There is a Maglock on the door.

Glancing at the door, it's obvious that his rounds would never punch through. Turning back to Onna, he gestures to the door.

"There may be more of them. Behind this door is where they make the monsters. If you can break it down, we can take care of them."

Onna looks back at the pair, Father has sent himself into the machine and would need protection until done. "Then we must go there." She walks towards the door, taking a moment to wipe the blood from the wakizashi on the gorilla's fur. She sheathes it and beguns a series of complicated hand gestures with her now free hand. The air begins to distort as a charge builds up from her to the door. With a snap the spell is released into the barrier.

The door groans heavily, starts to crack, then explodes into a shower of dust and splinters.

As the dust clears, you see the stairwell behind it. It goes both up and down. A sign hangs on the wall indicating that upwards leads to the roof.

Ayo steps into the now cleared door, sweeping up and down, and then motioning Onna foward.

"I think we should head down." He takes the lead, stepping lightly down into the darkened stairwell.

Yuki to me, more oni dwell below. The small fox leaps and transitions to the astral. She reforms inside a small glass locket around Onna's neck, this time in the shape of an i-ching coin. She quickly weaves a spell around her sister. A layer of golden flames springs up around the petite warrior as she follows the gunslinger down the stairs.

:: Silk, much less dramatically, takes up the lead, her heart seemingly beating out of her chest as the constant sound of destruction and alarm echos all around her. ::

The mission elapsed counter flashed red as it ticked over another second, counting up from the onset of hostilities. This level of activity, both physical fire support and electronic transmission, raised the network to unacceptable levels of visibility.

"Team, Base, recommend best speed, heavy support is likely to draw unwanted interest."

Father jacks out of the machine to see Shadows still standing before him. Re-orienting to his internal chronometer, he realizes only two seconds have gone by, "Nothing. There's no data about the research, experimentation, or the late giant-mutant-buggy-enhanced-gorilla on this host. Course, there's not much of a host left, either. There's got to be a secured host around here somewhere."

Ayo arches both eyes, the expression mostly covered by the mask, and follows the slim mage, curious as to whether or not she was serious about leading the group down into the midst of the mutant animals.

"Team, Five: no data on this host, which is probably good since it was on fire. Shadow and I moving to follow you," Father continues as he winds up his data cables and moves toward the exiting form of Ayo.

The team desends down the stairs and are faced with yet another door. This one looks quite heavy and is locked with a maglock.

Onna pauses, then speaks. "Numbers, we have a door that needs to be opened."

Ayo pauses behind Onna, quickly releasing and changing the clips in his pistol. He steps up again, around the mage and the shapeshifter, and puts two rounds into the door next to the lock, the echo of explosive rounds ringing in the small stairwell.

[sorry for the double post]

The rounds burst through the lock and the door creeks open slightly from the blasts. Onna's senses are flooded down here as the spiritual side of her dual nature is gagged by the higher background count. From behind the door you can clearly hear what sounds like something skittering across a metal floor.

Grendel's sensors zoom in on the camera pods around the compound and see that they still seem to be functioning, as they keep track of his van and drones.

Reaching out through the network, Grendel drops in to the Doberman, not trusting the BattleTac for a job of this precision. One by one he lines up the camera pods in the sights of the sniper rifle and puts two rounds into each.

One by one, the camera domes burst open and sparks burst out as the electronics inside short and fizzle.

Ayo plants a foot in the middle of the door with a swift kick, already moving through the entryway and off to one side, sweeping side to side with both physical and sixth senses.

Rising out of the drone and into the greater awareness of the network, Grendel scans for threats again. Both the elapsed mission timer and timer counting up from full network activation are red, underlining the fact that dangerous amounts of time have elapsed so far. So far, only loyalty to his troops on the ground has kept him here through this suicidally long delay. When trouble, in the form of ground or air pursuit, showed, though, it was going to be every runner for himself. He was down to fifty percent on his heavy weapon load, and the rotodrone was leaking oil at a worrisome rate. The network would never survive an encounter with security forces at this rate.

Backing the Bison from its hull down position, he maneuvered around the intervening terrain between him and the Magitech facility. The heavy van came to rest in front of the destroyed main gate, idling. The Doberman followed once the Bison was once more in a position to provide covering fire, taking up a position down the street and directly in line with the exit vector of the larger vehicle. If needs be, he could pick the drone up on the fly as they drove past.

As if on queue, three blips appeared on grendel's radar, flying towards the facility at a fast pace.

Father comes up behind Ayo and Onna as they begin to move into this new array.

"Team, Base, Lone Star surveillance drones inbound. Exfiltrate the compound immediately. They'll have eyes on in nine seconds. Network will be outbound in six seconds. Anyone not on board will be walking out. Move!"

The Doberman trundles down the street, elevating its weapon turret to a safe thirty degree angle. The launch cradle deploys from the Bison's floor, capturing the drone as it drives beneath the heavy van. Retracting back inside, the drone returns to stand-by status. Likewise the rotor drone staggers back to its rack, smoke and oil streaming from the jagged machinegun wounds along its side. Once its twin counterrotating discs have slowed, the Bison tucks it away as well.

A riipple in the interior of the van forms into the head of a large metallic dragon. It's voice is gruff and hollow sounding. "Do you require assistance manling?" I t waits for a reply from the rigger within.

Grendel stills his hand as it twitches towards the assault rifle held muzzle down beside his seat. He does not know what orders have already been issued the spirit, but better safe than sorry.

"Conceal this vehicle."

"I have been. Is there any other aid I can render?" The spirit seems to be mildly curious as it looks around the interior of the van.

For a brief moment, Grendel ponders telling the spirit to light a fire under the team's collective ass. But, since he lacks experience when commanding a spirit, and from what he'd heard they were fairly literal beings, he refrains from comment.

"No, thank you, not at this time."

"As you wish little one." With that the spirit slips back outside the vehicle.

As the riggers struggle over the networks, three Strato-9s park in the airspace over the facility.

As the basement door is kicked in, the group doesn't have time to react as a man at the end of the room raises his hands and a wave of acid washes through the doorway.

Onna takes a single step forward, throwing her hand forward and extending her will. Her face stark with the horror of the spell crashing down on them. She calls out, her voice strong and urgent. "No!"

The air turns a hard green, but as Onna steps foward the spell disipates.