Doctors and Nurses [Lassa]

[Tokoz]

 A set of cold rooms... Haus had a point. Nodding slowly, Lassa stood. "Thank you. That might be worth investigating. I will do my best to ensure whatever is going on? That was the last case." 

"I hope so." Haus said bitterly, and took another sip of his drink as Lassa strode out of the office. 

The patient before had definitely been dead once Lassa had a chance to get a look at him. Removing the blood vials from his pocket, he headed towards the labs. Taking a station, he began to run a few tests.

About 15 minutes later, he was examining the results with a frown. No poisons or toxins he could find, just an abnormally high response in line with a fatal allergic reaction. So, either this really was a mistake, or this kill had been tailored to the individual. 

The man in question was nobody special, a bouncer for some local bar. It seemed like it was overkill for someone to go through that much effort to assassinate him when they could just have him stabbed at his job. 

Pausing as he looked at the blood results, Lassa stared at nothing for a moment. A Marine, a Bouncer.... the others he had investigated had been a dockworker, swordsman, and bounty hunter. There was a trend of powerful builds amongst those killed, taken down by illness. 

If someone was collecting the bodies, and aiming for strong ones... that sounded uncomfortably like a certain project the World Government had unveiled at Marineford just before the death of Whitebeard. He had never personally encountered one of the robotic war machines, but he was aware of the basic concept. There was other World Government projects, such as CHIMERA, but they didn't use dead bodies as far as he was aware. 

Cleaning off the workstation, he turned and headed for the pharmacy. He needed to find Lucy, and then get searching. If he was lucky, he could set up a trap for whoever was taking the body of the recently deceased man. 

[Jess]

What~? Think I can kill you with looks alone~?

"I see. Well, be more careful.
And you, back to your ward, the bedpans will need changing."

The matron narrowing her eyes in a way which seemed to spread only the shortest series of seconds into what felt like a millennium, she looked between Lucy and Doctor Grey as her sense of suspicion battled with the explanation which had been offered up to her, but ultimately seemed satisfied enough with the encounter that she rolled her eyes and marched off. Though, not before making sure her nurse had a reason to remember the consequence of her dalliance, however.

“Yes, Matron.” This leaving the black beauty nod subserviently before she began to stride away next to the man who had come to her aid, after a hostile moment like that one it was almost easy to forget the reason for which she had sought out the dispensary, and instead Miss Roberts was, for all intents and purposes, living her little lie here. Or at least one of them. Certainly feeling annoyed to get bossed around like a child but not really having much comeback without leaving herself open to unwanted scrutiny, all she could do was take her punishment on the chin and carry on, along with her new companion.

"Forgot to sign for something?"

Stifled by the encounter to such a degree that it was him in fact that struck up the next note of conversation, the relieved raven turned her head to find the dashing doctor smiling softly and understandingly, and even being so gracious as to offer a reason for her to be excused in his eyes as well.
“Hm? Oh, my, yes. Hopefully she won’t notice the fresh ink?” Blinking a little as she questioned her luck in that regard, Lucy nodded again and smiled this time at the ease of her ‘escape’, then narrowed her own green gaze as she remembered the tip Lassa has given her and used it as a little moment of humour with a sigh and a shake of her head, and enjoyed the moment to relax before being sent to her punishment.

"Heh, as expected. They’re usually running you poor girls ragged, so it’s easy to forget little things like paperwork?
You should have a word with that boyfriend of yours? See if he can’t get them to ease up a little?"

The doctor smiling as well as he seemed to accept her explanation at face value and the girl not entirely disliking that or the way his eyes seemed to run over her either, grey stuffed his hands into the pockets and then glanced over his shoulder to ensure that the woman wasn’t following them, and then showed his understanding in the assumption he had made as he reflected on how hard the wards seemed to work the ‘angels’ within. Dipping into a different corridor soon after as their destinies seemed to lay in differing directions, the doctor than ran his hand back through his hair and shone with his own smile and joke next, and then disappeared soon after. Likely chasing down his next patient in need of a miracle…

	"Marie Shelley" – Nurse?	### words
	@tag, I Don't Want No Scrubs

[Tokoz]

 A few moments after Grey vanished, Lassa emerged from around a corner. "I assume there was a point to cozying up to a certain Doctor Grey?" He asked, eyebrow arching. "It seems he has some idea of your supposed status as my paramour despite asking you for a drink." Bit odd that, but maybe he was just taking a shot in the dark. 

