Investigate Anaconda: Secure Cache (Vee/Reida)

Reida and Viv would find themselves out in the wilderness outside the small town of Anaconda. It was a very remote location, and had the preliminary scans not picked up the scent of Hollow Bait then its likely they might have even missed the area entirely. Built into the ground, there was but a single entrance: A Trench that was entirely easy to miss if you weren't looking for it, leading from a main road into a concealed double-wide garage door. Additional scans, as per Alastair's suggestion, had been less lucrative than those of the main building. Scans which both women would have access to thanks to the floating Companion Cubes that orbited around both women. They also had a pre-programmed ability to generate a person-sized reishi panel to be deployed as needed, be it for cover or any other reason that they might have for it.

The Storage area itself was actually buried a full level below the ground with considerable insulation and reinforcement. As such the scans had been a bit lower in quality thanks to the material they had to scan through. They DID know that about six individual spiritual signatures had shown during the scan, amongst a number of what SEEMED to be containers. These containers filled the room like one would expect in a storage area. A rather uncomplicated layout to be sure. There was only one entrance and the only real complication was that the large containers would make hunting for those inside a chore.

Not only that, but each little Floating Companion also had a digital timer which counted down. Theirs read that they had about five minutes to figure out who would be assigned to come up with a plan, as well as how the soldat would be distributed between them. The soldat themselves were two women, each with determined faces, though the shorter one did seem a bit nervous. They had been given fewer to work with than the other team, but the pair seemed a bit more capable than the average Soldat. Those not helping the two squads had been dispatched to quickly and quietly evacuate the surrounding area, as per Alastair's suggestion.

All the same, a soft voice would be heard from the little cubes following both women.

"Please make your way to your positions, the operation will begin shortly. Once the Evacuation has been completed, additional Soldat would be rerouted to support you if necessary. Your Companion Cubes will also alert you of any updates or hazards. These cubes can be switched from voice notification to text by tapping the Companion. Good luck."

The little cubes would then resume floating in orbit around the pair, the timers continuing to tick down for when they were scheduled to begin. Enough time to come up with a strategy and move into position.

The Two soldat perked up and exchanged surprised glances when Reida promptly gave the orders for them both to follow Vee, and thus implying that she would not be making the breach alongside Viv. They looked to each other, and then toward Reida as the woman made it clear her plan. They each put on the offered headsets and followed Vee. Meanwhile Reida would have nothing but the chilly air as her company as she played overwatch for the small group of women.

Once Vee started to get moving, the two girls followed suit behind her, one of them, fumbling a little with their quincy cross before just putting it between their teeth. "Shit!" Came a very soft voice, as it seemed the chain for her quincy cross had broken. She lagged just a smidge behind the others before catching up and the three of them began searching around.

Once Vee actually made it to the vent, it was actually a bit off to the side. It was a large vent about 2 feet wide and tall, and the hum was a little high pitched from what she might expect. IF she took a glance inside, she would see that there was not one, but four small fans whirring inside. The actual internal workings had been replaced recently, and instead of one big fan, it was mostly a closed off space with four holes for four separate fans to push air out. It seemed that these miscreants had had to replace the ventilation for the shaft and she would smell......pizza wafting up from the warehouse. It seemed that this particular ventilation shaft was close to someone having food.

It would be then that that familiar voice would ping up again.
Please proceed to your entry points as soon as possible. Contrary to the timer that still read that they had a couple minutes before the planned schedule.

Off in the distance, a dull roar was heard. A hollow was somewhere out there.

With the vents abandoned it was all too simple for Vee to make her way to the armored entrance of the warehouse and set up the explosives to the door itself. Nothing seemed to happen inside in response to her moving in and setting up the charges alongside the other young Soldat with her. And from Reida's point of view it didn't seem like anything much was happening around them. Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.

