Welcome to Gaia! ::

((Replied to your comment in the other thread, Lise. Yeah, they were in the cafe earlier. Cafe party. Heh.))

Maxwell couldn't help but slightly smirk upon seeing Cwen's reaction to the loud noise. His reaction to the noise was simply to blink. The underworld had made him used to such noises. The last time he saw her react like that was when they were much younger--he tossed a bug at her... except the bug was actually a piece of candy.

"Of course, Cwen," agreed the godfather about the truce with a serious look on his face. "You do realize though there's almost nothing I can do about severe technical issues such as this?" He waved off the screen. "But," he mused, "we can probably show support for them at a press conference like you suggested." He swirled around the whiskey in his glass. "Tell me where you would like to hold the press conference--your office or mine? It'll only take me a few minutes to set everything up."

"Oh!" Max exclaimed as if he remembered something. "You still skilled with a sword after all this time? It will come in handy if you're going to spend some time around me. I'm sure you know that certain people would love to see us out of the way... permanently." Maxwell was of course referring to his enemies in the underworld. Even in a life or death situation like this, Maxwell was still a target, and Cwen's less than friendly history with the underworld made her a target as well. Eliminating the both of them at the same time would be a delicious treat for certain people.

(Hey-o. Sorry for not posting in a while. My mother likes to hog the computer, claiming she has to do "Work". She won't even let me get on when she's asleep.)

Per quickly shot a glance at Angelina, then nodded lightly. "Currently, the only thing in disrepair are my legs, as can be seen by the metal slat on top of them. I've lost full neurosensor capability." He quickly shot a somewhat sarcastic look at Angelina as if to say "If I could move the slat, I would." He couldn't force himself to change to his Powere Forme because of the fact that it required a key to open up the hatch for his processing unit in his cranium. Only two people had that key. Angelina and Zazzy, but, only Zazzy knew where to put his hand to change Per's Forme, so, ultimately, Per couldn't move the slat.

Zazzy heard the kick shortly after he had started the Morse code. He quickly backed up about four paces, said a silent apology for Per, then held Hon'no in the Hiten Misturugi style while closing his eyes, slowing his breath and his heartbeat. About a second afterward, his entire body completely vanished from normal human eyes as several loud metal-on-metal screeching noises were heard. This would be because he had slashed about one hundred times in that second. This would cause the slat and Per's legs to rapidly dwindle in size until they were the size of peas in about the span of a second. There would also be a tremendously loud and dull "Thud!", which caused the hallway to shake violently for a few seconds, causing small pieces of rubble from the ceiling to fall down. Some of the pieces of the slat shot forward and backward about two feet. This was why Zazzy had backed up and was trying to get Elliot to back up.

Aubia just shook her head at all the commotion among the Admins. They needed to get to work. The building was taking damage, someone had to find and fix the damage, or else she would do so herself. Imagine that, being outworked by a woman in high heels.

She set her jaw and went back to megaphone duty. "Go, go, go!" she shouted at the other stray Admins in the hall. With one end of the hallway obstructed, she backtracked and began to go back around the way she came. There would be people, she knew, who did not yet know what was going on. The Admin compound was that large, and - well...

No, everything would be alright. There was just a new hacker on the street, Aubia reasoned with herself. Having some fun at the cities expense. She turned the corner, her eyes stinging. Warlock was better than this. Warlock and Klox City were two halves of a whole. Everything would be fixed.

She paused a moment, leaning up against the wall at the corner she just turned. "...Could they be related?" she asked herself. Biting her lip, she moved on. People had to leave the compound, or risk getting hurt.

Frowning, Elliot backed away from the door, unsure as to whether or not it would be okay to leave Per there, trapped, while someone on the other side bashed the wall in. She gave the other woman a crazy look. Morse code? I don't know how to do that! But it didn't matter, for no sooner did she and the woman with the toolbox back out of the way, someone started pounding on the metal slat from the other side. Elliot jumped a little, startled by the sudden violent sound. She watched quietly as the metal slat was demolished, along with Per's legs. The corridor shuddered violently for several moments, shaking free bits of ceiling that rained down on everyone inside. Elliot flinched and shielded her head with her arms, mentally growling as dust coated the frames of her glasses. Dammit, did no one appreciate clean, scratch-free glasses these days? All this dust would scratch her lenses like there was no tomorrow. Oh well. She would have Armand buy her some new glasses. He owed her for this hellish day.

