Dawn wasted little time in her reaction- a necessity, really, given how pressed of it they were to begin with, and how quickly the stranger had forced himself into their means of escape. In three deft motions she had slipped her hand into her bag, turned, and swung her pistol out and into the man’s face, muzzle held flush against his forehead.

“Put your hands on your head. Where we can see them.” In another, calmer time, perhaps she would have chuckled at her own statement. It was ripped straight from the pages of the withered novels she had found stuffed under mattresses, wrapped lovingly in plastic to protect it from the elements. But now, her lips were held in a thin, bloodless line, voice firm, raw panic clashing at her insides and working up her throat.

Internally, Dawn was aware that there was something oddly familiar about the stranger’s face- something vaguely unsettling that she couldn’t quite put a finger on- but she brushed aside the feeling for the time being. Trying to place a face was a luxury she couldn’t afford, not now.

Her attentions were stolen with Spire’s sudden dive into the garage, Hel in his arms. The end of her gun still trained on the stranger, Dawn moved to open one of the car doors, only to find Soren had already moved to do so. He moved calmly, picking Hel up and seating her beside Clockwork, buckling her in securely.

“Keep that on,” he instructed. His voice was remarkably gentle, kind for the circumstances, and, with both children secure, he slid back into his own spot, shutting the door behind him. “If you did truly come to help us, then we greatly appreciate it, young man.” Carefully, Soren pushed away one of the weapons that had edged dangerously close, frowning a little. “But I’m sure that you can understand our caution.”

Clockwork’s gaze was steady as ever, even as it moved from the chaos outside to that within the car itself. However, her hand found Soren’s almost instantly as he sat down, holding onto it as if the stability of the world itself depended on it. “You have quite the number of weapons, sir,” she noted idly. Then her eyes turned back to the outside world as the gunfire rang out, to her brother, and her fingers curled even tighter around her father’s.

@RabidPorcupine

Ed & Id

Why couldn't life just be simple?

Just as it seemed his evening was going to go without interruption or incident in walked an important looking fellow, perhaps just a bit self important to that matter. It wasn't until his sister remarked on him that it clicked in.

"Omigosh! Is that Viceroy Varren?"

She exclaimed, sitting on the edge of the table with her hands up on her cheeks in pleasant surprise. He cast a lazy eye over and sure enough it was the guy himself. It didn't hurt that he literally introduced himself as Viceroy Nicola Varren.

Ed, not giving two halves of a crap about the new guest's importance, simply turned back to the can of garbage he was currently emptying into the garbage bag he was holding. He had foolishly ignored the mischievous gleam in her eyes when he turned his back on her. Something he was about to regret.

_
A pair of soft, dainty hands gave him a hearty shove forward. Not anticipating the sudden push he stumbled, falling foward with the can of garbage he was just emptying in hand. All the garbage that wasn't emptied into his bag yet spilt onto him as he landed face first into the can he was just holding.

The pain of landing upon a metal receptical quickly gave way to the both sudden and keen realization that he had drawn way more attention than he ever would of wanted on him. He jerked up, eyes darting about to see exactly how much unwanted attention he had garnered.

"Ah crap."

His sharp exclamation of frustration gave way to a disgruntled grumble about halfway through the swear. Doing his best to simply play it cool he went back to his task, gathering up the garbage which had spilled from the can onto his face and on the floor by hand since he didn't have any tools for this particular event.

Bloody people leaving gross junk in the meeting hall garbage instead of the hall cans. Who the hell only eats half a salad?

Madison’s thoughts were still swarming with more questions than answers when the door once again swung open, allowing an older, distinctively well-kept man entrance into the room. His face struck Madison as familiar, although it was only when he properly introduced himself that it fully clicked in his head.

“Yes, that would be me.” Smiling brightly (and dearly hoping he didn’t look as rattled as he felt), Madison stood, clasping the offered hand in his and giving a firm shake. “It’s very nice to meet you, Viceroy Varren. I’ve heard a lot about you from my briefing back home. From what I heard, you’re exceptional at managing the sectors under your charge.” He drew back, eyes lit up with enthusiasm, although the look faltered a little with the Viceroy’s question.

“Well.” Madison clasped his hands together. He gave a soft, nervous little laugh. “It’s certainly been...eventful, I would say.” The idea of innocent people being subject to the sorts of horrors that the Alchemist mentioned still stuck prominently in his head. Madison swallowed a little, dearly hoping that he hadn’t offended Viceroy Varren with that comment, and was about to throw out a compliment- of the base, of the faculty- when the clatter of trash caught his attention. Madison turned, only to see that the serf that had entered earlier was now thoroughly covered in trash, and attempting to clean all of it by hand.

“Oh! Oh, dear.” Madison took a few instinctive steps towards the serf, eyes wide with concern. “Are you alright, there, sir? I could find you a dustpan, if it would make things any easier for you.”

There were little blurred, black lapses in the past hour that Agent Beretta could not pull up to the front of her mind, and a big blank spot of air just to the left of Canvas's head that kept taking her wavering attention and holding onto it for intermittent bouts of time. She was not sure when she had stopped feeling her face, but she had taken to feeling her cheeks every so often to be sure they were still there.

