As soon as they landed TJ put her laptop away, though she kept the headset on, and hopped out. She watched with a raised eyebrow as Hunter had a dozen huge, hulking men to herself. She couldn't help herself from giggling as she looked at Hunter, "A litteral Meat Shield." He voice was soft and quiet as she spoke, but she couldn't help making the comment.

As the others moved forward to watch the first wave move towards the lab, Gearhead and her Meatwall stayed back, she didn't care what happened to the men, they were Hunter's problem, not hers. The wait wasn't long till the area outside was clear, then they moved into the lab's entrance. When she heard the number of casualties and injured she spoke again, "At the rate they're dropping, how long can we sustain this?" She wasn't truly concerned, but curious, as was evident by her tone.

"Welcome to the hall of the dead. I am Hades. Enjoy your stay...."

"Well, if that isn't interesting. So the security isn't simply automated." She looked around trying to get her barrings, trying to find where the sound had come from. In the wall, speakers built in, apart from but also integrated into the wall. "Oooh, I like that."

Hunter turned to her, “Do you think you can alter the intercom to allow me to send a message back to whoever sent this one?”

Gearhead raised her eyebrow again, "Ehh...probably not. I'm not sensing any microphones of any kind. At least not here, might be some somewhere though, I'd have to go through the halls one by one to find out..." She looked away form Hunter for a moment and saw a radio on one of her shields "BUT!" She snatched the radio up and held it in her hand. Waving her free hand over it, her eyes blinked rapidly for a half a minute, after which, she shook her head quickly, followed by her body as a shiver ran down her spine. TJ had picked up a frequency she could use to piggyback to the source of the voice, and tuned the radio into it. She handed it to Hunter, "Use that and you can."

Hunter smiled at Gearhead’s question of losses. He had gathered men from all across Europe, and had a fully company of soldiers here, six platoons each of about fifty men. While the casualty rate had been high for first platoon had been relatively high, that was only due to the ambush of the turrets. Now they were inside the number of casualties per defence should decrease rapidly.

As the girl worked her technological magic Hunter ordered the platoon to keep advancing. When Gearhead handed him the modified radio he flashed her a smile before depressing the button. “Hades, this is your first, last and only warning. Surrender the facility now or I will take it by force.” With the message sent he waited for the first platoon to report.

Up ahead the forward elements of first platoon rounded a corner to reach a dark corridor. The blackness obscured it completely, so no end could be seen. One of the men pulled out a flare and ignited it, exposing another turn up ahead. The moment the corridor was lit gunfire erupted from around the corner, ensuring that anyone who went around the corner would be torn apart. In response the flare was doused and the gunfire stopped.

“Sir,” came a voice over the radio, “obstacle encountered, corridor with total darkness, light activates automated weaponry. Please advise.”

Hunter turned to Nox and Shogun. “You two, get up there and disable the trap.” Neither of the mutants would be impeded by complete darkness, and if the worse came to it Shogun’s armour would protect him, and Nox if she stood behind him, from the bullets.

As much as she hated to admit it his reasoning was sound, and she could wait her turn as long as a challenge was in store, which as the traps were evidently becoming more devious, was assured. She followed Hunter down into the complex, paying no heed to the wounded or dead, focusing her mind on the tasks ahead. As she entered the overgrown facility, she became aware of the strangest the thing: the walls seemed alive. It took her a moment to realise what she was feeling, intricately interwoven veins of heat supplied the walls with power, and to her they pulsed with the vibrate energy of life. She could sense the heat signature everywhere, in some places it congregated, in others areas it was comparatively barren. She had never felt beauty before, but to her, this was the most enthralling masterpiece, as the veins sent out tendrils of capillaries, fanning the energy out throughout the wall. One thing she was sure of, this was no garage laboratory and judging by its life lines of power, this complex was possibly the most advance in existence.

Hunter and Gearhead seemed preoccupied with the communications, not quite her forte, so she ignored them with no interest in communicating with who ever was already here. She couldn’t help it, her feet carried her over to the walls. She was fascinated, and she wasn’t currently needed . She found herself walking along the wall, with ever step away from the entrance she could feel the dust getting thicker in the air, drying out mouth, not that she really noticed though. The sight of a corridor shrouded in shadows intrigued her, even if men were swarming over it. She had begun to make her way over even before Hunter had suggested it. Light triggered gunfire, not a problem. She didn’t hesitant, and walked on, swallowed by the darkness she drew on upon the visible light, channelling it, she was at home in darkness; it comforted her somehow. She turned the corner and could see some triggered device in front of her, she paused considering what actions to take. She turned to see whether the warrior, who she presumed had followed, had any suggestions. One thing she was sure of, by the amount of heat congregating by the machine and then the trailing to the ceiling, was that it wouldn’t just be a simple matter of pulling a plug.

