CoR Klaxon: Rise

Holy buckets.

Liam was terrifying.

Sure, the monster men and the gunfire and the grenades were too. Rian was definitely having some feelings about that, but those seemed somehow more distant. Not physically distant, they were pretty much all right there, but... emotionally distant.

Liam was... well, he was just a guy, right? Rian might have still been getting to know him, but he definitely seemed like the sort of guy that you could have a beer with and complain about the state of the potholes on the roads or whatever local news drama was making the current headlines.

Rian had sort of expected a certain level of terrifying from the Pack Proper, right? But Liam was supposed to be a prospect, and Rian had assumed that meant he was...

Well, not the type to shrug off a grenade and then mow a monster down into the grass, that was for sure. Except he'd done that, and Rian could pretty much just watch as Liam continued forward, trying to get the latch off the cart, and the big guy he'd mowed down-

-started moving again.

"Liam!"

Rian might not be able to hear, but Liam could. Rian was already unloading another shotgun blast at the thing, maybe enough to slow it down, or maybe just enough to draw Liam's attention back to the problem so that he could do something about it.

"Behind you!"
 
Liam turned about sharply at Rian's shout.

"Oh shit," he swore.

The cart door at his back was still locked and the ghoul was bearing down on him. It was too close. He raised his side-arm up and start squeezing off rounds into its torso. He didn't have time or space to try and aim for the head again.

Distantly he heard Draaven still calling for the pack to fall back to the warehouse, but it was quickly drowned out by the gunfire.
 
The outside was chaotic to say the least. But it wasn't... Death, desolation and gore. From her heightened position, Ziessel watched attentively. Then she started thinking fast. She could see, peering over the railing, the battle going on in the front. The rising smoke, clouding everyone's vision. But it would take a bit longer to get to her height. Smoke grenades, she wasn't an expert. But she knew they didn't last much longer than a minute, maybe two. So the enemy either had more or wanted to get away with something Now. Her ears gave her a likely answer. They were being breached from the back of the railyard, close to the river. There was more activity there too. Was that Liam's voice?. Ziessel growled and took aim for the humans shooting at Rhetts, Snow and Draaven's group. He had the right idea too, in her opinion. Especially when they wouldn't be able to see well or smell soon. Could the enemy, though?. What even was the enemy? Magically enhanced humans? From the way they were standing against Rhetta... Probably undead? Ghouls? She had read up on ghouls, on most creatures once upon a time. But she wasn't going to focus on that now.

"We're being breached from the back!" "Get to the warehouse now!" She echoed Draaven's words and some extra info after taking a few shots, once she had effectively given away her position. But they couldn't see. Darkness and fog were dangerous, it was disorienting and nauseating. So she whipped around fast, moving down the stairs to the ground floor door and pulled out her phone. She looked up some song, not an actual alarm that would be too loud. After all if they could hear it the enemy could too. She wasn't sure if they had magically enhanced healing. A song they used to play at the Den when parties were over or about to be over. Set on repeat, by Bob something. Playing on her phone that she left by the door, not overly loud. Most of them had enhanced hearing or were close enough to others who did. Then she went back up the stairs, and took aim again in case she could put any other enemies down. Especially shooters. "Get to the bob!" She told them, hoping the sound would help. Her voice too, might help them since she was in the same direction only a bit higher. She remained where she was, since going into the smoke would only make her weak and a liability.
 
She paused a second. She had shot at people, shot people but never lethally. This though she watched the spatter thr gush of vermillion telling of a mark hit. The location was unforgiving in most cases and soon was followed by a grenade going off in the car as planned. She didn't know what damage that did but it helped in making sure the others in the car killed. She figured only one to be hers and an assist in the rest but it still was the first body to her name. She marveld at the sight of it, hopped up on adrenaline it lasted longer then it'd any right to. The bullet was so impersonal but she found herself okay with that. Was only up in terms of violent possibility. She yearned for more "FUCK YEAH!"

That thrill she knew though couldn't be lost in there was more to kill. More things to do for her pack. Some heads moved, muffled somethings to her. She noticed Jimmy said something as well. "CAN'T HEAR YA!" She moved instead to offer a shoulder to lean on towards while rushing for the building with some commotion from it. Was more a rhythmic muffled sound so that had to be something. Her focus had for a brief moment been on helping Jimmy until they started passing by a train car. That's where she saw more attackers on their own. Her head tilted that way as a message to Jimmy.

