Skitters's Story

It takes a while, but the facility is soon put on yellow alert, the upper level is sealed from the rest of the facility with all but civilian authority allowed. Armed guards and engineers are being sent down in hopes to restore the generators to full capacity. Focus is being put higher than normal on the high security floors leaving the moderate security floors feeling emptier than usual.

In the high security floors (11-14)

While the staff is scrambling to contain the escaped subject, a lone critter begins walking by the cells, slightly bigger than a cat... walking on its forelegs like a circus act is a weird raccoon holding a keycard in its hind feet. It appears to be grunting a small tune. As it goes along it catches the attention of Zeke, face pressed against the window of his cell, his arms restrained in a straitjacket.

"What the hell is going on around here?!" He says, kneeing the cell door fruitlessly. "And... what the hell is that!?"

The raccoon tumbles over and lays there on the ground staring at him. His eye twitches as he stares back at the animal, then he notices the card.

"Hey! You are not authorized to carry that!" He pauses for a moment then slowly pokes his foot through the food port of his cell door and speaks more calmly, grinning. "Gimme and I'll say nothing about this breach of security."

The raccoon slowly starts to scoot away from the door.

"Noo! I'm sorry! For scaring you, that is." His tone quickly turns to begging. "C'mon, we can work together, you and me, Zeke and the giant dirty rat thing."

The raccoon squints its eyes, obviously not too happy with his comment and dusts itself off then holds its arms out then starts to crawl off. Zeke sighs and thumps his head against the door, groans falling down to the floor with his mouth to the food port and then begins to speak more desperately and forced.

"Baby, please! Don't you see how I yearn for you in my life!?" He begs in the most horrific attempt at being suave. "Oh if I was to name an astral body after something, I'd name it after... you!"

The raccoon at this point just plants its face in its four paws and turns around, climbs up the door and runs the card across the scanner then whacks him across the head and motions for the pathetic nutjob to come along. He pops himself up onto his feet and follows the raccoon along, stumbling about like a drunk as he does.

"Gotta be the new meds, anytime now I'll wake up..." He mutters looking around at the cells, then notices his arms are still bound. "Hey could you... nevermind, I'll work it out eventually. Where are we going anyways?"

Still creeping along cell, after cell, Zeke continues to blindly follow the strange raccoon. His cloudy mind is slowly putting things together as the medication begins to lose effect. He was released from his cell by what is seeming less and less like a hallucination. Hallucinations cannot open doors, therefor it must be a dream. However hitting the floor sure hurt like it was real so he must be awake. That would mean... would mean... this is real? And the eyes of the creature, so nostalgic. So... as he tries to drowsily put everything together he sees that the raccoon has stopped at a cell door. He slowly raises his head and reads the subject number.

"GNS-088..." He mutters as he begins to go into tunnel vision, but it is not the drugs this time. He watches as the raccoon starts climbing the door with the keycard in its lower set of front legs. The sound of classical can be heard, muffled, from inside. Then a stirring can be heard, the music stops, replaced by something pressing up against the windowless reinforced and airtight cell door.

"Good girl, Skitters, and you've made a friend as well, extravagant!" Speaks a strange yet eloquent female voice from within the cell. "Mister Ezekiel, we have much to catch up on."

Ezekiel begins to back away from the cell, sluggishly, his body feels heavy. Memories of excruciating pain begin to flood back, worse than any experiment that had been conducted on his body, no, it was more like his soul itself was on the dissection table. As the cell opens, a pair of violet eyes, only almost human meet with his, pupils within them an S shape that quickly dilates into an 8. He falls backwards, shaking himself some from his daze and mustering enough strength to burn through his jacket. Blue fire spurts forth causing the raccoon to recoil and hide behind the figure, but they begin walking forward.

"Ezekiel..." The voice beckons, Zeke grits his teeth, fight or flight, and he's chosen the former.