"Haus told me about a set of former cold storage rooms that were blocked off beneath the hospital years back. It could be where the target is hiding the bodies, and whatever is going on will likely be revealed there, if that's the case." 

It was an odd issue, and he hoped that he was wrong about what the bodies were being used for. Maybe it was just an organ-smuggling operation, or a particularly careful assassin. Still, the more he thought about it, the more the pieces fit together. This was a hospital after all, there were easier ways to sneak organs away if that was the goal. He didn't want to jump the gun, as assumptions got you killed, but it was starting to look more and more like some sort of messed up experiment was taking place here. 

For a moment, he could almost hear echoing in his ears....

"Kleheshesheshesheshes.... Look at you...."

"Kleheshesheshesheshes.... Look at you...."

                "Don't cry now, my children...."

"Don't cry now, my children...."                            

"You will be my magnum opus... My _____" 

Twitching slightly as he came back to focus, Lassa frowned, glancing over at Lucy. He had gone quiet for too long. "Sorry, was thinking about something. Anyway, we have a potential location. What did you find in the pharmacy? Grey didn't catch you, did he?" She didn't seem panicked, but it was possible she had just suppressed her reaction. She was at least that professional, after all. 

[Jess]

What~? Think I can kill you with looks alone~?

Lassa…? The vision of the vixen lingering on the dashing doctor and the corner behind which he seemed to disappear, after the rollercoaster of the past few minutes Lucy almost felt surprised when her partner seemed to return to her, though given his comment she seemed to acclimatise to the moment rather quickly.
“Man, I’d almost think you were jealous, lover boy~” Flapping those lashes in a blink a couple of times before curling her lip at the attention that her ally seemed to give the man who had walked away, the sable siren couldn’t help but shake her head as she smirked, and drew attention to the hint of possessiveness in the disapproval he showed toward his rival’s act. It probably wasn’t true, but it was fun to feel flattered by it all the same, right?

“Told you…?” The fox finding a reason to frown soon after however when Lassa revealed the fact that his conversation had been illuminating in a way that neither had them would have expected, in all honesty an old grump like Haus had seemed like the last sort who would cooperate even if he wasn’t guilty, and so Miss Roberts was left to nurse a little moment of surprise because of this. No pun intended, of course.
“So, I take it he isn’t our man?” Tilting her head as it seemed that the curmudgeonly character had seemingly been dismissed as a person of interest based on whatever conversation he had with her comrade, the coquette had to admit that she was somewhat curious as to what their discussion had involved, and what had been said in it to sway the opinion of her senior so significantly and swiftly.

“The Matron nearly did, but Doctor Grey covered for me, actually~” Shaking her head when next her cohort asked if she had been caught in the act by the man who had just waltzed away from them, perhaps because of the back and forth they had shared so far Lucy had to show a little relish as she confirmed the fact that the figure who seemed to distract her friend so had been the one to aid her, and answered him with a little note of chirpiness when mentioning the name of the hospitals hot shot.
“Nothing, actually, which was strange? Anti-histamines are for allergic reactions, and yet, according to the log the guy hadn’t been given anything at all since the night before? Not officially, at least?” Focusing on the job however when their conversation called for it, while the scare she had been given meant that the shady siren hadn’t had much chance to dwell on her discovery the result had spoken for itself, and provided their investigation with quite the juicy piece of information; whoever was responsible seemed to be able to fly under the radar, didn’t they?

	"Marie Shelley" – Nurse?	### words
	@tag, I Don't Want No Scrubs

[Tokoz]

 He almost, almost considered telling her he had a boyfriend, but... Mmm. The thing with Simon was complicated, and private lives were private for a reason. Shaking his head instead, he simply snorted. "I'm not particularly threatened by someone like that. I can crush someone's bones with my bare hands, cut through the air, and block gunshots. I am very secure in my randomly assumed masculinity, thank you." 

"As for Haus..." He thought back to the expression on the man's face. "No. No, I don't think he is. He's too upset about what happened." 

When she mentioned what happened in the pharmacy, Lassa frowned for a moment. "No mention of a diagnosis... so someone had to have handed off the medicine. Or changed the orders afterwards, removing whatever that nurse saw. That rules out the nurses. After all, the Matron responded pretty quickly to you... in... there..."

