CoR Klaxon: Rise

Jimmy was thankful for the help inside of the gate because otherwise he'd never make it. How the hell had he even get here with his busted body. He guessed that the drugs were just that good at amping up his adrenaline while dulling pain. Leaning a great deal on Rhetta, Jimmy knew there was no way in hell he could put weight on his left leg. When Nessa came forward and offered her help via a ‘piggy-back’ ride or just help walking, the already exhausted male studied her silently.

Let's just get on her back, Jimmy. Sure, it'll hurt, but you are about to collapse from exhaustion.

He finally stopped just staring and blinked a few times to clear his foggy mind. What had she said? Oh, that was right. She was offering herself to be his temporary mule or whatever. Why was he spacing out now? Fucking Jackals… He rubbed his face to try and focus and managed to nod at Nessa.

“Sure, back will probably be the best. I'm hurt everywhere, but I think that'll be quicker, so maybe less pain? I don't know, but might as well just do it. I'm sure I'll find a way to boss you at some point.” He tried to say the last part with a joking tone, but it fell flat. He mentally prepared himself even as a first aid kit was tossed at Nessa. Well, that was mostly a good thing. Hopefully there was enough inside the kit to fix him. If not, maybe they'd bury him somewhere in the railyard.

Needing to stop procrastinating,Jimmy held onto Nessa by the arm before limping behind her. With a loud yelp from the pain, he jumped up onto her back and bit back vomit just as Lark approached them. Shit, was he going to be mad that the borrowed clothing had been shredded?

“Hey… Lark. I'm sorry… so sorry…” Jimmy whimpered and tried to keep from crying. Stupid emotions.

“...Relatives were mad I was late… got… got punished. Took more drugs and after shifting and blacking out while still awake, I started puking up blood and fire… not healing… properly. I somehow got here… help…” Gritting his teeth, he clenched his eyes shut and begged his body not to throw up anymore.
 
Jimmy's mind seemed to drift in and out. Fighting for consciousness if she had to guess. That was something she wasn't envious of, sure she was a masochist but that required being awake for it. That also made her think damage might be worse internally, she was by no means a doctor but state he was in she could draw parallels some to things seen on TV. Well TV and one drive by her gang had been victim of to when she was younger. For all the trouble she got into though nothing was quite like this. If she was honest her pessimism of sitting around was washing away quickly. Sure the waiting sucked but it was looking like she'd have a rush today all the same.

She braced some as the guy jumped on board. A bit of shuffling to get comfortable into the carry. She worked out before her turning liked to think she could have done this back then too, she couldn't deny it was easier now though. A hand priefly letting go of a leg to catch the meditation tossed her way. The small container tucked into an armpit a s she returned to a better hold on Jimmy. She did her best to make sure anywhere touched wasn't wet. Anything to help keep from some additional pain. With everything settled she started moving towards closest patch of the yard she thought would do. Ideally minimal rock or gravel that might get in the wound. Wasn't the best of options but it was better than splintered wood or rusty metal, and closer then any structure would be. Nessa wanted to help where she could sure but times like this one had to make do. Especially when informed how the guy hurt everywhere and wasn't even in the mood to boss a prospect around, wasn't that what one lived for around a prospect?

He was at least kind of trying to run with the joke though and in decent spirits. Those would probably help, first day doctor play would probably go better with that mood then someone bitchy.

Joined soon by a guy Nessa didn't know. That didn't mean much granted, having sat on a crate not to far from the fence her company till now had just been Snow and Rhetta who hadnt exactly been her biggest fans or wanted to start up a conversation. Lark apparently given what Jimmy said. "Fire vomit is an actual thing? Kind of metal." The story sounded bleak, abusive really. Was murdering a pack members abusi d family allowed? She'd sign up for such things. She didn't know any of them well but violence she knew and she wanted this to be her family.

"Lark right mind helping set him on the grass there? May also need help applying pressure to some wounds if up for it and not busy." Helped or not Nessa would find the closest clear patch to set Jimmy down on. An additional momrnt taken to try and remove any hinderance and clear thr area some. If wasn't like the onyx and crimson haired fighter paid it any mind to where she moved things however just out of the way. Soon she'd start looking to get a better look at the assorted wounds. Ideally she wanted to think he should need more bandaids than stitches but wasn't like wishful thinking would change how wounded someone was.
 
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Draaven was making his way to the front gate, having received word just a few minutes ago that he was needed. He wasn't the typical choice for guard watch, but they where stretched thin. His eyes followed Rhetta and Jimmy as they passed ways. He didn't say anything, but he glanced to Nessa as well.

Not just one, but two strangers. He didn't like it.

It wasn't animosity he felt towards them. More of a cool calculated acceptance that they could be a security risk. Either deliberately via sabotage, or unintentionally through inexperience. Nessa at least had been sponsored by Marcus, which spoke well of her potential. Marcus had an eye for such things. Jimmy was a complete unknown though. From what little Draaven had gathered of Jimmy's previous encounter with the pack, the kid was an unpredictable element.

He trusted in Rhetta to handle herself though. She had things in hand, and Lark was joining them. So he put his concerns to the side and headed for the front gates.

Out of the entire pack, Snow was probably the most preferable to be keeping watch with. Draaven wasn't particularly forthcoming when it came to conversation, and paired with Snow that would make for a comfortable silence. They hadn't spoken much since his return, outside of pack business. An obligatory 'I was sorry to hear about your mother', and the occasional greeting had sufficed.
 
"You're missing the idea," Liam replied. "You're supposed to theorize about how it's not the same. You know, like over there," he continued and pointed towards the front gates, still trying to coax Rian into joining in.

"We're far enough to the outskirts of Lupaix that there's not a lot of cover for a frontal assault. But what about those catacomb tunnels that run beneath the old train station. What if someone found a way through?" he asked as he pointed out the collapsed building nearby. It was outside the fence perimeter, but situated much closer.

His theorizing was a bit fanciful, but it kept them alert and watching various points.

"And I don't know. Things got really bad with the Scions," Liam said after a pause.

His voice had dropped lower, and held a more somber hint to it.
 
Draaven was giving her the I don't like it look. Rhetta met it with one of her barely-there shrugs, acknowledging the sentiment. She didn't like it either, but at this point, having the possibly berserk werewolf inside the gates where she could keep an eye on him was better than the alternative. If he went crying back to the Jackals, they'd probably dose him up again and send him back.

Getting the worst of his injuries bandaged so he didn't bleed out was probably a good start on helping, and if Rhetta wasn't offering to send him down to Jesse just yet, there were a lot of reasons for that. She didn't want Jesse in any more danger than he was already in, especially since he and Ziessel might be dealing with a first shift sooner rather than later. Also, not sending him down to the infirmary meant no one was going to be able to give him a transfusion. She wanted him just a little slow, just a little off balance, just a little easier to put down just in case that was where this was headed.

