Short for "sub-Terra," the subTer facility is about half a mile underground, buried under a continental shelf and a few dozen leagues of ocean. This is essentially a giant battery: the fusion-based power source for Menayen Emil's virtual army of robots and assorted other toys.

Julen City
Clockwork City

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Sin hops off her bike at the street entrance to the facility. She blinks in the light, her optics adjust accordingly.

Now, where was that entrance? She searches about for it for a moment.

There's not very much here. It's a rather run down area of town...there's an alley, about two dozen pieces of trash, a phone booth that's seen plenty of graffiti in its day, and of course a manhole a short distance down the street.

A pair of eyes peer at her from inside a ragged cardboard box, but there's not too much else in teh way of signs of life.

The android pauses. Looks around a little more. Was it the manhole? The phone booth? Sin cannot remember, for some reason, and so ambles across the street to peer into the phone booth.

The phone book, miraculously, still dangles inside. This may have something to do with it being many times reinforced and virtually impossible to still. There's some scribbling on the front..."just call" is followed by a doodle of the Superman shield.

Sin blinks. She glances outside, eyes searching the area for any signs of a trap. Her lips purse, and her ears wiggle, but she eventually picks up the phone and listens, curious as to what's going on.

Just a dial tone. Nothign dangerous happens.

Sin hangs up the phone. Okay. She searches for an underlined number or something in the phone book.

Inside the back cover, in the same red sharpie that had made the doodle: SUP-ERMAN

The android looks at the letters. Oh. Ohhh.

And she dials the numbers that would, ostensibly, spell out the name of the comic character.

And, one fuzzle of blue light later, she's inside the entrance of a shiny, clean, well-lit facility. This security entrance certainly says something is wrong: the door to the main facility is open. It can't stay open if functioning properly.

Sin peers around the area, immediately worried. She draws her .45, and tries to open a channel to Menayen, or whoever he put in charge of this one, to ask. In the meantime, she creeps toward the door.

"One second...one second..." a harried female voice notes. Another android, though not as advanced as Sin. "Okay Go ahead hi."

"Hello. Sin, requesting point of information. The SubTer facility doors are open. Is there any usual reason for this to be so?" Sin speaks softly, almost inaudibly, and flattens herself against the wall next to the main doors.

"Don't know...don't know! My visual feeds are down throughout the complex. Audio, too, though it went down second and I heard something!" the other android, Vice, whines. "If you're going inside, Sin, be careful."

"Yes, I am going in. Please try to restore surveillance." Sin considers for a moment. She opens her mouth a little bit.

"Hello?" she calls into the facility. "Does anyone need assistance?"

There's no answer...just a faint chittering sound, and gnawing. It's very dark.

Slowly, very slowly, Sin peels away from the wall. She looks into the main room, trying her best to see while wishing Menayen had built infrared into her optic unit.

Something skitters over her foot...pauses. It's about the size of a cat, and fairly cold when it sniff-nips her shin, and then moves along. Not metal-cold, but certainly not bare skin.

"Freeze!" Sin shouts at it, swinging around to point the weapon. She blinks. The safety's on.

Oh.

Skittering, and something bumps the door. There really isn't enough light to see what's going on, though. Another little thing comes up behind her, repeating the "nip the back of the calf and lose interest" ritual.

Sin takes one hand off the weapon. Okay. Weirdness.

"Vice. Are there any records of infestations down here?" This she says as she turns on the laser in her right palm, which extends about thirty-six inches, to bathe the area in its slightly golden glow.

"No...why, is there something there?"

The laser's illumination reveals dozens of skittering, half-ephemeral little dragons. They don't look like sentient or shifted ones...feral, almost certainly, but fairly calm, just chewing on dozens of wires and hanging things that hadn't been hanging before.

"Yes," Sin obediently reports. "There are dragons. Tiny ones, damaging the infrastructure of the reactor facility. They bumped into me, but have not attempted to harm me. I am continuing my investigation."

Sin's laser draws back into her palm, stilling in the well so she can see, and she proceeds into the first room.

"I think..." an effeminate voice purrs... "you should stop her." With this, a few dozen pairs of little dragon eyes gleam at once, turned directly towards Sin.

Sin's gun snaps up, which unfortunately limits the light coming from her hands.

"Who's there?" the android shouts, turning, listening, searching. She tries to retreat to a wall so no one can creep up on her.

At this point, the little dragons spring: pouncing, biting, and doing their best to swarm her to the floor.

