2020-03-28 - Thus endeth FCN, Inc.

She had been going about her usual business of doing research and getting into some manner of trouble or another, and the moment she steps out of the Gray Harbor library, Isabella finds herself here, expression flattening visibly when she finds herself in some kind of meat packing plant. There is a visible and wary eye turned to the conveyor belts and the humanoid creatures dressed in white jumpsuits working away.

"....oh, fuck me," she mutters, just as a spare jumpsuit is shoved into her hands. She doesn't even question it - the better not to get splattered with whatever might come flying at her next, slipping into it and fitting the hairnet, mask and gloves. She's staring at the visible reptilian half of the face that's visible above the accoster's mask.

"Where are we?" she asks.

August had just gotten himself ready for a nice little walk post-nap, so his hair is a mess, and he's in a set of black and purple UW sweats, the big Husky logo on the chest in gold. Hey, at least he'd managed to get his damned shoes on, a pair of urban hikers.

He looks up from tying a lace, stands slowly. "You have to be fucking kidding me," he mutters. One of his eyes is substantially bloodshot, and he has numerous cuts and scratches on his neck and the sides of his face. He watches the workers approach and offer their jumpsuits, tentatively reaches out a hand for one.

"....uh." Here? Where's here? Espying a familiar figure while she's putting on the uniform, Isabella looks relieved when she finds August. She sidles up to him before fitting her mask over her face, green-gold eyes fixed on the Combat Botanist. That is, until the familiar voice filters out through the speakers and her eyes narrow faintly in realization.

She tenses at all the blood and the cleavers, before she slowly reaches out to take one from wherever the instruments are hanging, and attempts to look for her station. "Only way out is through, I guess," she mutters to her fellow field researcher. "At this point I'm hoping we maintain our position as temporary help and not product by the end of this."

Every other Saturday, Lilith generally has a routine, even though being the boss of a Pawn lets her vary hours. She actually gets her ass out of bed early and goes to work instead of lounging for brunch, but she doesn't stay on the shop floor, she locks herself in the office and runs up and down the stairs with a bag from the loft to move terrible amounts of kept cash around for REASONS.

So it's really strange to be counting fat stacks of real (and fake) money for accounting and swap out and dealing with stolen jewelry one moment, then finding herself rising up to not go for the safe toward another count batch, but toward... uh. Meat conveyer? Damnit. These things happen so fast and unexpected sometimes. At least she's not wearing skirt or heels today, she was saving those for dinner out. Her hair is up, she's wearing skinny jeans with lace up boots, a cute floral thin sweater in purple and white, and apparently... now she's going to wear a meat packing jumpsuit from a lizard.

It takes her a little longer to figure out what's going on and she looks around at length while listening and making slow, wary approach, "... I don't think you're supposed to say the only way out is through in a place with literal meat grinders, baby doll." She's sober in looking at Isabella despite the dry humor on step up, though.

Vyv was just at his own shop for a nice light lunch and definitely not even a little bit because he enjoys occasionally unsettling his employees by being right there but not actually working. He's in a fairly good mood as he steps back out the door, and immediately a less good one as he ends up not on the street, but here.

"Oh, god, again?" he asks the world in general, as one of those uniforms gets pushed into his hands. He looks at it, then at what seems to be the same ensemble on the reptile-eyed person, then at it again, as though it might be contagious. "This is ridiculous," he says, "and also hideous." He glances at the door, clearly considering just going out through it, but... well, he's heard what Isabella says before. Oh, hey, Isabella. She and August get a slight inclination of the head, and he sighs, starting to put on the coverall. Better than risking the suit. It's a very nice suit. As always.

It may be Saturday, but after acquiring a certain casino, Byron's schedule is pretty full up even over the weekend. By afternoon, he's gotten himself a cup of coffee at Espresso Yourself while chatting on his phone on his way from the shop to his car. He has to hurry though, due to the light rain, but it's a good thing that he parked so close. "Right, I'll meet you there in an hour. I'll let security know that you're stopping by. Good."

He almost reaches his parked car when he realizes that he's not in Downtown anymore. Dressed in a gray hued suit with a black tie, his phone still at his ear, it takes a moment to gather his bearings and survey his surroundings. Eyes narrow when he realizes that this is either the Veil or a Dream, if the two things are separate at all. Meeting up with the others now, his phone slowly lowered as he takes what would be his third sip from his newly purchased coffee, frankly, he's not at all pleased to be pulled into this in the middle of... well, in the middle of anything!

The phone is slipped back into his pocket, tension clearly seen in his tall frame when he realizes who else is here. "God damnit." First of all, there's Lilith, then Isabella among others and some... thing is trying to hand him a jump suit. "Well, this it's better than ruining my suit, I guess."

August spies Isabella in turn, then Lilith. "Yeah, where is--" The voice overhead drowns him out, and he listens to it while examining the outfit he's been handed. "...right," he mutters, and begins pulling it on. It's a snug fit over his sweats, but he makes do.

"Oh, I wouldn't say that," he says to Lilith, mouth flattening. He remembers that time under the carousel, oh yes.

Jarring, clearly, as she should have been stepping into her shop proper rather than a factory. Abitha freezes in place, eyes darting around. Improv, take clothes, get dressed, don't freak out. The factory floor was no worse than a Diablo level. Just... yaknow, real looking. August, Lilith, recognition plays in the gamer's eyes, maybe Isabella? Either way, the better plan was sticking near the others, keeping her cool. She comments from the side of her mouth, "Ok, uh... assembly line objective or something?" This has to be like the other Dreams, right?

