Submersion

Though Petra was a bit put out when Allie didn't hop on her expert fashion advice (she'd come around), the girl did make a valid point about the CDC's absense. Not that she would be getting bored of kicking butts with Parquis and Floppity anytime soon, but it would have been nice to see them after the battle... And to have more opponents than that skunk.

The delay gave her a thought though. Just for kicks, she began doing backwards everything she had just done with as much accuracy as possible. If she pranked it right, they might think the tape was on rewind.

Fortunately, this antic was cut off before she could get to re-poking Allie's stomach when a voice started kicking into their heads, and the content was much more interesting than- Awww, who was she kidding. Petra stepped forward and poked Allie again just because she was distracted, and then caught the tail end of the general message.

"Any direction? Is that meaning-" At that point, Petra stepped back from poking Allie, and instead found that she was stepping back into someplace entirely different, the world bending in front of her eyes. Disconcerting was right, and, as her reaction generally warranted, Petra's first act was to swing her fist at this new environment, stumbling onto her backside in the process as she fought the effects of the unsettling optic jump. She blinked at her new surroundings.

"What in hell...?"

"Alpha Tester role as in...a player?!"

Matthew was a bit stunned at such a proposition. He wasn't a gamer, and he'd never really 'played' DaCre. All he knew about it was the basics, but he'd never actually used his DaCre. Heck, he'd only made the thing to get his friends to stop bugging him about it. It currently had about as much activity as his twitter page. Well this sucked, when had they snuck that in?

Still...they weren't forcing him to do it. Heck the voice had already offered to pull him out right now. But it wasn't like they were asking for stellar performance, just...test the system. So just test the system get it done. Simple!

"Eh...well I guess as long as I can do what I 'originally' signed up for after this I guess I'm still in. I mean, it's not like I'm in any danger in here...right?"

This question was likely not to receive an immediate answer; for Matthew inadvertently took the one step required backwards.

The next thing he knew, Matthew was staring up at what he could only assume was the sky. His head was still whirling about, and was likely the reason he was on his back.

"Oh...geez, disconcerting seems a bit of an understatement there." the youth decided to ignore the possibility it was just his own poor physique responsible for his shaky footing. Rolling over, Matthew pushed himself to his feet and tried to take in his surroundings, "So...what do we have here?"

Matthew's mind was clicking and whirring faster than the spin of the revolver. This was more akin to his kind of situation; being faced with a problem and immediately responding. He was no bodybuilder, but his smarts at least allowed him to react. His first thought was to attempt to disarm, but his own physique compared to the intimidating aura of Exemplar only convinced him this would end badly if caught in any sort of grapple.

Rather his foot snapped upwards, the toe aiming to kick the gun upwards or out of her hand. Unfortunately, reading about something wasn't the same as doing. As his foot shot up, his aim was good but his footing wasn't. Irregardless of whether he succeeded or not, Matthew would fall down and back in a spin. Perhaps it was for the best as the teenager would end up clumsily backrolling across the ground. He'd end up with his feet sprawled forward, and his rear in the air, a dazed expression peeking out from between his legs. Once again he'd ended up on his back.

~I should have waited for a response to my last statement!~

He'd barely missed his DaCre. If not for the little creature's immediate response to be diving under, she would have been squished. The poor nervous shrew wasn't use to so many things at once. Her curiosity would prove the stronger in time, but first she wanted to survey the situation from underground. Her immediate reaction was to scan the area with her Swamp from underground, whilst continuing to move a bit deeper.

"Oh, wonderful. They just banish us away until there's more fighting to be done." Parquis remarked as Matthew made his startled evasive action, a look of distaste on her face. "Most uncivilized."

"Hi Petra," Floppity offered, her own expression showing she was more content over seeing their Tamer again than worried about the announced fight.

"Is being alive!" Petra snatched both of them up in another killer bear hug, and Floppity squeaked pleasantly at the attention. Parquis' expression, as always, was more serious, and she simply patted Petra's head as if she were a puppy and waited for them to be released. When they were, she straightened her shawl out, and glared at Exemplar.

"I suppose we're supposed to deal with this rabble now?" Parquis's thorns quivered slightly, but she was being cautious this time. Her opponent didn't seem nearly as forgiving as that skunk had been.

