Lyle followed the others as they entered the house, pausing briefly at the door to glance over his shoulder. How had he gotten himself stuck in the middle of a gang war between the Tsoo, the Trolls, and the Hellions; all while the 5th Column were going out of their way to kill them all?
Sighing, he turned back towards the house. He had thought the jungles in Asia were bad, they were nothing compared to this "city". He used the word loosely, since lately it had seemed more like a warzone.
Contact stood at the front window, his hands neatly folded behind his back as he looked out over the street and awaited their arrival. He had taken two Operatives off of a patrol and stationed them inside the house to better cover the entrances and exists.. he hoped what ever was going on was worth the loss in time and money.
As he saw the group approaching he taped his com and informed the operative to unlock and then reseucre the door, after they had entered.
Contact turned from the window and sat down in one of the chairs in the sparsly furnished room, awaiting their entrance.
Lyle entered the house, watching Sly Fox rush Deth to a bed. The muttering and fidgeting had stopped which would indicate that if she wasn't already semi-concious, she was at least sleeping normally. Lyle leaned against the wall, lighting a cigar, not bothering to check on her with the others.
He often seemed to have some sort of disdain for heroines, policewomen, and any female soldier; and others seemed to view this as some old-fashioned view that women weren't cut out for "man's work". This was, of course, not true. To be truthful, Lyle actually felt much the opposite. Women were often TOO good at this kind of work. He winced as a certain memory flashed across his mind.
Fyre follows the group through King's Row, observing the area.
"Nice neighborhood. Great place to raise the kids..."
Danny's sarcastic comments are largely unnoticed as they approach the house. Danny feels as if he is entering a crime scene as they open the door and step inside.
"Should I even ask what that smell i--"
Fyre stops short when he sees the man standing by the front window.
"Oh...uh...hi."
Sly figured Deth was safe, and ok... he looked up at Contact now standing near the bed and said "I think she's ok, Boss... everyone. Thank you. Thank you all, now if you don't mind..."
Sly sat down in a chair he had pulled next to the bed. Within a few moments he had is eyes closed and his head was nodding.
However, he did manage to say "Lyle, put that out in here, or at least near her, thank you."
Then he chuckled to himself... "Heh... a clown, not an angel... yes..."
Lyle scowled slightly at Sly Fox's request. Making an obvious point of taking one more big drag on the cigar, he crushed it into an ashtray, letting a cloud of smoke billow into the air as he exhaled.
In his mind, he cursed at himself. That had been childish and stupid, but as always, he had done it without thinking. It was that dam nasty streak again. The one that made him snap at questions and mock people trying to help him. He didn't know what caused it; he was no shrink.
He suddenly shook himself from his thoughts, noticing he had absent-mindedly been reaching for another smoke. Folding his arms in front of him, Lyle leaned back against the wall again. He didn't worry much more about his rude actions to the younger hero's request, the kid probably deserved it for something anyway. Lyle didn't worry about anything for very long.
The girl watched as the others entered a building, making her way around the side she climbed the outside wall, pulling herself up by window sills and cracks in the brick. On the roof she sought out the ventilater shaft, slipping inside. She crawled through the vents, mindless of the various intruder sensors she tripped.
Finally, pushing open a grate, she fond herself in the room were Deth lay sleeping on the bed and Sly Fox slept in a chair. The others seemed to still be in the other room. Crawling down from the vent, the girl perched on the headboard of the bed, looking down at the sleeping woman.
Leaning down, she peered carefully at her face, blood from her still open head wound dripping onto the pillow and Deth's face. The dark woman DID seem a little better looking, though she still looked pretty dead to the girl. It didn't really matter to her, but there was nothing else to do.
Sly smirked at Lyle under his hat, and was about to thank the man, when the little girl suddenly showed up... and it was NOT how he had expected to see her again.
Jumping to his feet and ignoring the wound in her head that he thought would NORMALLY be fatal, Fox grabed the girl about the waist and set her down next to the bed quickly and gently. He then began to use his sleeve to wipe the blood off Deth's face...
The girl sat to the side, slightly irritated at the man for moving her without her permission. Her anger was forgotten, however, as she watched, curiously, as he cleaned Deth's face of her blood. Almost everyone seemed to have this reaction to blood and she couldn't quite understand it. After all, blood was all over everyone, flowing through every inch of their bodies.
