OOM: Who ya gonna call?

[mogget_cat]

Yrael has the information they'll need for their... field trip, that which Tesla helpfully procured for them about the Cabal. Yrael, Axel and Nikola have been planning this for quite a while, and since the Cabal seem to be stepping up their activity in regards to searching for Nikola, they decided that acting sooner was better than later.

Getting into Tesla's world is as simple as him opening the door and letting Axel and Yrael step through.

Comments

[mogget_cat]

Brussels, Belgium.

--------

"[Don't move!]" shouted the apparent leader of the eight heavily-armed guards surrounding Axel, guns pointed and fingers on triggers. "[Keep your hands where I can see them!]"

True to orders, Axel didn't move, keeping his gloved (and blood-spattered) hands aloft. He didn't even move to wipe the splash of blood off his cheek, though the dark red was clashing with his hair.

"[He was armed a minute ago, Captain. I know it,]" offered one of the guards, exceedingly anxious about this tall, too-thin man with the unlikely hair and the all-too-comfortable demeanor for one caught and surrounded while unarmed - this man who had until a few moments ago been slicing through their numbers like a deadly dervish.

"[Then find where he stashed his weapons!]" roared the captain. "[Hell, search him too, and make sure he hasn't gotten anything else hidden up those sleeves.]" One of the guards moved immediately to obey, searching the prisoner with efficient, practiced movements. The captain wasn't in the best of moods; he had been getting only radio silence from too many of his squads around the building for the last ten minutes. And while information was scarce, what he had heard about the other departments was causing a sick, angry knot to form in his stomach.

A call came from down the hall. "[Sir!]" A guard, clearly shaken, came to a winded halt before his captain. "[Sir, the labs. All of them are out. Most of the tech's been fried and- and the technicians, sir... well, them too.]"

"[What about Admin?]"

"[No one's heard from Lambert's group for the past-]"

"[Hey! What is this?]" The surprised voice of the guard searching the prisoner made the captain and the newly-arrived guard turn to see what had been found.

A cat?

The searcher gingerly pulled the remarkably clean, white cat from the pocket of the prisoner's bloodied black coat, like some horrible parody of a magician pulling a rabbit from a top hat. Anger surging, the captain stepped forward, opening his mouth to ask the prisoner what kind of stupid, sick joke he thought he was playing-

-just in time to see the cat fix its bright green gaze on the guard that held it. The cat was growing, impossibly, its lower jaw dislocating as it opened its mouth and lunged forward with the speed and motion of a snake striking, closing its jaws on the guard's neck with a sickening crunch as the sharp, ivory teeth met in the middle.

The guards could only stare in horror, and that's why, by the time they noticed the fiery chakrams that had manifested in the prisoner's hands, it was already too late for them.

[killitwithfire]

Rio de Janeiro is hot at the best of time, sweltering at the worst, but today, is something else altogether; a building the size of a city block is blazing in the setting sun, sending waves of heat out for miles.

Later, no one was really able to say what happened; investigators found no trace of evidence one way or another, but when questioned, several witnesses swore they heard laughter coming from the inferno, and one little girl swore that it was a cat that did it.

[mogget_cat]

Yrael laughs as they head through the Dark Paths, blood fading from his white clothes.

"You'd like Rio, Axel. It's always hot there, and down nearer the beaches, the humidity isn't nearly as much."

[killitwithfire]

"Think we should stay a while then?" Axel asks.

[mogget_cat]

"Well," Yrael considers it. "Let's get this done first, then we can take our time on the way back. Nikola lives only a little ways out from Rio."

[killitwithfire]

Axel flashes him a grin, bright white in all that black.

"All right," he agrees easily.

[mogget_cat]

"So, Dallas next," he grins. "Then only... five more, and we're done."

[killitwithfire]

Axel grins broadly.

"What d'you wanna do when we're all done?"

[mogget_cat]

"We can check back in with Nikola, and then go celebrate a job well done?" Yrael grins. "We'll get him to pay."

[killitwithfire]

The grin widens.

"Sounds good."

[mogget_cat]

Yrael smirks as they go further into the dark. "I think you'd like the spiciness of some of the food served in Rio."

[killitwithfire]

"We should get lunch-" or whatever "-after we're done then. Speaking of which--"

He pulls the way open, and gestures grandly for Yrael to precede him.

"We're here."

[mogget_cat]

"So we are," Yrael says, passing Axel with a grin.

"Let's see who can find and dispatch the local manager first, shall we?"

Challenge issued, he dashes through the portal and is off.

[killitwithfire]

Axel laughs, and dashes off himself.

...If he kills the manager, he doesn't really notice.

[mogget_cat]

Neither does Yrael, really.

It's all a blur of very fine red mist.

His hair is about as red as Axel's, by the time they meet up again. The entire building is dark and quiet, apart from the occasional crackling of sparks from damaged wiring that's being sprinkled by the few fire-alarm sprinklers that are still in working order.

Yrael laughs, catching sight of his reflection in a shard of mirrored glass still in its frame (but only barely; the lab tech that had gone through the floor-to-ceiling window had flailed a lot). Running his fingers up through his sticky red hair, leaving it in rather crazy spikes, he grins at Axel. "Now I'm you after a hair-cut."

[killitwithfire]

Axel snerks at that.

"Where next?"

[mogget_cat]

"Tokyo," Yrael grins.

"So maybe we can snag some sushi or something along the way..."

He will graciously cede any and all wasabi to Axel.

[killitwithfire]

"Sounds good."

It's not far to get there, Axel's way.

[mogget_cat]

After Tokyo, they head back through the Dark Paths towards Cairo. Yrael noms sushi from one of the bento boxes they snagged on the way, remarking, "That was even more entertaining than the last. Those Abnormals they were using were surprising, I'll admit. Actually something of a challenge, for a little while."

But not forever. Not with these two.

[killitwithfire]

"Yeah, well, there's no-one more 'abnormal' than us," Axel replies, a little smugly. After all, from a certain point of view, at least one of them can be called an eldritch abomination.

[mogget_cat]

And both magnificent bastards, at that.

"True, true," Yrael grins, handing Axel the laptop with the blueprints so he can focus on finishing off his sushi. "You'll like this next place. I'm thinking we should try for roof-access again."

[killitwithfire]

"Yeah?" Axel says. And then-- "Oh--!" as they come out the portal.

[mogget_cat]

The sun in high and bright in the cloudless blue, baking the city below.

Yrael practically purrs, feeling the dry heat both above and below, from the sun and from the roof under his bare feet.

Eventually, he'll notice that the roof they're standing on is strung with lines, hung with... drying laundry?

[killitwithfire]

...Not that Axel can be made to care.

"...I vote that it's break time," he says, very seriously.

He can't be the only one who wants to take a nap in the sun, can he?!

[mogget_cat]

Yrael opens his eyes, which had drifted shut in the soporific warmth. "Mmm."

"I think you're right."

"Though..." he frowns slightly, looking around, "...I don't think this is an office-building, anyway."

It's an apartment complex.

"Break time, then."

He'll look over the blueprints they were given, in the meantime.

Eventually.

It is such a lovely, dry heat, in this desert city.