Oh god, again?

Isabella's very resigned look directed to Vyv's way speaks volumes in place of what she doesn't say. "The usual suspects are almost all here," she tells the group, though she manages to smile at Lilith's dry humor. "Just being exhaustedly realistic," she tells her simply, falling a step next to the other woman. Espying more familiar faces, Byron's this time, she waves a hand just as a scorpion-thing waves her in. There's a wary eye cast to the X on the ground, and then all the pincers, and then the meat rolling down. "It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done," she quotes to the rest under her breath. Because of course she's going to go. She runs into traffic on a good day. At least she's consistent! So she plants herself on the X. "So...how's the work day?" she tells the scorpion in a conversational fashion, watching the cute little cotton balls crying for a swift death.

Unfortunately, for Byron, he has to set down his newly brewed cup of coffee in order to shrug on this jumpsuit and by the time he looks back to where his cup was set, it was gone. Not that he had much of an appetite for anything after being in this place for as brief amount of time as he was. Zipping the front of the jumpsuit up, his gaze once more wanders to take in the interior of what looks like a meat locker in his eyes. He's examining the machinery, the inhabitants as well as the exits and any point or person of interest, especially after having heard the familiar voice over the P.A.

The sight of all the various creatures cowering in fear of being mutilated and murdered for-- Byron blinks when the word soup is mentioned. This is when his eyes shoot over at Isabella and he comes out to ask whatever thing is closest to him, "Is this the experimental soup?" Yes, he knows that Reede had ingested that thing. Is he disturbed by this carnage? Of course, he is. He's not a monster. But weird things happen in places like this.

Lilith sees Byron stepping up behind her after nodding at August and some of the others in a companionable 'fml' kind of way and exhales a hard puff of air in both relief and... well, no one WANTS their significant other in stuff like this, so it's very 'ugh' sounding toward the tail end with dread, that sigh noise as she starts to jumpsuit. Bloody meat is fine, this is fine, don't ruin the pretty sweater, right? Also that whole out-is-through concept is pretty well true, no matter what she wants to dark humor joke about to cope.

Once she's suited, she reaches to touch at the back of Byron's hand before actually looking at what's on the assembly for... product. Then she gets conflicted. It's weird what skeezes her sometimes, the snotmonsters in the grocery had her hiding back when, but she was actually okay with the idea of butchering whatever... until they looked...

Cute and miserable? The inner girlies totally kick in and she eyes the others questioning and the small talk sidelong before looking back at the cute ingredient thingies with brows knit hard.

Whatever the hell he'd been doing today, de la Vega finds himself rather abruptly not doing it. Instead, he's staring at a jumpsuit that's been thrust into his hands while carcasses roll by on a conveyor belt, in various stages of being processed and packaged. "Oh, for fuck's sake," he grumbles under his breath, not to anyone in particular, while grudgingly tugging the thing on. Spotting a few familiar faces here, he rifles his fingers through his hair, checks to make sure his gun's loaded, and prowls on over to August and Isabella. "Any idea what the hell this is about?"

Abitha's hand immediately covers her mouth. Nope, not bothering to try to remain composed for her, just thankful she hadn't had breakfast. Tastes like bile. Her eyes were pretty much at max aperture. Butchering dead meat was one thing, alive was wholey another. She moves forward zombie-like, trying to fit in. She tries to find a station that looks not that much observed, where she'd pick up whatever tool was supposed to be used there... but she just tries to do the absolute worst, like chopping and just missing. However she could be absolutely inept at her job. Maybe no one would notice? Places like this had slackers all the time. She was just gonna... phone it in. That's the ticket.

Soup? Vyv glances to Byron at the question to Isabella, then in the general direction the voice seems to be announcing from. "If I wanted to make soup," he replies to it crisply, "I have at least twenty different recipes in my kitchen already. If this is about experimental soup? I didn't want to make soup. I wanted to understand soup. A factory tour would likely suffice. I don't require a second job." Glancing around at the things on the conveyer does not chance his mind on this even a tiny bit. The kitten draws his eye for an extra moment. ...tentacle kitten.

Byron is still in investigative mode and doesn't immediately tend to one of the various stations as he tries to take in this entire process from start to finish. Where the things come in from, where they go, which route. Feeling a touch at the back of his hand, he turns to spot Lilith there and then beyond her where there's colorful puff balls squirming about at her station. "You don't have to do this, you know." No, Byron doesn't know, but he'll give her that advice anyway. Looking at the sheer amount of other factory workers here, he knows that they couldn't take them all, now could they?

Beyond the wall, he notices spiders. And spiders are freakin' terrible and frightening looking things. He doesn't move to help and instead watches to see what becomes of them. Well, unless he's ushered to do actual work.

August nods Ruiz towards a spot on the line. "Play along," he advises, pulling his face mask part into place. He moves reluctantly to one of the spots and accepts a cleaver. He's starting at the puffs when they speak to Lilith. "Eyeglasses," he says. "Oh Jesus." He turns to Isabella. "What if they're how they're making them. By," he looks down, winces as the poof goes splutch under Abitha's cleaver, "using creatures which have that power."

"Sadly, I do know what you mean," Isabella says to the scorpion monster as she stands next to it. "So is this all you do here or do you guys have a rotation? I mean, I figured with all the..." She gestures to the pincers with a cleaver. "...apparatus that they like keeping you in this station, but I thought I'd ask." She seems perfectly fine surrounded by animals about to die, she's not enough of a reader to feel any distress, and she's an unrepentant carnivore - it's actual bodies she has an issue with. She does feel sorry for the little things that are about to get chopped up though. Her eyes catch the cute little tentacle kitty with the tophat though, as well as the fancy neon spider with a tophat. "...what's with the tophats?" she murmurs to her monstrous companion.