"You ain't getting in my head again you monster!" As the figure gets in range he lunges at her, his hand ablaze with blue fire. He feels, if he lands just one blow he may have a chance, he may have... may... he's stopped in place. "What..?"

Wrapped in a series of tendrils, his arms and legs are completely restricted, and regardless of any attempt to struggle, the grip it has is much stronger. And then as he looks forward, all he sees now is eyes staring back.

"I'll make everything better." She says in a soft tone, but it still feels... inhuman. "Just take care of father, okay?"

Before he could make another attempt to get free, he feels an impact upon the back of his head and begins to black out. He can vaguely hear as his hearing fails one last thing other than the clash of his body against the metal floor. The creature's voice muttering something.

"...sorry..."

Moments later he awakens with his head feeling... something. A blank expression on his face, his skin pale and breathing shallow. And there's something in his hand. The keycard. He slowly gets up and begins heading towards the elevator, at this point he didn't care about much else, he just wanted to go up and out of here. He needed no other reason than to get as far away from her as possible. A chime plays as he swipes the keycard over the scanner and he gets in, pressing the button for the surface floor. On its way up the lights in the elevator turn red and the elevator stops, a shriek from deep in the shaft echoes through sending him into a frenzy, clawing at the door, prying it open with all his strength and crawling into the nearest floor. He stops to take a breather. He starts to chuckle softly to himself, running his hand across some carpeting realizing he's on one of the moderate risk floors, floor 8.

"Yeah... YEAH... YEAH!" He chants, trying to build himself up. "Suck it, statistics, I'm out of here."

He gets up, dusts himself off, walks over to the stairwell entrance triumphantly and runs the keycard over the door.

"Yellow alert in effect, voice confirmation required."

"Uh..."

"Voice is of Ezekiel, Status: Aethera Subject Gamma. Access denied."

Defeated by that evil invention known as "technology" he slumps onto the floor.

"Why has fate conspired against me so tragically...?"

[redacted]

She takes them around a corner, evading an ambush as if she already knew they would. They are clad in full combat armor, and as suspected, packing more than simple tranquilizer guns. As they take aim, the ductwork collapses on them, shaking them more than hurting them.

"A collection of things, mister Alver, some of the memories of the hosts persist, giving me pieces of information about the facility's layout." The Bas'met avatar says in a rather matter-of-fact manner, then points at the vents, tiny feet heard echoing through inside keeping up with them. "And secondly, Skitters is quite the master of getting through tight places, with both the memories I've obtained and her I found something rather... interesting."

Bas'met leads them into an open storage room, surrounded in basic medical equipment like IVs, needles, and other such items, and a large glass cabinet in the back. She runs to this cabinet and begins pulling on it, slowly sliding it across the floor with a slight creak. Behind it she reveals a strange small door, somewhat like a dumbwaiter, yet it has a hand print biometric lock. She places her hand against it and after a short scan it slides open into a dimly lit, and unmapped portion of the facility. The lights in this portion seem like they haven't been changed in years, some flicker, nearly burnt out, stairways can be somewhat seen within.

"These are what I assume to be the maintenance access areas, a facility so large would have to have them right?" She says with uncertainty in her tone. "But they get used so little that nobody really cares to actually maintain them, funny, huh?"

The footsteps can be heard coming in their direction, doors opening and closing as they check every area. Bas'met motions to the entryway.

"Get in, I'll cover it back up behind you." She says, a tone making it clear that this avatar is staying behind. "And I know I've harmed some of you before, but... well... I'm willing to pay for that too, if it is any incentive."

Kaijmera half expected the woman to envelop them in a shroud of shadows or some other wildly powerful....trick, of some kind, and whisk them away to safety. Instead, she is instead yanked along and nearly dragged around the corner like any other escapee fleeing for their lives. It would have been faster if she took off on her own. The joy of 20/20 hindsight. Speaking of alone, she was actually slightly, pleased, that Alver decided to go along with everything. The shield maker had promise in him. That is if he knew how and when to properly put up a solid defense. If she could get through it then it wasn’t as likely that he would be able to deflect a bullet either. It saved her time that he was at least in the same book as her. Whether or not they were on the same page was another question that would have to be saved for later.

