Into the Heart of Iron

Whenever she is sneaking, Iris breathes much shallower and slower breathes to make herself more silent. Naturally, this means that when she was choked, she had very little breath to hold on to. When she is released, she collapses to the floor gasping for air and coughing. There's no fucking way... I was so careful too...

She stands up once she recovers "How does it feel?" she counts her pacing from the red light about 4 paces back... "It felt too easy." she would immediatelytry to get out of the red light, as to not be seen.

The red light kept moving, and was soon followed by another right next to it, clearly a helmet of some kind, they seem to track her every move.The unknown figure suddenly flicked a light switch on, covering the room in a bright white light, blinding night vision instantly, she would find no cover, only a large clean white tiled room "I made it easy for you." the figure now seen is a massive power armored figure, however compared to his coworkers, his armor was many times as thick, and seemly more agile. The voice boomed once more "You forgot to check everything you where given, i knew exactly where you where, every step of the way.....you did not find it odd you had a exact map to this facility?"

Iris raises up her goggles, no longer looking through them. She looks around for any possible way out of the room, if not the facility. This is not good... she doesn't respond to the questions asked of her, doing nothing more than looking around, a clear fear in her eyes that were previously hidden behind her night vision goggles. She backs up slowly until she backs into the wall, looking at it briefly before looking back up at the hulking figure before her "What do you want with me?!"

The massive armored figure flexed his mighty armored fist once before speaking in the same filtered tone "Get that stupid look off your face, i could have crushed your skull seconds ago if i did not want you here." he said harshly as he walked towards what the girl's goal was originally, a set of power armor with a odd black box strapped to its back "The frame of your pistol had a tracking chip molded into it, i could have had you killed the day you left the metro." he then flicked a finger against the old suits chest piece, flicking dust off of it "Now what i want from you, is your skills, nothing more, nothing less, you are free to leave, but i assure you, this opportunity will never come up again in such a form, Outsiders are rarely even allowed inside my bunker, let alone get a offer from me for work."

She sighs, calming down, but only slightly. She looks up at the suit of armor. "What sort of opportunity would I be passing up?"

The armored figure let out a sigh though his mask "One that come rarely, a chance at changing a error in this world, to bring peace, to feel like you improved the life's of others" he said simply and in a casual tone before shaking his head once "Never mind, a street rat such as yourself cares little for that, i suppose currency of some sort shall work, so how much would it cost to buy you out for a contract?"

The girl is noticeably annoyed by the street rat comment "You're the one who brought this 'street rat' down here, jackass! Besides, if I wanted money, I'd steal from a vault or a REAL jewelry shop. There are many things I want in this world that no one can offer. Things like a clean slate for instance."

The massive being strode towards her once again, glaring down at her, the soul less expression of his helmet boring down at the girl, his deep voice boomed again, this time slightly angered "A rat only takes to please himself never for the good of other creatures, A rat scurries in the shadows avoiding the cat, a rat is exactly what you are, i know your kind, filth apon the wastes, if i had no need of you right now, i would have thrown you back into the desert without water and watch you slowly dehydrate." he half shouted at her before calming himself down and backing up "But, i HAVE need of you, so i have no other choice then to give you want you want, as Arch Knight, my word is law in many towns, i can have you pardoned of whatever criminal activities you have committed." he then offers a massive armored hand for a shake "Deal?"

The girl's eyes travel around the room as she attempts to comprehend what she is being offered. Slowly, a grin forms on her face at the thought of not being hunted anymore. Her happiness can be seen in her eyes--the same happiness that can be seen in the eyes of a little kid on Christmas day. She looks at the hand, shaking it, the happiness can be heard in her voice, "Deal."

The Arch Knight let out a sigh though his helmet before speaking once more "Also, work on your hand shake, and secondly, i made it easy to get in here, what i need you to do is many times harder and has many times the risk, if we had cought you in these halls, we would have simply thrown you out, the people you are going to have to avoid, will peel your skin off starting at your toes, and leave you in the burning sun, your muscles slowly drying out and organs failing.....You will be Briefed by two of the order, i believe you walked past them on your way in, i assume they did not even notice you."

Iris nods "I will do anything to no longer be hunted. If you can get me my pardon, I will get you what you want. And whoever it is, in order to do that, they will have to notice me first." she grins, somewhat sure of herself.