She wasn't going to force him to tag in with her. She needed to go for a second though to assist others. There was a ferocity to her however. She wanted to run with a pack, to her Jimmy was apart of it. While wanting it to be his choice based on injuries, clearly she didn't want to go it alone.

Part way into the run she pauses to take aim. Don't run, brace and aim she reminded herself. A mix of closing the distance and previous view before smoke helped some with getting her barrings. The view of the ghoul was now more based on shadows the hazy view of shapes inside a cloud. She had to try however. Two more shots bark from the pistol bringing her down to eleven rounds. Her shots raced for the ghoul moving for the train car. A duo of rounds looking to burrow into thr closest leg to shatter knee cap. Ideally she wanted to stop it from climbing in. Keep it outside, keep it in view to help with her next action. She had never seen something like it, already shredded some from rounds but still going. It made her smile all the wider a challenge then. Something that could take a hit, she had known monsters. While her own crime spree didn't get as ugly as others it'd just been to spare her of that path. One she to many seemed to want.

Sprinting the small bit of distance from where she was to the ghoul she pulled her machete she'd brought with her. She didn't have all her toys with her had tried to share. That though she'd kept and so it was quickly taken into her free hand. Using the run to help with momentum she slashed at the back of the neck of the monster. Her strength helping guide the swing, and with might momentum and a well maintained blade the punk looked to cleave the head from the monster. A follow up coming as she turned and flowed into an upward thrust. Not counting on the first move she looked to drive the machete under the ribs to spear through a number of organs. Her hand looking to rotate the blade in hand make for a blender on the insides of the abomination.
 
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Every muscle ached, his ear rung to the point he could barely make out anything. Fortunately his healing would kick in soon enough to fix that. But he could feel something happening that was enough to send vibrations through his chest every time it went off. Explosions? These were tiny compared to the time he and his brother's had 'accidently' set ole Jude's spirit barn ablaze.

He finally stood up, realizing he was in some sort of.. Cage. Prison? Weird. That was for later Broch to figure out. For now, he peeked through whatever bars he could to see what was happening outside. Only to find he couldn't see much. There was fog denser than his mother's soup just outside--

But there was movement. Some young lad, pointing a thing that threw fire and was a source of the vibrations and--

As odd and puffed as it look, Broch immediately knew what that was. Eyes blazed red as he realized he'd not finished the fight he'd begun with Nuadha. His hearing came back just as the man began to shift, bones and sinew popping. Even as he shifted, he immediately began to beat against his gaol house, planning on forcing his way out if needed.
 
More bodies to add to a tally that was already higher than he'd ever wanted it to be. Lark didn't allow himself the luxury of dwelling on that fact as he quickly reloaded his weapon, preparing for a second salvo. The grenade blasts were still ringing in his ears, reducing the yells of the others to incomprehensible noise that he could scarcely register, let alone understand. Snow and Rhetta were still entangled in the melee at the gate, and Nessa had dashed off to the other side of the railyard. That could only mean they were being flanked, like Draaven had warned. Damn it.

Staying low, he edged further along behind his cover until he was able to glance around the side of the warehouse and spot the melee forming beside the jail cart they'd dumped the werebadger in the previous night. What the hell was Liam doing down there, hadn't he been up on the roof? He and Nessa seemed to be holding their own for now, though, so Lark returned his attention to the front.

Smoke was starting to spread from the grenades. It was already going to make any attempt at shooting out beyond the gates practically a hail mary, and within a few seconds he'd be lucky to be able to see more than a few feet in front of his own face. Blind and deaf was not a good combination. He needed space for his ears to heal -- a minute, maybe two if he was unlucky. Till then, he'd just have to prioritise what he could do.

Reversing course, Lark used the spreading smoke as his own cover to make a break from behind the crates and return to where Jimmy was still propped up near the warehouse. "No idea if you can hear me, kid, but we need to get inside," he hissed. "On your feet!"