To August, she nods, indicating that she's thought the same - maybe. She doesn't know for sure just yet. But with Lilith attempting to rescue some of her balls, maybe they can ask them later? With her batch of de-tentacled kittens rolling down the conveyor belt near her, she sighs. "Sorry," she mutters. "Circle of life and all." Plus she has no idea what will happen if they don't do their jobs, so she raises the cleaver, and brings it down. THWACK.

Lilith picks up a knife right before the conveyor starts to move while staring hard at the cute colorful and terrified little fluff(?) balls and grips the hell out of it. After a smash press of her lips, she's distracted by August's eyeglasses comment, then starts to sweep down with mercy kill cut but at the last minute, she's not totally hardcore in Lilith fashion when it comes to murderbotting this way. Instead, she drops the knife and quick grabs for a handful of the colorful crying balls to sling backwards across the room like she's pitching them to freedom for the sake of seeing if it works.

She regrets it as soon as she does it, suddenly terrified they're going to grow and attack the whole room, tensed with eyes wide before she looks at the lizard man to see what HE does too. Lilith is clearly expecting consequences for having a reflex softie moment.

Ruiz, on the other hand, is bombarded with a multitude of little screams of terror, the moment he tentatively opens his mind to the creatures; it's inescapable and overwhelming, and his eyes go a little wild in panic as he watches Isabella chop one of them up.

Then, in his best cop-in-charge voice, "Who the fuck is in charge here? I want to talk to the line manager immediately."

Like Isabella, August isn't squeamish about butchering; he's been killing and processing animals for decades. But none of those doves or pigeons or deer looked at him and cried for help. And certainly he's never done it in a meat packing plant.

He gets to work, but pauses in between motions to call up, "So this is how you do it? You take the power out of other things?" He'd been a bit worried this might turn out to be how it was done, but been hoping he was wrong.

And then Ruiz is doing something even August has been avoiding doing: using his power. "Careful," he warns de la Vega through clenched teeth.

"Oh fuck, fuck, fuck..." Abitha seems to be muttering to herself. She'd be apologizing too, but that would make less breath for swear words. She's a little wild eyed, and guilty besides. Great, she was the first person to just horribly murder something. She's trying to just look anywhere else. You know, while using a cleaver. Great ideas. She tries to watch the others for any bright ideas, and Ruiz's idea definitely seemed like not the brightest. Keep head closed, got it. Lilith... well, it also seemed like she'd had a horrible idea. Abitha's trying to trade glances with anyone that would look, but... Well, whatever chute Lilith was being ushered toward? Abitha would be looking for ways to shut off or overload whatever machinery, at least if she could feel any electrical currents flowing through them... Yeah, opening her mind was a bad idea? Here she goes.

Unfortunately, in his observations, Byron spots a familiar face. It's shocking at first and he's not exactly sure what he's seeing. Was it something along the lines of that waxy figure of him that they found down in the cave-- or the memorial set up for it. Or was it something else? It's hard to tear your eyes off of something that looks so very much like you while it's in the process of fighting for its life to survive. That wasn't him though, he reminds himself. For all he knows, it could be one of the various things they end up confronting or fighting in these Dreams.

And yet, he can feel his body growing cold in anticipation of what's to come. That is until Lilith's distraction finally pulls his attention from the difficult to observe sight (Has he not killed at least one of his own dopplegangers in the past?) when she recklessly gathers up some of those weird puff balls with eyes. "Why aren't those things ground up already?" He just has to ask! As he watches her scatter them about. "I said..." He starts, taking in a deep breath, "You didn't have to--"

Then McGruff the crime dog comes in and tries to make a grab for Lilith, "Look, it was a mistake." He says, reaching out for the guard's arm. What he does do, however, is attempt to invoke a sort of fear into the anthropomorphic thing. To get it back away or even flee.

Lilith looks apt to pick up the knife, maybe simply because getting 'picked up by Jimmy' as a consequence while in a meat factory sounds a lot like a mafia hit, strange aside. Also is it so bad to mercy kill an animal before butchery, that's what these are, right? But she still obviously is having issues, looking at Byron with one small step away from the conveyer, and for a moment there, her eyes narrow when she looks back at the lizard man.

It might be possible she's about to test him by telling him, "Demerit me, bitch."

But she doesn't even really have time to lose her temper or decide to play along in the end, because maybe this is Jimmy! Either way, it's a guard dog and when he growls at her with brisk stomp up, she immediately tries to wiggleworm slug his bulldog jowels with defensive NOPE. Unfortunately, if she's not using superpowers or dealing with tied up men for kink-beatings for cash, she's kind of a barbie doll wuss, exactly what she looks like.

She gets snatched right the hell up and starts to kick when overpowered, "... I will break this WHOLE FACTORY, put me DOWN!"

She might try that, but threatening seems safer somehow than trying with panic overriding temper for now with the quick turn of event.

De la Vega's never been terribly good at following bullshit orders, and that apparently isn't about to change. He also clearly wants no part of this butchering business. His eyes tick up briefly at the voice that comes over the P.A., like he's thinking about storming off to go find the source of it. But his attention's drawn by the guard dog.. thing that appears, and lunges for Lilith. There's a bit of a scuffle, but it looks like the dog thing is winning that fight, even as Byron wades in to try to pull it off her.