But Petra frowned, the cogs in her brain whirring. Though that analogy actually managed to distract her, and for a second she listened for the tell-tale 'clink-clank-clunk' of machinery before voicing her reply.

"No," Petra finally announced with a shake of her head. Floppity tilted her head in confusion, looking from her sister to Petra with worry.

"We don't mind, honest." Floppity offered, but Petra only shook her head again in dismissal.

"No, Parquis is being with the rightness." Petra turned and instead faced towards Exemplar herself, assuming a boxing stance and gesturing with her left hand at the new arrivals of Matthew and Alphonse. "We are being with team now. You two be making with the boost moves. I will offensive."

"You?" Parquis offered with incredulity.

"Yes, me! I am not being sissy girl, who needs her cute friends to look after! If we are wanting to have good talk, like the civil-eyed folk, then I will be needing to handle fighting myself." Petra grinned. "Besides, how often am I be able to beat up on crazy girl with pistol in real world? This will be with much excitings, yes?"

"It's... civilized, darling. I'm not even going to bother to correct the rest but..." Parquis blinked. "If... that's the way you want it, I suppose we could always test that out."

"Be careful..." Floppity mumbled, wincing back a bit under even the side Exemplar's piercing glare.

"Alright! Let us be kicking the ass, yes!?" Petra hopped on the balls of her feet, but, not being legitimately suicidal, waited for other DaCre to make the first move. Punching a crazy girl was all fun and games, but getting shot would probably... Sting a little.

"You really shouldn't have to deal with all that crap." Tanya Piddlebane offered, holding a newspaper and coffee for Nate as he strolled down the hall away from the Advanced Testing room. "Just because some idiot down there couldn't do their job doesn't mean it's your job to pick up the slack."

"The man was knocked unconcious, Tanya." Nate said with a sigh, hitting the button for the elevator to come to their floor and taking the coffee. Black, except for one sugar. Served its purpose.

"That's no excuse for slacking on his duties!" Tanya replied, but Nate's annoyed look cut her short. She decided to change her approach. "Fine, fine, but you should have just made Elchanan do it. That man has far too much free time on his hands."

"'That man' is my superior, Miss Piddlebane." Nate said it only half out of the man's defense- the rest of it was almost a sigh. "Whatever he's doing with his time, we just have to assume it's important to the company. Even if it is wiping interns brains." Nate had hired Jeff himself. It had been obvious he was an infiltrator from the start, but why Mr.Elchanan didn't realize that not having any spies around was more curious business practice than keeping an incompetent one around was still beyond him. Back in his former occupations it was almost a given. But the CDC didn't run nearly as much like those places as he sometimes wished it would.

"Well, that Jeff was gross anyway. One day here, and he was already dropping potato-chip crumbs everywhere! If I didn't-" Tanya's eye suddenly twitched. Nate followed her gaze... and only barely refrained from a twitch himself. The sight of Alice trying to break her way through a window was not something he liked to see every day... Though, suprisingly enough, not nearly as unexpected as it could have been.

"That little bi-" Tanya began, but Nate quickly drained his coffee, nearly scalding his throat in the process, and handed it over to her.

"Tanya, could you run and get me another coffee?"

Tanya simply stared at Alice, a look near insanity on her face.

"Miss Piddlebane," Nate repeated, harder. Tanya seemed to shake from her daze.

"What? Oh, coffee. Yes, of course, Mr.Greendale." Eye twitching, Tanya went off down the hall, and Nate stepped over to the window, raising it before Alice could go through the trouble of smashing it in.

"Out for a little parkour, are we?" Nate offered with a pleasantly neutral tone. Unlike his secretary, he had never actually dealt with Alice before. But he was the CDC Kairik Branch's head of personnel. And, even with their bad disguises, it was all too apparent who the woman on his fire escape actually was. "But, I'm afraid I'll have to ask you to climb elsewhere. This building is private property, Miss Alice, and we wouldn't want to lose any shingles."

"Actually, I have every authority to remove you both from this building, and the alloted land around it." Nate's tone hadn't gotten angry, but it was hard. Professional. Alice was a forceful personality... but for intimidation value, she actually wasn't much worse than the people he usually dealt with. Even Petra had been slightly more offputting, if only because of the tattoos. "This is privately owned land, Miss Alice. I am quite aware of your past endeavors, but let me assure you that by law simply flashing a badge will not be sufficient evidence to allow you to remain here. Even someone with credentials from the Federal Bureau of Investigation would require a warrant to search, or even set foot within this building, and you would require the signature of both our local judge- he's out to golf today- and the Chief of Police in our region, who I think you'll find is much less willing than his subordinates to accept PIT's wild claims at face value."