Not waiting for an answer, he hooked an arm under Jimmy to haul him upright -- he'd apologise for whatever strain it put on his injuries later, if they both lived -- and began making a beeline for the nearest door. As they drew closer, he picked up on the vibrations of an oddly familiar rhythm a few seconds before he spotted a... phone laid down by the door? He was confused for a moment, but quickly realised it must have been someone's attempt to mark the entrance for in the event the smoke grew so thick that people couldn't find it. Helpful for those whose hearing would recover faster than his, at least.
 
In the thick of the fray by the gate, Snow's only acknowledgement of Rhetta's words was in the form of action. With the ghoul missing a leg already, a condition he noted was maintained only by Rhetta deboning the severed limb in a flash as it attempted to re-attach itself, its balance should already be poor enough that keeping it firmly on the ground would be easy.

Just as the creature was attempting to haul itself back to the closest approximation of upright it could manage with most of one leg missing,
he pivoted on the spot to slam a kick angled down into its side, aiming to crush it back into the concrete face down and give Rhetta the opportunity she was looking for.

At the same time, however, he was keenly aware of the gunmen preparing to unleash a salvo of covering fire on them, and Draaven's call for retreat. Getting Rhetta to fall back wasn't going to be an easy task, but he could at least try and communicate the concept to her. He maneuvered himself deftly around the fallen ghoul and towards its comrade - who was having an easier time of getting back to its feet without their interference - hoping to use its bulk to at least partially block the shooters' effective line of fire to him.

"We need to fall back," he growled, just loud enough to be heard over the din of the battle. "They're already in the yard, we're being flanked."
 
Snitches get stitches and wind up in ditches.

That damn saying repeated in his head like a mantra, utterly irritating him immensely. When all hell broke loose, Jimmy was almost certain the Iron Jackals had come for him. He after all told the Bloodstones where he got the drugs from. Well, only three, but he wasn't stupid, he knew they spread the information. Just his luck that it had probably gotten back to the Jackals.

But...

This was a lot of firepower just to kill him. Maybe they already had beef with the Bloodstones and vice versa. Shit. Was he going to be tortured for information? They did show up right after him. Talk about shit timing. So busy lost in the chaos outside and the fear within his mind, it took Jimmy a few minutes to figure out why his eyes were burning. He couldn't see well either and that was thanks to the nauseating smoke. When Nessa suddenly appeared and tried dragging him elsewhere, the dark-haired male pulled free with a hiss and dropped onto his stomach.

".... fucking screaming and shooting..." Swearing, he belly crawled back to where he was, propping himself back up while still holding onto the curved blade. He had just gotten situated again when Lark appeared.

"Ugh... Lark!" Jimmy's two words came out between painful hisses the second he was pulled to his feet. Well, to his good leg. Doing his best to stumble alongside the other male, he was back to feeling numb again, so if he took any bullets, he wouldn't know until he got inside and looked. He was far too busy trying to keep from falling over each time his busted leg tried to give out.

Snitches get stitches and wind up in ditches.
 
The morning's surprise assault continued to unfold, and the Bloodstone members—both recognized and prospective—responded in a way that was seriously demoralizing their living Iron Jackal adversaries. For better or worse, it seemed the pack's reflexive response to match violence with greater violence was working. As the smoke continued to swirl, the Bloodstone pack coordinated their collective efforts. The two Iron Jackals, whose light wounds had been hampering them, reached the other group of five gunmen by the front entrance.

Their arrival distracted the gunmen long enough for them to witness Rhetta and Snow bullying the terrifying monsters they'd brought with them. By the front gate, the ghouls Fernando and Steven were utterly nonplussed, wishing they hadn’t volunteered for this gig.

We could have been partying back home, Steven thought ruefully as he watched Fernando’s regenerating leg be cut down. Is this really necessary, Avatar?

Our Lord didn’t merely want them squashed, but
measured Estefan. He holds our souls, and we hold our tongues. Continue your task—

Over by the boat, however, even the hooded figure flinched as the force striking Fernando to the ground resonated through their link. Avatar-Bardiche turned her inhuman eyes to Snow, effortlessly seeing him through not just the smoke, but the several tons of earth that lay between them from her vantage point. Had he possessed any magical acumen, he might have felt a slight chill as some form of extra attention was laid upon him.

This is bullshit, Fernando thought into the spectral conversation. He was prone, face down on the floor—an easy target for his spine, and thus his control of his host body, to be directly attacked.

I’m not riding a fucking chicken, how does she know where to cut? he bemoaned.