So the cop does the most logical thing he can think of, and draws his sidearm. Clack of the safety being thumbed off, muzzle coming up as he tries to get a clean line of sight on the guard. Even as more start to show up. "Back the fuck off, or so help me I will blow your brains out."

"Shit," August growls, moving off the line towards Abitha. He's hoping to stop her from doing anything untoward, but it's too late; she's tried to zap a machine, and is now being resisting-arrested. "Hey, come on, it's just a damned machine. She didn't even damage it." One of his hands forms a fist, and he prepares to break some bones.

With Lilith thrown over one of the dog's shoulders, Byron can't just electrocute it, but he knows that he has to act fast. Hearing Ruiz from the distance, he calls out, "de la Vega, The one holding Lilith." The electricity would shock her too, he'd assume, but if everyone else can get to it, "I'll try to hold him back." Most likely by mental illusions. "Just get her free from its grasp!"

"Who's Jimmy?" Isabella wonders of the scorpion, eyeballing the rest of her group down the conveyor belt as she frantically gets into her usual role of distracting the biggest thing in the room. "And what happens if you get too many and you get picked up?" There's an open wince when the poor kitty gets sucked into the tube and is reduced to another slab of meat. She brings down the cleaver with a thwack.

When Ruiz approaches her, green-gold eyes widen at him. "I think we're in an FCN manufacturing facility," she tells him under her breath. But before she can say anything else, he does what he does and she tries to shake her head at him to signal him. And then the guard dog arrives. "....is that Jimmy?" she asks the scorpion, just as Lilith is grabbed. Uh oh. "Wait!" she cries in an attempt to diffuse the situation, but it's too late. With the last comment about grinding up enough of them, specifically, her face drains of color and she turns away from the conveyor belt. She doesn't jump into the fight, because she's busy throwing up - that chicken soup probably has them bits, and she ate it. Sure, it was months ago, but that doesn't matter right now!

"Oh Shi-!" Abitha was throwing her hands up in front of her, trying to ward off a grab, because if there's one thing she absolutely did not want it was to be touched. Did she know what she was doing? Not really, but the powers that resided in her mind at least attempted to give weight to the idea. She tries her best to use her small size to wriggle away from the dog.

Lilith is in grip and can't get down, now they're going for Byron and skirmish is breaking out and there's more guard dogs. She could lash out at what's carrying her, but for a change, she's actually in control of her temper and tactical while being kept out of the fray. Of course, when she's in fighting and has started to set things on fire or ripping ass, all bets are off, but for now, while she kicks and dangles...

She finds the chute with her eyes, tells the Bulldog, "Try it."

Then she lashes out with power to try and collapse the chute to try and prevent ANYONE from going in any time soon, on principle.

Vyv watches with arms crossed for the moment. "We don't work here," Vyv says, still speaking to the voice, "and we don't work for you. We haven't signed any agreements to do so. All we've done, if I understand why we're here correctly, is investigate items we owned fair and square." There's the barest hint of a wince when the poor kitten gets pulled in, and more of one when someone lets the dogs out. "This is not going to lead to a productive afternoon on your assemblyline, you know!" he informs their captor.

Oh hell no.

As more guard animals burst from the doors, Isabella keeps her cleaver, and with the lizard thing leaping at her, childhood flashbacks of watching Jurassic Park assail her mind. The first thing she does is scream, and the second thing she does is dive under the conveyor belt, letting the thing bounce off it if he doesn't manage to stop him fast enough. Green-and-gold eyes attempt to find a door to escape from, because god only knows how many more security this place has. Maybe she can use her white jumpsuit and mask as a good enough camouflage when she finds one.

Abitha is not a combatant in any sense of the word, so getting touched for a second time, even if it was physical violence has her trying to backpedal away. This time, she tries to use an ability she did know how to use. She tries to pull illusions around herself and dissapear from her attackers view or at least obstruct. Hopefully they'd miss or give her time to scramble away. Brave? Absolutely not.

Ruiz's shot goes wide, possibly because with everything going on, he can't find a clear line of sight on his target. It pings off some machinery, and he's in the midst of dropping another round into the chamber when something cracks him across the back with a club. Or something that feels an awful lot like one. Then another across his upper thigh, and that one's nearly solid enough to bring him to the floor. Snarling, he opts to get right the fuck up in the bulldog's face, and attempt discharge his weapon point blank.

Great, we're going to have a riot? Vyv stays as far back from the melee as he can manage, pulling on his powers to protect him, like a protective suit over his, uh, protective suit over his actually proper suit. Possibly also stepping behind anything that looks handy, because he is a lover, not a fighter, thank you.

August dodges the club swinging his way, jerks his hand to one side, snapping bones in the dog-person attacking Abitha. He grunts and swallows, the being's pain a bit too close for comfort. The sudden chaos has him thinking of older, uglier times. Through clenched teeth, he growls, "I said, let, her, go." Arms, legs, whatever; he's breaking it.

With the gleeful sounds coming from over the P.A. and the fact that more guards were showing up, including a random lizard guy, while Byron tries to get a better grasp of positioning, in the case that it was best to make a run for it than fight, his focus remains on the big dog on campus, the one who had the audacity to lay a hand on Lilith. "Let her go and we'll leave. Then you can go back to making whatever horrendous things you create here."

In the chaos of trying to distract the bulldog, another one of those canines takes a swipe at him, striking at his midsection and making him stumble back. While he tries to extricate himself from that threat, he follows behind the main dog, in the hopes of not losing track of Lilith, but only once she's released will he switch up tactics, moving in close, his hand outstretched, to give the bulldog the shock of his life. Well, or try to.

