Tauron

Though it seemed like there were several LDA SUVs, the flashing blue lights only denoted a single SUV, with five men in suits in the restaurant, and the CPF Officer trying to duck out of the way as Maria lunged towards him.

There was a thunk and the Officer found himself on the ground, being beaten with the stock of a Disruptor rifle. He raised his hands to try and shield himself from each blow, protecting vital areas.

"She's going to kill him!" A second officer called out, before he raised his own weapon, and fired several dazzling green bolts towards Maria, hoping that at least one of them would strike her.

The entire City was ablaze in activity, the Heraclitus and the CPF had cordoned the restaurant and the street off, while SWAT in armored Lynx IFVs and Pegasus type MRAPs moved through the streets. Each of them packing enough weaponry to fight a small war. Their arrival would be within minutes, and heralded by sirens gradually increasing in volume and decreasing in distance.

Maria spun to face the officer who shouted, and the first of the disruptor shots caught her square in the chest. The impact knocked her backwards where she fall to the floor against a booth.

The stench of scorched flesh filled the air, and had she been human, the shot would have no doubt proven fatal. The bolt had scorched through her clothes, searing muscle and bone alike. She tried to inhale, to scream out her pain and anger, but her scorched lungs couldn't draw the air necessary. She was suffocating as her body struggled to heal the damage.

Burns where substantially more difficult to regenerate than abrasions, but a keen eye might note the writhing flesh as it sought to re-knit itself, prioritizing the internal damages foremost. But to the casual observer, the woman was in the final throws of death.

She tried to rise, but a second disruptor bolt struck her and her vision swam as she struggled to draw breath. She couldn't feel anything anymore, which was never a particularly good sign.

There where shouts all around her, and she could see the feet of officers closing in on her with their weapons readied to fire again if necessary. Surely the woman was dying though.

As she beat the Officer down, the first shot made it's mark as she turned to react. The impact would have erupted at first a brilliant flash of flame and green dissipating energies, followed immediately by a plume of steam as bodily fluids were flash vaporized. As she was knocked back the officer closed in, his weapon still drawn while the CPF tried to extract their wounded.

"What the..." The CPF Officer said as his eyes widened at the writhing wound, and he backed up a step with a look of absolute horror as Maria tried to rise up. He fired again, a brilliant flash and deafening pop followed by another plume of vaporized fluid and charred flesh. It seemed to finally put her down.

"Gods damn.." The Officer said as they all closed in, the sounds of rubber squeaking on the floor followed as they quickly moved to roll her on her stomach and cuff her.

"Three nine we need EMS, coroner, and a supervisor at Papa's Gyros." He called out on the radio. The sirens growing progressively louder, but the barrage of disruptor shots ceased as they assessed the situation.

In the immediate silence that followed, Maria wasn't touched, other than to be rolled and cuffed as Officers started to set up the crime scene, EMS would have their hands full when they arrived, while other Officers tried to treat their own wounded.

She had a vague awareness that she was being moved, and of her arms being twisted around behind her back.

Get up. Fight!

The wolf-mind roared through her, urging her onward, but the injuries were too severe and her oxygen deprived body failed to respond to her iron will that even now screamed at her to rise once more.

She had been born a warrior, raised a warrior, and she had lived her life a warrior. It was all she knew, and every fiber of her being warred against the injuries that had subdued her.

When her lungs at last drew in rasping breaths, she rolled to her side, curling against the agony that came with the healing flesh. Nerve endings were beginning to repair, and healthy pink skin tissue was beginning to replace the charred and blackened flesh that began to flake away.

Her breaths rapidly grew clearer as she tried to rise to her knees. Her hands were bound though, and the room was filled with officers, all armed and fully capable of putting her back down again.

Her eyes were a swirl of murderous intent as she looked from officer to officer, but even the wolf knew it couldn't fight them all with its hands bound, and as she drew deep shuddered breaths, the amber of her eyes returned to a steely grey.

As Maria stirred weapons almost immediately moved to her crumbled form. All eyes were on her, some staring through the holographic sights of weapons, and others with their hands on their own sidearms.