Lassa's eyes widened as several pieces fell together. The hotshot doctor everyone respected. A position you didn't get without serious knowledge and ambition. Someone capable of hiding their involvement with all the deaths, someone who everyone would unconsciously assume beyond reproach. 

He had been in the pharmacy as well, and covered for 'Marie'. Lucy was someone who was fairly fit, something even her outfit didn't perfectly hide. Nobody questioned him, nobody looked deeper. 

"It's Doctor Grey. He's the killer. We have to get down there, now." If Lucy questioned this, he would snap back. "Because whether or not he is, if he was involved in giving that nurse the medicine and is half as clever as I think he is, that nurse is about to 'commit suicide' over her mistake to cover his tracks." 

Sprinting down the hall, he headed for the stairs. Hopping the railing, he tucked his body and fell through the center of the spiraling flights, landing on the bottom floor as a few startled gasps came from those who saw a shape blurring past. When they looked down, however, they would see nothing on the ground below as Lassa had already Soru'd away into the basement, heading for the sealed-off cold storage. 

[Jess]

What~? Think I can kill you with looks alone~?

“Doctor Grey?” The brow of the black beauty arching at the rather sudden realization that Lassa had seemed to arrive at when he looked over all the information, for a second Miss Roberts wondered if he was joking or poking at the issue given the rivalry she had joked about him having when it came to her fair hand, but the seriousness of his expression was something that even this smirking siren couldn’t overlook.
“Then why did he…?” Not quite as fast on the mark as her mentor and left all the more confused by this and the side of the story she had been through, it made no sense for the hotshot to be the villain in this tale because there seemed no reason for such a figure to stick his neck out for her sake only minutes before, and yet as she reviewed the data there was a strange question that she hadn’t gotten to the bottom of yet which now stuck up like a sore thumb.

But then, why was he…? Bewildered enough by the moment that she hadn’t had much chance to wonder why the man had been not only near but inside the dispensary, the interruption of the matron and rescue she found from their now chief suspect was something that had seemed to stall both Lucy’s mind and attention, and provide a moment of misdirection which would have her thinking about everything other than his reason for being there. Hell, she had assumed he had been quite genuine in searching for his pen there, it had looked rather nice, and had simply extended the excuse to her when she needed it. But now, things were lining up in a discomforting fashion.

“Wait, Lassa!” Forced to pound the floor herself as her senior seemed a step ahead of her both metaphorically and otherwise, the urgency of the moment denied the dark delight the mental check to ensure she was using their alias, since her mind was currently focusing on bigger issues than that.
he had his own key…! realizing that she had overlooked a rather significant detail in that brief but apparently informative moment, all of a sudden Miss Roberts realized that it was very easy to keep one’s activity off the books with the means to avoid them entirely, and could guess that whatever means through which had sent that patient into a nosedive had been acquired quite secretly and surreptitiously.

“Sorry guys, it’s life and death!” Bounding forward because of that and the realization that she might just have been played also doing little to stall her pace as well, while she lacked the sheer speed of action and confidence in her moves that her comrade possessed to throw himself between staircases Lucy showed she had her own means of keeping pace, albeit in a slightly less subtle manner. Striding forward and using the banner like her own personal slide as she whipped her way past a couple of colleagues who seemed stunned by their new nurse’s moves and the flutter of her skirt as she performed them, a hop and skip and even a jump later she was back on her feet and shooting for the basement in pursuit of her partner. I mean jeezy kableezy, hadn’t the guy ever heard of watching his six?

	"Marie Shelley" – Nurse?	### words
	@tag, I Don't Want No Scrubs

[Tokoz]

 As he entered the older sections of the basement, Lassa approached a bricked up wall that was covering the entrance to what was likely the old cryo labs. Slowing, he approached the wall, waiting for Lucy to catch up as he considered it. The wall was solid-looking, and there was no scrapes on the floor indicating it was opening. So no sudden swinging. Unless...

He slowly ran his hands over it from top to bottom, pressing into the bricks. When he reached the bottom, he chuckled. Two of them gave way under the pressure. One around chest level, and one near the bottom where a foot could push it. Sneaky. 