Hades was looking at his elaborate model of the traps that he had set. It was a hologram, supplied by the arrays of sensors placed externally far from the lab, which could by a special “trap-door frequency” penetrate the Lab’s walls; they had been constructed that way. His satellites provided the views outside, the long range sensors provided the info for inside. He observed in surprise when he saw the men blowing their way through his traps. He was cool and calm, his traps were laid. It was like a game of chess, where each side only had one or two long moves, he had made one, now it was the other sides turn. He applauded the tactical and command of the leader, that which ponytail exerted on his men. He respected good leadership and he knew a good strategic brain when he saw one. He saw them going toward the light trap. He was idly wondering how they were going to get through that when it happened.

The speakers crackled to life. “Hades, this is your first, last and only warning. Surrender the facility now or I will take it by force.” “WHAT? How? What on earth? Whaaaa?” gears whirled and clicked and froze for a second in Hades brain. Then training and reflexes took over. He cut the central control to all the traps and the power to them, and to the internal speaker system. They were…. They were… It was impossible, for a human, wait, for a human, what if? Could it be possible? So rare? Yet that would explain everything, ponytail commanded at least one power, either him or one of his underlings. If he did not do that then the female with the human shields did. That meant that ponytail probably had powers of his own, and made all of his followers possible. But enough thought it was time for action.

He sealed his system so that he was just relying on external placed sat photos and sensors and without the internal boosting systems they could only determine the state of the traps. Now the traps could only be disarmed using the manual process that was known only to the person who set them. There was no more power flowing through the cables save those that powered the traps and most of them were hidden deep deep in the walls.

Hades had learnt long ago to feel no fear, though his only worry was that if they ripped the lab up too much they might prematurely trigger the failsafe. This process would cause the containment field surrounding the six huge fusion reactors to dissolve, in an instant releasing enough energy to vaporize the whole lab and all the hidden levels, some of which he had not been. With that thought he remembered his friend’s secret areas. And instantly sent his droids to remove all in them, he could only hope that they were quick enough.

He was still greatly puzzled as to how they could so easily and quickly reverse his speaker system…

Shogun nodded. He seemed the obvious choice; "In a time of darkness, look to the blind to lead." But why had the girl been sent as well? Regardless, he made his way down the corridor, and he activated his suit. Hopefully whatever might be thrown at him would only be metal. The girl seemed to be finding her way through easily, despite that supposed lack of light. He ignored her, though, and made his way down the corridor, and towards the turning in the corner. He stepped around, and nothing happened. He locate each of the weapons, so he advanced towards them. Whilst doing so, he drew his sword, and extended one of the blades. Once close enough, he began to slice the weapons apart, but some were set on the ceiling and too high to reach. He called back down the corridor, "Lord, some of the weapons are placed from the ceiling, where I cannot reach them. If you like, I could direct some of your men in firing their weapons, unless you have a better idea." It occured to him that if given a gun, he could just shoot them all. But he disdained modern weaponry, and wasn't entirly sure how to use a gun anyway.

She disapproved somewhat of the warrior’s crude solution to the problem; you couldn’t just hack through everything that comes in your way. It was working, yes, but in other circumstances it wouldn’t be. To her great amusement he soon found one of the many flaws to his great master plan – his height. He called for help, odd, and how exactly he was going to direct the men to shot around a corner without exposing themselves to gunfire remained a mystery to her. What she knew, however ,was that this was not actually a problem. All you had to do was to assess the situation. Channelling more of the light to allow her to pick up detail, she examined the problem : two guns side by side mounted on the ceiling, each triggered by light, and each with rotation so to cover the entire corridor. A plan was forming, gathering momentum, as her logic approved it, she concluded to give it a shot.

She focused and sensing there wasn’t enough visible light, she drew on some of the heat, from the walls and the warrior, not much, just enough. She focused the energy, concentrating it, so that the infrared radiation became visible light. An orb of white light appeared directly in between the two guns, is brightness cutting into the surrounded shadows and briefly eliminated the warrior and herself. At once the guns swivelled and shot, simultaneously destroying each other. “Situation under control, and we’re proceeding” She called back, hopefully Hunter would allow them to lead and the men would fall behind protecting Gearhead.

She felt the heat drain slowly from the walls, someone had evidently turned the power off, it had been wonderful while it lasted. Essential veins were still running deep within the walls, which she could sense if she spread her awareness out, but for the time being her concentration was focused on the path ahead. Seeing the next bend up a little way off, she proceeded, and turned to find herself in the entranceway to a much larger chamber. She lingered for a moment before curiosity triumphed, as normal, and she stepped inside.