Nessa didn't quite seem to have figured out the tactical advantage of the tracheotomy comment yet. Jimmy either, though with his injuries and mental state, she wasn't really expecting it from him. She'd been serious, though - if he was breathing fire, then she wanted that fire breath coming out his neck rather than his mouth. It would mean a lot smaller range of motion for shooting the thing off, and make it easier to get behind him and take him out.

Of course, most people probably didn't think about that sort of thing. Rhetta did. That was fine. That was her whole thing, she was the one who thought about that sort of thing so that Baron or Mathis or Ragenard or, she supposed, Desmond - could handle leadership and getting the Pack where it needed to be, with the reliance that there was someone with them who would think about that and get it done if it needed to be done.

She liked that role. Having to be the one making the decisions about whether or not to bring Jimmy through the gate, that shit sucked. Fuck Rage anyway for making her call that one. She took a moment to glance at her phone, just to see if he'd said anything important, anything like we have her and we're headed back.

Not yet.

Rhetta put the phone away again, unwilling to spare it more than a moment, watching the railyard, tense, waiting for the attack she'd started expecting two hours ago. The edges of adrenaline gnawed at her, seeking the rush of release or the sudden letdown of security.

Not yet.



"Ah." Rian gave Liam a nod of understanding. The whole Scions situation was kind of a big question mark as far as they were concerned. Lupaix was a destination. Rian had never really paid much more attention to it than that. Sure, they were trying to now, but if things had gone differently, they could just as easily have been looking at the Scions instead of the Bloodstones.

But that didn't make Liam's feelings any less real, or anyone else's, really. It was all kind of a mess, and one that they didn't have any idea how to get out of. The fade in Liam's usual demeanor, though, that they didn't like, and so Rian decided it was a good time to apply themself much more seriously to the proposition of bizzare assault tactics, if only as a way to divert Liam from thinking about the other things.

"Well. I suppose if I were going to attack this place, I'd get a bunch of shifters with regeneration as good as they say yours is, and then launch them in here from across the river with a catapult."
 
Snow gave Draaven a nod of silent acknowledgement when he approached to join him on guard duty. Their feelings about watch partners were largely identical -- and he was just as glad for company that wouldn't feel the need to fill the silence with meaningless chat. With the situation surrounding Jimmy moving away, he returned his focus to the task at hand -- standing sentry.


"Hey, hey, you're okay," Lark murmured to Jimmy soothingly. "You don't have to apologise. You're gonna be just fine."

He did his best to keep it from showing in his voice, but the more that the teen spoke, the more a spike of anger drove itself into his stomach. If it turned out that his own family had done this to him... Lark wouldn't have called himself a vengeful person; he preferred to get his anger out in the moment, and with his fists rather than anything more drastic. There was always room for exceptions, however, and anyone who would do something like this to someone scarcely more than a kid -- and in their care, no less -- had first fucking dibs on that special VIP list.

"Yeah, I've got him," he replied to Nessa, helping her lower Jimmy to the grass. That only revealed more of his wounds, and Lark's face twisted. "Shit-- we should be taking him to Jesse, not laying him down here! He needs more than a bandaid and a sit down, especially if this drug's doing something to his regen!"
 
He fought so hard to block out the agony as Nessa held onto him, but it was a tough go for him because any movement seemed to send a sharp pain through his body. For what had to be the thirteenth time, Jimmy mentally cursed at the Jackals and the drugs he took. Focusing on Lark, feeling safe with the familiar male being close, he bit hard on his cheek, trying to keep from either passing out or crying. He wasn’t a pansy, damn it! He rested his head against his arms and let out a choked snort at the idea of fire vomiting being called metal.

“It sounds metal until it is coming out of you and you can’t stop it…” Jimmy coughed and swallowed back some bile, desperate not to throw up. Even with Lark telling him he didn’t need to apologize, he felt like he still needed to.

“But…. I ruined your clothes… I didn’t mean to, but if you want to take it out of my hide, please just do it now. Shit’s already topsy-turvy anyways. I don’t have money to pay you back.” Jimmy’s voice cracked, it was clear that he was used to having things taken out on him violently. He grimaced when Nessa with the help of Lark got him down on the grass. To say he was not quite picking up on Lark’s anger was pretty obvious, though if he did, he’d probably just blame himself.

“Uhn… just gotta… fix…” Mumbling, the injured teen tried to pull the shirt down over his wounds, but the fabric was sticking to his slightly healing wounds, making it worse. “I don’t want to go anywhere without you, Lark. I’m scared and you’ll safe and familiar.”
 
The suddenness with which the day transformed from a tense but quietly typical late spring morning into a chaotic maelstrom worthy of a two-dollar war movie was one of the vagaries of life that would marvel both the fool and wise.

Atop the roof of the terminal building, Rian and Liam would be the first to see any change in the scenery, although the slight meander in the river in this section meant their view of river went from no traffic, to suddenly two boats placidly but snappily flowing downstream.

No sooner were the boats in view of the over-watch pair, that the group by the front gate would see the first of the black SUVs rapidly drive past. By the time the second SUV rolled through their field of view, and they heard the brakes of the first, Draaven might recognize the familiar pattern, as a third SUV came into view and braked before it crossed their view.

The street was blocked, and twelve car doors were opened in unison, their occupants mirroring the movement of the eight men who suddenly were visible atop the boats. The movies and video games would have prepared someone like Liam well to recognize what gun running experience did for the others like Draaven, for the split second they had to recognize what they were seeing from the vehicles several meters beyond their boundaries on both sides: Grenade launchers.

The guys in the boats had the bigger six shooter revolving kind, and the guys on the cars the pistol-gripped-slung-under-their-carbines kind, and both proceeded to unload a salvo of grenades indiscriminately over the Railyard walls.

Rather than hope for lucky grouping amongst the Bloodstones however, it was clear the enemy intended their entrance to be more disorienting than immediately lethal. A small comfort to be had by all as a barrage of concussive grenades exploded into a cacophony of sound and force that smashed into their senses like a dozen tidal waves. Amidst the staggered explosions of noise and force came the lightly noxious and acrid smell of smoke grenades joining the fray as the folks in the boats continued their barrage with their larger capacity launchers.

The men on the cars got out and began to physically rush the area before the gate, a wall of covering fire beginning to ping around as two figures peeled off from the group of shooters and continued to walk to the gate. The twin ghouls casually pulled a bollard each from the ground, their supernatural strength allowing them to rip off the metal anchors from the reinforced concrete with ease. Their sightless corpse eyes hid their magical sight as the advanced ghouls rushed to batter the gate open with their makeshift rams, their skinless faces frozen grins of ecstatic terror. Their skin was nearly non-existent, and masses of grotesquely overgrown muscle were visibly writhing from within with a visible torrent of animating magic power.

