((OOC:  Ugh, friggin' RL.  Okay, I'm here now.  Posting away.  Sorry for the delay!))<br/><br/>Seth did not understand negotiations.  He did not understand guns, either.  All he knew was the scent of rat blood, thick now on the air that surrounded his head.  It soaked into his mind and blinded him to any form of rationality a beast could possess.  The spider's whole body sprung upwards, bouncing Baz off his back and up into the ceiling of the tunnel.  The move was a sudden jerk, so sudden that it threw Baz's shotgun off-target, and the reflexive blast whizzed past the spider's head to smack into the tunnel floor.  Seth then skittered back to try and pin Baz to the floor with his big forelegs.<br/><br/>Halvorson had his own weapon out, but he did not dare fire with Baz and the spider in the same area.  He jerked an eye at Feign's efforts on the webbed grating.  Seeing that they were within inches of freedom, he shouted, "Feign!  Grab O'Toole once you get through!  Baz, get the hell away from that thing!"<br/><br/>The medic drew next to Karogen, not wanting to get caught in the fray, still clutching his bruised chest.  "That's a... friend of ours," he said lowly in response to Karogen's shout.  "We met him on the way in."<br/><br/>-----<br/><br/>The guards on the outer wall were heartened by the blood they drew from Jania, but when their unseen foe began killing them again, they all fell out of view behind battlements.  Radio calls were made, and military units in the area were being directed to the tower upon which Vultana was perched.  Now that her position was revealed, it was only a matter of time before someone got to her.<br/><br/>In the streets at the base of the hotel, a platoon of Kazmer Army soldiers made their way to the front doors.  Some remained on the street, eyes trained skywards for any sign of movement on the roof.  A group of five soldiers came in through the front door, immediately locating elevators and beginning the ride up...<br/><br/>-----<br/><br/>Alhanda's world reeled with the impact.  She found herself crashing through wood and drywall.  Her world faded to blackness as she dimly perceived Mag slithering past her in pursuit of her quarry.<br/><br/>The doctors and nurses reeled back as the wall beside the doorway caved and their Lady was thrust into the room, unconscious, her tail severed, a dart partially lodged in her wrist.  After the screaming terror that was Mag plowed past in the hallway, the chief doctor rushed to his Lady's side and began to assess her wounds.  He pulled the dart from her wrist, noting that it was not bloody, but had lodged in the padding beneath the armor.  He rolled the Lady onto her side and began assessing the stump of her once lovely tail.<br/><br/>"I need blood here, now!" he called, setting to work with bandages and antiseptic.<br/><br/>-----<br/><br/>Chiro and Arget found no resistance on their ascent to the roof.  The alarms were still ringing, there was commotion throughout the whole building, but this stairway was clear.  Mag came still on behind them, as stoppable as a meteor.<br/><br/>The door to the roof was suddenly before them.  Beyond it, a lone live guard huddled behind the edge of the roof.  Various other guards lay dead, various holes torn into them by the powerful slugs from the sniper's rifle.  The helicopter was a blackened hulk, unusable.  The hang glider lay discarded where they had left it, on the far side of the roof behind the helicopter pad.  As they emerged, the guard jumped, raising his gun.<br/><br/>Mag could see Chiro and Arget make it to the roof.  These narrow stairwells and corridors did not suit her - the open space on the roof would let her realize her fullest combat potential.  She would have Chiro, and his mostly human ally.  All she had to do was keep the dragon from flying away.<br/><br/>-----<br/><br/>Janus' expression dropped into a solemn frown.  He cast his eyes downward, answering Heretic's question quietly.  "It... it's not something I'd want to do again.  Ever."<br/><br/>Fenson was puzzled.  "What're you talking about?"<br/><br/>Janus looked at him.  "That... that curse that Heretic had.  He gave it to me.  I wouldn't have survived the battle without it."  The young man looked back at Heretic... the new Heretic, freshly clothed and groomed, cleansed of his past.  He couldn't imagine what it must be like to be free of the curse, not after having it for so long.  His own brief experience was enough for a lifetime.  "I guess it's a long time coming for you, though, huh?" he asked.  "To be back to normal, I mean."<br/><br/>-----<br/><br/>The dirt road leading from the farmhouse covered at least a quarter-mile before it opened onto an outlying paved road in the town of Sombquist.  Low buildings, mostly houses, lined the broad way.  Most of the houses looked to be ransacked or simply vandalized, but none of them were ablaze, nor had been recently.  This road led directly east-west, but it ended in a corner some five blocks to the west, bending northward.<br/><br/>Maeve and Feldana kept low in the rear seat, occasionally glancing at Sherra underneath the sleeping bag.<br/><br/>-----<br/><br/>The Midnight Guard was struggling for his last moments.  He seemed to ignore both Raice and Jenten's questions, and instead spoke a phrase, constructed of carefully selected words, with the last wheezes his lungs could supply.<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">"Get... her... Eye... to... win..."</span><br/><br/>His eyelids fluttered, his breath stopped... his head began to sag floorwards.  Merelli, tense under the precarious hang of the Guard's hand, followed every little movement with wide, terrified eyes.  At the last moment, with the hint of a smirk across his face, the Guard swung his hand away from the needle in Merelli's chest, letting it settle onto the Colonel's abdomen.  The Guard's head sunk forward onto the floor and lay still.  Death had finally claimed his tenacious spirit.<br/><br/>Immediately, the Resistance men beside Jenten rushed forward and crudely shoved the dead man away from Merelli, beginning to undo the straps, wary of the dozens of needles lodged in his body.  Jenten, Raice, and Marice were in the clear, but it almost felt as if they'd been stalled... stalled for nothing.