+ Reid +

Requiem's ivory flanges smashed their way clear through another wall. Thick chunks of the reinforced glass and twisted metal were thrown into the room, where they obliterated a set of delicate looking equipment aimed towards a low-leveled spider fang. Reid slammed his mace into each wall in that room in turn, hopeful that his impacts would reveal a new hidden space or corridor. Something to investigate. A sign that he still had a chance of finding Randal Ferber here.

They didn't.

As he spun around to jog back the way he'd come, Reid turned information in his mind.

First - this floor was only staffed by a handful of doctors... or doctor-looking individuals, and even fewer black-armored guards.

Second - it was pretty obvious the main work going on here recently had been studying pieces and parts of beasts. It was only when he'd started looking closer at the studied samples that Reid made a further realization. There were claws and appendages that were nothing like what Reid had fought or seen - and some had visible remnants of their original Vuxarinan skin and blood.

Third - the guards and doctors were very fragile, broke quite easily, and didn't even begin to budge the needle on his experience requirements to get to his next level.

Fourth - Reid was one person.

Sure, yes, he was one person with the power to tear apart a hidden underground research facility with his bare hands. But doing that, even with his E-grade speed, took time. Making sure he hadn't missed a secret passage or double checking for hidden rooms took time. It was still in the realm of possible that the doctor was hiding somewhere in this area, and Reid just hadn't thought to smash some specific portion of the ceiling in addition to the walls.

No matter his speed or power, Reid had a limit to how much area he could clear and cover in the complex. Plus, there were more floors the doctor could be hiding on - and potentially different areas underground, based on the way he'd spoken about the different elevator shafts when he mentioned capturing bubbles.

The thought of the kid, back in the hands of the same doctor she'd escaped from, threatened to set him into a rage. Reid focused on breathing steady breaths as he pushed back against the churn within and slowly calmed himself. He wanted to let loose and bring the whole building down - but Bubbles and who knew how many other kids were still inside. Allowing himself to fly off the handle would only put them in danger. He grabbed a fragment of a table off the ground and threw it at a room he hadn't completely destroyed. It smashed a glowing orange light that was set above a piece of stretched and pinned scaly skin.

A now all-too-familiar face and voice came crackling through a nearby monitor. It flickered around a dent in the screen.

"For goodness sake, please stop it!"

Reid glared at the doctor's face. "You want any of this building to stay intact, you'll tell me where you are."

"Do you have any idea how much damage you've done? Brave kids - my kids - died in pursuit of the knowledge those rooms were made to capture. You've stolen meaning from their sacrifice - doomed us to more deaths and slower progress just because you're too backwards to understand! How dare you make demands after you spat on their legacy."

Reid felt his eye twitch as he struggled to keep the calm he'd so recently achieved. Randy seemed to honestly believe he was on the right side of the situation - which was more goddamn infuriating than if the man had just dropped the pretense and admitted to being a fucked up monster. He'd been periodically reaching out to Reid whenever an intact monitor was close by.

He tuned out the madman, and sprinted back to the lobby where he'd entered the floor. Based on Reid's estimates, the space he'd just cleared had a larger floorplan than the L-shaped building above ground, all by itself. Sweeping the entire complex was going to take ages. He needed a hint. Some kind of information. The lobby was in the same shape he'd left it. The fountain at its center had wisps of gas still visible in its pools, and the screens were largely intact. He strode past them, and leaned his head into the elevator to look at the floors.

Possibility was a no go. Bravery - that one was a maybe, but it seemed more about operations than keeping someone sedated and asleep. And that meant the best next lead was for Reid to clear the Dreams floor. He looked up and squinted, but couldn't properly see the light of the next floor up. Reid pulled his head out of the elevator and shouted at the screens above the fountain.

"What happens if I break your elevator, Randy? Do you get stuck wherever you're hiding?"

The doctor's face appeared, set in an unamused line. That was good. Now Reid could get his hint. "Please stop breaking this facility. Your actions are simply harmful. I'll agree to part ways with you if you cease your damage."

