(OOC: Split from Stage 2, Ground Assault. Closed)

Knowing of the imminence of a breakout made Amp fidgety. No sedatives left in her system gave her energy. Combining the two? It was downright impossible for her to sit still. She did her best to keep calm enough to not draw attention to herself, but it seemed like everywhere she turned, someone wanted to get in her face, either guard or fellow prisoner. She tried to keep her head down. She really did. Still, she found herself involved in several scuffles, two of them with other mutants. In fact, she was in the middle of that second fight, with a water manipulator, when she first caught the sounds of something approaching.

She promptly lost interest in the altercation, and clawed her way out of it, scuttling around a corner on all fours. She hid herself under a set of stairs and waited till her opponent gave up the search. In the meantime, she strained hard to 'hear'.

She didn't realize that the shock collar wasn't working, and that's why her senses were so keen.

Was that a helicopter? No.... it was coming from the ground....

She concentrated on the vibrations running through the ground into her hands.

Vehicles. More than one. And heavy....

She didn't have to strain to feel the sounds of explosions. Those came from close enough to feel the blasts.

Excitement welled up within her like an overflowing oil well. She scurried out of her hiding place, and around the corner of the building. She held out her arms from her body and threw her head back, practically inhaling the trembles in the air from the various blasts and battles. It was like a drug, a euphoria she had been deprived of for faaaar too long. Oooo.... how she'd missed that feeling, the feel of being alive!

A halfway maniacal giggle left her throat, and she hugged herself, completely caught in the throes of bliss.

Abruptly she froze. A shiver ran up her spine, and a look of astonishment passed over her face. She looked around, then the other way, as if searching for something.

So focus was she on a familiar warmth, coming from somewhere close by, she didn't notice the danger she was in from behind.

As soon as Grunt and Shahiel heard the explosions and saw the efficiency of the attack they knew that the cause was lost and the only avenue open was to escape and hope to fight back another day. Well Shahiel told grunt that if he wanted to live he needed to leave as well. They were on they way out when they heard a giggle. Grunt recognised that giggle as Amp’s and was about to yell out when Shahiel stopped him. An evil idea popped into his head and he smiled, suddenly despite the destruction of the camp, Grunt was in a good mood, which normally meant bad news for the rest of mankind, or anyone that was nearby.

He stealthily crept behind Amp who seemed to laughing in a mad fashion. He was just about to pounce on her with a tranq dart. Grunt jumped but landed and fell on his face. An flying body had tackled Amp out of his way, smoothly rolled and dragged her out of harms way around the corner in the doorway. However Grunt was not worried whoever had done this had taken them into a storeroom from which there was no escape aside from a ventilation shaft but that was bolted so he was not worried. Again he grinned.

Back in the store room Grit picked himself off the floor clamming the door shut. Regaining his breath he said “Hi, my name is Grit, I was sent here by a friend of your sister, Vibe to keep you safe. Ill try to hold them here for as long as possibly, escape through that ventilation shaft if you can. I can only hold them for so long. When you get out find a mutant called Hades and tell him that I went down fighting. Now go, Go! If you want to see you sister and live get out of here now!”

Just as he finished speaking the door opened with a mighty crash as Grunt burst into the room and was immediately set upon by Grit who fought like his life depended on it. There was only one problem; Grunt was also going all out. They grappled, and Grunt made a mistake, all those years in Mongolia, among a tribe where wrestling and grappling was the top pastime took over, and one instant later Grunt was on the floor stunned for now, if he had been any less thick skinned he would have been hurt, but Grunt was a durable thing.

Just when Grit thought he could take a breather, Shahiel calmly stepped into the room with the grace of a panther, lithe, smooth and very very deadly. Grit’s blood froze, he dropped into a defensive stance and wearily tracked Shahiel as he walked towards him, Shahiel lashed out and Grit moved to block only to discover too late that it was a feign and the next instant a searing pain in his left shoulder and he was flying backwards to hit the wall.