Slivers of metal rocketed from the slat, zooming this way and that. Despite her best efforts to dodge the pieces, Elliot received several cuts on her arms and abdomen. Wincing, the scientist looked them over. They were by no means superficial, but weren't life-threatening either. She would live. Elliot couldn't decide what to think of that.

Blinking through the sudden flurry of dust and metal, Elliot peered through the doorway, staring at the man on the other side. He seemed to be waiting, so Elliot decided to leave him to the mechanic. She had no patience for this man, especially now that there was blood on her favorite lab coat, and because what he had done was, in her eyes, rather foolhardy, given the number of people that could've been hurt. But he was trying to help, which was more than most people here could say, so Elliot refrained from laying into him and decided to head elsewhere, someplace where her glasses wouldn't be in danger.

Elliot marched down the hall, spying Aubia walking ahead of her. The other woman seemed to falter, as if thinking. Sighing, Elliot walked up to her and grimaced.

"Looks like someone smashed his way in," she reported. "If he got in, then there's a way out. I'm sure if we follow his trail of destruction, we can all exit safely and quickly." Well, Elliot wasn't so sure about either safely or quickly, but it was all they got so far.

Of course Cwen knew that! There couldn't be business without people and a city! No one had even been outside the city to begin with anyway! However, Cwen didn't think of the city as a golden goose. It was just a city and their home.

The politician gave Maxwell a look when he recalled his firsthand experience. Blades work was not his thing apparently. Cwen didn't laugh, but his comment brought a soft smile on her face. "I hope you've gotten better."

She nodded. "Tell me when." She was ready to go and finished her meal too. A light saber type device was inside of her jacket. "Anything you want to say before we get down to business?"

((No worries. You could just make stuff up.))

Armand nodded cheerily to Flarn. "Stabilize the White Sector. I believe the others have that handled, wouldn't you say?" He gestured to all the noise down further in the complex and halls.

The red head researcher, as usual, kept the smile on his face as he listened to to the cryptic message that Jack played back to him, Flarn, and Antoinette. It was definitely full of white noise and static, and it was obvious that the message shouldn't have been that full of noise. Transmission of messages weren't THAT complicated. Armand wasn't sure what exactly the "spy" and "hall" parts meant. At this point, it could mean anything. Perhaps, Warlock would stop the lockdown because it realized that it was in error.

"Just a malfunction...." Armand confirmed to Antoinette's questions. He chuckled. "Let's get up close and personal with the system!" This was no ordinary malfunction, and the scientist could tell. Those words in the message sounded strangely like a defensive security mechanism, much more than a simple lock down. Then again, maybe Armand was over imagining things... people often accused him of that. Whatever the case, they needed to take a closer look. He knew that much. Too bad Ellie was tied up right now or in his view, otherwise he would have deferred to her.

"Eh," said Maxwell with a slight a shrug in response to Cwen's comment about his skill with blades, "I can use a switchblade quite well, but it's much more different than wielding a sword." Knife fights sometimes broke out in bars, and the mobster found the switchblade to be the most suitable weapon of choice for such scenarios.

"Well, let's get going," Max said as he got up and plopped a stack of neatly tied money onto the table. "This'll definitely cover more than enough of our expenses." The mobster put on his trench coat and fedora hat. "We'll take my limo." He gave a quick nod to Cwen and started walking to where his limo was parked.

The mobster ordered Ibane to get ready to drive them back to the Goldway. Max opened the door for Cwen. "Ladies first!" he said with a grin. "We can discuss things further along the way."

Antoinette nodded vaguely at Flarn and Armand. "Still... something bothers me about the rest of the message. What do halls and spies have to do with anything?" Actually, it was a hall and a spy. Then something about a guard, and shutting down. It made little sense to her, though something was nibbling at the back of her mind. Hall... or Spy? One of those words seemed to be important somehow.