"What the frak..." One of them said as he freed his weapon from it's holster.

They had move in a wide circle around her, and all of them murmered to eachother in confusion. But she was bound and it seemed she wasn't putting up a fight, even if she was getting to her knees.

With a large amount of CPF in the room, one of them was bound to speak Common, and one indeed did speak Common. He was a middle aged man in a white outfit that just managed to arrive on scene. Albeit several minutes later, which would have ticked by slowly as men kept guns leveled on her while she was on her knees.

EMTs had finally arrived, and were quickly tending to the Aschen wounded, while a pair made their way towards Maria. The call for a Coroner had been belayed, and the SWAT team had arrived and deployed around the building.

"You are under arrest, it's a miracle you're not dead. You took enough hits to put down a Scatterran in full armor." The Sergeant commented, while the Medics looked her over.

"Af̱tí̱ eínai ygií̱s." One of them said, completely flabbergasted.

The Sergeant nodded, before he turned to Maria.

"We have a lot of questions for you, do you understand me?" He asked, while a Medic pressed a device to her neck to take a DNA Sample. The device compared DNA through a sub-dermal scan, entirely painless. It was then the medic turned to the Sergeant.

"Af̱tí̱ den eínai sto kentrikó mi̱tró̱o." The Medic said.

"Skéfti̱ka tóso, kaneís den to xéro̱ boreí na párei dýo diataráktes sto stí̱thos kai ta pódia." The Sergeant replied, before turning back to Maria.

"Where are you from?" He said, looping his hand under her arm to pull her to her feet.

A low growl rumbled through Maria's throat as the medic pressed the device to her neck, and her fingers twitched against the urge to grab the man by his throat. All around her guns were drawn, and any impulsive movement on her part was likely to leave her writhing on the floor once more. And so she bided her time.

Her eyes found the Sergeants as he spoke to her, and her lips curled into a snarl.

"Release me," she growled.

Her accent was thick - near unintelligible even - and it didn't seem to be of any of the Langaran dialects. Perhaps she was from one of the outer planets in the Aschen Empires, somewhere more remote and less known to the Taurons. Or perhaps she wasn't Aschen at all.

"That's not going to happen." The Sergeant said as he gestured towards the parked patrol car.

"You've got a lot of things to answer for, leaving a trail of destruction and wounded in your wake." The Sergeant added, gesturing to the cacophony of sirens and the proverbial light show of flashing blue lights outside.

"You're going to come with me and we're going to have a nice long discussion about what you did here, and then we're going to talk to Immigration and figure out what to do with you." He said, tugging on her arm to lead her outside, while other officers began to secure the scene.

"If you can cooperate, we might see about keeping you away from the LDA Suits back in Caprica, hm?"

Maria offered no further words as she was pulled from the building, but her eyes were cold and calculated in assessing her surroundings, and the officers in near proximity. She seemed pointedly oblivious, or simply uncaring of her current state of dress - or lack of. The disruptor bolt had incinerated much of her shirt, and her clothes didn't share in her regenerative capabilities.

It drew questioning looks and speculation from the onlookers though, especially as no sign of injuries remained to explain the state of her clothes.

No opportunity for escape presented itself though, and soon she found herself sitting in the back seat of the patrol car.

She might have spoken further, but she wasn't comprehending much of what the man was saying, and she didn't want to betray her ignorance by asking into his words for clarification. Caprica? LDA? Suits? The words meant little to her, and so she kept her silence.

Once the car was off, the drive through the city would be somewhat long. Through winding country roads and straightaways out of the city, few words would be exchanged after this.

While they were driving calls had been made, as were arrangements that would be waiting for them at the CPF Detention facility outside of town.

The Detention facility itself was a rather unremarkable building, sharing the typical characteristics of the buildings in the area, with it's modern and imposing design, and fortified structure..

Inside the Sally Port Maria would be put into a change of clothes, a basic medical examination would follow, along with applying a control collar. Similar to the old slave collars, it would provide a debilitating shock at the push of a button. it made things easy for her captors.