Sin, though, is a born-again-and-again animal lover. She safeties her weapon and holsters it quickly, and tries to bolt for the entrance, slapping at them when they come too close. She can feel their little teeth nipping into her skin. It hurts. Damn you for giving me sensation, Menayen!

When the door slams behind her, a machine gun-repetitive bunch of little dragon bodies hit the door, accompanied by occasional scratching. Only one of the little creature had gotten through: it's faintly opalescent, ephemeral in spots. A pretty creature about the size of a cat, with claws and fangs about as comperable. It isn't dazzled by the suddenly brighter light, and pounces again for Sin's belly.

Sin hadn't seen it get through. She eeps softly when it slams into her belly, shoving her against the door, and she reaches down to snag it to keep it from biting if she can.

And so she has a little dragon in hand, twirling and biting at the air. It's proportioned like a much smaller version of a very young dragon, but certainly isn't acting like one.

"Relax, relax, stop that!" Sin holds it out from her body, teeth baring a little bit. "Vice, I have a specimen! And someone spoke in there."

"I'm still working on the audio and cameras, but I've got the infrared sensors working...if you don't want to have an up close and personal chat with whoever that chick is, you need to leave now, Sin!"

"I want to find out who it was," Sin answers right back. "Stop biting me!"

"I'm not just yet, though I could if you wanted," a voice purrs in return as a pale brown hand sporting well-manicured nails pushes the door back open. She's pretty though sharp-featured...likely an Egyptian heritage. Abysmally black eyes gaze out from beneath hair of the same color...topped by two long, curving horns, similar to ram's horns though thinner, that are one of the very few pairs in existance longer or more developed than Yinxirziji's, certainly the mark of a scarily high-ranked dragoon. "You're a bit late, you know. We didn't expect it to take so long for him to get you here."

Sin wheels about, holding the dragon out in front of her still. "Is this yours?" she asks, looking to stall for a moment while she drinks in this creature's appearance. Ram horns. Dragon. Dark dragon. What kind of dragon?

She presents the little feral to the dragoon.

"Why, thank you." The dragoon holds out her hand, and the dragon happily grabs onto it and skitters up onto her shoulder. "I believe I'm done here anyway. You get to come on a bit of a trip, Sin dear."

"What kind of trip?" Sin does not reach for the weapon. That is an amateur move, and she knows it. "Is it the kind of trip where, afterward, I drag your beaten body back home? I hope not."

"Oh, no, I know enough of your specifications to know that shouldn't be an issue."

The little dragons, meanwhile, come flowing into the room one by one, and two by six.

Sin looks at them all. Eyes flow right over them.

"Do we have to fight? I would rather not hurt you, or them." Her ears wiggle. "They are adorable."

"They are! Will you surrender any external communications devices and come quietly, then?" the woman inquires, hand outstretched. She loves a good cliche, apparently, as they're gloved in black kid-leather.

Sin sets the dragon into the dragoon's hand.

"My mouth is an external communications device. Please tell me where we are going and why you could not contact me about it?" She's not sure there's a threat here... thinks so. But the difference between knowing and thinking is the difference between shooting and safetying.

"Cell phones and such, dear. Anything that isn't wired into you."

"I see! I have no such thing." Sin smiles. "Oh." She reaches toward her pocket, but whips the .45 out in a quick motion instead. "Sometimes I talk with this, especially when someone will not answer a pertinent question."

The dragoon's expression only...something is more amused, almost mischevious. "Oh, like that will really help anything. Honestly. Put that down."

"Please answer my question. I will shoot you." Sin trains the sights between this strange woman's eyes.

"Mm. No you won't. Let's get going then. I don't want to need to restrain you." And the dragoon moves to just step around Sin.

Sin pulls the trigger. Of course she would.

The bullet goes straight into the back of the women's head...to something like a whisp of smoke, rather than a spray of blood. The figure buckles and fades to allover grey, before just dissipating.

Meanwhile, an iron grip clasps shut around Sin's wrist, another hand around her throat, fingers clasping shut around the major vessels there. "That wasn't very nice," the dragoon's voice burbles. "Goodnight."

Sin's optics static, flickering. She tries to jerk free, but can't; the attack came too fast. An error warning flashes in her sight, and her vision flickers out.

Her body goes limp and suddenly feels very much the two hundred and ten pounds it actually weighs.

The woman oofs, nearly dropping the android and then doing so. "Ugh...fire your nutritionist," she murmurs. She picks up a cell phone. "Hello. Mm-hm. Yes. Yes, there were no problems, I've got it. We'll see you at the pagoda soon."