Yet people seemed to want to distance themselves from it, as if they were trying to forget it was there. It was like how people were so afraid of skeletons. Yet another thing that was as close to them as something could get, yet they push it's image away in horror.
Utterly baffled, the girl scurryed over, stealing Sly Fox's chair. There she perched, crouching on the seat as she watched. Frowning under her mask, she decided she would never understand people.
Fyre glances over at Sly Fox and Deth, and does a double take. Sly is wiping blood off of the unconsious woman's face, and there is a small girl with a large head wound sitting in the chair he had previously been occupying.
"Whoa, what happened?!"
Danny begins to walk over, but then stops, confused as to why the little girl is so calm while blood runs down her face from serious damage to her head.
"Uh...did I miss something?"
Danny stands, looking awkward and wondering whether he should try to help the girl.
"She'll be fine." Ivory's voice was like an ominous crack of thunder in reply to the question. "Startlingly advanced bio-regenerative properties or some kind of magic, though I'm not sure which."
Unnoticed and unneeded, Ivory had disappeared far before they ever reached the safe house. He sent an acknowledging nod twords the room, many of the faes were ones he had known for no more then 24 hours when he stopped to ask about the small disk of a gem he had found. He sent questioning look twords Sly to which he recieved a small nod of confirmation.
Ivory reached to the breifcase beside him, an accessory that had replaced the rifle he had been seen with up till now. Made of featureless, brushed metal the case looked like something out of a 007 movie. When placed on a small coffee table, the hinges flew up and Ivory began to pull full page photographs and hand them around. Before he spoke he removed his glasses, setting them carefully to the right of the case: his eyes revealed as the misting clouds of grey smoke they really were, trails of light followed with his every movement.
"For those of you who didn't get to see it, there was a small subway station below that building; that's how they got so many reenforcements so quickly." Ivory pointed to a picture, a black and white pile of thin lines in every direction covered in grey spots. "The fifth column didn't build it. Paragon City transportation did."
Ivory saw the confused look in the heros' eyes. Not everyone can read satalite imagery, it took practice and time. Ivory pulled a red pen from the case and began to circle points on the photo he had been pointing to.
"There is a set of abandoned subway tunnels that run astride the old sewers, relics of a time before the new above ground trains were built." Ivory snaked a line accross a dark grey blotted sequence, th line came to meet each o the points he circled. "The city collapsed some of the key tunnels, it looks like the column has managed to dig out and repair some of those passageways."
Ivory, giving no time to questions, pulled another image from the case and set it down. This time it was full of color, a tye dye mess of greens, reds and all the colors inbetween.
"The large yellow blots are large sources of heat, but they aren't any hottr then body heat otherwise they would be red." Ivory pointed at some small blobs of yellow. "If you place this over the last image, you'll notice one of these heat sources sits at a still collapsed section of the underground railway."
Ivory sat back on the couch and streatched his arms. He let the information sink in before continuing. There was a reason he was giving them this kind of info.
"The 5th column came after us only after we showed up. It looked like an ambush because they were already occupying the building. Problem is that now that they spotted you all there, you're a liability to their plans. This time they will be out to get you, this time they will be looking to set a trap."
Ivory placed his glasses back on his head, letting them slide to a perfect rest on his nose before he took a look around the room and smiled.
"I thought you should be warned. But perhqps just as important," Ivory once again resumed a strong serious tone over his typically calm and experienced voice, "If they clear out the wreckage on these railways the column will have lightning fast transportation to almost any portion of the city, completely undetected." Ivory pointed his finger back at the yellow mark he had earlier claimed was the column clearing out a wrecked tunnel. "You went into this looking for a gang war. You've stumbled onto a literal war on Paragon City."
Danny scratches his head, sorting out all the information that has been dumped on him and the others. He gives the small girl one more glance before turning to this man who suddenly has all the information.