The man nodded towards the blast door, it unlatching with a hiss of air, its retaining bars pulling back to allow the door to open "And you should consider yourself lucky that i am not making pick up every shard of light bulb glass barefooted, Brother mark thought it would be cool to shoot light bulbs as well, several stitches on his feet later, he got the message." he then reached to his belt line and retrieved another key fob, this one with a knights logo on it "Present this to anyone that question's your presence here, it will also get you food, shower and room for the night, sand storm won't let up till morning, its unsafe to move though it once the wind gets even faster."

Iris nods, finding nothing else appropriate to say except "Yes, sir." she takes the key fob and lowers her night vision goggles back over her eyes as she walks back up the stairs.

Once she made it up the stairs she would be greeted by guards stationed at the bulkhead entrance, each wielding a bazaar set of weapons that seem to be permanently attached to the power armor they are wearing, a massive shield , almost four inch thick and supported by a special forearm support to keep it from pulling the Knight over with its weight. On their other hand was a large mace with a cable leading into the suits power pack, from the looks of it it seems to be massively over sized riot gear, but instead of simply pushing protesters over, these seem capable of rendering any man to nothing but paste in mere moments, these guards would be quite a fight in close quarters.

As she went past, she found guards stationed at every corner, but most of them simply carrying a heavy triple barreled assault rifle, a common weapon used with power armor as it was effective and comparably light weight to something such as a mini gun or such weapon.

The guards all in all seemed to pay little attention to Iris even though they clearly see her, however she did get quite a few glares from engineers she passed, it may have to due with the massive door she jammed close in the hanger when she first entered.

About five minutes later she would return to the command room to find the two knights from earlier still fighting amongst themselves, yet to notice the girl. [Zoey] "You knew someone from company eight? Mark i sense you are telling me a lie again." [Mark] "I kid you not, i knew one of them, biggest meanest guy i have ever met, i thank god i would never have to bunk with him....then again, i don't much value the thought of having to fight him either." [Zoey] "Really? you do know that the Legion is comprised of only the most vile and brutal soldiers around, i doubt one of them would even talk to you back when they where eighth company, you are the softest guy i know."

The female then noticed Iris "Speaking of soft, i see the Arch Knight's experiment found her way here."

Iris walks up to the two heavily armored guards, looking them over, appearing a bit intimidated. She slowly inches past them "... Hi." before walking rather quickly away from them towards the command room. She enters mid conversation, and remains silent until spoken to "I'm not an experiment and I deserve more respect considering I'm doing this for you."

The Female Knight simply let out a laugh, before nodding to her male companion, she spoke to him as if she heard a good joke "Hear that Mark? she thinks she gets respect for simply arriving, got to say, that's a good one, i think i would run out of respect if i had to give it to the last nine who tried this as well." the man rolled his eyes [Mark] "Sorry about her, she was dropped when she was a baby." this gained him a glare from the female guard [Zoey] "Well let me be the first to tell you, the legion strung the last nine infiltrators we sent into point vanguard, they currently hang right over the main gate there." Mark shook his head once more [Mark] "What is with you Zoey?" he then turned towards Iris to speak "Don't listen to her, i am sure it will be different this time, we have a far better plan this time."

Iris raises a brow at the two of them "Well considering your past nine plans didn't go too well, I figure I'd let you know that if all does to shit, I'm doing my own thing. No way in hell am I gonna end up like them." she hands Mark the pistol she was given "So what do I need to do anyway?"

Mark took the pistol and unloaded it before setting it down on the table and speaking again "Well, i suppose i should explain what you are up against before we tell you what you need to retrieve for the order" Mark looked like he was about to speak but Zoey cut him off [Zoey] "Think us, but red and about a thousand times meaner....and with lightning swords." Mark then face palmed at this [Mark] "I guess so but that is a really stupid way of putting it, but yes, all in all, the ones inside Point Vanguard are what remains of company eight, formerly known as the "Spartans" they where the close quarter masters of our order till the Arch Knight came into power, he suspected them as corrupted, they ran before he could do anything. They run a local bandit group known at the "Legion of the Damned" now, the ones who left form the command structure, they are now known as Centurions, i doubt you will have a hard time picking them out, the other two hundred so men are your typical run of the mill bandits, but dressed in red generally." Zoey took this moment as a time to cut in "Also, the lower ranking members tend to like to you know, pillage and rape, and when you walk into their camp they only can do one thing." she said with a evil glare before mark shoved her with his armored hand "Zoey, you really are a ass you know that?" Zoey just shruged and walked down a nearby hallway, out of sight "Anyways, you still up for this?"