He got up to discover that his left shoulder was dislocated and he had taken a solid kick to the ribs which hurt like hell. Thinking quickly he used a shelf and braced and with a gasp of pain relocated his shoulder, and stumbled forward determined to buy Amp more time. Shahiel calmly stalked towards him.

Grit saw out of the corner of his eye Grunt get up and stalk towards Amp, in desperation he kicked a table off the ground into Grung but had no time to follow up as Shahiel was once again upon him. They fought, arms and legs in a blur but Grit was fighting a loosing battle and he knew it, he was taking more and more hits, every so often droplets of blood would spatter out of the mass of whirring limbs and it certainly was not Shahiel’s who was not even breaking a sweat. If help did not arrive soon Grit was going down and he did not think he would ever be able to get back up, so he just gritted his teeth and called upon every last ounce of training and experience and kept on going

Michael hadn't been wasting time. Once the attack began he was moving. He planned to get to some of the weaker prisoners and help them out, but when he spotted Grit running towards one of the buildings he changed course. Tearing after Grit he caught up as Shahiel and Grit laid into one another.

Spotting Grunt try to get up to his feet Michael linked his hands together and brought them down hard on the brute's head. That shoudl keep him down for a while. With Grunt dealt with for now he moved on to Shahiel. Grabbing the man's shoulders he threw him away from Grit and out of the store room. He was going to check Grit was ok, but Shahiel grabbed him and the pair tumbled out into the corridor. Now the fight was on.

(OOC: Sorry for the length; gotta have a teary reunion, ya know? )

Amp froze as someone tackled and dragged her away. For a few seconds she relived the day of the rape, and her nightmares. She saw Grunt's face leering at her, felt his touch. Something snapped, and she began squirming and clawing to be let loose, and hissing like the Stalkers again. In a far reach of her mind, she realized that the shock collar no longer worked. But other, more pressing concerns took precedence. With the sedatives out of her system, and adrenaline backing it up, she had much more energy than that day. But whoever it was let her go. She scurried out his reach, breathing heavily and with wide eyes.

But that wasn't Grunt closing the door this time, or looking at her. That was the other man. The one who helped her. Grit.

Even though she was looking right at him, she had to concentrate on calming herself down, and missed most of what he was saying.

".... out find a mutant called Hades and tell him that I went down fighting."

>Hades? What kind of name is Hades?< She frowned.

"Now go, Go! If you want to see you sister and live get out of here now!”

>Sister? Vibe?<

That warmth she'd felt earlier..... was it still there?

She didn't move at first, simply stared back at Grit. A mix of emotions flicked across her face. She wasn't used to being grateful to anyone except Vibe. Once in the camps, even that vestige of hope had been snatched from her. She'd never really gotten close to anyone in the camps, never connected. After the day with the guard, she'd felt totally alone. But somewhere deep inside, she knew things could have been even worse if the man she was looking at hadn't helped. And she wasn't sure how to react. She wanted to go, and at the same time.... didn't.

Her fingers tingled, drawing her confusion elsewhere. That warmth again....

Tunnel vision overtook Amp again, and she pressed the side of her face up against the wall. On a sub-level she felt the door open, and was aware of the sounds of a fight, but her senses were totally focused outside. Her eyes practically glowed as a smile washed over her.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Vibe followed the warmth tingling through her body, totally shutting off the world around her. It led her through the camps. Out of one corner of her eye, she saw two men through a doorway, fighting. Her senses led her around the other side, to the back wall. She put her hands against it.

>Amp?<

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Vibe!"

It felt like walking out of a dark room, into the sunshine, for both of them. The room and ground began to shake, and an ear-piercing whine split the air. About the time Shield and Shahliel tumbled outside, the roof literally blew up and off. Bits of debris showered the rooms occupants; nothing dangerous, more like a dusty rain. Once the cloud cleared, a pair of petite redheads could be seen in the middle; dirty, dusty, one considerably more ragged-looking than the other, and both crying like babies.

