Something Borrowed: Greed/Chapter 2

The old restauraunt's sign can be seen far away from it, high in the sky advertizing the somewhat cheesy theme to the world around. It's sign is like most these days, unkempt and taken some weathered beatings since P-day struck. This area of the city is just on the edge of the bubble, sparse of ferals, nature not having reclaimed much of it yet.

Along the entire drive to her destination, Cilan is eerily silent, probably dissapointed by the mess she had caused in the pub. Her hidden eyes just stare unblinkingly outwards towards the road, avoiding any possible hazards on her way to the current destination, a Hard Rock Cafe where she will meet Sienna, and hopefully help her old friend out of the current situation she's got herself into.

Selene has been manning the turret the entire trip, scanning for threats unceasingly. When the bus pulls up at the dilapidated restaurant, she peers about, checking the surroundings for threats one last time before ducking down into the bus. "This the place then, love?" she calls up to Cil.

Long ago finished with her meditation and brief prayer, Rihko has been standing just back of Cilan's seat, quietly watching the road. The kitsune fidgets from time to time, her ears twitching and tails twisting, but she picks up on Cilan's mood and doesn't want to wake Balina from her nap. Instead, she keeps her running internal monologue to herself, at least until they pull up at the cafee. "Huh. Nice. We'll get the full briefing here?" she asks, on top of Selene's question.

Balina dozed, fitfully. It was rest, but not very good. Once or twice she'd grumble and turn off her comm's alarm, pat herself down, and go back to trying to doze. Once she's aware that things have stopped, she pulls herself up and blearily looks around. "You mentioned stims earlier, right? Could I bother you for one of those while you tell us what exactly we're doing tonight?"

The bus pulls up into the parking lot, and a voice yells out, "A god damned bus? Are you kidding me?" as a blue gryphon, with masculine features emerges with a pistol in her hands, holding it up. "I would have expected more tact from you Cilan." she shouts, the voice carrying through a cracked window.

"Y-yeah.. uh.. apparently, but.. just to be careful, we better go silent.. most of the time when I seen Sienna she looked like she was watching out for someo--.." Cilan calls out to Selene, but her statement is quickly sidetracked with a breath of relief, "Sorry, Sienna.. I was pretty much broad-sided with this offer.. frankly I was more interested in motorcycles.. ah well, this is heavilly armoured, it'll take an army to bring it down."

Selene giggles at the disbelief the gryphon displays. "Yeah, Sori doesn't seem to get "inconspicuous" very well, does she? Easier to take it than argue with her, though." she says to Cil and Rihko. "So, Cil, who's this then? The friend of yours we're helping? Is she gonna give us the full briefing?"

Rihko snorts, and steps back, giving Cilan room to get up and out of the bus. She pauses and rummages a moment in her bag, then pulls out her coffee thermos and passes it over to Balina, along with a small nanite hypo. "Here. This is the good coffee, and I laced it with some extra stuff... and the hypos are mostly medical nanites, but it'll give you a kick in the ass if you need to get moving," she says quietly. Then she smiles, and then looks back towards Cilan, and the gryphon, waiting for introductions.

Cilan opens the bus door before glancing to Selene, "Yeah, Sienna Miller, Private Sienna Miller.. we had met on the plane back home.. before P-day.. fought a few skirmishes in San Fran before we parted ways after a little.. missunderstanding.."

Balina takes a few minutes to down some coffee and idly consider the nanites. On second thought, she passes the hypos back while listening to Cilan's eventual explanation.

The gryphon holds the gun for a while, aiming it at unfamiliar faces, a scowl only hidden by the beak on her face, her posture doing the rest of the work. "It'd be nice if you could hide that thing, as it's quite visible to flyovers, but I think trying to hide that monstrosity would be more conspicuous." She finally lets it drop only seeing four emerge. "At least you only asked a few." she sighs, and her harshness crumbles. "Come on dear, inside. We'll just hope we get lucky." pointing inside.

