Snippet #2766870

As soon as Ayla fully rematerialized she was breathless, not from transport shock, or even the crisp Tauron air, but from the stillness. And the perfume. Her eyes were closed tight; Adepts had very specially augmented optics to both increase clarity, and distance as well as flash reduction, but she still hadn't wanted to be disoriented from grenades she ordered EVE to detonated, but the scent told her everything. Above the clinical, almost sterile backround, and the ever lingering oder of the Victory Soap used by most of the operators of what she knew to be the Hub was Marlene Angel's perfume. It was subtle, surprisingly so, but the weak, vanilla notes curlded the Confessor's stomach. She could recognize it, and the other woman's shampoo from two Imperial miles away, enchanced olfactory capabilities, or not. Everything about Angel was burned in to her memory, and only when she was already a few seconds later would she open her eyes, teeth grit.

"I told EVE to send me directly to the HVT," she greated the spook with no lost love. "Is this your doing, Angel?"

Despite the frosty attitude Ayla still couldn't bring herself to actually look at the other. Her eyes wandered everywhere, but towards Marlene, and it was nothing new. Quite the contrary, the Confessor's refusal to even glimpse the agent, let alone make eye contact, had become quite legendary, and served as gossip-fuel within the Empire's Intelligences. A million theories, each more wild than the last, were routinely passed around in quite, safe moments, but none ever dared to broach the painfully obvious truth of it. Ayla had yet to truly recover from her brief stay in the Whispering Mountain, and even less so from Marlene's intimate violation of her very being via the Chair. It was a wound that even the astoundingly adaptive neurophysiology of her species couldn't heal, and so with great loathing she merely listened to her one time tormentor. Once Marlene finished however, Ayla stuck to her guns.

"You think it unwise?" She hissed, each syllable laced with a barely concealed venom. "You want to what, let me guess, sneak in as always? You spooks are about as one track as possible, and your arrogance has delay-" A sudden shift in her H.U.D cut her rant short; video feed from the IIA squad had been patched directly to her, each agents helm, visor, glasses, or implants giving her a front row seat to the violent outbreak at the hospital. She barely managed to catch Kesslee's timely exit amid the chaos. Swan cock, what else in Hades could go tits up? Clenching her jaw even tighter, Ayla did her best to maintain her composure with Marlene, though there was no doubt she laid the blame for this sudden snafu squarely at the other's feet. If that bitch just hadn't stuck her obviously silicon nose where it didn't belong..

Knowing full well that Marlene most likely had the same feeds patched in, and failing that precognition, she snorted. "A little late for your quiet approach I suppose. At least if you had left well enough alone it would've been me in there, not a bunch of useless thugs. Although.."

There was always opportunity in a chaotic theater of combat, and Ayla turned away to give herself a moment to think, crossing her arms over her chest in the process. Like always a rapid stream of tactical options cascaded through her warped mind, and though she didn't really have enough time to sort through each, and every option, she adapted to the situation in a heartbeat. "Okay Angel," Ayla generally refused to call Marlene by her given name, it simply felt too personal to her, "How about we switch it up? A comprimise." Perhaps it was a stroke of sudden genius, perhaps it was merely grasping at straws so as not to fail her Emperor, or worse, Kesslee, but most likely it was her self destructive impulses rising to the surface. "I go in loud, extremely loud, you follow staggered, and get to play spy. Sound good? I sure hope so.."

Ayla didn't really care in the least as to whether it appealed to the other woman, or not, because she made her mind up. Today was going to be memorable, the gutterrats of Terra had pushed her a little too far, a little too often, and the time for games was over.

Instead of waiting for a reply Ayla brought her left hand up to the ear area of her helm, a completely unnecessary gesture, and pinged the ever dutiful Aschen A.I again. "γλυκιά μου," she called out in her typical monotone, which was quite the leap for her. Normally Ayla would never address EVE informally, let alone personally around others, but now..Now it didn't matter. "I'm going in ahead of Angel, prime grenades, and get me as close to the target as possible just like before, although this time I'll need you to relay something to all Aschen operatives within a two mile radius. Tell them 'Ares Walks'". That particular phrase was completely unique to Ayla due to Mantrid's willingness to treat her a guenia pig, and though there was a chance that due to obscurity not every agent would recognize it enough would that the proper precautions would be taken. If they were smart they'd start running now.

"Execute safety protocol override Fjord, Fjord, Six, Niner, Brandy, Four," she knew the risk she was taking, but as displeased as she was it felt worth it. When she was remade to serve the Empire it was as an Adept, and thanks to her bodies' extreme resilience she had gotten all the bells, and whistles. One of the good doctor's more questionable additions was a direct N.S.C.D.I, a unique, experimental internal injection system that fed her a volatile cocktail of narcotics. Standard models were generally safe for the Adepts, as their bodies burned toxins at such a rate even extremely high doses could be auto-administered without fear, but Ayla's? Ayla's was a whole other beast, calling for extremely stringent safety measures, and failsafes. "Execute overdose prevention overrides for seals one through nineteen as well, same authorization."

There was a good chance even her immense neuroplastisity would break under the strain of what she was about to attempt. She didn't even shy away from the thought however, if she didn't come back in mind, or body so be it.