"If there are corpses, assassins, or demons from an alternate reality that exists beside our own, within this building, then it is not your concern that they are here, nor is it your duty to sniff them out. It is however, my duty as a manager within this facility, to inform you that you are currently both trespassing, and breaking and entering, both of which are punishable in a court of law." Nate recited half of this speech out of sheer memorization, and even what wasn't flowed with a complete authority. He stepped back from the window from which Alice had entered, and gestured towards it. "Now, you can either vacate the premises immediately, or I can call the local authorities and allow them to witness the presense of a DaCre rampaging through our lower halls. With a note that that triple-murder you mentioned? Might be beyond even your ability to cover up."

"And thank you," Nate finished, as he reached and took the coffee from Tanya's returning hand without even turning to see that she was there. "For the coffee, Miss Piddlebane."

"You're welcome, sir." Tanya replied, a look of devilish glee on her face at the sight of Alice getting so legally lambasted.

"I intend to be blocking your knock off," Petra offered.

"That's 'knock her block off'," Parquis offered.

"Is what I said!" Petra adjusted her stance. "Will be interesting test of skill for me. Come, let us make with the punchings!"

Floppity suddenly whispered into her sister's ear. "Hey, I think she's buying us time."

"What?" Parquis responded, annoyed.

"Y'know..." Floppity started, but Parquis did not know, so the shy sister pawed at the ground with her hoof and continued. "The lady just put away her gun. This would be a good time for us all to get together and... Plan, and stuff. We could even boost em up some, if we wanted to."

"I didn't think she'd put that much thought into it. Huh." Parquis raised an eyebrow, impressed. But Floppity was right, and she didn't waste her time. Scurrying around the two fist-fighters, Parquis called out as subtley as she could to the other DaCre.

"Hey, all of you! Get over here!" Parquis took a small breath, and started exhaling her enhancing perfume. She'd boost those other DaCre whether they wanted it or not.

"We gotsta huddle," Floppity offered, clarifying. Exemplar certainly seemed distracted anyway.

Takita seemed more content to rank up before doing anything. She really didn't want to be going above ground in her d rank if she could help it. Assuming she would remain uninterrupted in this endeavor, she would respond to Floppity's request.

As the strange creature breathed out it's perfume, a small shrew would pop up right before the fumes. After receiving a face full of the stuff and releasing a sharp sneeze, the shrew looked up at Parquis in curiosity. She spoke not a word and only the twitching of her nose and ears indicated any speech.

Assuming she'd succeeded in her rank up, the shrew dived under once more. A few seconds later, a long serpent comprised of sand rose up from below and expectantly waited for the others to act.

"Well," Parquis began, analyzing her new crew, and halting the flow of perfume from her mouth so she could do so. A bird, an earth-innate of some sort, and of course the skunk from before...

"Okay, here's the plan. Shrew, you stay underground. We'll want to keep her on ground level as much as possible because you're the only one that can fly," she said this last bit nodding to Kyotei. "Floppity can debuff her continuously for as long as I keep her in my perfume. So you should try to make sure that any attacks you do are from behind me: that way, even if you miss, she'll still get a gust-full of power-drain. Skunk, that means you stay out of the birds and my way, and try to harrass gun-girl into the shrew's range. If he can pin her body underground, we've basically won."

Parquis smiled at her plan, and looked at the other DaCre with a raised eyebrow, as if wondering why they weren't already doing her bidding.

"Oh, and good luck and have fun and be safe," Floppity offered all at once, all the politeries lost in Parquis's own orders.

* * *

Petra easily shifted away from the punch, darting to the side and darting out her own fist at Exemplar's face from the side the DaCre had just punched at her. Hopefully Exemplar wouldn't pull her arm back from her own punch fast enough, and would be unable to do much to avoid the simple boxing tactic of punching and weaving. Otherwise... Well, what was the worst that could happen?

"Hmhm. Knowing what the boxing is does not mean you have the skill to use it, eh?"

