[OOC: Continuing because I'm tired of waiting.]

So, now, things were getting underway. Cassius was explaining and outlining things to the others, Which Zen felt was unnecessary. They did not have the facilities for containing and studying the X at this time. Maybe discovering the use of a non-lethal containment weapon and a decent scanner would do on the short term, but their priorities were not to hunker down and study in the field while about a million creatures decided to swarm around you. Eventually, they would find some way to kill them in the time that it takes to discover something more than what is known, something useful. Their orders were to carry out this mission to destroy them, to complete and enact the Final Protocol to exterminate the X, once and for all.

This talk of study and traps did not really take long, as the next move was to attempt to make contact with the people on the other side of the gate. Cassius started by giving them an official order, which would certainly move any Federation agent to action. Kaze decided...

Oh god, why?

The black dragon had pretty much decided to pull the gate right open, out of its housing entirely. Rather than fight with its hydraulics, he'd gripped it in his talons and pulled hard. At about the halfway point, when everybody else might've been raising their objections - He worked fast - there was a large energy blast. It was a wave blast, and it flung the door and Kaze back from the force of it! So, the gate was now open, technically, and they could see inside.

First thing of note? The eye. There was suppose to be a door where that eye was. There were records of the X covering doors with organic matter, and that some of them tried to kill you with energy blasts. Kaze's barrier was reduced by ten percent, and he hadn't been hit by all of it. It looked like the thing blinked alot, and every now and then, a wave shot came out of it. Well, it did NOW, but this answered the 64-Credit question of whether or not there were humans here, because there were NOT.

I mean, REALLY not.

The two human figures here were these ashen-gray-skinned 'people' with empty eyes, no body language, practically no expression, and guns in hand. Literally. You ever seen Videodrome, where the main character's actually been bonded to his gun? No? Well, the flesh of their hands was wrapped around energy pistols and rifles, and they were coming out to open fire on everyone!

Oh, and...one more thing. Amy had an alert for Amber, just now. The drone had wandered further in a vent. the actual armory had a large heat source in it, a lifeform, but definitely not a human one...

Kaze glanced at Cassius while his arm kept pulling. Treating the thick steel barrier as if it were a piece of aluminum foil. "If the room isn't air tight then the X got through. They float and are gelatinous and they shapeshift." He said as the door peeled away. Then he was blown back. Raising an eyebrow his claws dug into the steel floor, leaving eight furrows of jagged metal in front of him. He took note of how much damage an indirect hit had taken before is shield recharged almost as fast as it had gone down.

He observed the room, taking note of the fleshy wall and eyeball on the other door. The two occupants were clearly not human and the smell dictated they weren't alive officially either. Stepping forward he chucked the door that still rested in his hand at the oncoming beam from the blinking door. Inhaling he launched a glowing green glob roughly the size of a human after the door towards the blinking red creature stuck to the wall.

He made sure there was room around him for the others to maneuver or simply use the behemoth as cover. He did make quite the wall.

The Tribunal flinched and jumped back briefly as seeing a explosive flash hit Kaze. It was just then that he saw two of these.... "Zombies" seemed to rise up to call to action... Just spectacular. Amazing even... Fantastic. He decided to climb up Kaze's back due to the fact he was not about to crawl prone between his legs to get a clear shot, especially out of fear of him falling on him and crushing him to death-- not a way he would be a fan of that way to go out in life.

"Burn the corpses after I paste them." Cassius stated calmly. He shot one of the "Zombies" with his wrist mounted launcher on his left arm, he shot the one to the left, and fired a high powered shot to the right; with any luck they would go down easily and would not retaliate too much. From there, he decided to just hold onto Kaze from the shoulders, at least he was safe this way, could shoot down if need be.

"Err... Sorry if me climbing you is a bit awkward." He apologized politely. But it was the best vantage point for him.

Kathrine Vail:

Her question went unanswered as an explosion went off at the front of the group. Kat reacted on instinct, throwing herself and hopefully Amber against the wall as best she could.

There were any number of lifeforms that used some manner of explosive chemical compounds as a means of self defense. In confined spaces like this, a sizable explosion could send shockwaves and any number of harmful material ricocheting down the space. Depending on what had gone off, things could get... Messy.

Sure enough, Kaze came flying down the hall a ways, before literally screeching to a stop. Cassius gave an order, one which Kat herself might have assisted with, had there not been a dragon and at least two men between herself and the intended 'pasting' targets.

Others in the group were a little too slow to act. Possibly because of seeing this new strangeness in the other half of the room, perhaps due to other reasons. It didn't matter, for now. The situation unfolded as it did, with Kaze sending a large shot of acid at the huge eyeball, right after his chucking the security gate at it. The result was some clear damage to the creature's surface. No, it clearly did NOT have any particular defense against acid. There was some kinda' screech, and then Cass jumped on top of the dragon to fire into the bodies of the 'humans'. these were not zombies. These were X-replicated human forms. Not very sturdy in comparison to some of the other creatures they've taken the form of before, and that's why Cass' weapon blew them apart, and that the globs of X soon flew free as the remains melted.

Now, Kathrine was having trouble getting past Kaze, especially since Cassius was on his back, so that climbing was also out of the question. Cass had elected to climb so that the dragon couldn't crush him. Zen did not really care. He launched himself into a slide between Kaze's legs and under his bulk, emerging out the other side and focus-firing his three eye-beams at the eyeball until its structure gave up for ghost and melted away into another hovering blob of X Parasite. That appeared to be that, EXCEPT...now, the actual armor door was pounded into - once, twice, thrice - before a few missles hit it and it just blasted open! There was a MASS of zombie flesh molded together, crawling on many disfigured limbs and pointing the business end of several weapons, missle launchers and blaster rifles!, straight ahead at them.

Zen immediately acted, leaping up to take a slash at it with one of his blades to disable one of the three missle launchers as it harmed its discolored flesh, then firing at it with lasers from one side of the room. This was to divert it from everyone else so they could get in and concentrate fire. And given that this creature was not use to any sort of human-level intelligence or tactics such as a distraction, it immediately unloaded on him. Zen avoided most fire by dropping prone, but he was taking a few hits at this point. The room was not large for maneuvers and he was acting as a decoy.

Kaze watched impassively as the door and acid caused a good deal of damage to the eye door. It wasn't enough to kill it, which was surprising given his acid was the most potent known. But Zen zipped under to give it the killing shot. Cassius was climbing on him, which earned the cat man a shrug. "I'm used to being a mobile fortress." He stated before using his Tesla Gun to just fry the remains of the infected humans.

The door the eye was guarding blew open to reveal a mass of putrid flesh wielding many guns. Blaster rifles which wouldn't be much of an issue, and missile launchers. Those were the danger, but Zen disabled one right away. Stepping forward Kaze used his tail to open his Grenade canister and launched three of them into the mass. Literally into.

His wings snapped out and he braced himself while he shielded the others with his bulk from the oncoming blast. If the others remembered his sonic bombs and just the shells from his shotgun they'd do well to hide behind him. The grenades glowed briefly before exploding powerfully, splattering a good portion, if not all, of the mass. Unless it was really ginormous.

Kathrine Vail:

With an apologetic shrug, Kat moved away from Amber and into the center of the hallway. Though she wanted to assist the others, she didn't really know what was happening, what with all the mass of dragon and men between her and the action.

With a frustrated sigh unheard by anyone else, she leveled her rifle toward the fighting, ready to open fire should a gap open up and something mean come through.