More than anything she would find more convenience with being told that part of the ventilation system was going to come down behind them. Kaijmera was quick to break the line, jerk her hand free and take a few strides ahead of the doctor before daring to look over her shoulder and make sure that it wasn’t gunfire coming at them. The pitter patter of steps in the vents quickly gave away that it was much larger and smarter than a rat. If only she could simply get up there and traverse the ductwork like, whatever was up there, was doing. A question that she would have to save for later. Better to leave the chatter to the boy for the time being while she was at it. She’d rather have him reminding her what on earth the woman was going on about.

The storage room that they arrived in immediately left her wanting to know what could possibly help them in here with no noticeable way out except for the way they came. Her feet hardly touched the ground and aided with reversing her direction to push herself up against the nearest corner that lead back to the hallways that they had just come from. The fear of being seen was by now helping to lift some of the grogginess inducing fog in her mind. Just when she began to feel like she was led into a trap, the doctor opened up what looked to be a covered up passageway. Again her feet help her sprint towards the open entrance but she stops short of the door.

This poorly maintained and thickly webbed maintenance corridor made her leery of going in. Still, it was far more promising considering that it didn’t look to be used for a considerable amount of time. Or enough to give her confidence that she could better hide here rather than back out there.
“Varför?” She finally asks in confusion. Help nearly always came at a cost. However seeing as how she wasn’t willing to stand around long enough for the full answer. If there was one.

Soon enough she gripped the sides of the entrance and gives the doctor one more glance before going inside. If it really was a maintenance corridor then it would have to lead to other areas of the facility.

Alver started as the vent came down with a crash, then quickly resettled, annoyed at himself for reacting. Then something landed at his foot.

This time, Alver didn't scream or gibber or even move, but looked down instead, scowling at the object. His stomach gave a start when he saw a gun, but then he noticed the markings on the side and realised - it was a tranquilliser gun. One of the guards must have had one at hand when Skitter's (whoever they were) dropped the vent on them, causing the guard to lose control of the gun and fly at his direction. Huh. Well, they didn't need more ammunition anyway. Giving a tiny shrug, Alver picked up the gun and stored it at his back, making sure that the shirt was covering it.

What? He was going into unknown territory with a woman who had just tried to kill him a second ago and GNS-088, who was pretty dangerous herself. Alver could still remember the blood from that time she'd tried to - no wait, that had been the nightmares. The real one had no blood. Still, he absolutely didn't want to get possessed and die, so what was one extra precaution?

She knows my name. Ok. That was probably from the subject's memory thing she was talking about. Now that they weren't being chased, Alver took the time to resettle himself and think, walking half a step behind the two women. He quickly shrugged on his jacket, the extra cloth hiding the small bulge on his back and giving him an extra layer of protection. Why had GNS-088 (Alver still had no clue what her real name was) turned up to save them? Why - and how - had she escaped? No, scratch that - what on earth was going on?

What did she want?

Well, she wanted them to escape, that was obvious enough. Especially when she led them into a storage room and revealed a door leading to an abandoned area of the facility. And she sounded like she needed their help with what she had found. Whether it was 'look, a weird fish!' kind of interesting or 'agh we're all gonna die from this' kind of interesting, it didn't seem like she could do it alone, but Alver couldn't help but be suspicious if she had any other hidden motive that wouldn't be kind to them. He hadn't gotten this far and alive by taking everything at face value, and he wasn't going to start now.

Maybe if he had done so sooner, been suspicious sooner, then his friend wouldn't have died...

Nothing he could do about it now. Shoving the thought aside, Alver stepped through the door a few seconds after Killer Lady charged through it. He glanced around, squinting into the dark in an effort to see better. Seriously, he was sick of being an experiment and like it or not he was screwed anyway, what with being with an escapee and all. Heck, he could even be considered an escapee himself. Might as well go and explore before getting caught.