"Why don't we meet up for a proper goodbye? I can come to you. Say, on the dreams floor?" The Doctor's face didn't move. "Or are you hiding on bravery?"

The man almost looked calmer at Reid's second guess. He continued to mention the other floors in turn, hoping to see some reaction or tell that would give away Randy's location, but each appeared to only further relax the man. Reid frowned. Had he missed a floor?

He strode back to the elevator and ignored the Doctor's 'offer' to send him straight to ground level. Every floor option was clearly listed - and he hadn't missed a single one. The rest of the glass elevator seemed blank, incapable of hiding any secret options. The ceiling was just a shaft of darkness that rose until even his darkvision couldn't pierce through it for detail. The walls were simple, cut stone to accommodate the glass box. Just as above, there was nothing below but a dark, impenetrably deep space. He shifted to the outside of the elevator again. There didn't seem to be any special functions on the walls next to the elevator, either, it was just...

His eyes locked back on the elevator shaft below him. 'Possibility' was the lowest floor available for him to select, but that didn't mean it was the bottom of the facility. Reid nodded to himself.

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The shaft was too small for him to fly using his wings, but he had other options. He could slow a descent by shoving Requiem into the walls, and he already had the tools built into his armor to climb back up. Reid lifted a boot and willed the retractable spikes there to extend. The feature he'd made, inspired by his Crinoptera fight, was meant to help with footing on difficult terrain. And vertical was certainly what Reid would call a difficult terrain.

He flipped Requiem upside down and smashed the glass floor of the elevator in a single strike, then looked over his shoulder.

On the monitor, Randy's eyes were wide and tinged with fear. Reid smiled.

"Gotcha, motherfucker."

Without hesitation, Reid stepped forward and dropped into the darkness.

#

The descent wasn't smooth. Reid's armor caught air and bumped him into the walls of the elevator shaft, and those bumps caused him to bounce back into the other side. Thankfully, the rock wasn't hard enough to damage him or his armor. He just fell, bouncing like a pinball, until a pinprick of light appeared and grew.

With it, Reid saw the true bottom of the elevator shaft dimly lit, about fifty feet below the doorway into the facility's lowest level.

He pushed his mace into the rock wall with one arm, and lifted his body to stretch to reach the other side with a boot. Reid's momentum slowed, then stopped as he shoved his leg and arm hard. One limb stuck into either side of the elevator shaft, Reid looked through the entry lobby into the well lit rooms and corridors. This space was different than the others. The elevator and its lobby were at a higher level than most of the floor, like offices overlooking a production floor at a factory. There were other raised rooms far in the distance that climbed three stories high up the wall of a truly cavernous room.

Motion filled the space below. There were sections set up like cubicles, large rooms filled with obstacles and greenery, houselike analogs that appeared to be residential in nature. There was even a section near an underground spring dedicated to some kind of farming and animal husbandry. Hundreds of Vuxarinans scrambled to and fro as red lights set throughout the space blinked slowly and softly. In one of the large rooms with greenery, Reid caught a glimpse of a monster with a Vuxarinan face. Another kid like Bubbles. His hand tightened around Requiem.

To Reid's left, a group of black-armored men hustled up a staircase to reach him, their odd weapons raised and ready. He let them spill into the lobby so their bodies wouldn't clog the stairwell later.

One of the men shouted at Reid to surrender. He fixed his gaze back at the man.

"Where. Is. Bubbles?"

"If we tell you, will-"

Frightened eyes glanced at one another in the group. One enemy at the edge looked over towards the high rooms at the far end of the floor. That made sense.

Reid launched himself forward and whipped his mace into the group. It cleaved straight through four of them, and left another three ragged and mangled. Two follow up swings incapacitated or killed the remainder of their group. He didn't bother to finish off the heavily wounded. They could damn well suffer. Reid spun Requiem to get the blood off.

"Nevermind. I figured it out."

Reid stepped forward, and smashed the thin window between the lobby and the rest of the cavernous space. He had a destination - and enough space to use his wings.