Selene tightens a couple of straps on her armour before hopping off the bus, heading into the restaurant.

Cilan leaves the bus, and following Sienna's request she heads into the dilapedated restaurant, her eyes shifting to the sides, and she occasionally looks behind her, seeing if anyone or anything had followed her to her destination.

Balina follows behind, stretching as she leaves the bus for more open, if temporary, space.

Rihko follows Cilan off the bus; she cocks her head to the side and stares back, studying the gryphon, but doesn't say anything. She rolls her shoulders, slips her paws into her jacket, and then follows into the building as well. She tries to keep her demeanor calm and poised, but her ears twitch and swivel and every sound.

The inside of the place looks largely untouched, surprisingly, only a few signs at all that the world had collapsed, the paraphenalia all over the walls still in perfect condition. Sienna pauses inside, "You know that where we're going, the bus isn't going to get to, it's deep forest. How do you expect your friends to follow? On foot?" getting right to the point.

"How far, and how dangerous?" Balina asks, glancing back at the horse they rode in on. "Expecting it to be mined or something?" Selene grins. "You'd be surprised how fast we can move when we need to." She looks around teh restaurant for a moment. "Oh, and nice job keeping thsi place... not-wrecked."

Cilan nods slowly, affirmatively, "Yeah.. use the foliage as cover, avoid any patrols, and hopefully stay out of RSX's eye long enough to reach the lab in one piece.. Now.. a question for you.. who exactly is it that is hunting you? One of the businesses? Some sort of p-day mafia?"

Rihko glances back and forth at the assembled crew... winged soldier... winged wolf... winged gryphon... kitsune and wolfcow. She looks back to Sienna, and her muzzle quickly moves up then back down in a little nod. "We can fly if we need to." She has another question, but she holds it back as Cilan asks hers.

Sienna sighs, "This place is... not inhabited by military, nor will we be facing RSX soldiers, the company wrote it off. No, no, who we're dealing with is a... private collector who's got no public image to maintain."

Selene headtilts. "What exactly did you do to piss this guy off?"

"What are we hitting?" Rihko asks. "A bunker? Warehouse? Home? High-tech underground lab?" Her tails swish back and forth, but she keeps her tone even and business-like. "What kind of guards? Automated defenses? Alarm systems?"

Balina perks. This suddenly sounds like a milk run. "So why is this going to take more than two people, again?" she asks, suspicion at war with potential greed. "Are we talking--" she stops as Rihko proves herself better-prepared.

Cilan folds her arms across her chest and asks, "So.. the guy's we'll probably be going up against are expendable?" a soft grin pulls at one side of her lips before she says, "Guess that'll make our job a little easier. If we need to kill we wont be hunted by the rest of RSX.." a moment passes before she corrects herself, ".. only if we need to though! And by stealthy means if possible, dont want to have the rest of the forest on us after the first gun shot." tuning to Selene she says, "She.. owes money.. lots of money, and to pay it off she got an option. Find this object in a secret lab that the RSX had abandoned."

Cilan says, "Only thing is, the object allows whoever holds it to control the nanites and do god knows what with them."

Balina moos, "Again with the vague doomsday. Can we just skip to the proper exposition?"

Sienna shakes her head, "No, we don't know /what/ is there, as I sold you, dear, nobody has come back, nobody. And considering RSX knew what was being worked on, if they aren't going near it..." she sighs, "I asked your friend here to come alone, but she chose to bring more. I can't promise any of you that you'll come back alive. Are you sure you want to do this?"

Selene sighs. "Ah. Debt. Lovely." She blinks at the description of the item, still not quite believing what it can do. "We're, uh, gonna destroy that, right? Cause nobody should have that kinda power. Also, when it comes to stealth..." she raises her right arm, complete with crossbow "...I do have a crossbow. They tend to be rather silent."

Selene looks at Sienna and grins. "Died twice already. It's old hat now."