None of the other Ghouls responded, though feelings of amusement resonated from far above them in the undead-group-call. This reassured Fernando, who took the opportunity to wish for the honor of payback.

Meanwhile, Steven was finally back on his feet, intestine-free, just in time to witness Snow’s deft maneuvering around him. He panicked for a moment, confused about the tactic, before Snow’s words reached him moments before a fusillade of friendly fire struck him.

Despite Snow's heightened capacity for being a danger to them, it was Rhetta's savagery that most unnerved their Iron Jackal companions. It apparently made them hesitant to aim at her, opting instead to take shots at Snow, even at the risk of hitting him. "Fucking substrate," Steven groused, trying to maneuver his towering bulk to turn and catch Snow. Lacking another tactic given the absurd suit he wore, he wished he was different.

The gunmen noticed their error and paused, presumably adjusting their aim toward Rhetta. Before they could strike, however, they were forced back into cover by Ziessel’s suppressing fire.

Did anybody catch when she moved? Avatar-Bardiche queried to a chorus of sheepish silence.

The Ayman-trusted puppet turned her magical sight to the Bloodstone secretary, perplexed by her unexpected actions. The choice of song, however, was appreciated.

Bardiche’s favorite verse rang out as Ziessel’s shots fired:

"Lights are dimmin', night's been spent,
You don't gotta go home, but it's time you went.
Had your fun, raised some hell,
Now fuck off before the last bell."

One of the previously wounded men had the misfortune of one of Ziessel’s bullets striking true, bringing the total of gunmen at the front down to six—a literal halving of the frontal enemy forces.

Over by the train cart, another of the ghouls wasn’t having a particularly great time either, despite the lack of perturbation from the physical damage it had endured so far. Save for Bardiche, Joey was the oldest among them and was well accustomed to the honor of being redesigned.

We have a serious problem, Bardiche, Joey the ghoul broadcasted, even as a cloud of buckshot rained on him, Liam’s shots ripped through his unbeating heart, and one of Nessa’s bullets miraculously grazed his leg, to little effect.

The ghoul wasn’t contemplating any of the prospects, however. Instead, it was focused on the rapidly growing shape it could see behind the bars of the train cart, right above Liam’s head.

The figure by the boat turned its gaze from Ziessel to the train cart contents before responding.

Oh my, where’d they get one of those to cooperate with them? Ornery bastards— responded the Avatar, surprised. This one hadn’t been in the briefing.

—I know my werebadgers from my ass, Bardiche, there is no point in—

The ghoul’s response was cut short as the distraction of the impending force-multiplier made him miss Nessa’s reckless approach entirely. Her machete slice didn’t sever his head, but it cut through the vital bundle of nerves needed to keep the creature upright.

Joey fell like a sack of potatoes before Nessa. Her machete, however, slid off the wound as small, filament-like tendrils began to writhe madly within. Rather than waste time responding, the intact remnants of Joey’s soul began to wish things were different.

Meanwhile, Jonathan continued unimpeded into the yard through the hole in the fence he'd made, accompanied by the four Iron Jackals who jumped off the boat. The smoke worked against the human enemy combatants, keeping them grouped around the ghoul and unable to fire on Liam, Nessa, or Rian.

Lark and Jimmy’s emotional rush to the warehouse went unimpeded. The concealing pall of smoke and the distraction of all the other players allowed them to reach the warehouse without incurring further damage.

The men around Bardiche prepared to unleash another salvo of smoke grenades but were stopped by a command from the Avatar-Ghoul. Instead, the ancient being pointed the way to shore and directed them to make landfall. Reluctant as the Iron Jackals were to leave the safety of their long-range bombardment—they didn’t have magical radio, but the screams in their earbuds, transmitting their rundown of the morning’s events via mundane radio waves, worked just fine—they obeyed. They couldn’t see her, and they didn’t dare voice their contradictions out of sheer fear.

Avatar-Bardiche cast off her hood, revealing a grinning death’s visage, separated from being an outright skull only by the remnants of paper-thin skin still attached. Dull green pinpricks of light smoldered within the hollows of her eyeless sockets, scintillating gently with Ayman’s sickly and unholy light. They pierced through the pall of smoke that had yet to be dispersed by the morning's lack of steady breeze.
 