Magic power surged through him as his ethereal yellow wings manifested. He leapt through the window, and rocketed forward over the panicked doctors and guards. Reid tried to keep his gaze fixed on the high rooms that clung to the far wall, but he couldn't. He noticed one child after another, interspersed amongst the guards, doctors, and myriad of rooms and spaces. Most seemed entirely normal. Some sported partial transformations - a boy had one arm that was green and clawed at the end. Another wore a device around her neck that put water through a set of visible gills. A child in brown clothing had an almost-fully canid head but seemed otherwise normal. Only one seemed as... mutated... as Bubbles. It was the same monster he'd seen at the start - a large, centipedal creature with the face of a sad Vuxarinan boy.

Reid grimaced, and flapped harder. A few of the black-armored soldiers on the ground took potshots at him as he flew past. Their projectiles did little to nothing, and Reid ignored them entirely. He'd have time for them later.

The rooms grew in his vision, and he picked the middle section of the highest space. The glass on these rooms was mirrored against the cavern - the only spot with a semblance of privacy in the entire level. Without knowing what was inside, Reid figured it would make sense for the head of this demented facility to put himself in the highest physical position.

As he closed in, the windows treated Reid to reflected visions of himself, white but dirty armor still gleaming off the overhead lighting as his yellow wings propelled him forwards.

He smashed straight through the centermost window, tucking his wing bones back onto his torso at the same time. Requiem was ready in his right hand - and for the first time in this forsaken underground space, he held Bonewall in his left hand.

What greeted him was a familiar room. Tucked against the wall was a smaller space encased in clear walls. In it, Bubbles' sleeping yellow and orange form rested on a long bed. Reid frowned. Two black-armored guards were in the room with her. One held a circular sidearm pointed at the girl. The other was pointing one of the large tubes in her direction. More of the black-armored bastards stood in the room Reid had just broken into. All but one wore helmets that obscured their faces. The one visible Vuxarinan had a scar from his cheek down and around his ear. He wasn't holding a weapon. Instead, the man had one hand pressed against a small communicator. His other was splayed in a 'wait' gesture.

"I let go of this button or stop talking, and my teams take down every mixed monster in this place," He nodded back towards Bubbles without looking away from Reid. "Including the hornet. Neither of us want that to happen. So just take a beat. We're going to come to an agreement where my people and the doctors don't end up as blood smears."

"If they don't get those guns away from her in the next five seconds, I'm going to shove that radio down your fucking throat."

The scarred man sighed. "I wish you hadn't threatened me. They have orders for that, too."

Reid's head swiveled as gunshots barked out from the cavernous space and bounced along the walls. An inhuman screech sounded as the centipede boy rose into the air, bleeding profusely from multiple wounds. The guards around him continued their fire until he flopped down dead. Elsewhere, the guards were shooting children with sedatives from the long tubes. They fell down, completely incapacitated and at the mercy of the armored guards.

Red swam at the edges of his vision as he turned back towards the scarred man before him. He could tear through these fucks like tissue paper, but if he did, people were going to die.

These fucks were going to try and use the kids as leverage to... to what?

To get themselves out of the facility?

To get Reid out?

He wasn't going to leave without the kids - and they had to know that. He sure as hell wasn't going to leave without Bubbles, which was why they were in this room at all.

Plus, if they did let him go with the kids, there was nothing stopping him from coming back and killing them all anyways.

These people didn't have a plan.

They were just scared of finally facing consequences.

And they were willing to do despicable shit in a desperate attempt to avoid that. He could see it in their eyes. They would kill every kid in this place, and they were either going to do it slowly while he tried to negotiate, or they would do it all at once.

Things were out of control. Reid's mind flashed back to his father's lesson in a snowy school parking lot. When things started going sideways, you couldn't keep the wheel straight.

He took a slow breath, then dropped Requiem and Bonewall to the floor.

When shit went wrong, you needed to steer into the skid.

His free hands lowered to his sides.

To his tassets.

His fingertips brushed against the Marrowbombs sitting there.

And Reid fueled a slug.

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