"Get ready." With that, his labcoat and outfit beneath shuddered and changed to a suit, and Lassa pressed the two bricks. With a shudder, the wall rose. A blast of cold air shot out of the opening gap, and Lassa strode forwards. Hat tipped over one eye, he slowly worked each finger and stopped a few steps in. 

The room was almost cavernous. It seemed to have been excavated somewhat, with medical equipment added into a massive circular operating theater. The cold storage still stood around the upper ring, with additional storage set into the lower areas as well. The chill was palpable, and the shapes of frozen bodies ringed the room. 

On the operating table was the body of the man who had died earlier that day. Palo Alteser. 27 Years old. Survived by his wife and one child. He did nothing wrong, nothing to deserve this. Teeth grinding, Lassa glared down at the figure standing in front of the operating table, as the classical music from a record player next to him continued. 

The man reached out a hand, and slowly lifted the arm, ceasing the melody. In a corner, the form of the nurse who had given the man the medicine lay, unconscious. 

"So. Doctor Lacturn, or should I presume that's an alias? What do you think of my laboratory?"

Lassa didn't speak for a moment. Then, voice dead, he leveled one hand. 

"As an agent of Cipher Pol, I am putting you under arrest for murder and treason against the World Government. You have one chance to come quietly or I will utilize deadly force. Put down the scalpel, raise your hands, and do not speak further or anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law."

He spit out the final words, as cloth spiraled off his body, ready to bind the man if need be. 

[Jess]

What~? Think I can kill you with looks alone~?

“Whew…!” Finally seeming to find the back of her buddy as she arrived in the basement, though Lucy had held herself back from the art of soru she could still find her pulse pumping and chest heaving, and steadied herself with a breath as the man in front seemed to figure out whatever he had been looking for.
“You know, one of these days I’ll have to get you to make me a battle suit like that?” Cocking her head and arching her brow when once more it seemed that her comrade in arms seemed to wish to show off his signature piece of a wardrobe change on the fly, while the leggy lass had made sure that the little disguise she had been wearing was loose and pliant enough that her movements weren’t too encumbered by the item she still found a note of envy at his skill, and for what was likely not the first time she found herself speculating on her own use of such a handy little gift because of that.

Hell of a time to be wearing a skirt, eh? Only seeming to lament the disparity all the more as he finally triggered the mechanism and revealed the frigid environment which lay beyond the little trick with the wall, almost instantly Miss Roberts found herself not only shuddering as the frostiness of the air sent a chill through her but she had to tighten her knees and rub her arms as well, and all the while seemed to curse what she was wearing. It really wasn’t the sort of number to be treading the tiles of an icebox, now was it?

What are these things…? Soon finding herself with something of a distraction however when that green gaze ran across the room and took in what was inside it, while the young investigator hadn’t been too sure what to expect when she stepped into the belly of the beast like this, even within the walls of a hospital she hadn’t expected to see so many dead bodies almost literally hanging around, but these, these had something different about them.
Cybernetic augmentation…? Parts and portions of the flesh seeming stripped back or removed in favour of metal and machinery, each corpse looked to have had the weakness of humanity stripped away in favour of something stern and sterile, and something that caused her no end of ill feeling because of that. Feeling that would not need to linger for too long until it was proven to be fact.

Who is…? Left to wonder just who it was who seemed to be waiting in the room given the fact that there seemed something new about the tone with which they spoke, but sadly not afforded the time to see them step from the shadows before her emerald eye, Miss Roberts felt thankful for the attention she had been paying to the shapes that lined the walls and thanks to that as she found one soul in the bunch seeming to spring to life was able to react quickly decisively.
“Look out!” Spotting the flash of red which seemed to erupt from a socket and react accordingly, the foot of the fox was flung forward in the hope of making contact with her partner to push him clear, with firmness enough to move that large frame forward without doing injury. Or at least, that was her hope…!

	"Marie Shelley" – Nurse?	### words
	@tag, I Don't Want No Scrubs

[Tokoz]

 As Lassa stood there, he reached out a hand and concentered. "You have a point, we should be in uniform." Cloth snaked out, racing down Lucy's body and forming into a suit of her own. Cut somewhat differently, it matched up with some of the outfits he had seen her wearing before. 

Staring down at Doctor Grey, he had to leap forward as Lucy's foot slammed into his back, barely dodging the sudden lunge of a figure that had leapt from the wall. 