Draaven's position in the guard tower afforded him a better vantage point than most. The smoke had obscured much of the train yard grounds, but he was able to catch movement in between the denser points. Even as he covered Snow and Rhetta, his eyes darted to the unfolding scene.

He caught a glimpse of Lark and Jimmy reaching the warehouse, and though he couldn't see Ziessel he had heard her shouting. He knew she was helping to direct the pack towards the warehouse. The warehouse had fewer entry points and would be much easier to hold against larger numbers. He also caught sight of Nessa breaking for the warehouse as w-. Wait no, she had veered off and was darting around the building and heading towards the back of the rail yard. He quickly lost sight of her in the smoke.

What in the fuck was she doing, he thought.

He couldn't spare her any further thought or attention though. He picked out Rian atop a storage building, shooting towards the back of the railyard. He could only surmise that the enemy had breached the grounds.

Something felt wrong though. The enemy had the clear advantage of numbers and firepower. They had struck hard and decisively, as Draaven had expected. So why then were they being caught with their thumbs up their asses? He was missing something. Something important. His eyes darted around the battlefield with a keen sense of urgency. His instincts where telling him something was very wrong.

"Snow, drag her ass back to the warehouse if you have to!"

"FALL BACK! FALL BACK TO THE WAREHOUSE!"

He fired off a few more shots to buy Snow more time to get Rhetta out of the fray and back to the warehouse. He had to move though or he would run the risk of being caught up in the guard tower and his path to the warehouse cut off. He shouldered his rifle, drew a pair of semi-automatic pistols, and stepped out the window.
 
Fall back?

Rhetta hated falling back. The whole point of having a gate out here was that it made a lovely little bottleneck that funneled whoever was out there into killing range before they could advance any further.

That only worked, though, if they weren't being attacked from any other fronts. She'd seen the boats coming in. She'd hoped that they could do enough damage out front to deal with the situation there and give them some breathing room and a back exit - but if the enemy forces got in too far, they'd be cut off.

No, they really did have to fall back. Damn. A familiar song whispered through the smoke, pinpointing directions. Smart play, for those that could hear but not see. She didn't know who that'd be, but it'd be at least some of them.

Draaven was calling for it too, now. Time - no time. She'd have liked to pull her new friend's spine out entirely, but separating the thoracic cage was twenty four cuts, and that was more time than she wanted to spend. She drive her knife in twice instead - between the second and third cervical vertebrae and just below the seventh, separating out the bit of spine that wasn't attached to any ribs and pulling it free, giving the prone ghoul a little tap on the back of the head with it just because.

She was keeping it with her, though - she wanted to see if he could regenerate without it, or if he'd just lie there, paralyzed. Even if it bought them time, it was something. Time was their second most valuable asset and all that. Opinions differed on the first.

"Draaven, cover that breach as long as you can! Snow, help me get our people inside." How many people were out here? Fuck. The smoke clung, acrid. Annoying, but she'd had enough practice filtering out Ziessel's fucking artificial cherry vape bullshit that she could probably still ID the pack. Half of them were new, though.

Damn it, she wasn't going to be able to hyperfocus in again, not yet.

Fine. Breathe - fucking smoke. Place people by their scent - that was why she'd made them all meet up at the asscrack of dawn this morning. New idiot kid - Jimmy - Lark had him under control. Lark was reliable; she didn't need to worry about that one. Prospect on the roof - Rian - probably needed to get their ass down and move, but hopefully would figure that out soon. Stabby junior - no idea what she was up to, doing her own thing. Fuckin' Marcus, this was why you put your crazy people on a leash. Liam - playing ghoul bait, if that was another one of them by him. And Cupcake, making a riot inside the cage. It wasn't gonna hold him. She found that fucking hilarious, for some reason.

Rhetta pulled back, not quite to the warehouse, finding a place where she could guard those going for the door.

"Liam! I don't fucking speak Iverian! Tell Cupcake to head to the warehouse once he finishes destroying Ragenard's toy box and get yourself there too. See if you can get him to cover you. SEL! Get someone in there to text the group chat and tell them to pull back, half of them can't hear."

Ziessel had the most cover, she'd be the best to get that done, and she had to be close enough to be listening. It was probably her fucking phone on the floor there, which meant she was going to have to find another one, but if people didn't figure out to go back in before then, at least there would be a backup plan.