There's nowhere to dump Lilith now, yay, and she's annoying and dangerous to be holding, probably, so when she gets dropped in favor of a pulled club for the bulldog guard to enter the melee, she falls into an ungraceful heap since she's mid-kick and flail, then scrambles on her ass with crabwalk toward Byron's legs while vulnerable. But about halfway there, she's surrounded, and instead of taking cover or bracing, she looks RIGHT at the lizard guy that was threatening the guard dog to hurry and chute her or pay the price.

She focuses on making him pay the price suddenly, her features definitely not as scared as they should be with her vulnerable at the moment. Lilith lashes out with furious power (that might lack some precision given the chaos and her rage shot) and tries to take the floor commander out first with psychic butchery of her own, no knife required. As far as she's concerned, dogs are dogs, they follow orders, But this guy tried to grind her!

She's still looking for a way out, or in, when the brawl escalates, and when more and more of them come pouring out, Isabella lets the cleaver in her hand fly - at the moment she's thanking everything else in the universe that the four-pincere'd scorpion with his cleaver and stinger didn't decide to join in. Her telekinetic wave surges and carries the blade with it, to hack into the back of a guard dog's knee when it tries to attack Abitha, and she has it circle around to try and plant its blade into the back of its head. She attempts to keep a wide berth as much as she can, to keep out of range of anything that might try to grab her, or anyone else. At least they're not using guns?

The guard dog goes down, freeing Abitha from one of them, and August is about to turn on the other one, but something makes him wince and double over. He turns and sees Ruiz somehow still standing under all these attacks focuses on shoring him up. "No sleeping on the job, de la Vega." Nausea makes him sway in place even as he works on putting things back to rights, and he tries to steer clear of anything coming at him.

This time, de la Vega's shot rings true. Right between the eyes, because fuck kneecapping the thing when he's given him this much trouble. Unfortunately, he's simultaneously the target of a whole lotta pain from the dog's buddies, and after the third crack of a weapon hitting the back of his head, finally goes down. Not out of the fight, the cop's too fucking stubborn for that, but with enough sense to drag himself behind a post and lean against it heavily while he tries to staunch the bleeding from a nasty gash in his head.

Yelping as she's struck, even if she wasn't totally hurt by the attack, Abitha continues to try to stumble back and away, narrowly getting out of the way of another hit before August takes one of her attackers out. She definitely looks harried, but has the presence of mind to give him a panicked nod, "Thanks!" though she's quickly shut up as she's still trying to evade her other attacker. Why were they on her! She was the definition of unthreatening... You know... If you don't count the Thunderbolts. She tries again to reach her mind out and confuse her opponent, put space or weirdness between them.

This... this is not Vyv's idea of a good time. Not in the least. ...and he probably could just stay out of this? The others seem to be making a nice thorough distraction. But on the other hand, the faster they get through this the better. He eases around the bits of machinery to get a better focus on one of those dogs.

Really, Abitha shouldn't have even tried. She was squinting, holding a hand up, trying to move and bob and weave, and the club comes down solidly on the crown of her head. It was like a light going out. Her eyes went glassy, and she went down nervelessly, like a ton of bricks tumbling across the factory floor. If she survived this, the mess she was probably laying in now would likely make her just as ready to die.

Lilith gets thunked by an angry guard dog club and it hurts, but she is SO dead set on turning the lizardguy into meat, she's adrenaline surged, flushed and wild-eyed and it doesn't really register the pain like she should initially. She throws her arm up and twists last second to try and block some of the impact, keeping the thing from actually braining her pretty head. But when it swings down, it does thud her in the chest during the arm-skimming miss of head and it winds her. The pain kicks in with delay after she's lashed out to rip the lizardman's chest into furious gutting explosion of violence, not just efficiency defense attack.

Then she swaps attention to the dog that thunked her while trying to get up using Byron or something as purchase while winded, lashing out again with a bit more focus than rage. And that sucks for that dog's club arm before the others get a hold of him too, but then things really suck for Lilith herself in turn.

Lilith never gets to get up fully. She doesn't even get to scream. In fact, it's surprising her head doesn't crack all the way open the way it suddenly blossoms with blood and knocks her right the fuck out of being a wild-eyed threat by the new arrival.

Some of Ruiz's injuries mend, and August has just enough time to swallow down bile before taking a solid series of blows to the chest from one of the guard dogs. He shoves back, stumbling as he sees the Vivisectionist join the group and--

He coughs, doubling over and dry heaving. He straightens, tries to get to Lilith, stumbling as he goes. "No, no, no. Get up, girl, get up."

Roen's shot a deeply grateful look as he uses the Gift to mend some of Ruiz's damage. It's enough to clear the cobwebs from his head, to let him pull back to his feet, pivot away from the support beam, and bring his weapon to bear on what he perceives as the most dangerous combatant on the field; the Vivisectionist. "Don't you fucking dare," he grouses at August without tearing his gaze away from his target. He probably means die. Don't he dare die.

Despite perhaps not needing to close the distance in order to shock his enemies, it's a habit that's hard for Byron to break, having done so all these years. He makes a bumrush for the bulldog once Lilith is good and out of harm's way, as far as he can tell. Letting his hand crackle with electricity, he takes a swing at the pooch, just as Ruiz fires off the kill shot, bringing the hound down. The impact makes his fist smart and he takes the moment to shake it out. This peace doesn't last long because another of those things starts snapping at him, but not needing to move in close this time, the guard dog making its own advances, his hand flares up with electricity once more, shoving his fist into the dog's face, the electricity arcing even before contact was even made.