A few things happened simultaneously as Shield came out of nowhere Shahiel had almost no time to react but he reacted on instinct and reflex, managing to grab hold of Shield and pull him out of the room as well, he then managed to grab one shock baton free and jab Shield with it. *That got you going* he thought. He then drew the other shock baton and started to use them as short swords.

Step forward, lunge make scissor move with hands, step back. But Shield was no helpless babe, he parried and dogged with some skill. At one point he even managed to get a hold on one shock baton, that was when Shahiel revealed his second set of weapons, the gloves he was wearing each had a metallic strip in front of the knuckles.
Shahiel let go of one of the batons and punched Shield with his right fist while squeezing a certain button, immediately electricity coursed through and Shield was forced to drop the baton. From the reaction that Shahiel could observe, time in the camp seemed to have hardened this mutant, so Shahiel settled to using extreme speed and a steady stream of light attacks as opposed to one heavy one. After a while it was beginning to tell, Shield while indestructible had not been trained in the army for endurance or such, he was tiring. Shahiel was pressing in closer and closer. Then suddenly Hades (coming from The Hunt is on) phased through the wall behind the fighting pair jogging at a relaxed pace. In one smooth motion he brought his gun to bear. *Bang* *Bang* *Bang* *Bang* two shots cleanly removed the metal contacts from Shahiel’s gloves, another two shot his shock batons cleanly in half.
As Hades jogged past he whispered a piece of information that he only knew from experience with demolition and explosives. “He has Symtex.” Aloud he said “Carry on.” With an ever so slight smile on his face he jogged on and was about to phase through the opposite wall when Shahiel in a flash of movement launched a dagger at the departing Hades.

To his horror Hades calmly caught it in a fluid motion and Shahiel only had time to think *Oh *….* before he experienced a stab of pain in his left calf and looked to see his dagger imbedded in it. He did not have much time to react after that as Shield was upon him in an instant. The battle wore on, with the playing field a little more levelled.

(Hades then returned to The Hunt is on)

Back in the store room Grit had enough time to recover from his shoulder when it felt like his ear drums and the room exploded. Luckily he had the grace to cover his ears. Shaking off the dust that now covered him, he looked up in time to see Grunt suddenly whip a pistol out and take aim at the two girls. *Where did he get tha… Guards like him do not have the authoriza… Noooo*
Grit gathered himself and launched himself across the room in front of the two girls, pushing them to one side, they turned and saw him with looks he could not decipher, but he could see and clearly understand the expressions as they saw Grunt fire the gun twice.

Time seemed to slow. Grit pushed the girls aside as he went sideways in mid air to cover them, and *Bang Bang* and Grit’s body shook twice as he was hit in the right lung and thigh. He landed in a heap on the floor, gasping for breath as one of his lungs started to deflate. He only had the sense to hope that the one he viewed and loved as a sister, perhaps even more would have the strength and the sense to take Grunt out, and do it painfully!

Things were not going well. Shahiel was certainly a better fighter than Michael was. While he could fend off the batons for a time, the shock gloves were a surprise that gave the bastard a bigger edge than he already had. Soon he had Michael on the retreat, trying to pull away from the painfully stinging gloves. Then Hades arrived.

The loss of Shahiel's electrical weapons suddenly put Michael back in the fight. He took a chance to porcess the info Hades passed on. Semtex. Michael was no demolitions expert, but he knew how big a bang semtex made. After Hades hit Shahiel with the knife Michael was on him.

Grabbing the man he dragged him back and away from the store room. His arms were locked in a vice like grip and unlike a normal person you couldn't try and hurt him to make him let go. Shahiel had to fight against Michael's strength, and if it looked remotely like he was winning Michael would immobilise his arms. Michael had Shahiel well and truely trapped.

"Ohmygosh!Ohmygosh!!Ohmygosh!!"

"You'realive!!Iknewit!Iknewit!!Iknewit!!!"

"Yougotaway!IthoughtI'dneverseeyouagain!!"