Just as long as the route to the warehouse didn't get cut off... well, that was why she was here, wasn't it?

Just her, and her knives, and a little bitty bit of some ghoul asshole's spine that she was holding onto to see what happened. Someone had to figure out how to deal with them, after all - because as she'd already noticed, they weren't just here to blow the place up.

They wanted something, and that meant this was just a first date. A chance to get to know each other, or something like that. The real fun was yet to come.
 
Liam was more than a bit unnerved at the lack of affect his bullets had on the ghoul, and he stepped back. His back hit the bars of the rail cart and he could feel the reverberations of Broch beating against them. He froze, uncertain what to do. And then the ghoul crumpled to the ground. Liam's eyes went wide in surprise at the sight of Nessa.

He could hear the shouting of the others, he knew they had to move quick.

"We need to get out of here," he told Nessa urgently. "Rian's on the roof still. He needs help. As soon as I open this, we run, okay?"

He turned to Broch and paused at the sight of the werebeast battering itself against the door of the cage.

"I don't know if you can understand me," he said in Iverian. "We're not safe here. I'm letting you out. We need to get there," he said and pointed to the warehouse.

He took a deep breath, released the latch on the door, and dove to the side to avoid the door being smashed into him by the next slam of the werebadger.
 
The machete dives into meat and bone. That sound as things begin to part ways or would have been if she could hear anything. That was a slight bummer she enjoyed the sound of a stab but it'd never been anything to such a degree. Of course she was also mad at her technique. Sure it was a rush attack with her equilibrium kind of off. It was a precision intended swing of the blade while vision was a haze from smoke. There really was no shame in a partial decapitation in what was only her second time really going for the kill. She was bummed all the same as the body fell limp throat open.

Gold eyes looking at those in the cart. A smile was flashed there way. "Didn't hear anything you said!" Gestures helped it was time to go presumably they were saying something about not being in the open like an idiot. Not being at a poorly dependable train car when things escalated further. She didn't think they said enough for their to be a insult to a prospect for running technically past the building to help, was probably implied though. Nessa thought in her defense though it was a pretty decent save on her end. She didn't think herself the best prospect but she liked to think her passion for pain and violence was showing through. Or not.

Murderous pride getting the best of her she looked back to the ghoul at her feet. With it came the sight of muscles trying to stitch back together. Sinew reaching out like hands. It was beautiful to her, an undescribable sight of macabre works. Magic to someone new to this walk of life. Or at least that was how Nessa saw things there. It was possibly the chunky writhing bits were just moving about in some deathly spasm. Nessa was no expert in such things as this just found beauty in it. Beauty and annoyance as may mean her second kill wanted to just get back up.

Perhaps the second time would be a charm. The close proximity helped counter the haze of smoke she could better see her mark this time. A slight jump and a violent swing on the way down Nessa looked to bring her machete back down om the torn up throat and ravaged bones. Viciously seeking to finish the job and claim Joey's head as a prize. On her knees from the attempted beheading the pistol was holstered. As Nessa looked to take the head with her, she'd rip it free if she needed to. She'd always been violent and the idea of moving to killer just to see job only done half way seized her attention some.

Such violent tendencies were short lived however. While the lycan tried to pull a head away from a seemingly ever recovering horror story trying to stay aware of suroundings still told of a serious need to get the hell out. Much fun as she was having even if people weren't yelling at her to get moving, was clear needed to. She might enjoy pain as much as she did dealing it out but that didn't mean should just be out in the open waiting to get shot. Hopefully with head in hand she'd look for someone to follow.
 
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Bang. BANG. BANG

Each thrust with his shoulder grew louder as he grew larger, the damage becoming increasingly more with every hit.

Every hit his anger grew.

The boy outside his gael had spoken in his tongue, but with a dialect that was unfamiliar, the thrumming echoing against his metal cage, and Broch's own rumbling growls, he only caught about half of what the child had said. From what he gathered, the boy needed help to get to safety to the warehouse. Clearly this child was helpless with Nuadha's forces bearing down upon him.

Once Liam released the latch, Broch barreled through with the door ripped from its hinges. Before the boy could get much further away, the massive werebadger grabbed him by the shirt. Without any other thought, Liam was thrown haphazardly onto the badgers back. “‘Old on tight!” He shouted at the kid.