From beneath the ground of the yard came a rumbling as another ghoul burst through near the naughty cart. Amidst the smoke and explosive force, it sounded like at least yet another of the monstrous creatures was busy tearing through the chain-link fencing at the back, putting it on the path to back up the monster surrounding the naughty cart after it got done opening a path for more to brave an approach off the boats and up the concrete wall that awaited a dozen feet from the riverside.

Not all of the assembled Bloodstones had experience with such a degree of coordination and determination in an attack, the tactics more at home with paramilitary experience than your usual gang violence. But enough of them had, and the rest had imagination. Those not yet Bloodstones would find themselves with scant moments to get it, if not together, then at least packed way the fuck down.

Because while the world exploded in noise and disorienting booming pushes, the bad guys worked to burrow through their home’s defense. The time to hurry up and wait was over.
 
Nessa took a seat besides Jimmy and opened the med kit. There was a lot of wounds to try and see to but she wasn't expected to do full blown surgery just help stabilize. Stitching up anything would take time, the slap a bandage or wrap in gauze should come first. There hadn't been any water provided to clean the wounds but she didn't mind the mess herself. It was more blood than she had mostly been used to as a human but it wasn't alien either. She figured Jimmy didn't want to ditch clothes but between rolling up pants legs and lifting the shirt as needed she felt she'd gotten most 'band-aids applied'. Her hands were quick and study, if someonenwas watching her to study a prospect there was certainly tells.

Unflinching to the gore, might be useful to get her learning some medicine. Her hands were quick to work, they didn't waver under the pressure. But her expression was maybe a little to hyper focused. A bite of the lip, eyes maybe shifting about to much. Nessa might have been capable but that didn't mean lacking all sense of nervousness. "Jokes on you as a girl I always wanted to be a flamethrower when i grew up" She remarked somewhere between the two men talking in response to the metal joke of earlier. Wasn't true she wanted to be a claymore wielding knight. But she just wanted to try and use humor to help ease the tension.

Hands were going for a needle to try and start sowing actual wounds when the situation changed. Slapping bandages on wounds was one thing but the window she had to work had been far to short for stitching up anything. A few thuds are heard eyes shift and recognize what was close by. Nessa didn't think just asked immediately shifting position in almost a leap to cover Jimmy. "DOWN" she hoped it'd help Lark but she couldn't be cover for two. Immediately her ears were ringing there was no other sound just the alarm going off.

The world was just noise but it was a headache just how loud things had been. The pain helped her focus. Jimmy first. Bit of red on her chest from the blood soaked shirt but she didn't think any wounds were made worse. She had moved to cover his head and torso with her own body prevent it from shrapnel. With them being lucky it was more flash bang than lethal she didn't have to worry of further damage. Though she had no idea how well a punk did as a muffler. Content he was still breathing though her next act was simple pulling her karambit and pistol out. Dropping the cold curved blade on his chest. She wanted him to have something to defend himself.

Unload the pistol to check the mag one more time before slapping it back into the pistol and removing the safety. Fifteen rounds, needed to make them count. She'd stay kneeled over Jimmy. Wasn't sure she could get to cover yet so she'd be the cover for him. Golden eyes shift to the SUVs first. In the haze of her ears screaming from the grenades before she initially looked over the ghouls. In her mind melee fighters weren't ad much a fear as firearms. She tried to sort who was reloading their grenade launcher of those at the gate. She didn't have the best view but she figured some would go for bullets while others looked for further grenades. The hope was she'd catch someone about to let loose a grenade and drop him before it went off. Ideally resulting in friendly fire on that soldier's end.

She braced her pistol narrowed her eyes down the iron sight. Squeeze once, squeeze twice. The initial shot went for around the clavicle and jugular. She wasn't sure how well her equilibrium was with ears ringing. So Nessa focused a bit more toward center mass with the shot. Then tried to use the kick to guide her aim ideally helping direct the second round more in the assailants face. Thirteen rounds left she reminded herself. The prospect wasn't the best doctor, or best at showing upnon time. She lived for pain though inflicting or delivered. Her expression had a hint of manic glee behind it. Her nature had been to see to a fellow club members safety as her actions showed first. Instinct however was of a killer ecstatic to start trying to rip open throats and bash skulls. She favored melee of course but her pistol aim had the s a e viciousness to it.
 
Fucking finally.

Over two hours since Ragenard had gone out after Aimee. Two hours of waiting, impatient, for an attack. Rhetta could have said it wasn't that she wanted it to come, it was just that she knew it was going to and wanted to get it over with, but... no.

She wanted it. Fuck it all anyway, she wanted it. She lived for this shit.

The first SUV rolled past, an instant alert. No one in Lupaix drove nice black SUVs unless they were affiliated with someone. Unaffiliated people drove shitty little sedans that ran on second-hand parts and second-hand prayers. Anyone with enough money for a car like that was working for someone - and anyone working for someone who wasn't the Bloodstones shouldn't have been here.

"Snow, that's our hit!"

Alert the guard first, and the call would alert anyone else. Snow probably already knew, so would some of the others. The second vehicle was just confirmation, and the third would be standard practice. Rhetta picked up a bonus knife, one of the cache that Nessa had dropped earlier in the day. She had her own, but those were secured and she knew from experience she was probably going to lose the first one anyway. She tucked up against the perimeter wall, using it for cover against the shooting that would no doubt start soon, scanning the rest of the railyard as the tires squealed.

Boats, in the distance. Too convenient to be unassociated, especially with two of them. Her hand was in her pocket, a quick motion to send the text she'd preloaded earlier.

[Priority Group Chat Message] Rhetta: Railyard 💥


Not much of a message, but she didn't have much time. It wouldn't go to the prospects, but most of them were here, and the ones that weren't, Sel or Jesse could cue them in. It was the Pack outside that needed the information, not the ones here.

Metal flickered, in her peripheral vision, grenade-sized.

'Okay, Maggie, so when someone throws a grenade at you, you need to tuck up really little. Take a deep breath and hold it and squeeze your eyes shut tight in case it's tear gas. Fingers in your ears in case it's a concussive, and you want to try to squeeze up your chest a little if you can while you let that breath out slow.'

'What if it's the boom kind, though, Daddy?'

'If you're far enough away, the tucking up tiny will help. And if not, they're going to be scraping you up off the pavement and putting the bits in a bucket, aren't they? So always act like it's not lethal, because if you were wrong you're not going to regret it for very long anyway.'

Had anyone covered that with the prospects yet? Shit, she didn't know. She'd have to assume they were down or disoriented. The grenades went off; she could feel the reverberations. Concussive, then. Still alive, time to move. Gunfire was happening already, most of it incoming. Across the yard, the ground shifted.

"Liam! Below!" Fuck knew if he could hear her or anything else, but maybe someone else could take care of it. Nessa had a gun, was shooting past the gate, a little bit of cover fire.