Iris speaks up without a second thought "Of course I'm up for this." It is clear that Iris wasn't really paying attention to the descriptions or capabilities of the people she is up against. For her, it is easier that way. There is less fear to get in the way if the people she is facing is just run of the mill guards and bandits.

Mark continued to speak "Well if you are, then i suppose its time we discuss your route of infiltration." he then directs his attention to a nearby screen, containing various reports "I have read though these about a dozen times, each time a infiltrator tries to get though into the main complex, they either are killed by mines or torn apart by the remote turrets that dot the entire perimeter almost randomly, we could not even get a stealth suit in, guns see in infrared." he then pulled out a picture of a large red truck carrying cages of what appears to be women oddly enough "However,the main gate was never considered, Point vanguard is the hub of slave trading in this region." he then nods towards her "My plan is to dress you as a slave, get a third party to sell you to the legion, get you into point vanguard, you retrieve what we need, we have another third party buy you back, its a full proof plan."

Iris walks around the room, messing with things that she's probably not supposed to. She plays with a spring that's sticking out of a mechanized part of the shoulder to a suit of power armor, quickly growing bored of it, then moving on to the next random object: a stack of sticky notes. She takes a nearby pencil and begins coating the topmost note in graphite, attempting to read whatever message was recently written on the pad. She can't decipher any particular notes, her mind drifting onto some other things. When Mark gets to the word "slave", she pays full attention, nearly knocking over a monitor while turning around in her attempt to make it seem like she was paying attention the whole time. She asks for confirmation in case she misheard him "A SLAVE?"

Mark let his armored hand contact with his face before speaking again "First of all, be careful, second of all, its not as bad as it sounds, i give you my personal promise that you will not come into harm if you follow everything i tell you to do." he then walked over to the monitor and steadied it from falling over "The Legion takes only the best for its own uses, so you will need the lay the charm on, a certain Centurion is looking for a chamber girl, and this centurion has what we need, he goes by the name Tiresias, a mountain of a man with a temper that snaps like twigs under the treads of a tank." he then walked over to a different monitor and spoke once more "I will be brutally honest, this man is a monster, he has gone though thirty chamber girls in the last three years, little is left of them when he is done.....but if you do this right, you walk in, and then you walk out."

He then turned the monitor on to show a picture of a odd key, one that has the numbers "K82" written on it. Mark pointed towards the key on the screen "This is what you need to get, its in a lock box in Tiresia's room somewhere, its of vital importance that its retrieved, you do this, you will get whatever the Arch Knight offered you."

Iris listens to what he has to say, but her thoughts interrupt her focus. Oh no, buddy. Pretending to be a slave IS as bad as it sounds. She looks at her target on the monitor. He is the type of guy that she would usually avoid like the plague out of fear for her life. And now she was going to be his chamber maid. THIRTY?! How is that even possible?! That's a bit less than one a month... She looks at the key. "So let me get this straight... You want me to be a chamber maid for this guy, serving him hand and foot like a slave... And you expect me to steal a key from a locked box in his room...? This sounds like a terrible plan."

Mark shook his head in response then opened a near by drawer and retrieved what looked like a scroll held close by a wax seal "Tiresia's loyalty is solid as it comes, Damocles is his commander, the black centurion, this scroll contains faked orders for him and his war band to deploy, it should give you enough time to get to the key, and get out. he will not have enough time to do you harm if you give this to him shortly after you arrive."

Mark then let out a sigh "Also, if you find the time to make it to the stockade in the camp, could you free my brother? he goes by the name Alexander, he is only a little older then you, i can't offer you a reward but you would have my thanks, also, you may get Zoey to get off your back, she is my sister as well, we both worry for our younger brother, you would make many allies here if you where to free him."

He then offered a hand out to shake "now back to the subject at hand, do you take the mission?"

Iris listens as Marks continues to spew out names like Damocles as if this somehow proved to her that Tiresia was loyal. She didn't know any of these people and so saying that Tiresia worked under Damocles told her absolutely nothing. Faked orders? She opens the scroll, examining the orders, so she has an idea as to what she will be presenting to the brute. This better work...

"Give orders to deploy, find the key, get out unnoticed." she flips the scroll in the air a couple of times "These people must be really old fashioned to still be using scrolls for orders." She sets the scroll down on the table upon hearing his request to get his brother back "If the situation allows it, I'll see if I can sneak your brother out. I don't really care about making allies around here... But you have my word that the key will make it here." She shakes his hand "You bet your worried ass I'll take this mission."