Hunter waited for a response. Shogun called for aid in destroying the turrets on the ceiling, but with Nox there he doubted it would be needed. His thoughts were confirmed when Nox reported the turrets destroyed. First platoon activated another flare and moved up to join them. The lieutenant handed Nox a radio, through which Hunter’s voice came.

“Proceed, first platoon will be right behind you to offer support. If you run into a device you cannot disable myself and Gearhead will join you to work past it.” Nox seemed impatient to seek conflict, so he let her lead. Her unique senses along with Shoguns should allow them to avoid any surprises. So long as they penetrated into the laboratory he didn’t care who went first.

(OOC: Ok, Nox and Shogun you lead, take out 2-3 more traps using a combination of what Hades wrote in the first post and what you come up with. Once you reach the room with multiple doors, a cage maze and quicksand stop and me and Gearhead will join you as only us 4 and Gearhead’s bodyguards can make it through that trap before the quicksand fills the room)

The ripples. This time, they were coming from the girl, and focussed between the two guns. Shortly afterwards, the twin guns annihilated each other. Interesting. He continued down the corridor, and as they came to a large room, Nox decided to just step right in. He put a hand on her shoulder to stop her, "It's best to let the bullet-proof one go first." He purposely didn't explain how he was bullet-proof, as she didn't need to know. He stepped into the room.

Inside the room, were a series of five randomly swinging and rather large guillotines. And also rather deadly, so he stepped up the first one. He wasn't in any particular danger, as even if he slipped and fell into the path of it, his armour would protect him. He drew his sword again, extending the one blade, and waited. As it swung past, he leapt up, and swung his sword. It connected just above the guillotine blade, severing it, and causing it to clang loudly on the ground and slid off to the side. Shogun then moved down to the next one, and performed the same feat again. But the leaping straight up high enough, with the added weight of his armour and the brute strength in swinging his sword. He turned back to Nox, "You wouldn't be able to use your talents on these like you did with the guns, would you?"

when they passed thorugh the first trap a light on Hade's hologramatic display blinked out, when they dissabled the guns, another, and the light on the third trap went from green to red. *hmm, they have either gotten through it or are tackling it right now. It is time*
he reached a pammel and after turning the locks in a set combination he swung bakc a panel to reveal rows of leavers. He pulled two and was pleased to hear a hiss of hydraulics as the mechanisms went to work. although he was slightly worried that they were going through the traps far too quickly. he decided to go and check.

there was no way that mear humand could go through his traps that fast, unless there was more than one mutant. Noooo it could not be, or could it? such a coincidence, hmm ponytail must have some rather big influence.

Her body tensed as the warrior put his hand on her shoulder, and the only reason she didn’t retort or carry on forward for that matter, was the desperate hope that he might get hit by something. As she channelled light around the room, she soon saw the immediate problem: the five swinging guillotines. The warrior artfully disarmed the first, crushing her wistful thinking, and set upon the second in a similar manner. Again, with the hacking. It wasn’t that she frowned upon him, for she knew he was a great fighter, who surpassed her, it was just his mind set for deactivating traps seemed somewhat narrow. He called back to her. A challenge? Very well. Is not that I’m competitive its just…actually no, that hit the nail on the head. If his plastic weapon could sever the blades then she believed her Kris could do exactly the same. So with that in mind she approached the third swinging blade, as it swung past she stepped through, so that when it swung back all she had to do was turn and Exactly, her timing was perfect, and the third guillotine clattered to the ground having been severed by her Kris.

Facing the warrior she replied “Firstly, my powers naturally aren’t the solution to every problem, and luckily for those I can call upon other skills. Secondly, this trap is not one of those.” And with that she turned to the fourth swinging blade, like the others it was attached to the ceiling by a long twisted, tarred rope, of a similar kind to those used to moor ships. Cleary the advantage of this trap was not the fastenings, but due to the lack of light, it ability to catch others unaware until the steel edge bite into their flesh. She focused drawing the heat, primarily from the warrior those external temperature was now dropping. Obviously she did nothing to harm him, but simply reasoned he didn’t need to feel comfortably warm. From the air around them as well, faint traces from the power in the walls, and just a bit form the waiting men in the entranceway, she called upon all of them to 'donate' some of their heat. The heat focused upon the weakest point of the rope, where it split in order to hold the blade in place. The energy was concentrated to the single point, increasing steadily until the rope would reach its limit. And then when the rope could handle no more, its coils snapped one after the other. And so the blade fell to the floor, and the frayed rope hung, still swinging, from the ceiling. She banished the smug expression that was tempting to play across her face, since this was getting ridiculous. They shouldn’t be competiting to see who could do what, but using both their talents to get through everything using the least energy possible, not what she had just done. Recognising this, she pushed pride aside, and spoke once more. “Your skills, however, are far more suited to this task, so if you would be so kind”, she gestured to the last swinging blade.