She wasn't quite sure what he was saying. There was a graph that looked like the path of a plane crashing. Or like the state of affairs at this meeting. She giggled at that, but her head lulled lazily to the size when she turned to see if anyone else had found it funny.

She scoot-scuttled her butt across the floor several inches to lean against someone's leg, and she was a solid 96% sure it was Mayday's. Or, like... maybe 64% sure. When had she sat down on the floor? It was kind of cold, but the leg was nice.

She fixed Canvas with her unfixed eyes and giggled again. There was a loose lock of raven hair stuck to the side of her lips.
"Maybe... Maybe YOU'RE t'stupid. Because you're the..." she paused and frowned, realizing that there was now hair in her mouth. She stuck her tongue out as her violet eyes crossed to try and see the offending strand, before dragging the back of her hand down her cheek to free it. Her expression again became as serious as one could be while sitting cross-legged against someone else's calf."I am thinking that we've... We're doing our good. Goodest? Mmmost... good."

Specter had grown up most of his life as a bounty hunter, his whole life he was in danger of dying from his targets or from a relative of one of his targets, yet he had always gotten out of it alive, whether it was due to his weapon skills, or his Gift, he would always complete his mission and get out alive... this time, neither his skill or his Gift would prove of any use as one was disabled and the other would simply not make a difference at this point in time, so he took a deep breath, ready to die then and there. However, as the garage opened, a chance to escape with his life had appeared, sliver as it was.

Then Spire basically tossed Hel inside and went guns blazing, killing three of the nearest guards and then running straight for the madman that had barged in here in the first place. This display and with the seeming relative ease that Spire was disposing of his targets emboldened Specter and for a moment, he wanted to go in barging as well, figuring that with his help, they would be able to get to Johnny and use him as a bargaining chip to allow everyone to escape... however, his rationale quickly kicked in. First of all, the soldiers that Spire had killed were only a few of the full number, some of them had surrounded the ranch house and some had entered it and they definitely heard all the commotion going on here, which meant that they would be back here in just a few seconds.

And then, the nail in the coffin of thoughts hit, what if the person that was right above on the armored truck was not actually Johnny, but someone to take his place, nobody, no matter how brave or insane would put himself in the danger of having a stray bullet hit him. However, he would give Spire, the slightest chance of escaping, the slightest chance of getting out of there alive, he pocketed his guns and grabbed two more, a frag grenade and another flashbang. He removed the pin on the flashbang and tossed it out in Spire's direction, hoping it would give him an extra second to catch himself and then, he threw the frag grenade straight towards Spire without removing the pin, hoping that he would be able to use the grenade itself as a bargaining chip.

"Don't die, Spire!" He shouted and feeling he had wasted enough time already, he jumped through the garage doors and to safety... however, it was just in the nick of time, as he felt a bullet going straight through one of his shoulders as he jumped inside the garage... bleeding, but still alive.

"Got room for one more?" Specter asked, gritting his teeth as the pain from the bullet wound finally registered. His eyes had also analyzed the situation inside, there were people there that he had yet to meet though he guessed that they were part of the Wanderers as well, his eyes finally resting on Hel for a few moments, the girl that he saved... or rather had tried to save.

@EchoicChamber

Nick looked to the woman, nervous expression still on his face, and did his best to smile. Of course, it came of as a smirk, but that wasn't his intention.

"Well, as much as love to do that, I wouldn't be much use if I couldn't use my weapons, would I?" He still raised his hands though, trying to go for a placating gesture and hoping she wouldn't just shoot him.

Not that she didn't have every right to...

"Listen, I'm not here to hurt you. I don't like raiders almost as much as I don't like killing."

He jumped in fear when a few more figures jumped into the truck, one of them carrying a small child. He smiled uneasily at the mans words, nodding.

"Don't worry, I get it. But I still plan to help, and I can't do that sitting at gunpoint. If you stop aiming your guns at me, I can help out, and even direct you to the bush the kid who asked me to help was hiding in."

Finally, he turned to the girl who noted the number of weapons he had on him.

"Yeah, I summoned them outside... whatever field is stopping powers. I can't desummon them right now though, or control them. If I could, I'd have saved you all in a couple of minutes, top."

And then he addressed the person in the drivers seat.

"So are we waiting for anyone else? Because I get the feeling we don't have long before those raiders attack us, so if we can get out of here, we're gonna want to do it now.

Commander Green watched, with his usual,y slightly amused impassivity, as shortly after Commander Botrelle's departure, the other representative of the biological warfare department, stood up and walked out of the meeting without a word.

His mile widened ever so slightly, before he addressed the visitor's question.

"No, Commander Lovette, it's not common practice here for people to simply walk out of interdepartmental meetings." he responded.
"...most have a little more sense than that.

On that note, we must press on and take a vote in regards to my proposal to outsource certain work from the medical research department. All in favour of assigning some alchemists from biological research?"

There were more than a few hands raised, taking advantage of the opportunity to both shirk potential additional workload by offloading it onto someone else, and the opportunity to do it without that someone else knowing they'd been one of those to do so.

"Very well if there are no objections that should work out wonderfully."

Shortly after, the door opened and they were greeted by the base's Viceroy himself.
"Quite well Viceroy Varren, quite well. We've had a few unplanned absences due to circumstances, but we've managed as best we can. I believe matters are more or less worked out."