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Life Laboratories


Oliver plunked the heavy box down on the ground in front of the cages. The smoke and dust in the area was getting thicker, he had to work fast. Pulling his scarf up over his nose, he began to unlatch each minipet cage, wrangle a prototype collar onto the creature inside, and turn the runic device on with a click. He wrote the pet's ID number directly onto the collar with a sharpie from his pocket. Both the pet and it's research could be saved this way...

Somehow blood had gotten onto his hands. It made some of the latches slippery, but he didn't have time to worry about that, he just wiped his hands on his pants and kept going. Soon he had around ten or twelve minipets freed, milling nervously around his feet. But he was starting to feel dizzy. From inhaling the smoky air? From the bleeding? Oliver pushed himself to keep going.

He began to lose track of the minipets he had freed, but soon he came to the bottom of the box. There were no more collars. All that was left was a strange bundle of cord, with a similar appearance to the collars, but no visible instructions... There were only five minipets left in cages, and Oliver's choices were to let them loose to dissipate within the hour, or leave them where they were for now and hope they could be rescued in carriers...

Surely he was hallucinating, the blue quest markers led him to the door of the lab now, where he slid down the wall onto the cold tile. He just needed a breather... Maybe he wouldn't be able to get help... Maybe he would die here...

Oliver kicked open the door with his foot as he sat slumped against the wall, creating an opening just wide enough to let the collared minipets squeeze out and scamper headlong down the hallway. Dozens of little toenails clicked on the tile as they ran right past where Molly and Dakota were attempting to make their own minipet rescue.

Life Labs Entrance

Jack pushed through the doors and Chel followed him. The sight that greeted her was mostly what she expected: chaos and nothing but it. Blue crystals everywhere, hunters screaming and trying to find each other. Nobody really getting anything done, at least not yet.

"Portals?" she questioned of Jack. Clarice's voice was still blaring that they were in a level S-3 threat, meaning the portals had probably already been shut down to contain the threat, but it was worth checking.

Any semblance of fear, cowardice or indecision had been lost to the labs. Chel had made her decision, and intended to follow through with it. She was here now, and she had a goddamn job to do, Merlin be damned.

The girl started crying in great ugly sobs. She hadn't meant to.



---



---

It takes several precious minutes, but soon the trapped hunter is freed up enough to leverage themselves out of the rubble with a brief, dazed thank you to Finley. There were other hunters still trapped and the window of time to rescue them was getting narrower and narrower.



---

It would take a moment of very quiet focus but in the back of his mind, Rep would feel the faintest echo of Marie's cold presence as he neared a set of doors, slightly open and beginning to crack until Harrison neared them. Within, stood H, weapon laid down on a strange table to form a circle.

Runes were lighting up on after another, slowly, much too slowly.

"Hello, William." Harrison, of course, he ignored.



---

The wall crumbled, revealing a massive cave system behind it. The entire area looked completely unaffected by the blast.



---

Rodney found the room untouched, quiet but for the occasional soft ping of a digital heartbeat. There was the distinct feeling of a ward, of protection within the room. Lining the walls sat a number of hunters, each with weapon drawn, sitting peacefully across their laps, glowing in the dim. Eyes closed, the power of their weapon pulsed with the ward.

Feeding it.

The glow of power grew weaker by the minute.



---

Rep hadn't been sure how they would find H as they arrived in the chaos and he found himself desperately scanning the building for anywhere that might seem likely, there was no way into the infirmary and the way to H's actual office was a nightmare, but he felt it, felt it enough to almost stop in his tracks, taking hold of Harrison's hand and pulling them both in another direction as the familiar chilly echo of Marie ran her fingers along his spine. With the strange emptiness that had been left by her departing, even mended, he found himself drawn to it before he even registered on a surface level what he was feeling.

He took in the strange setup with uncomprehending eyes, what he'd learned of runes had always been rudimentary, identifying, labeling, the ******** kiddie lessons in the stuff. It worked like computer code but like code from the ******** matrix, and he'd never had the time to invest in figuring it out, there were times like now he wished it was all more than just glowy s**t to him.

It never failed to unnerve him when H greeted him cordially, too used to looks of resentment and dislike from other people or flat out irritation. He wasn't sure which he preferred. He didn't desummon the weapon despite the awkwardness of not doing so, scared it wouldn't come back. "Hey." he said, and it was small and awkward. "Are you awright?" And this too, was small and awkward.

It looked like a summoning circle and for a moment he remembered the mission months and months ago and Mark's laptop, mentioning something about the resurrection, the return, something about something ******** horrible coming back whose details remained vague to him. He wished he was more a thinking kind of guy and less a ******** slacker. "We thought you might need, like, help. I mean you and Marie are tough as ******** like... but..I don't know."

H's prayer circle

H and his weapon weren't too different in that they had a sort of ancient predator lizard gaze that it wasn't very nice to be in the laser beams of. Harrison was grateful for avoiding it.

He stood there looking both nervous, suspicious, and trying to be unobtrusive.

There were a lot of reasons to be nervous around H.

H also looked like he was trying to do some kind of science, which... Harrison had no idea what the hell it entailed. But boy, it sure was...glowy science.

Hurricane

It had been a simple matter of just checking in, and Maebe was satisfied. Every so often her phone would vibrate in her bra, letting her know he'd said something else. It usually wasn't more than a 'be careful' or a 'don't fall down holes' and it was always exactly enough to stave off the worry that would make her make exactly that kind of stupid mistake. She focused on her own work, because she could - he was alive, safe enough to DM, so she had nothing to worry about.

Dragging an injured Life technician out of the rubble had turned out to be one of the hardest things for her - he was unconscious, so he was no help, and she was not happy about it. Grumbling unhappily all the way to the entrance, she dropped him off and nudged him a few times, before finally checking for a pulse.

He was alive, and that was enough for her. She'd already done more than she had set out to accomplish, and now she began to feel like an overachiever. Quickly, before anyone could see that she'd rescued a man, Maebe slid back inside to go searching for something less strenuous to help with.

He'd said he was singing, and she'd promised she would kept her ear out for the sound, even as she listened for any signs of life. This time, instead of finding the latter, she finally picked up hints of the former. It was too deep down a hall she really didn't want to go down - it looked like it was ready to crumble any second. Instead, she cupped her hands in front of her mouth and yelled out his name.

"DAWSON."

Somewhere between the training grounds and the lighthouse

She was sobbing and Milo felt fantastic about it, but had seen enough movies and television shows to not just ease up on her. Half the time it was a ploy, "'M hoping that's true, wahine but you still kinda did and it sucks, ya."

Obviously they couldn't just stay here like this but it wasn't exactly like Milo had brought anything with him to subdue her. Punching her or something to knock her out didn't seem to be the go to option just yet, she was still one of them from the looks of it and he could give her the benefit of the doubt that something had... happened to her to make her do what she did. For now, he'd pretty much sit on her, question her. Maybe he should text someone, carefully he freed a hand and reached for his phone. "What happened to you, wahine?"