"Ican'tbelieveyou'reokay!!"

The two twins babbled on, so glad to simply be together again, Amp didn't even realize her sister was speaking aloud. In fact, very little penetrated their little bubble of exstaticness.

"Noooo!!"

Vibe's head snapped sideways, abruptly coming back to the present. Amp reacted a split second later to her sister's signal, and the feeling of an immediate presence. Reflexively Amp pulled back, bumping her sister, and both stumbled back further as someone barreled into them.

Two things registered in her mind: Grit on the floor next to them, and Grunt nearby with a pistol aimed at them.

After being separated for so long, Amp didn't need to ask Vibe to give her ammo. Just being together was like a power boost; both girls could feel the hum in their bones, a steady throb of energy. A piercing screech shot through the air, directed at Grunt, high and sharp enough to make him see stars. The ground shook, and several shards of concrete and wood bounced into the air. Amp thrust her palm forward, sending a shock wave of sound waves at the debris, which in turn shot them at Grunt. One pierced his gun hand, while another grazed the side of his neck near the shoulders.

A downright evil grin spread across Amp's features. The shaking increased, and pieces of debris began popping into the air, like popcorn in a popcorn machine. Concrete, wood, metal shrapnel; each bit that jumped up was sent at Grunt in rapid fire, a sonic machine gun.

At the same time Vibe began to pick two things up from her sister, Hatred, and confusion. The first, obviously, centered on the man under fire. The second, seemed to center around the wounded man on the floor. She knelt by his side to see just how badly he was hurt.

Shahiel was in the process of winning the battle with shield, and enjoy watching the look of pain on his face when ever he got shocked, and then suddenly there were four gunshots and then his knuckles felt cool and his batons were shot out of his hand. His surprise turned to anger, and in one fluid motion he launched a dagger at the retreating figure. *He caught it* his brain froze for a split second, *He caught it! Oh **********

Shahiel’s reaction was slowed by Shield taking it upon himself to grapple him and he could only watch as the mutant smoothly used the dagger’s momentum to flick his wrist up in preparation for it to whip back and launch at him, the action was performed with efficienty that even Shahiel had to envy. Then, pain to his calf, but that would not stop or even slow Shahiel, he had taken worse.

He tried to struggle against Shield but to no avail.

(Camera leaves the Shield vs Shahiel struggle and flashed back to inside the store room)

Grunt was unhappy, he shot the two beauties that he knew he could not “have”, if he could not have them then neither could anyone else, and to him they deserved to die. Then that stupid man, Grit dived in front of them and took the bullets.

Grit only felt a burning pain in his chest and thigh, he gasped in agony as his right lung started to first deflate then slowly fill with blood. He managed to gasp out “A…re you guys o…o..ok?” *gasp gasp* feebly nodding in the direction of Amp, again between his halting laboured breath he weezed out the words “keep her safe get her out of here! Tell…tell…tell Hades that Grit… d…died well”
Then his head slumped a bit and he seemed to be going in and out of consciousness.

Grunt was happy, even though he did not kill the beauties he had take care of Grit the one person in the room who could win in a fight.
*Now for the..* that was as far as his though process had time to do before he was hit, literally hit by a sonic screech, the pain was massive, and he saw stars, at the same time something sharp hit his gun hand and sent his weapon flying and another thing grazed his neck. Instinctively he dived and rolled.

Grunt did not have an overabundance of agility or style, but one thing you learned fast was that if someone had a bigger gun, you learned how to get out of the way. He rolled and then came to a crouch just as another volley or sharp thing hit him, again he rolled. *no time to think, just roll, roll*

(Camera pan back to Shahiel)
Slowly but surely Shield was dragging Shahiel further and further away from the store house. Shahiel realised that there was no getting out of this one, so he prepared to use his final backup plan, the Semtex. The detonator switch was in his mouth.
Before he detonated he spoke the dramatic words, “If Im going down im gonna take as many of your wretched kind with me.” And with that he bit down on the switch.