The dog is put down like Old Yeller, but not, but during all of that, there was little time to even react to the Vivisectionist's entrance and by the time he takes notice of who the bitch was targetting, it was too late. "Lilith!" He calls out, hurrying over to her side, the electricity fading, to crouch down beside her, "Lil," He tries to shake her, only then noticing that Lilith wasn't the only one to go down. "You bitch!" Because all that he saw was the Vivisectionist having attacked her really. On seeing August, a healer type, hobbling his way over, he calls out, "Take care of her, alright." Byron has some work to do. He doesn't move far, acting as a protective barrier in case anyone decides to lash out at Lilith once more. The crackle of electricity returns and he has his eyes on one person only despite the rioting done by the other weird Veil things going on all around them.

She hasn't stopped her efforts in an attempt to find a way out, or further into the facility and through. Isabella manages to whip the cleaver in an arc to dole enough damage on the guarddog attacking Abitha, calling it back to her hand and doing her best to ignore the blood staining the blade. Frantic eyes shift in an attempt to keep a bead on her group when a new challenger enters the fray and it's...

...her face drains of color. "We have to get out of here!" she cries. She's never seen the Vivisectionist in the flesh, but now she's here and her skin crawls when she observes the way her dress clings to her, because it isn't right. And when she turns to attack Lilith, she sends the cleaver flying again, aimed right for those beautiful eyes and that masked face. It's nothing precisely aimed, not really - she just wants to do enough damage and blind her so they can hopefully get out of here!

Vyv is new to trying to use this portion of his power, and looks nearly startled for a moment as a flash of electricity hits the dog he was aiming for. Barely, but it does hit! There's little time to be pleased with that before things are going worse, however. The new arrival gets a disgusted onceover, even more than if she'd been wearing Crocs and a trucker cap, though it's gone when Lilith falls. Right. Okay. A glance at the door, then back to that being. Usually he'd sympathise with an inability to get good help these days. Maybe less so right now.

Ruiz's head is swimming from all the damage he's taken, and he seems to debate for a moment whether he's going to stay in the fight, or drop to his knees and puke his guts up. After fighting off a wave of nausea, and spitting out blood, he shunts another round into the chamber and tries to line up a shot on one of the remaining guard dogs. No time to check and see whether the bulbous creature pretending to be a blonde bombshell is actually out of commission.

"LILITH!"

She's about to launch the cleaver in her hand when the Vivisectionist turns her attention on her, and her expression drains further of color. "I didn't balk," Isabella protests defensively. "I only asked about what you were up to, I didn't promise in any way to sign u--" But whatever else she has to say? Is cut off by a scream when pain rips through her body. Bones break, fire coruscating through her bones and boils into her marrow. She drops on her knees, hugging her chest; blood hacks out from between her lips.

"You...b....b..." She can't quite say the word, but the cleaver she had dropped suddenly flies towards the Vivisectionist's face, all of her rage and desperation poured into the telekinetic wave and give it an additional push. Bad enough that she feels ground up into hamburger, shades of the saw mill dream tap dancing in her skull, but there's so much blood around Lilith that she's legitimately terrified the Veil-bitch had killed her. She would have screamed in fury, if she had the room to, but there's too much blood in her mouth that all that comes out of her is a choking noise.

Empty eyes continue to stare across the floor of the factory for a long moment. Abitha was still down, lying in the filth, but finally, she blinks. It was a slow motion, but her eyes finally shut, her face slowly mashing into a mask of pain. Soundlessly, her body starts to curl, legs drawing up, arms clutching as she moves into the fetal position. She was gripping her head for dear life, the splitting pain that was rolling over her unbearable, excruciating, so bad she felt like she couldn't even breathe. She was not getting up anytime soon, at least of her own volition.

Lilith stays on the ground with August tending to her and sparking her body into kickstart anew with his own powers. It's a lot like seeing an animated doll just break and fall, the way she's lashing out with terrible power and wild-eyed rage, then just isn't anymore, broken and bloody on the floor while the others fight, limp and still.

But suddenly, after her body's had a moment to react and play catch up, she gasps loudly with sucked in breath and tries to sit up immediately with dazed concern that's immediate for Byron, impulse and reflex. She doesn't get up, though, she just bleeds like a prone duck and stares up at a furious Byron with an unwitting little smile while blood runs into her eyes from her head. It's fine. Byron's here. She'll help. It's fine.

She's so out of it and docile now, she might damn well have some brain injury, but she's awake!

It's so awkward for Byron to try and attempt to electrocute anything from this far a distance, but he will try. Whatever happened worked, even if it wasn't due to him. Something Isabella had done seemed to have brought the witch down, but there's very little time to relax and check on Lilith. There's another of those hounds going after her and he'll block it's way if he can, drawing his hand back to try and light thing up.

Vyv takes a step further away when the woman-thing turns on Isabella, but... all the better for attacking, yes? Yes. Ish. He stops short for a moment when Isabella's cleaver takes her right down, looking flatly impressed for a second before the bouncing little creatures draw his attention back to the remaining dogs, and he lifts a hand to try to jolt some sense into one.

As August has requested, Lilith--well, she wakes up, anyways. Good enough for government work. "Be right back, hon. I gotta...get the other girl. Okay?" He staggers to his feet, stumbles back towards Abitha. "No one lies down on the job, kid, let's go."