The Collar would be attached by chain to a long metal pole, and Maria would be led through the halls after being given a bright red jumpsuit and an opportunity to change.

No doubt she'd have put up a fight, and the men guarding her would have to remind her through a painful collar shock. Though All in all it was a fairly smooth process.

Once everything was said and done Maria was led to a small room, a table and two chairs. She would be released from her bindings at this point and told to sit.

Should she sit, the officers would walk out, and another middle aged man in a white uniform would step inside, closing the door behind him.

"Would you like some water? Something to eat? I understand you've had a rough day."

Maria rose from her chair, her hands on the table as she growled out her words.

"What I want," she bit out, "is for you to release me."

Her grasp over the common tongue had strengthened greatly during her time with the Invictus, but her accent was thick.

"I am Ulfhednar, and you will release me," she growled.

The threat was an empty one though, and in her current predicament she had no means of forcing her captors to release her.

George looked at the paperwork in front of him, and then up to Maria, and then he gestured for her to sit.

"I can't do that right now, but if you help me, I might be able to help you." George said, leaning back in his chair.

"I have a feeling you're not from around here, no recording in our central registry, no ID Documents.." He said, reading over the preliminary reports.

"Not to mention you trashed half a city block, injured three officers..." He said, turning the page. "Do you have a concept of.. crime and punishment?"

"Your men attacked me," she retorted vehemently.

It was difficult to say if she had any concept of crime and punishment, but she certainly didn't seem to have a strong grasp on law enforcement... or of the various Langaran divisions as she seemed to mistakenly assume George was some person of direct authority over the ones who had detained her.

She made no move to take the indicated seat. She was riled, and sitting just left her pent up agitation to simmer.

He jotted a few more notes down on his notepad, before he looked up to her and he shook his head.

"Why don't we get started with a name, Mine is Detective Hendricks, or you can call me George." He said, watching her movements, her face, and her reaction.

"In this society we have rules, those men wouldn't have attacked you for no reason. Let's look at the dash cam footage from the Heraclitus officer that made first contact."

It was then a flickering holographic screen flickered on a wall in the room, and George directed Maria's attention to it, while activating the Audio translator for her.

It showed Maria walking through the streets, and the Heraclitus officer approaching her.

"Hey! You come here! I need to see some papers!" The Heraclitus officer called out.

"Tell me why you're in the middle of the road." He added.

"Where is here," Maria's own voice was now heard. As well as her body language displayed on the videoscreen.

It was then the exchange continued, the Herac's words ringing again. "The speech basic, Caprican Maybe?"

He then turned back to Maria, this time speaking much more forceful. "Identification documents now!" He demanded, and then he spoke again. "I will not ask again, documents!"

The Herac now spoke into his radio in response to Maria's body language. "Dispatch, I have a noncompliant, possibly Caprican. Calling for help." He said, and then he reached out to grab Maria. "Under arrest." He said, with the words now translated.

It was then Maria slammed him through the windshield, and George turned the video off.

"What does this tell you?" He said calmly.

"It tells me that your man should have kept his hands to himself," she retorted.

She didn't quite comprehend the word 'arrest', even translated. There was probably a similar enough word in her native tongue, but she had never learned the word in the common tongue and its meaning was lost on her.

Her arrogance and hostility showed little sign of abating, but she seemed to have no quarrel with providing a name. But then again by her original culture a name was something to be openly known, so that others might speak it and know of your deeds and acts. It wasn't something to hide.

"I am Maria Raghild, of the Liulfring," she told him. "An Ulfhedinn of the north."

"He was arresting you." George said flatly. "That basically means because you broke our laws, walking in the middle of the street and not giving him any identification. He is allowed to take your freedom and take you prisoner." He said, trying to simplify the concept.

"What planet are you from, where is this Liulfring?" He said, trying to get a feel for where she was from.

"As it stands you're going to be facing a lot of charges. You'll stand before a Triad before being sentenced. Something like this carries stiff penalties, under Tauron law it's usually confinement and hard labor."