It was humanoid, but there was visible attachments and upgrades of a mechanical variety. A band of metal covered where the eyes would be, and pistons fired as it drew it's fist back, slamming it into a suddenly unresisting Lassa's flesh. As it pulled back, Lassa slammed a Shigan into the side of it's neck. 

When it didn't really respond, he frowned and stabbed again and again. All he got in response was an attempt at a bite. Growling, he shoved it away. 

"Dammit. I was right. You've turned the bodies into weapons. You psychopath." 

The man snorted. "Who are you to talk? The World Government did the same thing for the Pacifista. I should know, after all." Stepping forwards, he chuckled darkly. 

 Doctor Sebastien Grey

Former Scientist of Project BIOS

Wanted by the World Government for Treason

"Those idiots back at Lanza were moralizing far too much, so myself and my colleagues scattered to the winds." Gesturing around, he laughed as he threw his head back. 

"Now? The Underworld, Pirates, every two-bit kingpin and would-be warlord is paying through the nose for my Clockwork Cadavers. Soldiers that must be torn apart to be stopped, that do not need food or water or rest! If you kill me, not that you'll get a chance.... every customer of mine will be showing up to take it out of your hide!"

From the walls, the sounds of more clicking and movement rose. Lassa growled, and then turned as the first Cadaver lunged again. Whipping his leg around, he slammed the resulting Rankyaku into the side of the creature's neck, partially disconnecting it. 

"Lucy. Time to see what your training's been worth, huh?" With that, he leapt into the air, before kicking off again to deliver a two-footed blow to the side of an oncoming minion, sending it clattering to the ground as he began to fight the slowly awakening horde. 

 

[Jess]

What~? Think I can kill you with looks alone~?

Ex-Government? Shit, someone didn’t do a background check, eh? The vision of the vixen narrowing as the reality of the hospital’s hot shot surgeon was revealed in quite the grisly manner, lucy didn’t know what was worse here; the mad scientist with the audacity to use his real name while on the run from the government, or the absence of control and protocol in the building itself, but either way this certainly seemed to go quite the distance toward explaining why everything here had seemed to be hushed up from the people in charge. Hell, in this situation, there was no way to guarantee that the chiefs here weren’t in on it, and getting a taste of the action as well? Especially with how slick the operation looked down here? There was no way someone on the board didn’t know, right?

“Bodies of Iron aren’t anything new to us, right?” At least the matter of the mechanical menace and how to combat them seeming a little easier to swallow, as strange as that seemed to be, though many might have flinched at the prospect of fighting these hulking figures who were equal parts zombie and machine, Miss Roberts for one felt a shiver running up her spine not because of fear but rather an odd sense of elation, or at least something close to that. It was about time she had the chance to cut loose, especially after all those sponge baths and bedpans, right?

“Tekkai…!” Working hard since that day atop the train and making sure that she put every ounce of gym time and expertise offered by her suited senior to good use as she did, the corner of her mouth curled up as a heavy hand was thrust her way with a force many would consider more than bone crunching, but for her and the new expertise she possessed it was little more than an inconvenience really. Drawing her arms across herself and tensing her muscles to the point that even her sleek and slender form was equivalent of cast iron, though the sheer force and slipperiness of the floor meant that the hit sent Lucy skidding backward she did not sting for the blow and certainly did not feel the structure of her skeleton buckle either, and was soon ready for her own reply as she sprang into the air and swung one leg over the other.

“Hra!” Unleashing an aerial roundhouse and from it a wake of compressed air thanks to the pace and power with which she could whip from her hips, while it seemed that Lassa was all business in how he was dealing with his own opposition, Miss Roberts couldn’t help but feel a little more experimentation in what she was doing. Watching as she sent that biting jet of kinetic energy forward and feeling a note of gratification in how it seemed to cleave the living or formerly living portions of the brute’s arm and chest, she doubted even this would be a killing blow against a creature that was not truly alive, but wasn’t disappointed either. I mean, with punching bags like these she had the perfect chance to really test was she could do, didn’t she?

	"Marie Shelley" – Nurse?	### words
	@tag, Nothing Suits Me Like a Suit

[Tokoz]

 "Not new... but not used to quite this many." Lassa said, teeth gritting as more grinding came from around the walls. Dozens, perhaps more. Then, from the back, a metal door came flying. 