Cilan folds her arms across her chest and nods, "I had faced dark gods, and their puppets.. hopefully with the skill we have, we can be in and out before anyone knows we're there, or at the very least.. we leave unharmed." Balina gives Selene one of those looks, then shrugs and gives a weak smile. "I still need my dying merit badge, anyway. Besides, if there's one doomsday toy, there might be more. I'd hate to miss out."

Selene gets a strange look from Sienna, her eyes narrowing, as if she's being played with.

Rihko lets her tails twist and curl as she studies Sienna for a bit longer, then shrugs her shoulders. "Cilan said she wanted my help. I'm here for her, regardless of what that entails."

Selene just grins brightly at Sienna.

She pulls out a folded up map, and moves to one of the tables, laying it out. "I can show you at least where we're going here if you'd like."

Cilan moves over to the table and peers at the map.

Rihko nods her head and moves over to the table to get a look at the map as well.

Balina does her part in helping crowd the table.

Selene moves over with the others to view the map.

As she looks at the map Cilan says to her old friend, "Trust me, remember when you said you heard about some crazy stuff going on in New Ireland, and its patrons? Yeah.. Selene, and my dying is just a tidbit of it.."

Sienna shows a map of eastern california, and pulls out a sharpie circling a wide area in the northern part of the Yosemite national park, an area in the deep woodland, far off from the touristy areas. "This was government granted to them. I'm not even 100% sure the exact location beyond coordinates, although they aren't as useful these days without GPS." She then says, "The reason I want to use this chopper is it allows us to scour the area looking for the signs, for what we're looking for. At least these days we shouldn't get shot down."

Selene headtilts. "You've got wings. Why do you need a chopper fo aerial surveillance?"

"Do you plan on flying for miles and miles alone in the skies over dangerous land?" she's not confrontational, but seems... curious, like she hadn't even thought someone would want to.

Selene shrugs. "I've done it before. But I'm asking why you've not already done it." She's also not confrontational, just curious. She can't figure out why someone would want to make a big, noisy target of themselves if they don't need to. Or why they wouldn't do teh scouting needed when tehy had a chance, rather than waiting around for others to arrive.

Rihko shrugs. "There are five of us. It would be quieter than the chopper. But I don't usually do this sort of thing, I'm just here to help." She looks over at Cilan and smiles, waiting for her input.

Sienna looks away, "To be honest, I'm afraid. I don't want to die." she says bluntly.

"No offense, Sienna, but right now Im leaning with the others, we fly over.. chances are if that private collecter has patrols in the forest, they'll know we're here and only increase their defences, if not try to shoot the helicopter down."

Balina stares at the map, and its worryingly large circle. "Just to confirm... vague area, vague facility, vague defenses, vague treasure," she asks it. After a few moments of hesitation, she stands back up, almost beaming. "If there's a tribe of pygmies with blowguns, this might be a dream come true. Pity my bullwhip's in another time zone. I'll stay on the ground, in case it's not obvious from the air, though."

Rihko thinks a moment, and then looks up at Sienna. She studies the gryphon a moment, then nods. "None of us do. We'll play it safe. So that's all the intel we have?" she asks. "I guess we better start looking then..."

"I think you and Rihko should probably be the ground team, maybe with Sienna if she's not up for flying, and cil and I can handle the aerial surveillance. We've all got comms, so we can easily stay in touch." Selene says.

Sienna shrugs, "I spent a lot of time working on the helicopter, but if you really think this is the better approach I trust you." shi says, directly looking at Cilan.

Cilan looks to Selene and nods, "Gotcha.." she states before looking to Sienna next, "That a good plan for you, Sienna? If you're curious, I trust Selene with my life.."

Cilan says, "When we all make it out, we can probably use the helicopter for other things, Sienna.. no sense getting it shot down in a scan that may or may not work."

Sienna nods slowly, "I..." she looks down for a bit, and then says, "Lets just go, we should get there as quickly as possible, and get this over with." She makes one look toward the back of the restaurant and says, "I'll come back for it... I won't end here..." as if she's trying to convince herself.

