Destroyed Winter Military Base.

Rei saw a form - Dwyrin - move through the darkness toward the door. If her plan matched what promptly formed in Rei's mind, then they would be safe in an instant. She memorized the locations of the men in the split second before the lights went out.

Darkness blanketed the room like a strange blanket. Rei was surprised at how smothered she felt, but pushed the feeling aside. She threw a fast punch at where one soldier had been, feeling her fist connect with his cheek. She launched another attack at another soldier, only to find that he had moved. She backed quickly to the walls - cabinets - to try to remain hidden.

"Hope your plan involves avoiding those guns."

The man-who-may-have-been-their-leader was still near the door. A meaty thwak could be heard from across the room, and he turned towards it. Dwyrin tackled him. He lost balance and fell, only to have his weapon go skittering across the floor. He yelled out to his comrades, and only two voices answered.
Good
Since she had been the one doing the tackling - not the other way around - she had the advantage, and quickly dropped a knee onto his solar plexus. The air was expelled from his lungs in a little 'oof', and he went silent.

After a bit more shouting by the two remaining concious men, someone opened fire.

Rei heard the man in charge yell at the others in the room and their replying shouts. "Now I know where you guys are."

She wasted no time in tackling the one she decided was closest. She launched herself at his legs, wrapping her arms around his knees as she connected with him. As he fell, he unleashed a rain of bullets into the ceiling. Rei rolled to her feet as she cleared the man, no hope of finding the final man. She pounced back on the man she had just tackled, giving him a quick jab in the gut with her automail, effectively knocking the wind, and consciousness, from him.

Silence followed her attack, unnerving.

She wanted to call out to Rei, to know what happened, but did not dare. There was silence. Nothing moved. The quiet stretched for what seemed like an impossibly long time.

We aren't going to get anywhere with everyone hiding.
She supposed she could find the light again, but that would just expose them to possible gunfire... Unless Rei was quicker than the last one in the room...

Rei did not like the silence in the room. She hated it, in fact. She hardly breathed, trying to hear where everyone was. She could hear her own semi-heavy breathing - out of shape, stupid bookkeeper - and the sounds of three unconscious men in the room. Dwyrin was difficult to pick up on, doing well to hide her breath. The final man was completely lost in the silence.

"I can make light with my lightning, but I would be at the disadvantage. He needs to move or someone needs to give me light."

She crawled, careful not to drag her shoes or knees on the ground. The wall with the switch was about 15 feet away.

The sound was so quiet she barely noticed it.
Breathing.
As she slowly inched forward on the cold floor, it got louder and louder, until it was almost right next to her. She was sure Rei had been on the other side of the room. The hammering in her chest was loud (surely he could hear it, too??), and she desperately hoped she did not reach out and accidentally brush his leg. But, she passed safely, apparently - and hit the wall with her fingers. Imagining the scenario in her head, she was approximately three feet away from the man, and the light switch should be just above her, shoulder level.
Dwyrin rose, and placed the still shaped metal back into the wiring, and the lights flashed on.

Rei heard a near-silent click and the lights flashed on in the same instant. Indistinct forms blared to life. Her eyes were unused to the light, so she could barely make anything out. She acted purely on instinct. She flung her arm out, lightning streaking toward the figure she hoped was the enemy. There were two forms standing near each other - Dwyrin and the enemy - and she could only make out their outlines.

"Please let me be right."

Dwyrin went down hard, cracking her head on a cabinet..or maybe it was the wall, or the floor, or all three... She was a bit disoriented at the moment.

She had heard the air sizzle with electricity almost the instant she turned on the light. Before her mind had adjusted to anything other than that sound, something heavy had slammed into her, throwing her from her feet...And into the wall/cabinet/floor.

Still laying on the ground, trying to clear the stars in her head, she looked to her left and saw the brown uniformed man lying there, still. Rei's aim had been perfect but,

"Maybe a little less enthusiasm, next time??" she called out.

"Don't be picky," Rei retorted. "You try figuring how much electricity to shoot in a split second when you don't know which direction to shoot, how close they are to anybody else, or when to shoot."

She looked down and saw that she was straddling the third soldier she had knocked out. She shrugged at the odd situation and looked around the room. Near the entrance was the man Rei assumed to be the leader. One soldier lay off to the side where she had been when they entered, she sat on one in the middle of the room, and the final one lay a few feet from Dwyrin. "That was an incredibly close shot."

"I suppose we pile the bodies in a corner, move cabinets in front of doors to keep unwanted company out, and begin hunting again?"

"They're not dead, are they??" Dwyrin asked, sitting up. The soldier on her left was breathing faintly. She leaned over and rifled through his clothes a bit. The only useful thing he had on his person was a small knife. She plucked it out of his clothing and carefully stood, feeling for the rapidly forming lump on her head with her other hand. She found it and winced.

"In my experience, it's better to bind them to something. If only we had some rope. She looked around the room, "They might wa-" her words died in her throat. There, on a cabinet against a wall, sat a familiar looking bundle. A bundle of three folders, to be precise. She walked over to it and a grin split her features.

This is the one.

Rei was contemplating using the soldier's belts to bind them together when Dwyrin's sudden silence caught her attention. She looked up at the woman, then followed her line of sight.

"Well, we found what you were looking for. Since I don't know what I'm looking for, I vote we tie these guys up and get the heck out of here," Rei said, pulling off the belt of the soldier she was sitting on.

"This is just too awkward," she thought, rolling the man over on his stomach.

