.

And so the group regroups up top. Fortunately, while The Inquisition IS government--they are still a minority portion of the government. The trip through the proper channels is able to be done without much hiccups beyond a tense moment where an official stares at Kukuru for a moment longer than is really neccessary--though ideally White has dumped the eggs in the Labyrinth or something rather than trying to bring them out through the Warpgate itself.

Will the Inquisition be a further problem? Of course! But that's a problem for the future. For now, the mission is complete and whatever the Inquisition was hoping for with the Birth Canal...is foiled!
Sarracenia      "RAAAAAAAAAAAAA-" Sarra is letting out one continuous cry as she attacks. "-AAAAA-uwaaaah?!?!" It suddenly devolves into a surprised squeak as she is dumped through a portal and into Kukuru's arms. "K-kukuru! I cannot...really...stop! P-please be...careful!!" Sarra exclaims, doing her best to aim her hammer away from any allies as she is pulled still swinging up to the surface.

     The hammer fever fades quickly, and Sarra gets one of her favorite requests. To blow something up. Sarra frowns, and there are definitely streaks of moisture down her cheeks from what was said down below. "Bob-omb? I do love my cute little bombs, but for this..." She reaches into her purse and pulls. With some effort and a grunt, she pulls out...a quad barreled missile launcher loaded with Missile Megs. Shark faced missiles about as thick as a person and about as long as a car. She takes aim at the elevator for a few moments, then aims up into the sky.

     One after another, like mini-cruise missiles, they fly upward then arc downward. Each explosion sends a shockwave through the nearby area that leaves hair and clothes fluttering. Sarra lets out a haughty 'hmph' afterword. "Be purged in fire, villain." she says, then stuffs the launcher back into her purse.