Just before GNS-088 closed the door, Alver reached out and stopped it. "Listen," he said quickly. He knew that he had only a few seconds left before the guards came across them, so he had to make it quick. "I have no clue what's going on and I still don't trust you, but thanks. I know the body you're in is dead and I'm not sure whether or not you can feel pain," and I'm really hoping that you didn't kill her "but take care, ok?"

There, done. Now he could stop worrying so much, although why he was worrying over a possessed dead body Alver had no clue. Having said his piece, Alver let go of the door and turned around to catch up with Killer Lady, blinking rapidly as the door closed and sealed off any light from the outside. Ah, night vision goggles, how he wished he had thee. That would have made seeing in the dark more easier.

"Alright, so." He said quietly, fumbling his way towards Killer Lady. His eyes were starting to get use to the dark now, and he could dimly see shapes that he assumed were pipes or walls or just weird objects. "Um. Think we should head that way?" he pointed forwards to a space between a large rectangle object and a large square object as his shin bumped into what felt like a small square box.

"Ow," he muttered, but he continued to move. He didn't want to be here if the guards discovered that they were in here and decided to storm the place. "And what's your name?" he asked, squinting at his surroundings. The objects were gradually becoming clearer, good. Soon he'd be able to see properly in the gloom. "If we're gonna be stuck together we might as well know each other's names. I'm Alver Glanestone. You?"

She heard the door shut behind her. And her eyes strained for almost a minute as they attempted to adjust to the dim setting. Willing it in the back of her mind, she wished that she could see everything more clearly. No. She needed to, willed it in her thoughts. The empty passageway slowly began to light up as though someone was gradually raising the lights on a light dimmer switch. Nearly her entire body ached much like a tensed muscle that was feeling a little too much resistance. The tension made her breath the same way one would after a light jog thanks to the stress the sickened and frazzled doctor put her through when she was convinced there would be a fight brewing.

Moving a hand to her chest; some of those same ripples underneath her skin occasionally persisted despite her over all proportions regaining a little more normalcy. Being in a new area with the thoughts of being herded into a corner by guards prevented her from having any solace in the thought of relaxing, even if it were only temporary. Several claws reach up to one of the side walls and scrape at its surface with mild interest as to whether or not it would leave a mark. Before looking down at her still wickedly equipped hand. She frowns. ".....äcklig." Then, does the best she can to shake her hand and shake it off.

Kaijmera had almost forgotten that Alver was even behind her until she heard his footsteps catching up from behind. Her head tilted just enough to look and see him fumble a bit when he smacked one of his legs right into a box. Clumsy looked to be a trait that he would naturally have. She ignored his first question and proceeded to begin walking, slowly but with a purpose. He asked her another question about her name. Again. She acted as though she didn't hear him. With the express intention on looking around and paying attention to anything but him. The one thing that she did pick up from him, aside from his name, was the anxiousness in his voice. Informing her of his name without being asked.

You?

By then Kaijmera turned towards the the wall and with only the upper half of her body turned, her face barely turned 1/3 of the way towards him. Her eyes catching and reflecting the dim light similarly to how an animal's eyes would appear to almost glow in low light conditions.

For what felt like a long time she seemed to stare at him. "You scared of me?"

A figure around the size of a large cat follows the dysfunctional duo, hiding away and keeping as quiet as possible. It was Bas'met's little pet, Skitters as she is called, may as well be Bas'Met herself if it weren't for the retained animal's instincts. She was likely trailing them to satisfy Bas'met's strange curiosity. She scurries carefully behind boxes, in boxes, occasionally under boxes and scooting it along. A real bandit in the shadows.