Rihko tilts her head to the side, considering Selene's plan, then shrugs her shoulders. "There's a lot of territory to cover, but if you and Cilan want to do it all you can." She looks over at Sienna, flashes hir a grin, then nods her head to the door. "Let's hit it." With that, the kitsune turns for the door and starts moving.

Selene claps her hands together and says "Right then! Rihko and Bal, you've got the ground route. Cil and I are airborne. Sienna, you wanna fly or walk?" she asks, looking directly at the gryphon.

Balina, her fatigue forgotten and her spirits riding high, is nearly bouncing as she steps outside, hand idly playing with a buckle as she goes.

Cilan offers Sienna a few comforting pats on her shoulder, "You dont have to worry about dying here, Sienna.. it'll just be like the good ol' days! If memory serves, Im pretty sure there were a few tight spots in San Fran too. Not to mention your little close call in our first treck to Zephyr!" looking next to Selene she asks, "So.. how do you want to divide our search? Start at two different spots of the forest and work our way in?"

Selene nods. "We split up, but stay within radio contact and eyeseight if possible, and sweep the area for this facility."

Sienna follows behind as they return to the rather... scary bus. She seems a bit trepedacious on entering, perhaps a bit of claustrophobia? She finds a place to sit, and gets out her comm unit, fiddling with it, not really offering much interaction.

Cilan returns to the bus and hops in, reseating herself in the drivers seat where she waits for everyone else to return.

Rihko quietly snickers and follows up onto the bus, taking one of the seats. She gives Balina a nod, and a grin. "Really looking forward to this, huh?" she asks.

Selene hops into the bus and makes her way back into the turret once more.

Balina nods happily, grin threatening to bisect her head. "And you're not? C'mon, this is Adventure at its purest." Hopping aboard, she takes her previous seat. She's entirely too worked up to want to sleep now, but she can at least recline and pretend to relax.

With everyone on board again, Cilan closes the door and backs out of the parking lot, heading now to Yosemite. ooc No other mounts, but there are assault rifles aboard, and ammo.

Rihko gives Balina a wider grin and nods her head. "True enough!" Then she settles back into her seat and pulls out her com as well, messing with it on the ride.

Sienna helps navigating, not that their destination is hard to find, there are many signs pointing to the main attraction of Yosemite. There's plenty of time to sleep during this evening trip, as the bus has to glow slow on the choked arteries of the capital area. Eventually they find their way out into the much less clogged freeway.

Selene comes down from the turret for a while to sleep, letting someone else take watch while she does, as she sprawls out on a seat.

Cilan Cilan on the other hand remains awake most of the trip, occasionally passing the time by chatting with Sienna on what shi had been doing the past two years when the gryphon is closeby, and is not trying to navigate.

Sienna stiffens a bit when Cil sits by her, it's minor but noticable. Eventually she cracks, "I'm so... so sorry what I did to you." and rests her head in her hands, she's not bawling, but seems to be carrying an awful lot of guilt nonetheless

Rihko gladly offers to take her turns on lookout, or driving, as needed; she fills the rest of her time with a short nap, working in her notebook, and listening attentively to the others. She does seem to pick up on Balina's enthusiasm as they get closer, getting more and more worked up the closer they get to the park.

Balina does eventually drift off a few times. Propriety and a desire to not freak out Sienna led her to keep the routine going, and she does wake up during the exchange. In a rare 2x propriety combo, she decides to at least give the impression she's still dozing.

If her hands were not on the wheel Cilan would pat her embarrased friend but right now she concentrates mainly on the road infront of her, "Dont worry about it.. we've all had.. uh.. instances of feral activity.. god, you shouldve seen me in my lizard girl days.. I kept the birth control pill companites in business quite a bit because of it.." she chuckles lightly before saying, "Anyways.. when this is done, we've got a whole life ahead of us to make up for lost time."

The gryphon seems to be surprised by how well Cilan takes things. She says, "You've... changed, a lot. You weren't anywhere near this nice when we met."

