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Phase 1, Chapter 11.

(Not that anyone probably really reads these, but! It has infact been quite a while since I wrote/posted anything. This is, as I warned upon my arrival here, due to my military obligations and the full time strain they tend to put upon my life and schedule at various intervals dictated by higher forces than myself. Still, I like to poke around when I have the time, so you can expect the slow trickle of my low-tier hobby to continue onwards. Salute~ :3)

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The still before the waves, the calm before the storm, the cold silence which put every sense a living being possessed on edge... This sensation of unearthly peace permeated the dockside as even the moonlight seemed to tremble in anticipation of what was to come. Somewhere beneath the shifting midnight shadows a figure lay amidst the hazy depths of the dingy warehouse alleyways. Emerald eyes glinted fiercely in the low light conditions, the remainder of the wildcat's form barely recognizable due to the blackness of his assault gear. Without speaking aloud, the waiting hunter began to relay his thoughts to his unseen control.

_ ~Overseer, Zulu-Three. I am in strike position. Over.~ _

"Copy that, Zulu-Three.. Is the fallback point secure?"

The soft, nervous voice of the pink coated female drifted through Kalevar's comm, and he could tell that she was frightened for him. Despite their disagreements and banter, regardless of her distance from the entire situation, combat shivers were already sinking into her. Closing his eyes and taking a few tactical breaths, Kale ran a mental inventory over the setup he had concealed upon the roof of a three story warehouse several hundred yards backrange of his position. 'Kaitie' and 'Vera', an UMP45 and T-76 Longbow respectively, had been strategically placed beneath a pack of ammunition and slid beneath a smokestack. Nodding to himself, Kalevar walked through the exact steps to get onto the roof, floor by floor, every door, every stair. Positive he remembered precisely where his equipment was, the wildcat toggled his commlink to return transmission.

_ ~Affirmative. Fallback point Indigo is combat ready.~ _

"Understood. Do you have visual?"

_ ~Negative. The second floor patrols are making their rounds, hostile visual estimated in eighty six seconds and counting.~ _

"Copy. You are weapons free."

_ ~Solid copy.. Zulu-Three out.~ _

Fayah shifted in her chair, ears twitching uncomfortably against her headset as she gripped the side of her earphones so tightly her claws left marks in the synthetics. With eyes wide, she stared helplessly at the intelligence panels displaying an overhead map of the area Kalevar was operating in, complete with floor and building schematics available on-tab for every warehouse within ten city blocks. Her free hand rested over her keyboard, fingers tapping furiously at the side of her touchpad as she attempted to ignore the unusual occurrence of loud conversation from within the Overseer Control room. Generally a building filled with absolute silence, Fayah was not accustomed to the rather loud and rushed voices of the other operatives in her unit as they debated the details of their testing. With her heart hammering so hard it felt as though the organ had crept into her throat, the tiny feline could only shake her head in disbelief at how smooth and steady Kalevar's pulse and brainwaves remained. What she wouldn't give to be that calm in this moment, and she wasn't even the one about to be shot at.

In the back rooms of the facility, the two male voices were only getting louder as the seconds dragged onwards into the night.

"Doctor Bastov, I just don't understand why we're working on this instead of the chameleon programs! With the nature of our asset's work, surely he would benefit more from stealth capabilities..?"

A rather flustered looking white ram with an impressive set of fully curled horns was pacing around behind a fast-moving otter who bore a black fur pattern riddled with cerulean markings. The sleek, muscular creature who could only be presumed to be the aforementioned Dr. Bastov barely raised his head from the data he was crunching into the systems at his paws. Fingers a blur against his holopads, the Doctor's slate grey eyes greedily devoured the numbers and code like a heroin addict grasping at a needle. After a few minutes of hurried keystrokes, the Otter finally responded with a smooth but confident tone.

"Oh, Savantes is a resourceful fighter no doubt.. He would certainly find an application for the chameleon programming, however--" He paused a moment, paw tentatively hovering over his keys before madly taking off with another strip of code. "Let us simply say that you obviously fail to understand sergeant Savantes methods of... Operation."

"Of course not, how could I? This program hardly allows me to leave the lab, let alone socialize with our subjects." The second doctor retorted, throwing his arms over his head in an exasperated signal of defeat. "Would you care to enlighten me a touch?"

"Well, Doctor Neilson.. You understand my love for story format, yes?" A knowing grin worked its way across Dr. Bastov's expression as right on queue a frustrated groan came from the man behind him. "Excellent, let us begin. Now, imagine you've decided to take a walk. It's a familiar route, one you often take, but it happens to lead through an alley or two. Nothing horrendous of course, and you think nothing of it. However, one day as you round the corners of your beloved path, you see two people at the other end who obviously have bad intentions. What do you do?"

As Dr. Neilson opened his mouth, he was immediately quieted by a raised paw from his companion showing that the Otter had meant the question to be strictly rhetorical as a handful of files were passed between the two of them. Understanding the importance of their work even if he did not necessarily agree with the order, the ram went about his assignment in willful silence, waiting for the story to resume. It didn't take long for Bastov to continue in force, waving his paws wildly in illustrative gestures in-between explosions of typing.