Don't know what you're looking for?? Oh well.

"That is a most excellent idea," she answered, securing the folders in her shirt. It was the best idea she'd heard all day, actually.
Now the fun part.
"Were you more successful in keeping track of the hallways then I was?? If so, lead the way"

Rei stood up straight and looked at her skeptically. "We dropped through a hole in the ceiling. You think I kept track of hallways when we hardly used them?"

She sighed and kicked the unconscious form at her feet. "I can get us back up a floor and should be able to get us back to where we got onto that floor, but from there it's a confusing mess. I think that was the main floor, though, so we could always just bust our way through the walls." She shrugged.

Des was walking through a hallway clanking the gun against his skull flipping through the folders he found earlier. He continued to scan through them until he noticed a few holes in the floor.

"Ha, Rei using Alchemy to get to the bottom flo-."

Des was cut off by a man in uniform pointing a gun at him. Des snickered and placed his hand behind his head. The person in the uniform flinched and trained his gun on Des' chest.

"Are you going to shoot me? I assume you want these files?"

Des flashes the files at him. As he lowers the files, Des reveals a gun he proceeds to shoot into the chest of the man. The man dropped and Des kicked him in the face.

"Aha, such a simple trick, now you're dead. Why am I talking to dead people? Where is Rei?"

Des shrugged and tucked the files into his uniform. He looked around and found the large metal doors that lead to the main entrance of the structure. He walked outside and saw the two vehicles him and Rei encountered on their way in. He dashed over to them and plugged a bullet into each driver and tossed them into the snow.

"I suppose i'll wait for Rei."

"I like your style," Dwyrin said, looking around. They could stand on a couple cabinets to reach the ceiling in here. She walked to a few and checked for sturdiness.

"How about right...there??" she pointed to a spot on the ceiling, "You might want to get your footing or whatever, so I can kill the lights."

Rei nodded and shoved a cabinet to the spot below where Dwyrin had pointed. She shoved on it a little to make sure it would not tip over, then climbed on top. She placed her hand on the ceiling to ensure she would keep her balance when the lights went out. She flashed a thumbs up at Dwyrin. "Ready when you are."

She walked to the wall, and pulled out the ring/wire for the last time, sending the room into darkness once more.

Rei allowed the room to remain dark and quiet, focusing her hearing on the floor above. She heard nothing, but that did not mean there were no enemies. She took a breath and use the alchemy circle on her left hand to create a hole in the ceiling.

Light poured through the hole into the room. Rei blinked a few times until her eyes grew somewhat accustomed to the light. She looked down at Dwyrin, then hoisted herself up through the hole to the next floor. A strange thought occurred to her. "I could seal this back up and be done with that part of the Resistance."

She shoved the thought to the side. She looked around, relieved to find that there were no soldiers around. She stuck her head back into the hole. "All clear," she said softly.

Standing at the wall until there was light from the floor above, she repositioned the folders, and looked about the room. She walked over to the cabinet and stopped, contemplating. What else was in here?? Was it safe to keep just lying around like this??
If only there was some easy way to burn it down.

Ignoring the thought, she jumped up onto the cabinet. Rei gave the 'all clear' and she pulled herself up through the hole.

"We came from that way," Rei said, pointing down the hallway. "I'll seal this up then we can get out of here." She placed her hand on the ground next to the hole and stopped, a sly look on her face. In a moment of recklessness, she pointed quickly down the hole and released a bolt of lightning. She quickly sealed the hole.

"Onward ho," she said, breaking into a run. "That was fun."

Dwyrin beamed, she read my mind. and ran to follow Rei. There had to be more of those uniformed people in here somewhere, and she was sure they could all hear their loud progress through the halls, but it didn't matter. Hopefully they'd be paying more attention to the fire in the basement.

Rei raced down the hallway, mentally retracing her steps, ears alert for the sound of footsteps. She heard none and continued running. "Strange, where are they all? I just started the fire so no one would notice that yet." She slid along the floor to turn a corner, but nearly lost her balance when she saw what she was looking at.

'You there! Don't move,' a voice shouted. A large group of soldiers was gathered in the hall. Every last one of them now had a gun directed toward her.

"Found them," she muttered.

Dwyrin saw Rei's premature stop at the last second, and did her best not to slam into her. When she saw why they had stopped, her jaw dropped. This was not the same as four uniformed men in a dark room. This was a group of seven or eight armed and ready soldiers, guns trained on them. She was suprised they hadn't already been shot.

Working on adrenaline and instinct, she pulled out the small knife she had plucked off that soldiers clothes. She threw it at the man in front, moving with the ease of years of practice. ...Element of suprise. It buried itself in the man's right shoulder. Of course, the men's
eyes had followed the knife.

She grabbed Rei's arm and spun her in the direction they had just come from, running, and pulling them both from a hail of bullets.

Rei's mind sputtered a moment before kicking back into gear. She raced after Dwyrin, allowing her to lead them. "Got any ideas? I'm clean out at this point," she said, panting slightly. "I really need to start running again."

How to get out, how to get out. Quickly.

"Windows!" she shouted back to Rei, "Windows are a great method of escape!"

But they needed to go up a floor before there were any windows at all. Not only that, there was a pack of people with weapons following them - sprinting after them. She hoped she had at least debilitated the one she had hit. Twists and turns were the only way they could manage to not be constantly shot at, and really, they were running blindly now. There had to be stairs somewhere.

"Ah! Stairs," she gasped out, pointing to the metal stairs at the end of the hallway.