Cilan says, "Yeah, well I've gone through quite a bit of changes these last few months.. met friends that turned to family.. and one of which even accepted my request for her to become my wife.. ah! Speaking of which, I expect to see you in attendance when she and I go down the aisle, missy!" again she chuckles before continuing, "Anyways, yeah.. I also have two twin daughters waiting for me at home.. you should see them!"

The gryphon places a hand on Cilan's and leans forward to whisper, "Congradulations, I'm sure they'll be proud of both you and your wife." and then leans back, going back to navigating. The bus ride continues into the dawnlight, the thick trees on both sides of the highway are different than those of oregon, or the redwoods up by Fairhaven.

Cilan grins up at Sienna before turning her attention back to the road infront of her, "Thanks, Sienna.." she responds softly before going into silence, just listening to the gryphon's navigating.

Sienna points to an turnoff into the forest, maintenance trail. "We'll take that as far as the bus will fit, then we can start scouting." It's a narrow dirt trail, not having been used in the last few years and is starting to get grown over.

Cilan nods affirmatively before heading down the path Sienna had pointed to, calling over her shoulder, "Careful, love.. might end up straying close to a few branches here.. so.. sorry if any hit you on our way in."

Rihko gets out of her seat and moves up towards the front, glancing around. She nods her head. "We don't want them to spot us coming... I'm anxious to get on the ground and get searching, though."

Selene giggles as she calls back "Don't worry love, I'll survive!"

The road has stopped being a smooth ride, and Balina has joined the rest of the group rather than lie there, watching their progress, but not really in a position to input, and not quite in the mood to kibitz.

The bus pulls through the forest, the trees sweeping by in a hypnotic fashion. The path swerves and curves and a fallen tree simply gets driven right over, the thing haven mostly rotten away. The tree cover gets thicker and thicker, harder to see the sky above, only for brief moments between the branches. They cross a stream, a few miles into the forest. And about six miles in, they hit a river.

As the river is reached, Cilan eases on the brakes saying, "Alright.. I think this is the end of the road, chances are, Sori'd kill me if I took my chances in the busses ability to ford past rivers!" and with that, Cilan cuts the engine, opens the door, and rises from her seat, stretching out languidly before stepping outside.

Rihko quietly snickers and follows Cilan out the door. Her ears perk and she sniffs the air, head turning from side to side as she scans the forest. "This'll do, I suppose." She looks back over at Cilan. "We're using our encrypted com channel?"

Cilan says, "Yeah, dont want anyone listening in."

Selene clambers out of the turret and hops off teh roof of the bus, not bothering to climb back down to get out through it. She walks up to the others and grins. "Let the hunt begin, then."

Balina steps out, taking a deep breath of the unfamiliar air. "Was hoping to stay dry a little longer, but Rihko and I can keep following the road for now."

Sienna follows closely behind, "And says, "You're looking for a white granite and limestone cliff, which will have moss stains on it. It will look pretty natural, but there's a pattern to it we're looking for. She pulls out an image on her comm, a strange organic looking symbol.

Selene moves forward, studying the symbol carefully. "Right. Interesting symbol. White granite and limestone cliff, funky looking symbol in the moss stains. Let the games begin!"

Rihko stares at the image a little, then gives Sienna a suspicious look. After a bit though, she shrugs, and moves closer to the river. "Need me to carry you across, Balina?" she asks, jokingly. "I don't want you to melt." Cilan moves over to Sienna and looks at the picture on her comm-unit, "Huh.. I think I got it.." stretching out she states, "Alright.. love, I guess we'll fan out and conduct our search.. while the ground team.. stick together, dont want anyone getting lost without reason.. radio in on the hour, or at the first signs of danger, got it?"

Rihko gives Cilan a thumbs up. After a bit she looks around again, sniffing at the air, her tails flicking.

Balina is too busy looking at the river to actually notice the image, and almost too busy to hear Rihko. "What? Nah, I can get across. Just gonna smell like river the rest of the trip, that's all." Nodding to Cilan, she pulls out her own comm, tapping a few settings, then digging a waterproof bag out of her pack.