The shrew didn't make any verbal response to Parquis' plan. However, she did peek up once more in curiosity. She used her small paws to awkwardly grasp onto one of Felix's dice. It didn't suit her very well so she eventually wedged it into her mouth for the time being. She listened for Parquis to finish before diving under once more.

Once under she began carving out a berth under the soil. Once large enough to at least fit one or two of the DaCre, albeit to a tight fit. She would make sure to deposit the die in this safe berth upon it's completion. Fortunately Parquis' breath helped in this endeavor. Takita marveled at how quickly her claws moved to part the soil.

------------

"Get away from there!"

He didn't need to be told twice. Fortunately for his awkward angle, Matthew only needed to roll back a bit further. Upon getting to his feet, the youth turned tail and ran toward's Alphonse as quickly as he could. At least his long legs were good for something.

"Whew! T-this is not quite what I had in mind when they mentioned testing."

"Actually, any video information you are currently obtaining is illegal as well. Even with justification to search a building, which, given we aren't harboring a crime, you don't have, it is illegal to film within a private property without the express permission of every single person you shoot, at least without rendering them unrecognizable- and I'm afraid rendering them recognizable again, even for court evidence, would once again make it unuseable. It's Broadcast Law, but it will hold up for you just the same." Nate held his own, even in the face of Alice's display of force. He was a recruiter, and dealt with soldiers crazy enough to work on the CDC's secret projects. Alice's calm, by the books demeanor was actually more a clever test of of his ability to think on his feet than it was an actual concern. Which was good: if he couldn't keep the dogs out, at least legally, he hardly deserved the position he currently had with the CDC anyway.

"Our cameras however, are completely functional and above the level. And they'll clearly show that whatever DaCre you've unleashed below us didn't come from our side, and just as easily prove we aren't harboring anything. At least not knowingly. Furthermore, the flaunting of a weapon within our facility is a direct threat... I think I have you on Police Brutality now too. And possibly something corporate, along the lines of disrupting company workflow by dragging a manager away for so long. They do have conditions for that. Of course," Nate took a short sip of his coffee now. "None of that even matters. Because legal code aside, there is currently a DaCre on the loose in our building. Not a human murderer. And while PIT's primary relevance seems to be dealing with DaCre threats so as not to reveal their existence to the general populace, the CDC loses nothing by revealing their videotapes of whatever is down there for all the world to see."

"You can dismiss it once more as a biological weapon; but I'm not sure the government could even handle the scandal of another incident like the one at Kairik Quarrey. People might question whether PIT is serving its function at all. But what it all boils down to is that this Biological Weapon, or DaCre, that is currently running amok, is something you're going to inevitably try and stop anyway. And I'm not certain, but I'm guessing whatever orders you have are to do it with minimal loss of life, so the odds of you actually shooting me with that gun are astronomically low-if not for morality's sake, then simply because you know the repercussions."

"I'm not underestimating you Alice, and you've probably already worked through every single possible outcome for this situation. So I think you'll find it most expedient to simply leave back the way you came and pray that you are able to stop whatever threat you believe is on our bottom floor before our corporate policies decide it would be more lucrative for us to release your android existence and the presense of more DaCre outbreaks than to simply let you handle this problem- both *without* snooping around our managerial floors, and leaving us a sufficient amount of future legal leverage.." Nate didn't seem particularly aggressive in this statement, though the words themselves were threat enough.

"By the way, my name is Nate. Nate Greendale. It's a pleasure, despite circumstances."

"Of course Mr.Elchanan. Tanya, perhaps you'd like to join him," Nate offered as Mr.Elchanan went on his way.

~I will END you woman...~ Tanya mouthed, yet to remove her eyes from Alice from the moment she had returned with the coffee.

"Tanya."

"Errr, yes, Mr.Greendale." Still glaring fire and death into Alice's sunglass-covered eyes, Tanya pulled a finger across her throat, mouthing something akin to 'If you had organs in your cybernetic rust-bucket I would withdraw them, form them into a noose, and hang you off the roof of a tall building until asphixiated.' Most people wouldn't have been able to pick up that much dialogue in the space it took an elevator door to close- but Tanya was sure Alice would.

"Mechanical freak..." She mumbled aloud when the door finally had closed. Then, her expression returning to one of the utmost politeness, she turned to Mr.Elchanan. "Would you like me to issue a call to the human engineering core as well, or will we be sufficient with the mons- Siege, and that Afro'd thing sir?"