The pathways carry Alver's voice, especially when he raises it. This could get problematic. The area was barely used but it wasn't unknown. She slaps her paws on her face, all four of them. Hasn't this guy heard of keeping a low profile? She reaches under her bandanna and adjust some device on her neck stopping when she hears his end to his outburst, how he's tired of watching people die. Something about this clicks. She scurries over into some boxes trying to get a better listen.

Then, something of a spat breaks out between them. Alver is thrown into the boxes nearly on top of the six-pawed bandit. Skitters skitters behind a box in hopes to remain unseen. Where did that come from? Well, was not like Bas'met expected them to work well together, let alone Kaijmera working well with anyone. But never really expected it to escalate this quickly. People are so very... interesting. Under the cover of the box the striped-tail avatar of Bas'met follows slowly but also more closely, increasingly curious about what they will do next.

Labeled on the "exit", as Alver put it, is what can be made out as the number 10. Most likely meaning floor 10 Certainly not the most desired exit, but a step in the right direction, right? And what is Kaijmera planning to do if she dreads the outside? And what was this lesson she intends to teach Alver? There is so much strange between the subjects to fill Bas'met's voracious curiosity. That curiosity may be driving Skitters to get closer than needed.

Kaijmera's interactions with Alver ceased completely at some point so that all he would be able to converse with was himself and the poorly lit hallway. She found it beneficial to button up once the door came into her line of sight. It was when she tucked herself away from the main area and spent more of her time looking back that she actually noticed something. This was something that she hadn't noticed before. Mainly because she was looking out for just about anything but this particular, thing. As she spies with her little eyes did the glint of something else's small peepers catch her attention. This new discovery had the woman crouch down a little further while peeking safely from around a corner.

Meanwhile she did nothing to further distract Alver from moving forward. Okay so maybe it wasn't nothing that hit the wall beside his head and clatter with a small yet weighted metallic sound to the floor. This wasn't simply to see if he would jump. Although something about it amused her. It sort of cheapened her thoughts on horror films. More specifically, imagining the antagonist, be it human or otherwise grabbing the closest available item that can produce noise when striking something, tossing it over the protagonist or other character's head to scare them before ducking back down acting rather pleased with themselves. The only reason why she didn't find this to be a lowly move was to test for several things. Not everyone responds the same way.

What had her intrigued most of all was seeing if what was following Alver had noticed her hide away and if it, could see her as noticeably as she had seen this scurrying thing. For some reason her thoughts wandered back to when the air vents fell when she saw glimpses of this thing now following behind Alver.

Alver continued to walk as the Bloody Lady stopped behind him. Nothing about him showed that he noticed except for his shoulders and back gaining tension, like he was expecting a blow from the back. What now? he thought irritably, taking his hands out of his pockets. Another body-toss to the wall?

Nope. An object flew towards him, and Alver flinched and raised his shields, thick layers of white surrounding him. It went past him and hit the wall with a metallic clang, and he looked down to see a steel piece of rubble clatter to the floor.

What the hell?!

"Oi! he turned around angrily, this time remembering to keep his voice low. As far as he knew there was no-one around except for the Bloody Lady, and his suspicions were confirmed when she'd gone missing from sight. "What the hell are you -" he caught sight of the Bloody Lady hiding around a corner and whirled to face her with a scowl "-playing at?!"

Something furry flashed by the corner of his eye as he turned, but Alver didn't catch what it was. Maybe it was a stuffed animal or something, who knew what was in the place. He looked back, curious about what he'd glimpsed.

Skitters continues moving forward under the cardboard box, obstructed vision has left her unaware of Alver making a sudden made stop and had turned around in her direction. She inevitably bumps into him. The mutated creature lets loose an audible grunt and then grumbles about the error made then cups her mouth. It is still dark, there's no chance that the cover has been blown, in his mind it could just be some vermin trapped under a box and he'll ignore it, right?