"Shooters, get the boats!" The frontal assault they could deal with face to face - or face to gun, it wasn't going to be pretty - but they'd need their ranged attackers doing something about the people with the grenade launchers on the boats in a hurry. Why hadn't they just dropped explosives? There had to be more going on. She didn't have time to think about that right now.

They're Bloodstones. Trust them. They'd do their part, she'd do hers. Deal with the front. Moving enough so that she could see around the wall, it was getting torn up, two well-muscled-

No, not shifters. Those weren't shifters. Those were something that came out of stories, mostly, stories that her mother had gone over a little bit - not as much as shifters, but enough that she knew what she was looking at.

"That's a fucking ghoul."

This was not so much an order as a statement delivered incredulously. Rhetta didn't know if anyone would know what to do with this information. She didn't know what to do with this information. How the fuck did you kill a ghoul, anyway?

Well. Someone had better find out, in a hurry.

"Draaven." She wasn't speaking that loudly this time, but he'd have known how to deal with the grenades, and he knew her well enough to know what she was going to say even if he couldn't hear it.

"I'm going under."

Would you like me to go batshit, James Guiscard? She'd thought it earlier, when the message had come in about Aimee. It hadn't been the time for it then. Rhetta didn't really like doing it now, without having him here to hold her metaphorical - hand? Leash? Fuck knew. But their territory was under attack, and she needed to figure out how to defend it, without the limitations of silly little things like sanity or ethics or self-preservation.

Hopefully she had gotten enough of a scent-synchronization with the new prospects that she wouldn't categorize them as a threat. Jimmy might be a problem. Hopefully he'd stay back, or someone else would cue him in to stay back. There were a few people here who could pull her back, too, if it came to it. Draaven. Snow. Ziessel. The rest of them, probably not yet - and even for them, it wouldn't be the instant snap like it would with James. It'd take time, and she'd just have to hope they had it or didn't need it.

But these were rational thoughts, and rational thoughts didn't stop ghouls. Rhetta took one last moment to breathe, and then let herself fall into the chasm.

She wasn't angry. Anger was an emotion, and those were gone. Her expression had neutralized completely - no fear, no rage, no joy. Just perfect idle calm, as if waiting in line at the convenience store. Blank. Unreadable. Unfathomable.

The ghouls were breaking the gate. Her hand tightened on the blade she carried, waiting for a moment when she could slide under the bollard one of them held, twisting the knife up into its abdomen. She wasn't inhumanly fast like some of the others could be, she just didn't stop. Not once. There was no pause to figure out the next move, because she was already doing it. Her empty hand reached into the gash, wrapping around intestines, pulling a loop free and tossing it, hard, around the neck of the second one, pulling it tight and using the rope to pull herself up, above the bollard before it could club her.

Her knife came down, into its eye, changing the angle enough as she pulled it out to pop the orb out. How to kill a ghoul? Ragenard had issues regenerating with bits of other shifters in him. Rhetta got enough of a grip with her legs to get her hand off the bit of intestine and poke her little finger into the eye socket, bringing the knife down to lop off the last tiny joint and reversing the blade to hammer the little piece of finger deep down inside, then let herself go back to the ground.

Moving, always.

Her hand found the intestinal line above her, wrapping it around her wrist to start pulling herself back towards the first one.

It didn't matter what they were. They weren't Bloodstones, and that meant they needed to die.
 
In the infirmary everything had been relatively calm. Ziessel stood to the side, texting and keeping up with the group updates. Calling the people who failed to make contact after the first thirty minutes or so. She helped move Ethan once the other room to contain him was ready, told him he could keep the spiders. They were nice, kept other bugs whose presence was worse news, away. She was in her lupine form through all of this. The prospects had done good work with the room. Even though she was tense and serious, she quietly praised their efficiency. She'd remember it, too.

They barely had a moment to react. She saw Rhetta's message and growled softly, pinning her ears back. The explosions went off. She almost dropped her phone and leaned back feeling like all the air in her lungs had been punched out in a millisecond. A grenade. No, not just one... several, many, too many. She whined quietly in the back of her throat, her eyes were wide open. Her vision was obscured though, by the past. The last grenade she remembered, when she saw it. Shoved into the mouth of a wolf. More explosions. One more, guts everywhere. Jasper had been so young. In her nightmares, It wasn't just him that was blown appart. As hard as it would be in real life. Her twisted mind and dreams had delivered it all. Rhetta, Salem, Ragenard, Xandre... Their insides painting the walls, floor and ceiling. All over her too, inside out, in pieces- Ziessel bit her lip. She'd done it before, in jail. Just hard enough to draw a pinprick of blood. The taste was grounding, and she couldn't afford to spiral now. The spilled guts were in the past, most of them not even real. The explosions were here, now. She drew her gun and shook her head. Come on now. No overthinking. Jesse was fine, the two prospects were fine.

"Stay here." She whispered. "Scream if you need help." She'd hear them and rush back. Her speed and reflexes were still something she could rely on. She had made sure to not let them fall out of tune. Then, one last gaze directed at the prospects. "Protect Jesse." She said, her voice not loud but definitely intense. So they knew, that there wasn't a deity that would be able to help them if they didn't do their fucking job.

So she left them there and went around to the upper floor, fast. It gave her a chance to check on Ethan and come out with a slight height advantage from the storage room upstairs. The soon to be wolf looked fine, probably still counting spiders or talking sweetly to his imaginary arachnids. She let him be and moved on before he could notice her presence.

Ziessel had her knives, her machete was sheathed hanging from her hip. Gun in hand, tensed up, she opened the door. Nothing came in, she couldn't smell or hear anything directly on the other side. So, crouched, she came out into the light. Her heart was in up in her throat. Please, no death. She knew the prospects and Rhetta at the very least... had been outside.
 
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"Take it out on you? Dude, I ruin my clothes more often than anyone, you're fine," Lark reassured Jimmy gently. "It's okay. I'm not going anywhere. Let's just..."

Lark stopped mid-sentence as the sound of multiple vehicles approaching reached his ears. He didn't recognise any of them, and he was pretty confident that he knew the different telltale purrs of every damn car, truck or bike that the Bloodstones so much as regularly rented. That could only mean a few things. He doubted that any of the remaining missing pack members would have jacked three cars to make their way to the Railyard without so much as a warning text, which meant these were strangers.

That would be cause for concern under normal circumstances, and this wasn't normal circumstances.

"There's cars coming!" He yelled, knowing not everyone in the pack could hear as well as him. "And they're not ours!"

He straightened up, turning to face the road just as the vehicles were coming into view. Great. Big black SUVs were never a good sign. Lark pulled his pistol from its holster and glanced back at Nessa and Jimmy. "Get him inside, and keep guard," he instructed Nessa, before shifting his attention to Jimmy with an apologetic smile. "Sorry, kid, but you're gonna have to go without me for now. Better to be safe than feel it."