Shahiel imagined what would happen next. He would vaporise and take with it the buildings supports by literally obliterating the ground floor bringing the whole structure crashing down and from the explosion he had calculated that some huge beams would fall on the mutant barracks. Finally the dust would settle and the cries of pain and the stench of death would mark the final resting place of the great Shahiel. Never would his resting place be dishonoured.

Michael heard Shahiel's words and, remembering Hades's warning acted fast. He threw Shahiel to the floor and dived on top of him. Unfortunatly the semtex would make too big a bang for him to just block it. To stop this it would require something more, something that he had been working on in his training with Grit.

Michael focused, immobilising himself. But this requiered mote than just immobilisation. He focused on reflecting all the momentum of the blast he was about to take back on Shahiel. In training he'd only vaguely managed to reflect some of the momentum back on Grit, but now it was life or death, Amp, Vibe and Grit's lives.

The explosion was deafening and hammered into Michael with terrifying force, incinerating his clothes. However, Michael was not moved, and through desperation not a faction of the blast passed him. Instead it was all reflecting back onto Shahiel. When the dust at last settled Michael collapsed into a crater, mentally and physically drained.

Instead of the explosion bringing the place down around them it had just left a huge crater in the hall. Finally Michael gathered enough energy to stand up and stagger back towards the store room. On the way he grabbed a set of overalls that were lying around and put them on.

(OOC: Twins, I'll leave you to finish Grunt)

“A…re you guys o…o..ok?” The man may have been talking to Amp, but Vibe was the one who heard him. She winced at the gunshot wound. “keep her safe get her out of here! Tell…tell…tell Hades that Grit… d…died well”

So, he had been looking after Amp? Vibe nodded just slightly. "Thank you." He may not have heard her; he was in bad shape. She looked around for something to stem the blood flow, and spotted a pile of rags in the corner. She tied off the leg wound; that one could be dealth with later. If there was a later. The chest wound didn't bode well....

She had many questions, first and foremorest being, 'what had happened to make him take those shots for them anyway?'

---------------

Meanwhile, Amp had crossed over into frenzy mode. Being deprived of the use of her mutation so long had nearly driven her crazy. Having it back in full force was threatening to do the same thing. Grunt evaded her attacks, rolling around like some military commando. But she kept them up, increasing speed and using anything she could get ahold of for ammunition.

Finally the non-manic bit of her brain got the message through that the attacks were not working. She couldn't hit him, because he was always moving. So she needed to keep him from moving.

She paused the barrage, and slammed both fists, and two separate shockwaves, into the ground on either side of Grunt. The ground split and heaved up, forming mini walls on either side of him. The canyon wasn't very high, about waist high, and easily escapable, if he could climb fast enough.

And she didn't intend to let him move that fast. With an almost feral shriek, she leapt forward, grabbing at him.

Grunt was dogging, and thanking for his training at base camp when suddenly he seemingly rolled into a wall which suddenly shot up both sides of him, it caught him is a classic position in a ball wedged between two walls. In desperation to get out he twisted himself his back scraping painfully across on of the walls. He had just gotten up when she was upon him, grabbing at him in frenzy. He was scratched repetadly by this mad woman whilst he was slightly stunned.

(occ I am assuming no close range sonic attacks)

Then he got angry and started to grab her and wrestle, she was a girl, and she would probably be weaker than him, so he went to grab her two wrists, from there it would be a lot easier, and who knows he may even get to carry both of the beauties away.

(OOC: There will be, once she gets her wits together again. lol Sorry it's short.)

Grunt may have been much bigger, but Amp was on an adrenaline high now. She clawed, bit, squirmed and yowled as if she were a cat trying to avoid a bath. In the end, it didn't matter much; his size and strength were superior.

Soon she found herslef pinned against one of the walls she'd created.

-------------------------

Vibe watched her sister fight with mixed emotions. She was so unbelievably happy just to find Amp alive, words could not describe. But her appearance, and they way she fought.... It was scary....