With the gas masks distributed and secured by the women, it would be simple for them to detonate the charges with everything set up! Of course, off in the distance they would hear the soft, distant echoes of an explosion and gunfire in the distance. In the cool, crisp, mountian air, the sound travelled beautifully from their allies at the other objective point. Informing them that the operation had started. All the same, once that door WAS blown in they would find themselves looking into ... a warehouse packed with enormous shipping containers! Everywhere they looked they would see these hulking containers and some of them had not been properly sealed. And right there out in the open and off to the side they would see a small pile of half-assembled RPG launchers near a television set.

Of course, the occupants were a whole different story! No less than FOUR of them were straight up sitting on their asses around a television set with controllers in hand, in reaction to the explosion all four of them would throw themselves to the ground, covering their ears and trying to scramble for cover, as one lone soul stood up, fumbling for his sidearm! "FUCK!" the man would cry out, clear panic on his face.

The two gentlemen who had NOT been playing games almost instantly dropped the boxes they had been carrying and each disappeared into the rows of storage containers, one of them a very large bulky fellow and the other being a lanky young man in a hoodie. It seemed that among the group those two had been the only ones focused on work, and had been the most prepared for the sudden breach! The rest of them all began trying to fumble for weapons if they managed to get to cover, one of them straight up trying to snag the box of pizze and clutch it to his chest as he tried to scoot himself under the table, still shoveling food into his mouth as he looked for safety!

All in all, the women had a solid ten plus seconds before any of these men would be ready to fire on them, and probably a couple more seconds before the men could recover from the breaching explosion to actually get their aim straight. It seemed they had been quite ill prepared for someone to have something that could just blow through a door that thick!

The introduction of Stun Grenade to the little crowd of startled goons was enough to suddenly cow the entire lot of them. The loud BANG and Flash was enough to get almost all of them down to their knees or flat on the ground! The two women hastily followed Vee's lead in rushing in and working to apprehend the goons!

The very individual that Vee found herself pouncing upon let out a yell as those icy teeth sank into his arm! The weapon was dropped instantly and he clutched with his other hand, trying to pry her off of it before that foot promptly knocked him to the ground! He crumpled easily beneath her as she found that she was .....actually a good deal stronger than him! The mere human having little to do but wince and flinch, yelling out as that residual pain made his arm throb! Of course, the second individual that was pu8lled out from under the table raised both hands! "I give up I give up!" Came a surprisingly feminine voice! None of them seemed to be able to hear very well after the grenade, but it seemed that these goons weren't at all living up to the uniforms they had supposedly been using before!

In the span of a few seconds, the group in the center were pretty handily apprehended, between Vee and the other two Soldat! Easy peasy! Though in the other direction, where Reida had NOt gone off, where the other man had run off into the containers, Vee would hear the sounds of someone messing with something.

However, as Reida herself turned her attention to the other two that had run off, she would find herself in a maze of those storage containers, showing that this place was REALLY big! The scan had hardly done it justice as she moved deeper and deeper. Now that she went in it seemed like the gas grenades she'd brought might actually take quite a while before they would be able to fill the place, already the gas was starting to get pulled to the sides and funneled out of the place by those ventilation ducts, a very slight breeze was felt from the far end of the warehouse, presumably where air intake took place.

All the same, as Reida moved there would be an eerie silence, or relative silence. Between the stun grenade and the noise back in the main area it would be hard to discern the more subtle sounds of things going on around her. As she went deeper into the storage container she'd hear a flutter, almost like a cape as something rushed through the gaps in the containers behind her, from left to right before vanishing from sight. Mere seconds later another loud fluttering and flapping would rush just to her right, the telltale signs of someone moving rapidly around her, as if circling her while using those containers as cover! No doubt whoever she had wound up following had begun to circle around, and fairly quickly at that. It was hard to tell exactly how quickly they were moving, but they definitely seemed faster than a normal human (Beginner+). Fast enough that there was not even much time to get off any shots or try to throw a grenade after them! But all the same, they DID seem to have gotten a bit closer that second time they had circled. Were they closing in? Trying to circle around and then run past her to escape the warehouse? It was hard to tell.