His focus returned to the road just as the doors were opening, and he clicked the safety off on his gun. He'd begun moving towards one of the crates in the yard to use as cover when all hell broke loose.

Lark had been prepared for their uninvited guests to start spraying bullets, but grenades? What the fuck?

Nessa's yell of warning snapped him out of his moment of shock just in time for him to fling himself behind the crate. Then the grenades went off, and the whole world went white. Lark's ears rang like a pair of church bells, and his head felt as though his brain was ricocheting off the sides of his skull. Sensitive hearing was enough of a double-edged sword when it came to the power tools he used in the garage, let alone when a fucking grenade exploded far-too-few feet away from his goddamned head.

He could make out muffled shouting from familiar voices, as well as the pop of gunfire, but he might as well have had his head underwater for all the sense it made to him. He couldn't afford to be taken out by something so minor as a loud noise, though, and so he grit his teeth and pushed himself back up to his knees, snatching up his gun from where it had fallen and straightening enough to peer out from his cover.

Predictably, Rhetta was in the fray already, and gunfire from the guard house told him Snow and Draaven were engaging too. For the time being, he still couldn't make out a word of what anyone was yelling, so for now he'd just have to make do with visual cues. He didn't have a good angle on the horrific creatures at the front (what even were they?) without risking hitting Rhetta -- which, while he was sure she wouldn't care about, he'd prefer to avoid -- and so he instead took aim at the ranks of gunmen further back, firing off a few shots into their ranks.

He'd been expecting a hit from a gang -- maybe even more suped-up fire-breathing junkies. But what the fuck were those? And who the fuck was coming at them with goddamned grenade launchers?
 
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(written by Script and Tiko)

Snow heard the roar of the SUV engines well before they came into view, stiffening in place and tightening his grip on his rifle. Lark’s call of alert was enough to confirm his suspicions that the incoming vehicles weren’t any of their missing members rolling in.

By the time they came into view, there was little doubt that whatever Ragenard had anticipated was coming for them had arrived. Whoever these people were, they weren't any common street gang with more balls than sense. There was a military precision to the way they pulled up, nigh in unison that had him grimacing with anticipation before they'd even come to a full stop.

This wasn't going to be pretty.

At Snow’s side, Draaven sighted down his rifle at the approaching vehicles. One... two... shit. It was too slow... too deliberate. In an ambush, you don't give your opponent time to process and react unless....

It was a tactic he had seen (and employed himself) on more than one occasion. It was also unfortunately the opposite tactic from what much of the pack often encountered in the streets of Lutetia where drive-by shootings were much more typical. There was no time for them to correct their mistake and redirect people towards the river. Not that they had enough people to cover everything that needed covering anyways.

Meanwhile Snow took a breath, steadying himself in the moment before the doors opened. Once they had, he waited only the split second long enough to confirm that it wasn't the LPD stepping out before he rolled out the welcome mat and opened fire directly through the window.

His mother had found many of the more advanced technologies of the city distasteful, and the prevalence of firearms was no exception. Her home in Aanar had known a few, but their moving parts fared poorly in the colder climates without the kinds of maintenance few of them had learned. She had always preferred a bow. Unlike with computers and other luxuries, however, her distaste had not outweighed her pragmatism. She'd had him practice shooting -- learning to use his heightened senses and reflexes to benefit his aim -- even before she'd started his hand-to-hand training. That being, in specific, the minute he was old enough to hold a pistol steady.

Where others might have opted to simply spray and pray into the ranks of those emerging from the cars, Snow fired in methodical bursts, aimed with pinpoint precision for the heads of their assailants. A couple of bullets to the brain would lay low all but the most potent of regenerators, and even they would be taken out of action for at least a few seconds.

He only had time for a few shots, however, before the opening salvo came in answer.

Grenades.

Draaven tried to warn them, but their opponent had timed their attack well.

“They’re going to hit us from behind!” Draaven shouted.

It was the only warning they got before the grenades were sent sailing over the wall into the railyard. Better than the alternative, but this was still going to suck.

“Get down!” Draaven hollered as he ducked away from the window and dropped down into a crouch, covering his ears against what was to come. The wall would shield them from the blasts, as long as none of them landed inside the room with them.

Following Draaven’s lead, Snow swore and ducked down away from the window, pressing his back to the wall and plugging his ears. Even through that and the walls of the guard house the cacophony of the explosions was all-but deafening. Heightened hearing had its downsides in situations like this – all the more reason to be glad none of those grenades had been sent their way.

The moment the last blast had subsided, he pivoted on a leg to duck up over the edge of the window and open fire on their attackers again. The covering fire didn’t leave him many openings to exploit, however – at least until Rhetta dove into the fray, distracting enough of the gunmen for him to get off some more shots of his own into their ranks. Make every bullet count. Assume everyone can shrug off any shot that doesn’t hit something vital. A body shot might incapacitate a normal human, but it’ll barely phase a strong regenerator. A bullet to the head or the heart is a problem for either.

Draaven was up and firing off his own shots from the window of the guard house while he processed the situation. There’s too many of them, and not enough of us, he thought.

“Fall back to the warehouse!” he bellowed.

No doubt some of their own had been incapacitated by the concussion grenades that had shaken the railyard, but Draaven hoped enough of them would hear and start pulling the others back.

He looked to Snow then.

“Can you get to her? I’ll cover you two as long as I can,” he told Snow. “To give the others time to reach the warehouse.”

Snow met his eyes, glanced back over at where Rhetta was in the process of trying to throttle one of the grotesque creatures assailing the gate with its companion’s own intestines, to discomfortingly minimal effect. The scent of death on the air, combined with that, was enough to tell him these were undead of some kind. Not exactly an ideal opponent in a brawl.

But with both Ragenard and Xandre absent, if anyone was going to wade in to support Rhetta against those things, it would have to be him.

“On it,” he replied shortly, slinging his rifle back over his shoulder before vaulting out through the window without another word.

The sound of Draaven’s rifle echoed behind Snow. He fired off shots that aimed to be as debilitating as possible, even if just for a few moments. Head shots, knees, and anywhere else he could land a bullet to maximum effect without risking striking Snow or Rhetta.

With his cover, Snow closed the distance in an instant, his knife already in his hand as he lunged for one of the brutish creatures' flanks, driving the blade in towards its upper leg with all the force and ferocity he could muster to the aim of violently severing the limb from its body.

Can’t kill what’s already dead, so focus on putting it on the ground.

He could wonder why there were hulking undead attacking them after they were in enough pieces that they no longer posed a threat.
 
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It took a lot of self-control to keep from shying away from Nessa or smacking her hands away from his body. He didn’t want to die, but he also didn’t need more people to know about the scars. Logic had yet to dawn on him that if he were to join the Bloodstones, then they’d see the scars any time he shifted or whatever. At this point, he was too embarrassed and thought about just dying to make things easier for everyone.

