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The costume closet, MMHQ

Joel clapped his hands together. "Oh, it's like a bottomless bag of wishes!" he said delightedly, as Agrotera unfolded her doorway. He stepped through the door and examined the racks of clothes, which shifted at his approach to present items in his size. "I think a retriever fits you. You're always dragging something home to play with." Joel pulled several items off the rack, and headed for a dressing room. "By the way, nothing in that bag is allowed outside the main base." he called over his shoulder as he entered the dressing room.

Soon the dressing room door opened again, and a young Indian man in pale khakis came out, wearing a dark green, long sleeved, thin cotton shirt with a skull design on it. His shoes had been changed to black Nikes. He looked at Riku and snickered. "Hey Riku, you've got a caterpillar on your face." He didn't get the seig heil reference, but that face just looked absurd in black leather.

Then he noticed the door off to his left, hidden behind a mirror. "What's this?" he asked. It made sense that there would be a door in here; not everyone could come and go by way of portal. Deciding that he should know how to get back in here at some future date, he opened it and poked his head out. The costume closet was located right next to the steel door which, he remembered, led to the portal room. Then he happened to look through the viewport on the door, and saw a body lying on the portal room floor in a puddle of blood. "Medic!" Joel shouted. He bolted through the portal room door, only peripherally aware of the awesome scenes playing out on the walls. "We need a medic here!" He reached Larry's body and started applying first aid to his injuries. Briefly, he wondered what he was tearing up for bandages, and then realized that he had still been carrying his turban when he left the dressing room. At last, the ridiculous thing had served a useful purpose.

Riku fiddled with the device a little more. After turning into Stalin, Mao, Jesus and Chuck Norris, he finally reverted back to his original form. "This thing has WAY too much potential. Good thing noone outside MM knows about these." He then turned down the hall. When Joel bolted, he followed, seeing the one known as Larry lying bloody on the ground. The smirk on his face disappeared. "What the hell happened here?"

Agrotera followed closely behind, her pout about Joel saying she had to leave her toys behind quickly being forgotton. Now she frowned and leaned over, watching Joel's work. She turned quickly and ran out the door to the hallway, leaving the door to the portal room open. She saw a confused medic rush out of the infirmiry, bag in hand as she leaned out the door. She waved her arm and yelled.
"Hey, medic! In here, bring a stretcher, you'll need one!!" Then she dissappeared back into the office as the medic gave a few terse orders to someone behind him and then ran toward them.
She stepped back to Joel's side, looking down at Larry worridly.

Riku watched the exchange between Joel and the medics, then watched as Larry was carried off. He was suddenly aware of a presence outside the HQ building. "What the...." he walked down the hall, then proceeded to run towards the entrance.

Several minutes later, he was inside a clearing in the forest. The presence was gone. However, his hearing, which rivaled that of dogs, picked up several sounds in the trees around him. He slowly drew his katars.....

and heard the sound of a rocket launcher being fired behind him.

He quickly turned and saw an RPG coming right at him. He side-stepped it, slicing it up the center. The two halves fell harmlessly to the ground. He then turned again.

A large group of soldiers began to file out of the forest, AK-107s at the ready. They wore outfits vaguely like those Russian Spetznaz wore, but with the familiar symbol of Kavinsky Enterprises on their arms. Riku readied himself, but felt something whoosh past him. It felt like the wind, but he saw something inside it, something that looked human. Then a large gash erupted in his side.

Larry laid there quietly, his wounds at the mercy of medics who worked for a company he wasn't even officially a part of yet. Even though he was half-conscious at this point and swiveled between sleep and wake every now and then, he could hear the medics joking. And he wasn't happy.

"Falco Lombardi?!" Larry thought to himself "Like I haven't heard that one a million goddamn times! And they think they can just push me around because I'm a rookie by their stoko, weird-a** company rules? If they give me any crap about fetchin' cats when I'm all awake, I'll make them reach down and fetch their..."

Larry's train of thought was stopped momentarily, when he felt a large needle stick into his arm and navigate to his vein. "Ah!! You're supposed to rub me with alcohol!!!" he thought but was unable to say "Well I better get stable and get there soon. Cause if they don't gimme a raise for this, they better help me figure out who that girl with the knife was!"

After a few minutes, Larry started feeling warmth and relief. They must have been pumping blood back into him. He drifted off one final time, to wait it all out.