The next second, a very loud challenge bellowed in the railyard as Broch charged towards Joey, and in that effect, Nessa.
 
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Time to move. Rhetta was falling back -- thank the gods. He didn't want to have to deal with dragging her away from a fight, as Draaven had asked of him. While he could probably have done it, there was no guarantee he wouldn't have lost at least a few chunks of himself in the process before she came to her senses. Draaven was providing cover fire, which meant now was his best chance to disengage.

Normal disengaging blows wouldn't work here -- there was no winding an undead -- so he had to keep going for their mobility. He lashed out with a swift stomping kick to the kneecap of the ghoul he'd been using as rudimentary cover, aiming to shatter it and bring him to the ground to give him a window to fall back. Successful or not, he took his chances, breaking away from the melee to fall back alongside Rhetta.

No longer being directly engaged with the enemy, he seized the chance to take stock of the situation much in the same way she had. There was an ongoing scuffle by the rail cart -- it sounded like the young Broch was out of containment, and he tentatively opted to decide that was a good thing. Probably. Aside from that... Ziessel was on the walkway overhead. Rian was on the roof. Lark and the wounded kid were inside. Nessa and Liam were with Broch (because of course they were).

Nobody was wildly out of position, bar perhaps Liam and Nessa. Only the next few seconds would tell whether they needed backup, so for the time being, Snow went into cover by the corner of the warehouse. There, he quickly reloaded his rifle, preparing to return the favour to Draaven by covering his retreat from the gate.
 
Once they were inside, Lark allowed himself to breathe -- figuratively and literally, now that he wasn't going to get a lungful of smoke for his trouble. He helped Jimmy a short distance further into the building, away from the potential immediate danger of the door and the walls, and carefully lowered him into a sitting position on one of the boxes in the main room. "I'll call someone to come help you," he said quickly. "But I gotta get back out there to help. You're gonna be fine-- trust the people here, keep yourself safe. I'll catch you on the other side."

Giving Jimmy one more quick reassuring pat on a part of his arm he was reasonably confident didn't have any wounds on it, Lark flashed him a strained smile before turning to jog away, calling out as he went.

"Jesse! Kid out here needs medical attention, something's stopping his regen!"

Hopefully Jesse and the prospects assisting him would be able to get Jimmy into the infirmary and do something about whatever was in his system -- and hopefully nothing would bother them there. In the meantime, Lark made a run for the storage lockers where the pack kept their stock of weapons to snatch up a shotgun. He had a feeling he was going to need something bigger than a pistol, given what all was out there to contend with.
 
Coughing thanks to the smoke, Jimmy's chest felt so very tight and he was so glad they got inside. Hissing as he inhaled the clean air, the injured male winced as Lark pulled him or rather helped him further inside of the building. Was this the same one that had that damn cage? At least he hadn't been put in the train deal with that huge dude. Who the hell was that even? Shaking his head, he was thankful when he was put down on the box and panted heavily.

"... Lark, be safe...!" Calling out after his... friend? Was he a friend?

Get real... no one here is your friends. Your friends are drugged deviants who are locked up. You're a nobody.

Frowning at that, Jimmy looked down at his hands, squeezing them into tight fists while he vaguely heard Lark calling for some Jesse guy, whoever that was. How could he trust anyone when nearly everyone he knew broke that trust? Leaning back against the wall, he sighed softly, now smelling nothing but his blood.

"Fucking ridiculous... that's what all this shit is..."

Don't forget, Jimmy... snitches get stitches and wind up in ditches. You're a snitch and the Jackals will slaughter you slowly and painfully.
 
Smoke or no smoke, Ziessel saw the effects of her attack on their closest, for now, enemies. After what had felt like an eternity but had not been one, she saw people were pulling back towards the warehause. Finally, fucking finally. She stood her ground, but remaining in a single spot was making her nervous. Yes, she had a height advantage, but she might as well be on a stage for anyone with two brain cells and a mid to long distance weapon.

"Text them with my phone, it's by the door!" She shouted back at Rhetta, her and the rest were closer by now anyway and it was unlocked. She wasn't paying for premium packages to stream music with the screen off.