Fucking snap out of it, Jimmy. You know your mom wouldn’t want that for you. I’m sure she’d love you… and maybe… maybe Lark wouldn’t want that either. Who knows, maybe that’s just pity though…

Grunting, he closed his eyes and pretended he was anywhere else but lying on the grass having bandages put on his wounds. Why the hell wasn’t he healing?! That part was pissing him off and the dark-hair male bit back a growl of annoyance, though he did hiss when she nailed a particularly sore spot. Fucking hell. Stupid uncle and aunt. Sliding his eyes back open, Jimmy glanced at Lark, and while he still felt guilty, at least the male wasn’t mad about the ruined clothing. He still didn’t know what to think of Nessa though, especially after her revelation of wanting to be a flamethrower when she grew up. What an odd duck.

“Mm… try joining a circus.” Jimmy’s voice was soft as he desperately tried to joke back with her though, his body tensed when he spotted her going for a needle.

Oh, that wasn’t about to happen without being numb or out cold first. Nope, he could just go ahead and bleed. He too was suddenly sidetracked by vehicles pulling up and he wondered if his uncle had called them. No, that was stupid, they didn’t know where he was. He didn’t even have his phone, so couldn’t be tracked. What about the Jackals? That was also not likely, but he was pretty sure this was a bad thing. He frowned deeply at Lark’s words but knew he couldn’t be selfish. Instead, he looked at Nessa seconds before his entire world exploded. He had managed to spot Lark diving behind crates and he had to hope the male was fine. He curled up into a ball beneath Nessa’s body as his ears rang something fierce. The smell was disgusting and he hissed before looking at the female as she dropped the curved blade onto his chest. He understood. He needed to protect himself to the best of his ability though she did remain knelt over him, probably to keep him safe.

“Gonna…” He mumbled and grunted as he grabbed the karambit and rolled onto his side to try and get up despite his busted leg. Knowing he could probably hobble, he patted her on the shoulder, pointing to the others.

“I’m fine, go help or move to get a better advantage.” He was slowly getting his hearing back and spotted Ms. Scary attacking the attackers while others were firing back. Golden eyes flicked across the area and he relaxed when he saw Lark firing off shots as well. Too bad he couldn’t shift or shoot fire anymore. That would be handy right now.
 
Inside the large modified train cart, a large man lay sprawled, his chest heaving with slow, rhythmic breaths. He was unaware of the tense morning, unaware of the Bloodstones, even unaware of his own miraculous survival.

His body, once covered in mortal wounds, was looking much better than it had several hours before. The life-threatening injuries had been mended, the bones and muscles repaired. Open wounds were closed, though his appearance still bore the scars of battle.

Exhausted from his ordeal, Broch slept deeply, his body regenerating and replenishing his spent energy. But the tranquility was shattered by a deafening boom that seemed to amplify within the confined metal space.

Dazed and disoriented, Broch's eyes fluttered open, his ears ringing. "Wha-.." he groaned, his voice lost in the cacophony of his own senses. The world around him was a blur of sound and pain. Slowly, he started to turn, feeling all the more like he’d had the life beaten out of him the day before.
 
Atop the rooftops Liam had a clear view of the approaching vehicles. He tensed and grabbed the rifle that was laying next to him on the rooftop. In response to Draaven's warning he turned in place to look past Rian and towards the river.

"Oh shi-"

He distantly heard Draaven's warning shouted out to get down but it came too late. All around them rained concussion grenades that bounced, skittered, and exploded throughout the courtyard.

He wasn't sure how much time he had lost. One moment he was conscious, and the next moment of awareness he was staring up at the sky in a daze. One of the grenades had gone off right on the rooftop. It had landed on Liam's side of the building and he had taken the worst of it. Blood leaked from his ears where his eardrums had been blown out, but the damage had already healed before he had regained his senses.

He could hear Draaven shouting to fall back to the warehouse and the bellowing voice snapped him out of his daze. He rolled to the side and grabbed the rifle from where it had fallen before looking about for Rian.

"Rian! We need to get inside!"

He froze though as he spotted their second charge. Broch. They had been instructed to keep an eye on the gates and Broch. Granted, that was most certainly intended for the possibility that Broch himself could be a threat. Liam took Rhetta's orders to keep an eye on the caged werebadger as a personal responsibility though. If they withdrew to the warehouse, he would be alone out there.

His mind was quickly made up as a ghoul burst free of the ground within the railyard itself.

Liam, that means don't do anything Desmond would have done five years ago.

Rhetta's words briefly came back to him. And he had the momentary thought that she probably should have said five weeks ago. The acknowledgement of where this probably fell in the scale of 'things that Desmond has done, and when' was all the thought he gave himself on the matter.

"Cover me and then get inside!"
 
They were what now?

Rian had not actually processed the under attack part of the sentiment before it became very much apparent. There was a flicker of something coming at them, so they did the sensible thing and ducked down and covered their head.

This was not, it turned out, particularly helpful. They were pretty sure the world went inside out, or possibly it was just them. Rian had been in a few accidents before - bad weather, other people driving like crap, sometimes it was unavoidable. It was a bit like that, but worse. Things went gray for a moment, or maybe they'd gone black. The thing about blacking out was that you didn't always know if it had happened or not. You just sort of got to a point where you were kneeling on top of a building with an empty stomach and your ears ringing and no real solid idea of what had just happened.

This was not covered in CDL training. Rian wasn't really sure what sort of training it was covered in, and wasn't really sure they wanted to. They had to - Liam. Where was he? Oh, he was standing up. Good job, Liam. Liam was saying... something. Probably words. Rian shook their head a little, which did not help with the spinning.

Liam probably wanted them to do something. Hell if Rian knew what. Rian assessed the situation, and decided it was pretty bad, moving down a little to lie on their stomach instead, because that was less of a target for being shot at. Liam might be able to shrug off bullets, but that didn't go for Rian, and the best way to handle bullets was not getting shot.

Liam had waved a bit at the train car cage thing. Rian didn't know what that was supposed to mean, but there was some sort of wannabe gymbro monstrosity down there on the ground, having apparently come up through the ground. Rian might have been new to this whole pack thing, but they were pretty sure that was a no go.

Okay. Fine. They had a shotgun, didn't they? Rian liked shotguns. They didn't need a whole lot of careful aim, especially when your ears were ringing and the world wasn't sure where things wanted to be right now. All Rian had to do was line it up and pull the trigger, and hope Liam had some sort of plan, and that maybe at some point, they'd figure out what it was.
 
It fast became apparent that Rian couldn't understand him. He didn't have time to work out a solution though. He kept crouched down and pressed a hand to Rian's shoulder, trying to indicate that he should stay down. Then he slung his rifle over one shoulder and smoothly swung over the edge, caught the lip of the roof with his hands, and then dropped down onto the stack of beams and crates behind the building. He hadn't grown up in the city scaling buildings like many of the pack kids, but the extensive mountain regions of Iveria and Liam's penchant for seeking out adrenaline filled shenanigans had built up a similar strength, agility, and dexterity.