"Ah, yes. Perhaps I should have mentioned the High-Spec units." Grey purred, as a rapid set of footsteps preceded the sounds of bullets firing. Lassa zipped to the side, dodging and weaving towards the new target with red armor. Throwing a kick, he aimed to knock the weapon out of it's hands, only to see with disgust that it was literally welded in place. Ducking a swipe of some razor-sharp claws, he drove a fist into it's gut and hissed in annoyance.

No vital organs, no sense of pain, no obvious weaknesses or ways to deter them short of outright destruction. Ducking out of the way of more blows with Kami-e, he rapidly backpedaled, before ducking in and driving a Shigan into the open joint of the knee. Pulling his finger out, he left a trail of cloth coming from the hole and then pulled, wrenching the joint. 

The Clockwork Cadaver toppled over, leg twisting with a crunch. However, a moment later, the sound of gears churned and it clicked back into place, allowing the beast to stand back up. 

"Oh, shit. LUCY. WE'RE OFFICIALLY PAST THE POINT OF BEING SUBTLE ABOUT THIS! FOCUS ON THE FOOTSOLDIERS!" He roared, before kicking up in the air. "CRESCENT MOON GUILOTINE!" With a burst of his foot to redirect, he brought the leg down towards the v-shaped opening between head and shoulder, the crack in the armored form where the flexing was needed for the neck. 

Wind-blades tore through the automata at pointblank range, and it's left side nearly sheared off. Stumbling away, the right arm tried to come down in a similarly mutilating attack as Lassa downed a vial. Instead, it's blades bounced off her, and before it could try again, she grabbed the wrist. Slamming both feet into the chest, she kicked off and tore the other limb from it's housing. 

Landing a slight ways away, still holding the arm, she heard a brief noise from Grey.

"Hmm. That shouldn't have happened." 

"Guess they're not as tough as you assumed." She snarked, holding up the limb. There was less than a moment's time to react to the sudden burst of heat that came a moment later. Lassa reappeared on the other side of the room, holding a hand to the side of her shoulder. Shrapnel wounds were peppered up and down her side, and the exploding limb had left a burn on her right palm. 

"No, I just apparently set the magazine's destruction a bit long. It was supposed to go off a bit quicker than that, and hopefully chain the main body as well. Perhaps it was just a fluke is all." Grey said, humming. "We'll see if the next two high-specs have this issue." 

Lassa looked down at the wounds on her arm, and closed her eyes for a moment, allowing cloth to bandage up the injuries and staunch the bleeding a bit. Then, with a lunging burst of Soru, she was appearing behind the two new units, cloth rippling from her arms and leg swinging out in a Rankyaku, aimed at the back of their knees. 

[Jess]

What~? Think I can kill you with looks alone~?

“Sorry friend…!” Not quite at the level where she had some form of supernatural aid to her dodging skill but fast on her feet all the same, though the frigid environment didn't help all that much, Miss Roberts was still agile and able enough that these lumbering mixes of man and machine were relatively easy to outmanoeuvre once she got used to their movements, and none too more difficult to quell either.
“Let's… Put you out of your misery, huh?” Rankyaku a ranged move but it seeming the best tool in her arsenal with how these painless and brainless fools seemed to shrug off most of her more conventional killer hits, it felt a bit ruthless for her to swing and swipe her leg only a matter of inches away from these twisted corpses, but ultimately it was the most efficient manner the emerald eyed lass had found in order to shut them down for good. Even these things didn't fare so well without a head, did they?

“Yep, this definitely goes beyond subtlety…” Just about finding her stride when their resident mad scientist seemed to up the ante however, though these mechanically-enhanced foot soldiers as her called them seemed to only have been elevated by their process to a level where they could even hope to compete with a girl like her, built in automatic fire and other innovative gadgetry was a whole new level, as evidenced by what Lucy would have sworn was the first occasion she had heard her partner prompted by something close to panic to raise his voice against them.
“I'd like to think I could do this all day, but…” Nodding as she took the message and pulled a pair of short and thin but ultimately razor sharp knives into her hands and flexed her fingers into them, after taking a couple of swipes at the massing marauders to target joints and tendons in order to slow them down the sable siren saw an obvious weak point to this plan, and used the hamming hit of her heels in order to draw near to it.