"So...what you're saying is (and correct me if I'm wrong)...the 5th Collumn, a group of super-powered facists straight out of World War II, has a steadily rising amount of access to the entire city via subway lines that our city officials never thought to disable. These subway lines are still being cleared out, and we know where they're working on it. If we go to stop them, we'll fall into a deadly trap with little chance of escape. But if we don't, the city's screwed, and they'll probably hunt us down anyway. Either way we're in tremendous danger, and the fate of Paragon is in our hands."
Danny Fyre pauses, knocking a piece of hair out of his eyes. He grins, leaning back against a wall.
"I think I'm starting to like hanging out with you guys."
Lobe scratches his head, "Uhh, wait a minute. You saying that the 5th Column run the subways? Jeesh, no wonder they have such neat weapons! They are getting rich off of everyone paying for the subway. Boy! Lobe not take the subway anymore, nope." He shoves his hands into his pockets, accenting the finality of his proclimation.
Lyle was sorely tempted to simply let loose the string of curses that was festering in his gut and let Lobe crush his head like an egg. This whole situation just seemed to be reaching new lows every half hour. What seemed like a problem with the Circle of Thorns had turned into a skirmish between the Tsoo and the Hellions and Trolls. Then it seemed like a 5th column plot to take out one of their group, but now it was a full scale assault on Paragon City itself.
"I need a drink," he muttered, fidgeting with an unlit cigar.
"Listen," Ivory finally spoke up after the awkward silence, "It isn't hopeless." Ivory pointed his finger at a blot on the map. "This is the collapsed portion of the tunnel the Column cleared last month. Cynergetic's satalites suggest the entire are is unstable. A little shake and we can force the entire section to collapse, not just the small portion the city blew in years ago."
Ivory leaned back and crossed his arms across his chest.
"The trapped area between the collapse they are clearing and the collapse we could create has surface access at only two points which means Paragon PD could pick up the exiting soldier without any issue. Their machines will be all tied up in clearing so once that section is clear they no longer have their equipment as a bonus." Ivory leaned forward, the dim light in the room glinting off the corner of his glasses as a sly smile came accross the man's perfectly shaped face. "If we time it at a shift change, we can trap their only train in the same tunnel as their equipment."
"No access to their base, months worth of rubble clearing in both directions and a limited exit route. If we can pull it off, there will be minimal loss of life and we don't even have to mop up, we can leave that to the blue suites."
Ivory shut his briefcase after removing a small, folded piece of paper. Standing to his feet, Ivory placed the folded parchment on the coffee table and took his briefcase into his hand.
"I could handle the situation on my own with ease." Ivory spoke as he walked twords the door to the room. "But it seems to me you might want a stake in this." An obvious tinge of dishonesty, a misleading undertone so cold it could chill spines accompanied his last words.
As Ivory opened the door to exit, Contact unfolded the piece of paper. A list of heavy explosives graced the page in clean fanciful handwriting. The list was heavy and the items were of incredible quality. At the bottom was a number labled 'estimate cost of operation'.
Contact's head snapped tword Ivory as he began to disappear into the blue light he had come to associate with Ivory's coming and going. "You must be joking."
He knew the answer before he let the question slip from his lips.
Deth awoke. Looking up at Sly Fox, she smiled.
'My Prince'
She started to sit up but her head was swimming. She heard the mention of taking down the fifth and forced herself to fully sit up.
'I am ready when the word is given'
Well the girl had been wrong. Deth WAS still alive. Of course, it didn't make much difference to her, nothing did, but it still registered. The girl continued to perch on the seat of the chair, oblivious to the blood that was staining the carpet as it dripped from the hole in her head.
Her arm was almost back to normal, now merely looking sickeningly boney. The others seemed to be arguing over bits of paper. She didn't bother looking at them, she knew she wouldn't understand any of it. She wasn't there to learn anything anyway. She was just tagging along to see what might happen.
Sly sat on the bed, smiling at Deth.
"I go where she goes." He said... still a bit surprised he could say that and mean it.
Deth opened her eyes as they arrived at the safe house. Looking up she saw a face very close.
An Angel, she thought. When the Angel saw her eyes open, relief flooded its face and it bent over to kiss her. As its lips pressed against hers, she felt the prickiness of a beard.
Wait, Angels don't have beards. She pushed the head away and fell back to sleep, more restful this time.
'Not an Angel,' she mumbled, 'A clown.' Smiling, she began to snore softly.