She could sense the hatred Amp felt toward Grunt, but couldn't pin down why. Whatever had happened, it had changed her sister, and Vibe didn't think it was for the better.

She continued to send out vibrations, even though it seemed Amp wasn't using them like usual.

The beauty that he had taken he had now pinned to the wall, *Grunt Happy.* however there was another beauty that he had not sampled before and she was standing near wounded Grit, but he looked no harm. He head butted the one he had pinned twice and gave her a punch to the throat to make her choke (hopefully) and then leapt towards the other beauty, reaching for her. He could almost laugh with anticipation, perhaps this time he should try some different chemicals…

(OOC: Permission given to finish this up.)

Amp wriggled like an eel for a few moment, but abruptly stopped as Grunt's attacks both made her see stars and gasp for breath. When he let her go she collapsed in a coughing fit, and blinked furiously to clear her vision.

"Amp! Aaiiee!!" Vibe made a motion to help her sister, but it turned to a squeal-accompanied retreat when Grunt leapt at her. He caught her by the arm and pulled her toward him, leering.

"Vibe!!" Amp struggled to get herself together to help her sister. However, unlike her, Vibe had spent the last few months developing her mutation. Rather than fully panic, she acted. An soft, almost haunting melody filled the air. Grunt blinked. The nasty look on his face faded to a dull, blank stare. A one-sided smirk graced Vibe's face.

"Let go of me," she ordered simply. He obeyed without question. "Now step back two steps." He did so.

Amp got to her feet, an amazed look in her eyes. "Vibe! You didn't use the tuning forks! And you're- you're talking!"

Vibe grinned. "A lot's been happening. But we'll catch up later, sis. What should we do with him?"

"Just make sure he doesn't move. Let him scream all he wants, but do not let him move...." Vibe recoiled a bit from the malice in her sister's voice. But she nodded, repeated the order and moved aside.

Amp simply stared at Grunt for a few moments. She had dreamed of repaying all of the torture he put her through; the thought had sustained her over the last month or so. Now was her chance, and she was going to take it. A rumble shook the ground, and she began another barrage of shrapnel bullets. But this time he couldn't dodge. Bits of rock and metal shredded his clothes and skin, leaving bloody trails all over his body. He winced and flinched, but obediently didn't move. He didn't say anything either, which told Vibe that he was used to pain.

Dissatisfied with the reaction, Amp sent a screeching shriek directly through his skull. That met with more reaction, in the form of a stagger backwards. Amp's grin returned; she'd forgotten all that she could do with her mutation. With a sadistic grin, she ran around behind him, and jumped on his back, wrapping her legs around his waist. She put her hands on both sides of his head, careful to leave his ears free to hear Vibe's melody.

Then she began pumping vibrations into him, mixed with undulating shrieks. The noise was centered on him, so only a faint buzz could be hear outloud. She started slow, increasing the pressure a bit at a time. Eventually the pain started, and Grunt groaned. He tried to move, but Vibe ordered him to stay. As the vibrations increased, as did the pain, his moans turned to cries, then to staggered screams. Amp enjoyed every minute of slowly, and literally, shaking his body apart.

Vibe looked away as her sister 'played'. She returned to Grit's side, to check his vitals. He was breathing, albeit shallowly. He was going to need some help if he was going to survive.

"Is he okay?"

Vibe glanced up at her sister, then back at what remained of the guard. It wasn't pretty.

"Not really. If you want to help him, we need to get him out of here." She turned back. "Any suggestions?"

Michael staggered into the store room that looked like a bomb had hit. A quick glance around he saw Grunt lying in a mangled mess on the floor and Grit lying still. The girls seemed ok, a little battered, but ok. While physically fine, the fight with Shahiel had exhausted him.

"Come on," Michael set, moving over to Grit, "We'd best get out of here." Reaching Grit's side Michael tried to help get him up. "Come on big feller," he said encouragingly, "We're not done yet. Up you get, we got to get out of here."