"Got it, love. This'll be fun." Selene says, as she stretches out her wings. She looks up at the tree coverage, and sighs. "Gonna have to climb a tree before I can take to the air, though..." she says, as she folds her wings again and jumps up into a tree, gracefully climbing up to the highest branches she can, before taking to the air.

Cilan follows close behind Selene, using the branches she had held onto only moments before on her treck up the tall tree and into the skies above.

It's a beautiful day, short above noontime, the sky bright blue and sunny as usual in california. The vast ocean of trees, and mountains and crisscrossing rivers is like an ocean in front. Down below, the river itself is pushing pretty hard, having just started to cut it's path in the place. Sienna stays on the ground, her wings pulled tight against her back, not seeming like much of a flier.

Selene signals to Cil, pointing in one direction, then points to herself and points in another, signifying where they should head in their search.

Cilan nods in understanding towards Selene, later giving her a thumbs-up and playful grin in response. After dropping her arm back to her side, Cilan spreads her wings out wide and begins to flap heavilly, trying her hardest to get airborne. After finally succeeding she says something into her comm and flies off in her search.

Balina begins to wade into the river, stopping only a few paces in. "On second thought?" she ventures, current lapping at her paws, "This may not be the best idea."

Balina catches an odd scent, smoke, fire, but not a forest fire, it smells of sulfur. In fact it reeks of such. Her brain immediately fires with the tingling sense of hunger of something... wrong. Body moving to wolf and moving on it's own accord.

Rihko pauses at the river bank, head tilted to the side. "Oh yea?" she asks. "What's your other idea?" She pauses though as Balina starts to wolf out, then hoists her bag over her head and wades into the river to grab the wolf's things. "Balina?"

Sienna squawks at Balina's sudden changes, her hand reaching to her side for a gun, and is further mystified when she just... takes off. Then Rihko leaves, and she finds herself alone. She waits only a moment before taking off into the sky to follow.

Sienna's voice breaks over the channel, quiet, "Your friend seems to have gone feral.""

Selene's voice replies, with a giggle. "Nah, she's still in there. Just got a better nose now. Try to keep up!""

Cilan responds, "Nah.. thats just Fenrir's little.. uh.. gift to us, trust me, if anything our job's just got a little easier!""

Sienna ducks back below the trees, landing not far behind Rihko. Balina's pounding forward on hot pursuit of... something. Her nose flickering at the air as she searches. She stops at one point, and changes direction bounding off on a new trail.

After lowing the comm again, Cilan continues her flight, stopping occasionally to hover in one spot to survey everything around her, and below, her eyes staring off into the distance, both her training, and the abilities gained, both physical and spiritual working for her in her search for that object Sienna had shown.

Cilan notices a faint hint of smoke in the distance, about three miles south of where she is. She also spots Rihko through the treecover below, heading in that direction.

Selene scans the ground and horizon carefull as she flies. "Cliff, cliff... big white cliff... jeez, this should be so much easier to spot." she mutters to herself. Then she blinks. "Ah, crap... shoulda thought of this sooner... Wind? Can you give me a hand?" Wind leaps into existence, trailed by a litter of puppies. "Wind! Your puppies! So cute!" Selene giggles, before quickly sending the spirit wingywolves off to help in the search.

Cilan says in a confused sounding voice, "Hey, guy's.. I see a wisp of smoke to the south of my position, 'bout three miles, Im gonna go check it out, see if I can find anything useful.. meet you there, Rihko!""

Rihko is too busy following Balina to pay much attention to the sky; the agile kitsune trails the fenrir wolf through the trees, slipping around obstructions and dodging branches, smiling happily with the thrill of the hunt.

Being a woman of her word, Cilan continues soaring again towards the smoke, stopping only a mile away from it to land safely on the ground once more, and hopefully sneak up on whatever had caused the fire in the first place.[[Category:[REDACTED] Events]]