He hit the ground at a run, making straight for the train cart. He could see movement inside, but his focus was primarily on the ghoul between him and it. He opted for drawing his side arm, so he could get close enough to guarantee a hit. The ghoul was moving towards the cart while Liam closed the distance.

He raised the gun and squeezed off two shots. Blood, bone, and brain matter splattered as the bullets ripped into the thing's skull and it fell to one knee. He was at the train cart door a moment later. He holstered the weapon as he fumbled with the latch, not giving the ghoul at his back any further thought.
 
The savagery with which the morning was ruptured did not let go once it arrived, but the Bloodstone pack managed to meet it reasonably head-on, despite being caught mostly unawares and with only scant seconds of warning on the part of those specimens for whom Providence or Damnation—itself often a matter of both debate and time of day for many of Vargeras' inhabitants—gifted with sensoriums more finely attuned than their companions.

The timely realization by Rhetta, Draaven, and Lark combined with their attempts to call attention to the situation served their compatriots well, and the small boost of alertness meant that those participants within ear shot where able to operate to a higher degree than they otherwise would have.

Whilst their calls and simply reality couldn't solely overcome the reality of a bombastic rain of pressure, noise, and light, the brief moment of alertness did place many amongst the pack in a better position to recover from what would otherwise be a longer incapacitation.
Their brave actions however, did little to ameliorate the growing curtains of acrid smoke which hung in the nigh breeze-less morning and twisted in the air like suffocating tendrils seeking to obscure all visibility.

The smoke itself, however, did not preclude the fast and decisive actions of an alert Bloodstone pack: While the smoke would swiftly make it difficult to confirm things by sight alone beyond a scant two-meters, most of those with open sight-lines would be treated to the fruit of their labors before the obscuring pall covered most of the grounds.

It would also similarly reveal the follies of others, whose predicaments were also momentarily in view, before visibility was obscured.



Nessa was surprisingly the first to spring into action, from her place in the yard where the slight embankment the ground formed gave her an excellent vantage point through both the chain-link fence around the gate and the area above the gate. Even as the warnings left the lips of those more experienced, the plucky prospect moved as if animated by the ghosts of Bloodstones past. A bout of good luck turned her golden eyes to a different vehicle than someone else had just opened up upon simultaneously.

The young woman's attempt to aim at center-mass to compensate for her disorientation served her well, and her first shot landed on her target just as the human taking aim from besides the car door pulled the trigger on his under-barrel grenade launcher. Nessa's second shot would have made it, were it not for the fact that the detonation of the concussive grenade as it ricocheted around the inside of the SUV knocked her target out of the path of her bullet. It also knocked down the other backseat passenger, who awaited behind the first to rush out behind his buddy as they planned, rather than round the back of the cars and give the Bloodstones more time to aim at them.

Sometimes, the best of plans only served to hinder one once they met reality, and so it was that the other two occupants of the same vehicle who had managed to exit, were however not far away enough to escape the disorienting effects themselves, leaving them unable to join their friends in their charge towards the gate.



The remaining eight human men ran for the small bits of cover offered by the concrete foundation of the old Rail-yard sign by the gate, or the ditch surrounding the yard ahead of the fencing, as the inhuman figures of the Ghouls squeezed themselves out of the last car and boldly towards the gates, fearlessly entirely ignoring the small arms fire shot above their heads by Lark, in the direction whence the running men ran from. They pulled a bollard off the ground each, and one of them manage a solidly resounding blow on the gate, before a blurry form ducked beneath the field of vision afforded by his gigantic pectorals.

"Ugh," Fernando muttered as Rhetta sank her knife into his abdomen. He hadn't been expecting her, and the crazy ball of frenzy had come upon him so quickly that for a moment he thought he felt the phantom pain of being stabbed. His arms however, were fully engaged in the momentum of their striking the gate to stop and redirect the heavy bollard.

Fernando didn't think it wasn't much of a problem, Steven was turning his way and clearly saw—

"Guh-fauckugh," Fernando screeched with a rasp as he felt—albeit leadedly—his intestines leave his body. He'd stopped swinging at the gate then, and had begun attempting to turn the heft of his musculature on a dime towards the small nuisance, before he felt himself off balance by his own gut.

Fernando turned incredulously towards Steven, who he saw being pulled towards him by Fernando's own intestines. Even more incredulously was his expression as what he could only describe in his mind as 'the craziest bitch I've ever seen' casually used the momentum of the pull of his goddamned flesh to sail above Steven's strike which was meant to save him.

They weren't siblings. Hadn't been friends prior to joining the Eternal Revel in service of Lord Ayman. Nonetheless, Steven's exclamation of surprise as a knife was suddenly in his eye was simple:

"Ugh," he exclaimed stupidly, not because he lacked any more intelligence than average—though truly in life he'd been quite a moron—but because his surprise was no less than his partners. People were supposed to fear them, or at least have some sense of self-preservation regarding their person when people like them swung big steel-cored concrete bollards around like bats.

His surprise at the sheer casualness of Rhetta's compounding and uncompromisingly continuous assault entirely bypassed Steven's killer insticts, so nonplussed was he by having one his unseeing eyes remove. It was bizarre to be seeing the back of his optical nerve through the magically enhanced sight gifted by being filled with their lords dread animus currently. Weirder still to see it writhe and move as it sought to return home, before being pulled away and...

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" Steven uttered before he moved to smash the bollard against his body. Who the hell left pieces of themselves in other people? Steven wondered. It was gross.

He was just a fraction of a second too slow to grind the crazed werewolf into a paste however, his angle being thrown off ever so slightly by the demented woman pulling her way back towards Fernando. Bitch just didn't stop...



At the same time as the pair of ghouls was struggling to figure out what to do with an anomaly in the restraint department even amongst the unhinged, Ziessel departed the safe confines of the infirmary, bringing her into the fray. Leading with her gun, and with the soft smack of her machete's sheath against her hip, she took position upon the elevated staircase that led down into the yard, right by where the downstairs front entrance into the warehouse was. From her partially covered vantage point, the shifted svelte werewolf would have a temporarily supreme view of the Rail-yard front entrance, whilst her other senses could hear beneath the pause of concussive bangs the sounds of both the rumbling exit of a ghoul by the naughty cart, and the screeching and clinking metal as yet another tore through the back fencing north of the cart, opening an imperfect but passable path from the back of the Yard to the river.



Meanwhile back on the yard beneath Ziessel's vantage point, Lark followed up his greatly timed warning of the incoming vehicles with taking careful aim in the direction the mass of men were rushing from the cars. Those who had been able to move to rush for cover had been moving too fast and low for Lark's angle of fire, but his shots found their mark in the two that had been disoriented by the accidental explosion caused by Nessa's shot a few seconds before.