“I'd guess a smart guy like you has a kill switch for this kind of situation, huh?” Shooting across the room with soru and cracking the nose of the man in charge in order to show him that she meant business, and also perhaps pay him back a little for the way in which she had been manipulated earlier, Miss Roberts twisted him around in front of her in order to use the bastard as a shield as she put those knives and their sharp tips to good work as well.
“And they're made not to bite the hand that makes them~?” One of them bearing down on his neck and forcefully enough that it seemed to not only create a subtle stream of scarlet to emerge but also transmit a pulsing pace through it, the second slipped down below, jabbing at where his legs joined and the plethora of blood vessels down there to fuel his lower limbs and tell him that either way he would be dealing with a whole lot of hurt if he didn't cooperate as she encouraged. After all, thus far, this whole battle had been about separating the head from the body, hadn't it?

	"Marie Shelley" – Nurse?	### words
	@tag, Nothing Suits Me Like a Suit

[Tokoz]

 "Ah, well played." Grey said calmly as Lucy grabbed him and pushed her knives towards his vital spots. "I do indeed have a kill switch." There was a sudden click, and a massive set of spikey blades shot out of his back like a mantle of switchblades. With a whir, Grey's head spun 180 degrees, and spat a blast of some liquid that began to sizzle when it hit the open air. 

Breaking free, the scientist leapt upwards with the crack of spring-loaded legs, and clung to the ceiling. "Did you really think I wouldn't ensure I was enhanced for just such an occasion? Idiots. I may not agree with the ideals of those humanistic successors to my work, but they did have some decent ideas about weak links." 

The sides of the operating table shot open as two more soldiers lunged for Lucy's legs. 

Meanwhile, Lassa was darting around the high-specs, driving air-blades into their weak spots. As she threw an elbow into a spine, the creature suddenly folded in half. Trapping his limb, he was forced to take a moment to pull it free. In that second of distraction, there was a 'click' and a crack of rock, as Lassa was taken off her feet by the bullet-like launch of yet another creature. 

"Ah, finally. I was wondering when you'd join in." Wearing white-painted armor, a knight-like visor, and a tattered white coat, the body of the murdered Marine Captain held Lassa's throat in a vice-like grip. Gripping it and gurgling, Lassa growled, then whipped both hand back. 

"SHIGAN!" Slamming the digits into the area around the finger joints, she hissed as there was a sudden crack. The hands had been reinforced, and she had to bite down and keep a whimper of pain from escaping as her fingers broke. Bandaging them up almost on instinct, she nonetheless was dropped as the technique had managed to force the newest fighter to loosen it's grip. 

Dashing back to give herself some distance, she looked down at her neck. Burn marks. "H-he has heating coils in his pa-palms." She coughed out, wincing at the feeling of the skin moving. Sliding one foot wide, she braced herself, then extended a hand. Flicking towards herself for a moment, she waited for the monster to get close. 

[Jess]

What~? Think I can kill you with looks alone~?

Shit…! Thankful that her innate speed and grace were gifted to her through means beyond the simple and stunningly swift Soru, one would have to be a fool to not feel a twinge of discontent with the cool as a cucumber manner which the man showed toward being pinned with pincers pointed toward points of such vitality, and then that tell-tale click was all it needed for the fleet fox to know she needed to protect herself.
“Hrah!!” Pushing her weight backward as best she could and then tensing her body but the proximity and swiftness of the act still meaning that Miss Roberts wasn't quite protected from those blades, onlookers would wince as those razor sharp edges sprang to life and tore through her clothing, but thankfully did not impart more than scratches thanks to the iron guard she had built. However, it seemed that her survival was far from assured even then.

Shit…! Once more glad that she had honed her reflexes enough to be able to move at a speed most would consider her a blur as that head spun around, though Lucy was more expecting a belch of flame than caustic chemicals to erupt from the maw of the monster, she was quick to act in order to limit the damage of either.
“Nrrraagghhh!!” Dropping at her knees and hips and pulling herself tight in the hope of ducking under the fireball she expected, she anticipated neither the smell of burning nor the sting of sizzling flesh as stray droplets dropped upon her either, but once more it seemed she avoided the worst of the attack, i mean, it hurt like hell, but at least she hadn't been hit by the brunt of the burst, right?