"Most people would turn back, yes? Take a different route, find somewhere to hide, blend with a crowd, or even run! Or, if the objective were to engage, then attack from a distance! Wait for some friends, call the law enforcement, flank, do something tactical, eh? Well! Picture instead that you merely walk directly up to the fellows. Just waltz right up as though you haven't noticed at all, another completely oblivious idiot off the streets and a perfectly hapless victim. Naturally, they don't suppose you to be dangerous! Chuckling at their good fortune they proceed with the preparations to rob you blind and possibly do you great harm.. Only to be horrendously murdered as you lure them close with your illusion of playing into their hands. Making them feel confident and safe, until you proceed to disarm one and riddle him with holes using his own weapon, before beating the second into a coma using nothing but the cold steel of his companions now empty firearm!"

"...That's..." Doctor Neilson stuttered with a blank look, offhandedly raising a paw to scratch beneath one of his horns...

"Completely asinine, I know. Don't think too much into it, or you'll drive yourself mad. Just know that in our Operative's eyes, the best method of defense is equivalent to a quick offense, while the greatest form of deception is to do precisely what they expect and hope for you to do, because it's actually the thing they anticipate the least. By playing into their plans, you actually remove the situation from their control and put it into your control, because suddenly you are both dealing with the same cards. Now you are the one with access to every flaw, every loophole. By playing into their own rules, you corner them inside the walls which they themselves have built... That is how Savantes operates. By outclassing the enemy on equal terms."

"Doctor, surely you can't.. I mean... Honestly?"

"He's a soldier, Neilson, not a spy. Let him fight the way he chooses. Our concern is, and always has been, to merely augment his functionality. To enable him to perform his tasks more effectively, however he so chooses. We were never tasked to retrain him..." Doctor Bastov chuckled, grabbing a flashdrive and plugging it into one of the many USB ports available on the upperside of the consoles. "And it's a good thing too, because I doubt we could. Utilizing 'stubborn' as a description is being modest, with this one."

A sudden squeal from the far side of the room drew both of the scientist's heads up sharply, as Fayah jolted up straight and gripped her headphones for dear life in result of the gunshots which had abruptly exploded on Kalevar's side of the transmissions. The two men shot one another a grim expression which lasted only a split second, before burying themselves into a silent stream of work.

_ ~Overseer, Zulu-Three. Overwatch cleared. Proceeding to breach. Over.~ _

Kale's voice found her ears, but the words barely registered. The silence on his command and control's side of things was the least of the wildcat's concerns however, as he straight rushed the sidewalls of the warehouse. He had scouted the building as best he could from atop the rooftops of his fallback position, painstakingly timing the patrol routes of the enemies he could scope while he waited for the full cover of darkness to sink over the night sky. As the hours had passed, he had chronologed the data with Fayah, scheduling his planned movements down to the closest estimable second.

There was yelling now, some frantic, some angry. Gunshots tore through the night, but the lack of audible ricochet ambiance showed that the weapons fire was not in Kalevar's area. Likely a panic effect, causing some poor fool to shoot into the shadows at something he thought he saw. After all, Kale reminded himself that a majority of these men were just criminals. Lowlifes and druggies who threatened for a living, not fought. Some would be dangerous, hardened killers.... But most? Most were just scared bags of scum who never thought they'd actually fire their pretty toys, and used them predominantly for scare tactics.

Well, karma is a bitch... And tonight was their night to learn terror at the barrel of a gun.

_ ~Breaching.~ _

Kalevar tapped two rounds through the glass paneling, leading with his shoulder as he leapt through the window and into the first floor of the warehouse. Pallets were stacked up to twice his height, concealing his visual position as he darted expeditiously away from the sounds of shattering glass he had created. Carbine shouldered at the ready, he moved as fast as a predator could run at half-crouch, tucking around a corner sharply and immediately dropping a masked rodent with a controlled burst to center mass.

"He's over here!"

"Someone get him!"

"What the hell is going on?!"

"Who is it, What's happening?!"

"I don't want to die!"

"Flank those boxes! Someone get eyes on target, damnit!"

"He came out of nowhere!"

"I didn't sign up for this!"

Trained and patient ears waited, sifting through the flurries of panicked voices in order to deliberately siphon out the statements pertaining to his enemy's movements. Turning back the way he came, Kalevar doubled around the edge of his cover and skirted along the barriers on the opposing side. Doing so left him almost entirely in the open, visible to the empty center floor of the warehouse, however due to his gunfire and the overall state of panic there was not a soul to be found. They had all naturally gravitated into the dense cover of the shelves and stacks of goods, which was precisely where the wildcat wanted them. Buried and blind within a world of small hallways and sharp corners, vulnerable and frightened.

_ ~I'm not sure about this, Overseer.. Almost makes me feel guilty..~ _

~Guilty?! W-wha.. Who ARE you?! Are you kidding me??~

~Not at all. It's just... With all these soft targets scampering around, It's almost like celebrating christmas early, you know?~

~.... You are a terrible individual and you belong in hell.~

The wildcat chuckled at his Overseers moment of surprise, the thoughts passing between them rapidly as he slid his thumb acrost Isabella's controls in order to pin the firing mode to automatic. Had she expected anything less of him? He couldn't honestly say he disagreed with her final sentiment, either... However..

~Oh, I'll pay my dues, kitten... But not until there's no one else left to send down before me.~