Perhaps his bullets were aimed by the force of his indignation; Who the fuck rolled up with almost 20 grenade launchers? That's the kind of shit you'd see on a Bloodstone weapon shipment for crying out loud!

So guided, the first human was struck just above the right eye, dying instantly. The other however, was struck on the neck. He fell dying whilst babbling incoherently about wishing in a puddle of his own blood.



Whilst Draaven and Snow's opening fusillade found targets, only one of them happened to be a lucky shot, swiftly ending the run and leaving only seven men to run for cover as the grenades landed. Of the remaining shots the Bloodstone watchmen took, two of the remaining humans took light grazings as their shots fragmented off the chassis of the cars and the rough road, the stray ricochet opening light wounds that left them falling further behind. Five continued at a full sprint towards covers, while the two lightly wounded ones lagged behind.

As the pair recovered and set their plan to assist Rhetta into motion, Draaven's expertly aimed shots to Steven's head forced the ghoul to stumble and fall backwards, unbalanced as it was by Fernando's goddamn intestines which it had yet to manage to disentangle itself from.
The sudden pull further destabilized poor Fernando whose gaze had been too focused on the crazed maniac form of Rhetta headed her way back towards it to notice Snow's leg cleaving blow, which separated the ghouls leg cleanly from it's body, forcing the second ghoul also to ground.

Both Ghouls were now writhing in the ground, but it wasn't pain that moved them. In fact, one appeared to be cursing profusely at it's fall into a ditch, while the one before Snow stared as it's leg incredulously. Said leg appeared to be sliding it's way back home already, disgusting hairlike nerve tendrils undulating in a question fashion.

The maneuver earned the pair of Bloodstones a few moments of reprieve by the ghouls as they struggle to regain their footing, but it wouldn't be long before the shots resumed once the gunmen re-positioned to cover the ghouls.



Despite the multitude of wounds upon him giving him ample excuse to lay down and low, Jimmy instead opted for grabbing the knife proffered him, while casting his glance about and beginning to move about in his search for would-be glory. Closest to him he could see that Rhetta had been reinforced by Snow and it seemed they had the ghouls on the back-foot.

Jimmy could also see the rush of gun men waiting to make through the gate taking cover on the other side of the entrance where the sign for the rail-yard used to be and it's concrete foundation still laid. It was a clear line-of-sight to where he stood, and it was clear he would be on the line of fire soon. But further off away from their view and towards the side of the warehouse, he could hear the loud screeching of one of the ghouls breaking through the back fence, followed by it's raspy voice screaming in a language unknown to the young Lutetian.
Jimmy might not know old Arteghian, but the dead quality of the voice was as unmistakable as the gist of a call out for reinforcements.



Broch Asvaldr however, was as "old" as old Arteghian, and could have likely confirmed for Jimmy that the ghoul was indeed letting its friends on the boats known they could come on up, as well as taught Jimmy a few choice curses in old Arteghian. Alas, the young-old galoot was too freshly startled from his rejuvenating sleep and busy with the inchoate process of becoming the avatar of not giving a fuck about the odds.



Simultaneously to Jimmy's beginning to roam and just prior to the ghoul bursting through the back gate came Liam's own small measure of heroics delivered with plenty of his expected brand of idiotically performed near-misses-turned-genius.

First, he unknowingly saved Rian's life by tanking the entirety of a tremendously unluckily landed concussive grenade's initial shock-wave, his body absorbing the energy leading to over-pressure that would have killed Rian instantly if it hadn't been for Liam's placement.

While Rian's covering fire distracted and got the Ghoul turned away long enough for Liam to somehow managed to smoothly manage an adroit maneuver that anyone else whose inner ear was mush moments before wouldn't be able to accomplish. Perhaps the bad guys shouldn't have shot him with things which included unconsciousness in their list of symptoms.

He followed that with a run and another Liam maneuver worthy of a zombie movie as he dropped the ghoul to its knees with a pair of head-shots and set about his attempt at opening the latch to the naughty cart.

"Ugh," vocalized Joey-the-Ghoul as he felt the integrity of its skull give way. Despite the fact that his brain hadn't possessed any tactile feedback in life, he could feel it now pushing the bullets out. The ghoul grinned as it heard Jonathan call out to Avatar-Bardiche that the way was clear.

Unaware of this exchange, Liam continued his struggle with the cart's locked latch as the ghoul slowly returned to its feet behind him.

One of the boats made contact with the concrete side of the abandoned rail-yard quayside this side of the modern space's fencing. Four men got out of this boat, while another muscled out ghoul jumped over from the second one that hadn't yet made contact with the quay.

They began their rush towards the back end of the Rail-yard, their path and need to scale a small wall meaning it would take them some minutes to arrive, with a good portion of that open to fire from the Rail-yard side. Meanwhile, a hooded figure joined the deck of the second boat, and stood amidst a ring of the remaining grenadiers, who let loose with more smoke grenades aimed towards the back of the rail-yard, completing the obscuring pall over the Bloodstone base.[/FONT][/FONT]
 
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Oh, they were talking.

Rhetta absorbed this information with the same dispassion as everything else, sequestering a small segment to remember whatever it was they happened to say in case she needed to repeat it later. She didn't try to talk back. This wasn't a conversation.

Her Pack was covering her, systematically, methodically. It had been five years, but they slipped into it like they'd never stopped. Gunfire moved around her as if Draaven already knew where she'd be before she was there, shooting through the gaps she'd left behind or clearing the way for where she wanted to be. In the fractions of time that it took her to return to the first of the ghouls, Snow had already removed its leg and the rest of it had tumbled down, still somewhat bound by its own guts.

The leg writhed, alone, little tendrils seeking it out. Rhetta left the others to follow up whatever they were doing, staying low to the ground and bringing her knife down at the ankle with a quick little wiggle to sever the tendons and ligaments locking the bones together; then an orthogonal turn, drawing the blade up the length of the severed limb. She reached inside, quickly, pulling the loosened tibia free and trusting the sounds of the battle to target one of the gunmen, hurling the bone towards his face.

"Take them apart." Oh. She was talking. Words were hard. She didn't like talking, not like this. Talking took too much energy. She needed her energy to kill things. Why was she talking?

...Because the First left her in charge, didn't he? The Pack needed her to spare at least a little awareness. She'd have to stay close to the surface, then, close enough to come up, sometimes, if she had to.

She considered the rest of the ghoul, the part that wasn't the leg, and was on the ground. He'd be heavy - too heavy for her to move on her own, by her estimate. "Snow, kick him over. I want to pull his spine out."

What the ghoul thought of this and whether he'd have a chance to react were unknowns, but if Snow could get him flipped, she'd be able to sever the spine with the same efficiency as the ankle.

And if not, she'd improvise.
 
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