"We need to get the fuck out of here," barks de la Vega, once it becomes obvious the place is coming down around them. He starts backing up toward the door, the one marked ALARM WILL SOUND, which he doesn't seem to give a shit about. "Come on, move it." He dodges to the side as a few bricks tumble from the wall, and tries to pop off a shot at one of the guard dogs still chasing them.

Oh, god, everything hurts.

Isabella pushes herself stubbornly on her feet, and grunts in an attempt to get herself towards the ALARM WILL SOUND door, curls a fist and slams it into the red button situated next to it in an attempt to open it. But her body starts to sag; tears of pain stream down her eyes and blurs her vision. Through it, she sees the Vivisectionist on the floor, unmoving, her taunting giggle in her ears. She said there was no way out. Hopefully that isn't true. Worried gaze is fixed on Byron and Lilith, but with the man reaching for her, she can trust that he's got her. She hacks another glob of blood on the floor. "THIS WAY!" she manages to shout.

Vyv does not need to be asked twice to try to get out of a collapsing building, even (especially?) if a dog with a club appears to have its eye on him. He aims the electricity at it, heading toward that door. No alarm sounded when the dogs came in, anyway! ...'course, that is the way the dogs came in, isn't it...?

Getting into a tussle with a club wielding dog would seem surreal for anyone not used to the oddities of the Veil by now. In fact, despite standing just above Lilith as August tries to get her on her feet, this need to move and maneuver himself to get that opening (despite, you know, being able to arc electric currents from a distance -- Byron'll need to get used to that!) for contact puts him just one step too many away from his charge. The sound of the gunshot also distracts him, but this gives him the time to take notice of just exactly what is going on.

His one misstep left open and before he can lash out and grab at the dog-man's arm to pull it back, the deed had been done. Nevermind that, the place was collapsing in on itself and there were still a couple of those guard dogs left in hot pursuit. There was no time to check for her pulse or anything like that, all that Byron had time to do was scoop Lilith up in hs arms. His body was aching, having taken several strikes himself, so in his own weariness and pain, he struggles to collect the limp Winslow up into his arms. It's the straightening up that's difficult with all the bruising and clawmarks on his torso. Hearing Ruiz call out the group, he nods, "Everyone, run! Get the hell out of here." Though he notices a few standing their ground a bit, or at least, trying to keep their pursuers occupied. "Thanks." He murmurs, "But don't linger too long either." As he hoofs it towards the exit, his gaze drifts down to check on the bundle in his arms. That's the only thing he can do now to make sure she's okay.

August would likely find it only slightly difficult, as Abitha was already hurt and scared, her vision swimming and blurred by tears, but really, the size difference would make grabbing a flailing hand easy, and... well she finally felt like she could breathe again. The first exhalation is a spitting bawl of pain, then, a complaint, "My fucking head." Then, she fucking grabs hold of August's arm like he was the only tether to her mortal coil. Sure, it was probably just trying not to be alone in a world entirely made up of pain, but at least it would give August leverage to get her on her feet.

She is trying to cover their escape the best she can, despite her weakening body, stumbling into the hallway and waving the rest to go through. With the guard dog menacing Javier, Isabella sends the cleaver, pain and rage screaming through her control, coming down on the pursuing creature. She doesn't even have the room to feel sad about it, when she likes dogs.

And then as they pass through the hallway, cries of help make their way through the fog in her mind. "Oh, god," she groans, attempting to move in that direction. "Someone try and get them! I'll try and hold them off!"

August pulls back at the slapping. Hey, she's up at least! He doesn't even mind, really. "Come on. Get out of here, go." ...and, down goes Ruiz. He groans, sighs. "Really? You bastard, if I have to drag you back by a leg I fucking will. No one here is strong enough to carry you. On your damned feet." He weaves his way towards Ruiz, walking like he's drunk.

Lilith isn't awake long. Maybe it's a blessing she has a head injury of extreme jarring pain and pressure and wooziness because she doesn't see the downward swing of the club from the guard dog charging in a hole between the people standing to make sure she STAYS down. To be fair, she did explode a whole lizardguy's chest, so maybe that's a sound tactic even though it's a little like the dog is beating a limp kitten. She gets the breath knocked out of her, losing the meager oxygen she's getting into her system right now while so dizzy, dazed, pained and still.

She doesn't even rouse a little when Byron picks her up and starts to haul her away. Usually there's a little bit of something, a reach for him, a murmur, SOMETHING. But she's horrible dead weight for him to be in a hurry right now. Except... oh wait. There she is. She doesn't have to move. She's barely got her breath back, but she loves parting shots. She loves the violent satisfaction of ending things. She doesn't even care what she hits. But she mostly just thinks about the dog that hit her while she was staring at Byron.

Oh, God, there's an entire cage full of begging creatures, and there is STILL a guard dog trying to kill him! Vyv glances toward them, but either someone else is going to have to handle that, or they're just going to have to keep themselves not-dead until nothing's trying to bash his brain out with a club. There are priorities. Even if so far he's... really not very good at this shocking things thing.

Look at all of those miserable creatures trapped in those cases awaiting a crushing fate. Or worse, if they survive and this factory is repaired, they still had a chance to be made into soup! But Byron can't think about that right now. He was cradling Lilith in his arms and was making a straight line towards the emergency door-like thing. Every so often, he might look over his shoulder to see how everyone else was doing, whether they were keeping up. In the distance, he notices another fall, but he couldn't stop now. Not until he dropped Lilith off to safety.

Even with that in mind, he asks, "Need any help back there?" His pace slowing just a tad, so that he's not pulling away too far ahead. It's at this time that he doesn't realize that Lilith is awake.