Enough time had passed that the smoke wasn't as dense as when it had started. People made it swirl when they moved, you could see glimpses. Ziessel didn't know the prospects by name, but she knew who was close to the warehouse now and who was still way off. Rhetta, Snow, Lark and someone she'd never seen but who must be on their side. Draaven too, thank god. So... What could she do now? She had identified another prospect, one of the puppies at that on the roof of the other building. Another two had been- what.

She leaned over the railing, squinting to make sure she was seeing what she thought she was seeing, just before a loud bellow echoed throughout the railyard. Smoke or not, she could see Liam's head peaking out as he- as he- what the fuck? At least he wasn't in immediate danger?... but they- shit. Ziessel moved fast, she jumped over the railing and to the floor, exchanging her gun for the machete she had brought, and holstering the other weapon. She could make it, she was faster, she'd push or move Nessa out of the werebadger's way, away from the ghoul she was trying so hard to decapitate before using the boxes and beams to climb onto the roof to get to Rian. Could they hear? Rhetta had said some could not, but how long did it last? surely not forever. She didn't know what the werebadger had intended to do to her, the ghoul or her AND the ghoul.

"Can you hear me??" She asked the prospect, panting. "Warehouse now, come on." She added, crouched on the roof and gesturing towards it. There was more they could see from here, likely the breach from the back that she had heard before.
 
Liam wasn't dead. Good. That was... good, right? One of the other prospects had come to help out - what was her name? It started with an N and felt like it shouldn't. Rian thought maybe that was a weird thing to be worrying about right now, but that was probably because their brain was trying to cope with everything else that was going on, like the fact that they'd been overrun by the world's grossest bodybuilders.

Rian did not have anything against bodybuilders, generally speaking, but they did have some pretty strong feelings about weirdly regenerating ones that were trying to murder everyone, as it turned out.

Liam seemed to think that the best thing to do with the moment of freedom was to let out the dude in the cage, who was... kind of just as monstrous as the other things. This was not a charitable thought, they were aware. Maybe the guy was fine - but Rian wasn't going to walk up to him right now and find out. Hopefully Liam was okay. Rian fingered the trigger on the shotgun they held, but it was a weird situation where all the targets were too close to the people that they didn't want to hit. Precision weapons were probably better for this sort of thing, but Rian didn't really know much about precision weapons. Granddad had taught them to use a shotgun, because he'd figured if Rian ever really got backed against the wall, it was going to be them against everyone else and it wouldn't matter where the spray went.

Rian wasn't used to having a Pack, and it definitely showed. They were still trying to figure out if there was something they could hit and not hit other things when one of the women from the Pack climbed up on the roof. Rian didn't really know her - she hadn't been around much - but since she also seemed like she knew what she was doing, that was better than nothing. She asked a question, and Rian shook their head, assuming it was of the can you hear? variant, because that would be the smart question. She said something else, but backed it up with a gesture towards the building. Good. Gestures they could get. Plenty of those loading zones were mostly directions-by-charades, anyway. Rian motioned towards the warehouse as well, gave a standard thumbs-up of understanding the generalized idea of Get yourself over there.

Of course, they were still going to have to make a run for it, back across the field with all the gross bodybuilders and the cage-burster and the Liam.

Rian looked down, making sure that the way down was as clear as it possibly could be given the situation, then turned back to the woman and gave her a gesture that she would hopefully interpret as-

Wait, why were they gesturing at her? She could hear just fine.

"Go first, I'll cover you from up here and follow as soon as you've got your feet under you."
 
Jesse appeared quickly and hurried to Jimmy's side. He didn't recognize the kid, but he trusted Lark wouldn't drop someone dangerous off without so much as a warning. He gave a quick visual assessment of Jimmy's condition. He would have preferred not moving Jimmy further, given the extent of his injuries, but he couldn't leave the kid out here with the fighting raging just outside either.

"Hey there," Jesse said gently. "I'm Jesse. Let's get you into the infirmary, okay?"

He hooked one of Jimmy's arms around his shoulders and helped him up. The kid's left leg was a mess and wouldn't be bearing any weight, so he took the brunt of Jimmy's weight against himself. The infirmary wasn't far, and once inside Jesse guided Jimmy towards a cot.

"Can you tell me what happened?" Jesse asked. "Lark said you aren't regenerating? How quickly do you normally heal?"

He started checking on the kid's vitals while he asked his questions.
 
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