The portal room, MMHQ

Joel looked around. Riku had vanished. He hadn't even seen him leave. "He probably went to the bathroom." Joel dismissed Riku's absence."Come on; let's get a car. Riku will catch up when he's finished. He's got a phone, so he won't lose us."

He started walking out of the portal room. Only then did the full effect of the portal room hit him. He surveyed the changing scenes on the walls and the silver portal at the end with... not awe, but he was definitely impressed. This was a Class II omnidirectional permanent portal, probably with an automatic return system so that agents could return when they were finished with their missions. He hadn't seen anything like this since the Nexus. There were small worlds that were worth less than this room. In the wrong hands, it would be a source of a thousand alien technologies. In his hands, it could maybe be his ticket home. And here he was walking away from it, just because he had agreed to lead a mission for a mercenary company whose less-than-inspiring name he had never heard before he landed in their library. Life really wasn't fair.

"Let's get this thing started!" With a convincing-looking smile, Joel left the portal room, headed for the vehicle bays.

((Are we just going to leave poor Riku alone??))

She closed her eyes on a silent groan, though she obediently followed along with Joel. She really hated cars. She wasn't sure if it was the whole half animal side, or if she was just old fashioned, since she had been around much longer than the original Ford himself had been. One would think the shapeshifter could simply change into a dog and sit in the seat with her nose out the window, but it was really degrating. They would attract too much attention in a big city coming in on horses, or with Joel on her back if she were a dragon or elephant or something. Though her lips twitched at the circus picture that invoked she sighed and tugged at the sleeves of her shirt.
That itching feeling was still riding the back of her neck, making her nervous. She reached a hand up, rubbing the back of her neck where the feeling persisted. "I think I will go ahead and shift, so that we can be seen leaving like that. We need them to think you just brought a Mishaps Cop Dog or something to take care of the job. O, and we need those Light Crystal, uh, things Riku was talking about don't we?"
As she finished her sentence and waited for a reply, her shift started immediately. Instead of the clow build it was earlier, there was only a split second where a very muted white glow was around her. Then her nails were clicking on the floor as the black retriever trotted at Joels side. All of her clothes and blades would come back when she shifted back. She had never figured out where they went, or how, but she just knew they always came back. The scent of heavy cleaner, plastic, and metal was thick in the air around her, making her sneeze at first a time or two. After that she inhaled and caught a faint whiff of blood, and felt vibrations under her paws as though from explosions. She hesitated, one paw lifted, but heard nothing more, and assumed it was other mercenaries training. After a moment she had an idea, and she shifted again. This time into a wilder looking wolf with slightly shaggy hair and big paws, her back nearly reaching Joel's hip. Her eyes were ice blue, and her fur was pure white. She had the distinctive look of a breed she had once seen in the mountains of Russia, and knew they were native to the region thier targets were after. If a wolf could grin, she did, baring her fangs in a parody of a smile.
"By the way, did you pick up a leash from the closet? The manager will have a fit if there is a dog loose, especially one that is suppose to be staying in the hotel."

((
@Acheron: We're not leaving him. Just, Joel can't hear the fighting from here, and he has no logical reason to go outside looking for Riku... unless he gets a car and tries to leave.

@Sonny: I'll get to the doctors tomorrow. Err.. later today. I need sleep now.
))

Parking garage, MMHQ

"Way ahead of you," Joel said, swinging a bundle of shirts tied with a long black leather collar and leash. He had wrapped them in the closet before the whole thing with the half-dead agent, and picked them up again when they had passed by on the way out. The shirts themselves were a trick he had learned in his Special Ops years, that simply changing one's shirt could make a completely new disguise. "I agree, we will need those light weapons on the attack run. But, this is just the recon run. Light crystals would alert them to our presence, and we don't want that just yet."

Joel and Agrotera reached the garage. Or rather, they reached one wing of the garage. The entire thing was huge, and stocked in the Mishap's trademarked we-have-everything style that Joel was beginning to recognize. A concrete road spiraled downwards into an underground parking garage. A full catalog of cars sat on a tiny table in a corner, but Joel didn't need it. "That one." he said, pointing at a blue Subaru in mint condition. He opened the door for Agrotera - or Styxx, as they were on a mission now. Whatever she was called, she didn't have hands at the moment.

"Riku should be back by now. Maybe he's lost." Joel pulled a cell phone out of a pocket. (And where had he found one of those? The closet? Ah, well, it didn't matter now.) He hit the talk button and held it to his ear. "Requiem." he said, and the Mishaps operators patched his call through to Requiem. Wherever the assassin was, his phone should be ringing or vibrating about now.