All this point, all it required was to be patient, take it calmly, and remain still and she could remain undercover. But this incarnation of Bas'met was none of these things, but rather... incredibly impulsive and impatient. It felt like decades to wait for mere minutes, and it was just too much. She lifts the box up and stares up at Alver and quietly waves her upper right claw, hoping seriously that the boy doesn't decide to punt her like a football.

"Whoa -" Alver staggered backwards a little. He hadn't expected to bump into something - which squeaked, and Alver's gaze focused down on the object like a hawk spying a rabbit, moving a few steps back so that he could see it better or in case it, y'know, exploded or something. Considering that he was inside a crazy death facility, Alver felt that it was pretty reasonable to expect it to explode.

It was a cardboard box. A cardboard box which, as Alver stared at it like he wasn't sure whether to kick it to the stratosphere or just put up a shield and hope for the best, opened to reveal a raccoon with a scarf that covered its lower jaw. Somehow, it looked sheepish, which was weird. Because it was a raccoon. Raccoons weren't suppose to look sheepish.

Alver stared, a mixture of emotions that ranged from am I dreaming to is this a joke to should I run or should I stay crossed his face before finally settling on you have got to be kidding me, what the hell. The Raccoon looked up at him and gave a wave with her claws, somehow giving off an even more sheepish air. Alver stared some more.

Seriously, how was he suppose to react to a humanoid raccoon sneaking up on him in a cardboard box? Who even snuck up on people in cardboard boxes instead of hiding in the shadows or, well, Alver didn't even know anymore. The hell?

Then he noticed the S-shaped eyes that meant that it was possessed by GNS-088 and nearly kicked it across the room with a shield-covered leg before realising that hey, GNS-088 had helped them, maybe it wouldn't be a good idea to punt one of her possessed subjects across the room before hearing what it had to say. Just as quickly as his leg had left the ground, it stilled, and Alver scowled angrily at the rodent as he straightened his knee out of its bent leg kicking pose it had taken.

"Ah, sorry," he said, temporarily embarrassed. He placed the leg back on the ground. "Forgot that you had helped us." Then he caught himself and his eyes narrowed, embarrassment lost in the face of anger - lots of it. "Oi, what're you doing sneaking up on people?" He asked, crossing his arms surlily, ready to put up a shield in case of an attack. He didn't think that he needed to do so since she seemed to need them for something, but who knew? Alver certainly didn't. "How long have you been spying on us? Bloody Lady over there didn't set you up to scare me or anything, right?" he asked, looking suspiciously at the Bloody Lady's direction. He didn't think that GNS-088 and Bloody Lady had worked together, but it was possible! Alright, maybe not, but it never hurt to be sure.

Skitters holds up a clawed finger telling Alver to hold on for a minute, then fumbles with the device around their neck, it crackled a bit as the speaker comes to life. "Testing, 1, 2, oh! There it goes..." A voice emitted from the device, it was the voice of Bas'met herself, and clearly this was some form of two-way radio. This didn't stop Skitters from pantomiming ever word, though. "First off, I have so many sets of eyes so... so I've been watching you and many others." She says this casually, but Skitters exaggerates every motion cartoonishly. "Secondly, what? No. Skitters is just a scatterbrain who acts on her own at times... a lot of the time." Skitters folds her arms at the scatterbrain comment and grunts.

"Thirdly, I know we've had poor first impressions but we aren't entirely different, and to something you said earlier... I've only ever killed once." She says, Skitters pointing to herself to leave no ambiguity on the victim. "And I do feel pain, as well as everything else to a degree... and... with every body I reanimate I get a taste of their final living moments, so... yeah."

"Wha-" Alver felt himself being picked up by the scruff of the neck. The boy struggled, but before he could get free the door slammed open with a bang and he squished his eyes shut with a cut-off whimper because owwwww. The lighting was dim, with the only glaring lights being the red exit signs glowing on top of the doors, but after being in pitch darkness it was bright like staring into a stadium. He drew a hand up to shield his eyes, momentarily stunned still.

