mogget_cat | OOM: Who ya gonna call?

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.

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Axel's lips twitch, and it's not a smile.

"If you say so." He turns back to Yrael-- "We done here?"

"That depends," Yrael murmurs.

"There's still a long way to go, I know," Helen admits, seeing Axel's look, "but that's why the work is important."

"Humans tend to be stupid," Yrael supplies with a dry look. "We know this."

"... We're working to make that the exception, not the rule." Helen's wry smile shows that she knows very well how stupid people can be when they're afraid. "The intel we both received may have been wrong, but I'm still getting signs of something odd up ahead."

"Yeah? How 'odd'?" Axel asks.

...burning something would be good for his peace-of-mind right now.

"Heat-signatures, about the size of a small room," Helen says, checking a small hand-held device at her side. "Or a very large..." Her mouth twists. "...piece of merchandise."

Yrael's look is curious. "We were expecting a facility."

"Maybe it's just a drop-off point." Helen suggests, terse.

"Maybe. That way?" Axel asks, nodding down the tunnel.

"Yes," Helen says. "Second right, and then an immediate left. Then the next left after that should show us what there is to see."

"Want to check it out?" Yrael raises an eyebrow at Axel.

Axel gives a toothy grin.

"You know I do," he replies, and pulls the hood of his coat up over his head.

"Just making sure I wouldn't have to talk you into it," Yrael smirks, bright in the gloom that shadows Axel.

"Right pair you are," Helen murmurs, making sure her gun is loaded and ready, and peering along the line of her flashlight as they head down the tunnels.

Axel laughs softly at that, and falls into familiar step beside Yrael.

Helen is getting the feeling that she's the one with the fewest weapons here, despite the guns she has in addition to the one she has to hand. The tunnels drip darkly; The gritty-damp sounds of Helen's boots echo faintly, almost loud beside the silent movements of those accompanying her.

"I'm assuming," she says as they turn corners, "that you had a good reason for not introducing yourselves."

"If you survive, maybe I will," Axel says.

As Helen stiffens and half-turns, Yrael interjects. "We're not here for you, Helen Magnus. There is no worry on that point."

Yrael knows her name. Knows some things about her.

"We have mutual friends, in fact. But we are here for mutual enemies tonight."

"What he said," Axel adds, with a sharp toothy grin visible under his hood.

Helen gives them a long measuring look before continuing down the tunnel, watching their approach to the heat signatures on the device.

"We're going to have to have a long talk, not just introductions, after we get out of here."

Yrael says nothing, just smiles. It's not a full smile, though - apart from the stench of the tunnels, something smells wrong.

And there's something setting Axel's nerves on edge - more than just the sewer itself.

He shoots a quick glance at Yrael, fingers curved in a certain way, suggestive of violence. ~~Behold, as the narration resists the urge to innuendo.~~

~~Stay strong, narration, stay strong!~~

Yrael lifts his chin slightly, an agreement. They are poised, ready, as they turn the last corner -

There's just enough time to register what it is they see before them. They are unfamiliar in detail to Yrael, but he recognizes the general idea of most of them: large electro-magnetic weapons, massive amounts of traditional incindiary explosives, TNT, C-4, those meant to kill from shrapnel damage - the effect is somewhat frantic, as though whoever had put them there were trying to throw the book at a problem they didn't know how to solve.

"Axel!" Yrael snaps, moving instantly to grab Helen before she can continue forward, still taking in what is before them. He is fast, but not fast enough to grab her before her boot contacts something in the darkness, at ankle-height, resulting in a quiet click.

Axel has less than half a heartbeat to decide - defend or escape - and really, for him, that's no choice at all. Defence has never been his strong suit.

The portal is open, and Yrael grabbed, and he pulls all three of them through, closing the way back almost violently.

And because he had no destination... they are in the dark.

He pulls Helen before him, putting himself in between the flimsy mostly-human and the explosion. The portal closing catches just the beginning of the explosion's shockwave, throwing them back into the darkness.

Yrael is moving again almost immediately. "Everyone still with us?"

Helen is dazed, working out what happened. "Where are we?"

Yrael can't smell any blood, and from the little of the blast they caught, internal injuries aren't likely. She'll live.

Edited Date: 2010-07-19 06:48 pm (UTC)

"In the darkness between worlds," Axel replies.

He wonders if she can see him, in the dark, with his hood up, and that thought makes him push the hood back, so that his hair stands out like a beacon. Better the Heartless go for him, anyway; he knows how to take them out.

Yrael's on his feet again immediately, just for that reason, helping Helen up.

"They likely would have people set to come in to make sure the trap worked - shouldn't go back just yet."

Not until Helen is safely on her way, at least; Yrael gives Axel a meaningful look. The Bright Shiner dislikes surprises.

"The darkness between worlds?" Helen's tone indicates that she doesn't like the associations forming in her mind regarding this particular parlor-trick.

"The quickest way to get beyond the reach of the explosives," Yrael answers.

"It's not safe," Axel says. "But it's better than where we were."

For the moment.

"The least we can do is see you to your door," Yrael says, smiling a tense if purposefully gallant smile.

Besides, Nikola would likely not approve of leaving the woman he's been crushing on for over a century where Cabal agents will soon be arriving. Or in the darkness between worlds, for that matter.

Helen eyes them. What she can see of them, anyway. Axel's hair might as well be a torch, and Yrael is nearly incandescent in the dark. "If they knew I was coming, they'd know where I parked," she relents. "All right."

"Where to then?" Axel asks. He's been around her world enough to be able to find his way.

Yrael has maps - this is useful.

The directions she gives are for a destination only a few miles away, on the other side of the city.

Axel nods.

"Stay close." And he takes off, moving quickly, in a ready stance, just in case.

There's no more than a flicker of yellow eyes in the dark though, before he's pulling open the portal out.