“That any way…” Not that such an ordeal was over even when the bastard seemed to exploit the shifting state of her position to escape and leave a couple more of his mechanically driven goons in his wake, as they went low Miss Roberts opted to go high, and so kicked off the ground with a force which her partner had helped her hone.
Make the air… Explode! Hopping into the air in order to ensure those mechanical mitts aiming for her legs did not encumber her greatest asset in the slightest, one bound became two as she stamped down again on the air with a certain someone's words echoing through her ears, and took to the sky in hot pursuit of the figure with the purported kill switch.

Even now feeling just a note of curiosity to see just how well those modifications that the not-so-good doctor grey had given himself compared to her abilities, lucy was sure she had heard that it was said that only a fool would challenge a user of rokushiki in the air, and frankly she had learned that lesson the hard way. However, failure always was the best teacher, wasn't it?
“…To treat a woman?” Building on the litheness and agility she had possessed and only adding to it with the gift that was geppou, no longer was she bound by searching for striking points for her feet or holds for her hands to hook, and instead could bound through the air gracefully like a gazelle as she popped those heels and wrought a jagged path through the air to throw off her adversary's aim and move in for her own killer switch…!

	"Marie Shelley" – Nurse?	### words
	@tag, Nothing Suits Me Like a Suit

[Tokoz]

 As Lucy lifted off the ground towards Grey, the ceiling-hanging doctor hummed with amusement. "Oh dear, you really don't learn do you?" Spitting another caustic blast downwards, he watched as a few of the units began to leap upwards and fire built-in firearms, as well grabbing at Lucy and making it difficult to keep up Geppo without having to dodge.

Moving along the roof, he kept out of the way while the swarm of weapons kept at her, burying his newly emerged claws into the ceiling to keep himself hanging. 

"When I said kill switch, I was referring to switching to killing you. Do you honestly think I'd be so stupid as to include something that could destroy or deactivate all my soldiers at once? They're built not to fight each other, so unless you intend to take a quick dip under the knife, I'm afraid my immunity is mine and mine alone."

Gunfire continued to pierce the air as he spoke, punctuating his amused laughter. 

Down below, Lassa was continuing to throw blow after blow at the Captain unit. Against almost any living opponent, her techniques would serve her well. Aim for the arteries, the joints, the spots that would disable and harm. For this thing, though, that wasn't working. There was no pumping blood, no soft tissue in the joints. Everything was reinforced with metal, and the cutting blows merely rent open useless flesh. 

Still... if the Doctor wanted to make robots, he could have just made robots. There had to be a reason he had chosen to use dead bodies. There was no sense in using weaker material than metal unless he only had a limited amount of metal, but the bodies seemed to be useful in some manner. These things moved more fluidly than a mere automata should. 

Hell, the Captain was keeping up with her, although part of that was the fact that he didn't flinch away from wounds that would disable or kill a normal person. So what was going on?

Zipping forwards, she slipped under it's legs, and kicked towards the back. As she did, the creature whipped around and swung with a swordblade, cutting along the edge of her suit. Reactions were too fast. These things were taking advantage of human capabilities somehow, but the body should be decaying. There wasn't any obvious cause outside, so...

"Preservatives." Lassa breathed out in exasperation, finally piecing it together. "You lined the skeletal structure with metal and tubes that pump out preservatives, keeping the flesh supple enough to move and preventing the weaknesses of veins near the skin." 

She leapt upwards, dodging another pair of standard corpse-soldiers that attempted to bring blades down onto her, but as she did, a crack rang out. Bending her body rapidly, she used Kami-e to fold out of the way of the first bullet. The second, shot at a cross angle, she moved right into. 

Hitting the ground with a thump, she grasped her side, coughing. "What the hell?" Those shots were too accurate to be from the mostly mindless soldiers. So who had...

On the far wall, from a previously hidden opening, a figure swaggered forwards. "Well, I show up to pick up our order, and I find you're damaging the merchandise by playing with a pair of government pawns. I hope we get a discount for this, or we might have to take our business elsewhere." 

A sneering figure in an ugly suit, with a gold chain around his neck and a pair of sunglasses swaggered forth, flanked by two serious looking figures with eyes obscured by grey fedoras over tan suits. Each were carrying a long revolver rifle, which they leveled to either side of their boss. 

Consigliere Simon Polovo

Adviser to the Underboss of the Molovoso Crime Family

Underworld C-Class Mafioso