"Jörthr," she replied.

Her grasp of the common tongue was still developing, and she seemed apt to reverting to her native tongue when faced with words that she didn't know the common translation of, or when she encountered words for which there was no common translation for.

"I do not know this... identification," she added.

Her agitation seemed to be keeping to a low simmer as it became apparent this man didn't seem intent on shooting her again.

George nodded some and he produced what looked like a driver license.

"Identification." He said, finally getting a grasp of what was going on. It was then he turned to what looked like a mirror.

"Call Immigration, looks like we have someone whose not from the Empire." He said, and then he turned back to Maria.

"Jörthr..." He spoke the words with a heavy accent, muddling through the pronunciation. "Interesting, I'm not familiar with that term." He said, turning a page.

"Alright, let's see here... Unlawful entry into the United Aschen Empire, Unlawful entry into the Province of Tauron... Failure to display Identification to a Peace Officer... assaulting a Peace Officer, six counts, and unlawful flight from Detention." He said, listing the charges.

"Do you understand these charges?"

"Yes," she stated flatly.

Though truthfully she didn't understand much of anything George was telling her. She was weary of the situation though. Whatever was to come of things would come, regardless of her understanding of the how and why of things. She would contend with that when the time came.

She finally took the seat across from George. The agitation and restlessness was still there, but for the time being, the wolf-mind had withdrawn. It wasn't gone though, no never gone, and it was particularly strong today - a fact that didn't go unnoticed. The last thing that was needed was for her to lose herself to the beast right here and now though. This man had made no effort to harm her, and with that in mind she made an effort to keep her temper reigned in.

Five and a half seconds was the time it took to travel through the Bifrost between Terra, and Langara. When Ayla emerged, she should have been working a return trip to Terra to Bifrost into the hospital, but Marlene had other ideas, and opted to intercept the return trip.

Marlene was wearing scrubs, a surgical mask covering her face.

Making a face, Marlene spoke up. "You really wanted to go in loud? In one of the most heavily fortified positions on Terra?" The IIA Operative asked, canting her head.

"Might I propose a better solution?"

"OH JESUS!" Annebelle screamed as she looked behind her, "How the hell did you people get here??? I could have swore you weren't there just now..." Annabelle looked down confused for a second and looked back up "More importantly, what are you doing here? I mean you obviously don't work here, or you would know that they have different colors on different days.

Annabelle stood up slowly from her Sniper's nest inspecting the strange wemon.

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.

"It's too late for quiet..." Marlene said to herself as she watched through space and time, the entire situation in the hospital was going tits up, several operators were going silent, and Kesslee had withdrawn.

"You want loud, Confessor?" Marlene asked, keeping her eyes affixed to the massive ring of electromagnetics, supercooled graviton conduits, and high-energy capacitors. The device was truly a feat of Aschen engineering, facilitating instantaneous transit anywhere in the universe.

"Prepare for transit!" Marlene ordered. "Wing City Hospital."

Marlene kept her eyes locked onto the Bifrost Hub. It began to hum, as monstrous energies built within the capacitors.

Gritting her teeth, she cast a glance sidelong at Ayla, while taking her right hand and reaching into the jacket pocket of the scrubs she was wearing; she produced a small crystal, and stared at it for several moments.

"So you want to go in loud, huh?" Marlene asked, letting the crystal sink into her skin, thin filaments of shimmering white began to follow the patterns of the veins in her arm, and the woman grit her teeth at the searing pain that began to radiate through her arms.

She fell down onto one knee, as the shimmering white lines moved into her chest, then across the left side of her body. A moment later she opened her eyes, pure energy began to radiate from them, like two glowing white orbs.

Slowly she began to stand up, as the entire Bifrost hub began to shake, and buckle under the immense transfer of power.

"I'll show you loud!" Marlene called out, her voice reverberating in an almost surreal fashion, while a column of light shot fourth from behind them, into the large interconnected ring before them.

"Let's do this..."


A moment later, they would be thrust fourth towards the portal, pulled into the Bifrost, and on their way to Terra.