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Just after Gail's ghostie possessed sissy boy and we walked back into the compound, dudes with guns kicked over a filing cabinet at the end of the hall and started shooting. Niko bounded up ahead and smashed their faces in. I ran to the back where Niko and the elevator were when suddenly some gun-dudes opened a side door and started firing. I sent the catboys over to spear them a question in quite short order. Jack happened to be chained up in the room they'd been occupying, and so Gail glided in and freed him.

Three other rooms lay explored in the hallway so I strode back down the hall and kicked one door in only to find a break room. I rifled through their drinks and snacks, when suddenly I heard a loud BOOM and the building shook. I looked up and shrugged. I pulled out a bag of cheese doodles and pulled a coke out of the cooler and strode out into the hallway with the coke in my hand and the bag dangling from my mouth.

Niko walked out of one of the rooms father to the back with his hair full of debris and a cloud of dust floating along after him. I eyed him curiously and saw Jack whisk into the room Niko'd just exited. I walked over and had a seat on the kicked-over filing cabinet, and opened my bag of cheese doodles and suddenly I heard another BOOOM from above. A minute later Jack strode back out of the room and said, “All clear.”

Well then.

After pilfering armor off of all the bodies, we all hopped into the elevator and inspected what we had to work with. I noticed a secret panel and pointed out to the nerds among us. After fidgeting with it some it was decided that it contained a card slot that would open a secret level. A few of us went back out into the hallway to rifle through the dead guy's bodies to see if they had a card that'd work in it. No dice.

So then we all boarded the elevator again and Jack and Gail fussed with the panel some more trying to determine how to override it to get the elevator to go down without a card. Finally I turned to Niko. “Carve a hole in the floor, big guy.”

He eyed me like I was insane. “But…” he looked down. “How are you guys going to get down?”

“You should just carry us all,” I replied like it was so totally obvious.

Niko eyed me and then began mumbling to himself about how he'd position everyone on his back or under an arm, and I rolled my eyes, “You think you're the only one who can climb ladders?! Sheesh! Just put a hole in the floor! Even a peon human can climb a ladder!”

“Oh,” He said lamely.

Gail seemed a bit put out about not getting to hack the elevator, but was more than convinced to stand back while Niko ripped a hole in the floor to avoid getting chopped to bits.

Once the dust had cleared, we all filed down through the hole and I stuck my tongue out at Niko as I passed by him, climbing deftly down from the hole and onto the ladder, then climbing the ladder all the way down to the bottom. One of my catboys carried Gail rather unceremoniously. Niko flew down like superman just to show off.

At the bottom, Niko pulled open the elevator doors just a tad and we all peered out. Someone noticed some aimed mines of some sort (claymores?) aimed right for the elevator doors. Not wanting to get blown to bits by going that way, we instead had Niko put a hole in the stone wall to our side.

Easy enough, he ran through and engaged two dudes firing sub machine guns at us. I ran through the middle of the room along with my cat boys to cause confusion and to give them multiple targets, when somehow a grenade got loosed and started flying back and forth across the room. Finally, I watched as Gail's ghost possessed one of the adversarial humans and had him splat belly first on the grenade. A moment later, fleshy bits exploded all around the room. Ew. Well, at least he absorbed the entirety of the blast. Jack then opened the door of the room that lead out into the large area with the stored boxes of crap and strode out quietly. I sent the catboys fanning out into the storage area too while I watched Niko twist the second baddie's head off with little effort.

Hmph, I thought, and strode out into the hallway after the catboys. Well, this room was pulsating with Urania's power. Gail puttered around, muttering to herself, and finally she announced that Urania was somewhere through the back wall of the room. However, no access was obvious. Okay fine, this wasn't the first hole Niko'd have to make in the last hour.

Niko came up, flexed his muscles, and seemingly without effort, put a hole through the wall.

There stood a Latina girl of demigod stature before a bank vault embedded into the far wall. Jack parlayed with the girl who very obviously wanted us to go away and would not take no for an answer, while Gail eyed the rear room over and then stated with confidence that we should not release Urania here or we'd all be dead in an instant.

Jack and the girl, Claudia, were bickering like children, and obviously not getting anywhere, so I simply shrugged and walked in. Demigod or no, you are not stopping me, biotch.

The girl immediately went on the offensive, and Niko and Jack flooded in past me to take up combat positions. I stepped up to the girl and with overbearing confidence and swagger, put that bitch in her place, laying a curse down on her so hard that she cowered from me momentarily. But only for a moment, before she lashed out at me in disguised fear. My supernatural sight, however, showed me a glimpse of her true form. I went sheet-white, and knew, KNEW exactly what this was, this girl, and went tearing off back into the room with the boxes. Or at least I tried, but Topaz Lynx grabbed me and slung me over his shoulder, preventing me from going anywhere but also preventing him from doing anything but doing his best to hold me fast.

But, my curse had already taken effect, and her confidence was shaken to the core. She knew Niko was her superior in combat, and there were far more of us than her. To have a lower being act as if you were nothing, she came unhinged.

I didn't see much of what happened next because I was more interested in struggling with my catboy, but I heard lots of combat, I heard the click of the anti-legend collar snap onto the girl (Gail and Jack had been coordinating with that as I walked into the room earlier), and a deafening roar as the girl shifted in her true form: a dragon. More combat but much louder this time, I also heard the vault door open, Gail shout something confidently, the dragon roaring in utter rage, and then I heard a loud, metallic scraping sound.

Finally, our combat advantage managed to calm me down some, assuring me that we could actually defeat this ho. I took a deep breath and went limp, and told Topaz Lynx confidently that I was feeling better. Just as he relaxed and sat me back down, Niko strode past with an iron-maiden-looking-thing slung over his shoulder. I Looked at Garnet Lion and Jade Tiger, and told them that it was time to put a stop to this dragon girl who'd been bound inside the hidden room, and I needed them to sacrifice themselves for the name of their mistress.

The two saluted with confidence, then scurried off to retrieve the two Claymore mines. The walked them carefully back to the doorway Niko had carved into the wall. The moment the others (hurry up, Jack) had finally cleared the room, the two catboys braced themselves, took deep breaths, and then charged inside, suicide-bombing the angry dragon.

The explosions were deafening, and shrapnel exploded out from the hole Niko'd made in the wall, pelting all of us and the crates with chunks of rock. An absolutely furious roar exploded from the back room just as we stepped into the bottom of the elevator shaft and looked up, readying ourselves for the trip back to the surface.