"Buckle down. Shields up!" Was all Alver heard before the Bloody Lady threw him like a baseball down the corridor.

"Aaaaaahhhh-" Alver yelled in panic and crossed his arms over his head as white surrounded both him and the front of the raccoon as he flew down the corridor like a baseball heading for a homerun. He squinted through his arms and saw two guards gathered together staring at him in astonishment, face turning panicked and hands reaching for their guns as they realised that Alver wasn't going to stop.

Dammit, this is going to hurt. Alver snapped his eyes shut and braced for impact, mentally cursing his thrower. Stupid Bloody Lady!

He slammed into the others like a wrecking ball at full speed, bowling them down to the ground. He himself landed with a grunt, tumbling into a crouch. His shields dissipated to form around his leg as Alver quickly aimed a kick at one of them while he was down, knocking him out before he could do anything like say, reach for his gun to shoot or grab the walkie talkie to call for reinforcements.

Alver didn't want to think what would happen to him if he got attacking guards.

"What the fuck?!" The other guard shot a tranquilizer at him, but it got held in place by a shield of purple as Alver leaped at him, desperately (please please please let this work) swinging his fist into the guards face. The guard moved backwards with a curse and knocked his head against a white barrier that materialised behind his head moments ago, and with a nasty thump he went crosseyed and collapsed like a sack of potatoes.

Heart in his mouth and feeling like he'd just ran a marathon, Alver collapsed to his knees beside the guard, panting for breath. It was more out of shock than any physical weakness, and soon enough he was back on his feet and gingerly checking the unconscious men's pulses, hoping against hope that they weren't dead and cursing the stupid dumb ass Bloody Lady under his breath. Alver really, really didn't want to kill anyone, even if they were the one's keeping him in the facility. There was too much death already, no need to add more to the mix.

He breathed a sigh of relief as he felt their pulses still beating, soft and steady. The men were just unconscious, not dead. Straightening, Alver dusted his knees off and looked around, finding his side of the area deserted. Thank goodness there weren't any more guards around. Must've been the shutdown.

That wasn't the problem, though. Alver walked angrily over to the lady, his fists clenched so tightly that his nails dug into his palms. "You asshole!" he whisper-yelled at her, vibrating with anger and adrenaline so hard that even his hair seemed to be standing on end. "What the hell were you thinking, are you insane?! I'm not a ball, for crud's sake! And there were guards out here, what if they caught us before we caught them?! ever thought about that?!"

Floor 10

The raccoon did not exactly desire to become a hairy bowling ball, but Kaijmera didn't leave her many options. Flying through the air and protected from injury only by Alver's shields she instead hit the ground with a roll until she comes into impact with a wall. She then lays on her back with her feet up in the air, her tail flopped down over her face. The hallway was spinning before her, and by extension, Bas'met's vision through her eyes.

The voice of Bas'met casually pops through the collar communicator. "Well that was... unexpected." Skitters twitches trying to regain equilibrium. She eventually rolls back to her feet and regains some balance. She watches as Alver checks the pulses of the guards he had flung into. She tilts her head and follows shortly after as he goes towards Kaijmera and begins to scold her for tossing him. She lowers her head and reaches out tugging at Alver's leg.

"Do you plan to treat all obstacles in life so tenderheartedly?" Bas'met asks Alver, a legitimately curious tone to her voice. Skitters looks up with fully dilated eyes, the 8 shaped pupils, a deep black abyss can be seen in it. "Just, what does it mean to you to have power?"

Floor 6

A black claw covered in sickly red glowing markings emerges from the broken elevator. From it flows what appears to be a hazey mist, like it were a creature of the shadows itself. A pair of orange glowing eyes stares out at Bart and Domingo, a blank expression in them. It grips the side of the elevator door and pushes it open, the metal being etched away by whatever this thing is made of.

"L..ght..? W..r..?" It cracks in an ethereal voice. It continues to advance towards them. "Wh.r..?!" Its voice escalating into desperation.