Animals. Pain. Screaming. Abitha's vision clears just long enough for her to realize what was happening, the pain finally being pushed back. She takes one look at that cage, those creatures, the chain. All the guilt of killing that first animal rushes back to her. She lifts a hand out, wanting to save them, to make things right, even as she was moving toward the door to follow August's urging. Her mind answers her query, the function running, and something inside that lock snaps and breaks. She stops, blinks. Ok, that was a first for her. Something from the ceiling lands near her, and her shock and surprise results in another little yelp, even though she was fine. She wasn't asking questions. She bolts for the exit.

The captain's a tough old boot, but there's only so much damage he can take before even he goes down. His knees buckle out from under him as he takes another hit to the head, and his gun falls and skitters away a few feet, the man panting and glassy eyed. Maybe it's August's bitching that gets him to snap out of it, or maybe he realises that if he doesn't fucking do something, he's going to die under an avalanche of bricks in a veil meat plant.

Snarling, he snatches up his gun and pulls back to his feet. Then wades back in to help get the last of the stragglers out. He'll shove them out the goddamned door if necessary.

With Lilith, Isabella helps put the last remaining guard dog out of his misery.

She follows the rush of creatures out of the factory even as it collapses somewhere behind her, and there's a frantic attempt by herself to take account of everyone else that she came in with. Thankfully, everyone else seems to have made it out. Her knees wobble, and she rests her hands on her knees to prevent herself from falling, blood dribbling from her mouth. Everything hurts, but she can't not keep going. Every breath feels like inhaling fire.

"Everyone....okay...?" she breathes. The adrenaline is still in her system, but once that fades, she'll start feeling sick again.

August gets Ruiz to the point where he's not presently, actively, bleeding to death. He follows everyone else, since getting the fuck out of here seems to be the order of the day. He doesn't say or do much until he stays too close to Isabella, at which point he flicks a hand at her, trying to patch up...something.

When he's right by the exit, that's when Byron notices the hoard of Veil creatures coming to join him and pour out of this danger zone and into the streets. At first, he'd assumed the factory was in city hall somewhere, but with the building collapsing, it was going to take all of city hall down with it, was it? So out he goes and he doesn't stop until he's a good distance away as to not be trapped in the rubble, dust and debris.

Unlike some others, he hasn't wandered too far into the Veil, outside of certain buildings, so while they are out here, he tries to make sense of what the world looks like. It's then that he feels the weight in his hand shift, drawing his immediate attention. As he was facing forward, he might not have noticed that Lilith was up to anything, though he may have felt something when she, along with with Isabella when they put down the last working dog. The movement meant that she was alive at least! But in what condition? "You okay, Lily?" He was about to shout out to Isabella, saying that they were fine, but he's not even sure.

Vyv does his best to dodge that swing, and as the dog doesn't really give his all, his best turns out to still be good enough. Not so much the shocking, still. Other people are more effective, at least, and the guard goes down. "I'm sure you'll have stellar references," Vyv says a touch breathlessly, barely listening to himself.

He pauses now that they all seem to be out to watch the flow of freed creatures and the building collapsing for a moment or two. "...all that," he mutters, "and we still don't know the actual recipe." Not that he'd be trying to make any, surely! But a partial list of probable-ingredients does not a recipe make. Sigh. He turns to study the others. "We're all alive, yes?" He can't do much about it either way, but does have a preference.

Ruiz endeavours to be the last one out, as if this were a Marine incursion and he's in charge of this ragtag little unit. He does a quick headcount once they have a minute to breathe, then peels out of the jumpsuit and stows his gun. "Thanks," he murmurs to August, cutting the man a quick look before pausing to survey the damage. Everyone seems mostly in one piece, at least. Then he catches sight of the sign on the building, and simply starts laughing. It's a deep belly laugh that continues even once he's transported back to his car, where he was about to pull out of the precinct's lot.

It's still chaos and escape, but Lilith can't feel all that, really, she's... not thinking or feeling very clearly right now, mostly Byron's motion while carrying and moving her feels like assisted swimming or a bobbling float on some waves. She's really quiet and limp and still even while lashing out erratically with woozy rally violence on the club-swinging lackey dog that's remaining. His chest explodes open with burst of gore on principle, because she wanted things that way, not because she's mad or fighting or capable of great aim.

She just wanted to explode his chest and feel good. It feels really good. The brunette woman's lips quirk when she feels the rip into the creature and the outward burst of ruin and she draws in a slow, deep relishing breath before exhaling it shakily with some... stuff. But it's probably just head trauma, right? Also it's probably loud and hectic and they're moving. But the things she says with drift of murmur to Byron while they escape with the others...

"I love you. I love it when they explode like a thousand dying stars, all at once. It's red. It's pretty. I love it. Do you know? Do you know how fragile they are, baby? Living things are chaos. I love breaking things. Everyone is made of tiny machines. Can we go home?"

That's not creepy or anything. But she looks pretty harmless and pitiful despite all that dished out gore and violence in the dark haired man's arms, hair and face caked with blood from head wound while she keeps her partial, woozy smile and closes her eyes to pass back out.

Outside the havoc of the factory, her steps finally slowly and coming up short just past Isabella, Abitha has a moment to remember why things feel gross and clingy. Her eyes snap down to herself and she starts snatching and pulling at the soiled coverall, making squeaks and guttural noises as she tries to get it off her as fast as possible... but she's not in it anymore... and Kyle the wageslave was staring at her rolling around the floor of her shop like she was insane.