Little did they know, that just beyond the final blade, in the direct path to the next door, was a pressure plate, which activated the next and far more deadly trap. For unseen spiked chains were running all across the walls, and ceileing, of this square room, when activated by the counter weight that was connected to the pressure plate, would burst in wards towards the centre of the rooms, trapping everything, severed blades, and people a like, into a crushing vice in the centre of the room.

(OOC see img.photobucket.com/albums/v691/woodchuck1812/BlackstoneschainfisttrapMRO.jpg for details, and thanx to Kaz for the idea)

She severed the first guillotine with a kris. He'd had some practise with a kris, and found them to have too short a reach to be of much use. But he had fought knife-fighters who were able to moce like lightening, and he had to fully use his foresight to get the better of them. She was too youngto have had the chance to have gotten that much experience yet, but it would come, with time.

Then they were there again. The ripples. Except these were focussed on him. He braced himself, but there were no ill intentions behind them, so he waited, and felt... colder. As if she had sucked the heat right out of him. He ignored it, and decided to worry about it later. The ripples also went out to many other places, and then seemed to 'bounce' off of them, and focussed upon the rope holding the guillotine. It shortly snapped, dropping the blade to the floor. "Impressive."

Shogun stepped up the the last guillotine, and severed it in the same fashion as he had with the others. He then moved on, still following the idea of sending the bullet-proof one first. He stepped into the next room, which was completly bare, and cautiously stepped a bit further. He drew his blade again, and took a few more steps. He motioned for Nox to stay out of the room, as he was beginning to sense something. He hadn't noticed it before, but there seemed to be a personality hovering by each trap, the same way that the labs and employees of Antonescu all had his shroud. But this one was different, it wasn't the all-encompassing evil, it was... different. He couldn't place it. But it was definately centred on the centre of the floor.

He called back to Nox, "There's a trap in the middle of the floor. I don't know what it is, but it's definately there." He had no idea what could be in the centre of the floor. From what he could tell, there was nothing. What could it be?

The warrior disarmed the last guillotine with the same flourish as before, and proceeded. If he so wanted to be the first person into the next room, she supposed she could deal with that, and so she buried her slight desire to push ahead herself. His body seemed to tense up as if he was suddenly more wary of this next room, his words confirmed this. What new, exciting dangers will this room hold? She had paused in the entrance, and now sent her awareness into the room. Odd. The room had no power supply, every other room had something, even just a faint signal to keep blades swinging for example. This room had nothing. Which meant one of two things: either there was nothing, or it didn’t rely on power. Funnily enough, the later presented itself as more likely under the circumstances.

Which meant he was probably right, there was something in the middle, where he hadn’t yet reached, but one would have to cross, and therefore set off, to exit. She didn’t think either of them were going to somehow guess what this trap was, so she concluded the best way forward was to set it off. What could I use? She didn’t carry anything with her except the necessaries, so part from the warrior, that didn’t leave too many options, except…That wonderful radio she had been given. Feeling its weight in her hand, she believed it just might do the trick. So she called to the warrior “Come back to entranceway, I’m going to try and set the trap off, unless you have a better idea?” Her plan was simple - throw the radio into the centre of the room, where the warrior thought the trap was and see what happens. Hopeful the trap would spring on nothing, and therefore let them walk straight through.

((OOC: Just extra info about the trap: To set the trap off, something has to be over 100lbs))

((OOC: oh well then, so much for that idea, nox will just look foolish throwing radios here and there, and then a new plan will be needed...))

Shogun stepped toward the centre of the room, not sure why an aura would be focussed on empty space. The only way to find out would be gthrough experiment, and he was becoming a little too overconfident due to his armour, so he walked straight into it. As his foot hit the pressure pad, loud metallic sounds were instantly heard. Instinctively, he sent out multiple pulses, as lots of large chains seemed to spring from the walls. He spun around, with both swords extended, and managed to severe a few of them. But nowhere near enough. They crushed against him, forcing him to his knees, but now of them actually touching his armour though the field. He tried to swing his sword at them, but his movement was too restricted, and so he couldn't swing it hard enough.

He called to Nox, "This is why I go first. If you could help me out now, please." He didn't like asking for someone else's help, but he had learnt his lesson. When ill intent is sensed, it's best to stay far far away from it. Hold on a minute, since when could he sense people's aura on abjects? He knew he could sense his grandfather's aura on the knife, and he could sense Antonescu's at the labs, but asides from that, people's auras had always stayed on them. How come some could seem to cling to certain objects/people? He was going to need to do a lot of thinking after this little trip was over.