Ellen Park, the Lone Wanderer

Struggling back home would be for ants that aren't wrapped in glowing green magic chains.

There seems to be a shortage in the immediate area.

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Tanya can easily recognize overkill: this is it.

For now, she is just keeping an eye on the rest of the area in case the fighting attracts more bugs.

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It's a very bad day to be a killer fire-breathing ant, yes. There'll be lasers shortly for any ants that haven't already been killed; Ellen does love that pistol of hers...

When the smoke and the plasma clears there are three dead ants up on the platform and another dead on the rusted escalator leading down. (Yuuno did a grand job of immobilizing an incoming attacker.) As far as other ants go the only sign of anything moving is down the one side tunnel that's not completely blocked by rockfall. Partially blocked by train car, yes- but only partially.

"Red?" says Ellen warily, prodding one of the dead ants with her toe. "Can you move that at all, or are we going to need to use other means?"

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bprd_agent_red

Stepping back from the dead ant he tilts his head at the train and nods.

"No problem."

Moving to the blocked tunnel he finds a good place to brace his legs, sets both hands against the side of the train and pushes.

It's an effort but with a lot of grunting and shoving he gets it moving. When the metal buckles underneath his hands he switches tactics and starts swinging, beating the wreck back the rest of the way until their path is cleared.

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Okay, that? Was impressive. Ellen makes a mental note never to get Hellboy mad, ever. "Thank you," she says, wide-eyed. "I think we should keep going now..."

This is definitely the right tunnel. For one thing, there are blackened bones and lumps of former cloth at intervals all over the place. For another, it smells like smoke. And for a third, well: the bursts of fire up ahead sort of give it away, don't they? There's a lot of ants in this tunnel, just as one would expect of the main route out of an actual nest.

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time_dancer

Val was going to offer to help but Red seemed to be having so much fun, she decided to stay quiet. The more time she spent with this guy the more he reminded her of her Uncle Ben.

Seeing the number of ants, Val makes a field to plug the tunnel. She does leave a pathway about three meters wide straight down the center for elbow room.

"I've make a field everywhere but three meters in the center," she says. She takes a minute to check the height of the tunnel in case she needs to send Tanya up.

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"Now I wish I had brought some flashbangs with me to rattle the bugs." Tanya shakes head, ready to follow. "My first time thinking I did not bring explosives enough."

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Yuuno's usual crowd subscribes heavily to Rule 37. That said he doesn't have a grenade handy. He'll just Bind the first ant that's hittable through the opening that Val left. The green glow should work as well as anything else for targeting.

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It definitely helps. Ellen's flashlight isn't worth much in here. She starts firing on the ant as fast as her laser pistol will allow. The thing's bigger than most of the ones on the surface, and a lot tougher, too. "We must be getting close to the nest," she calls. "Ants protect their homes, don't they?"

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time_dancer

"Yes," Val says as she adds in her own blasts to the fray. "The nests of typical ants are protected by soldier ants. They are stronger and more aggressive than the worker or scout ant."

Thank you Ms. Science.

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"Really?" says Ellen. "I didn't know that. Well, that explains a few things- oooh."

There's several ants outside the gap now, and one of them is near enough for her to aim for specific head-parts. "Try for the antennae!" she calls. "Red and I found out they'll go nuts and start attacking each other if you blow their antennae off!"

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"Like this?" Tanya lines up her gun and starts blasting away antennae, at the very base, making sure to keep her line of fire well away from Spoon.

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"That'll do it," says Ellen, as Tanya's target ant lets out a high-pitched scream and starts tearing into its fellows instead of trying to press through the hole in Val's forcefield.

It's about to get ugly out there.

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time_dancer

Val not as good a shot but that doesn't mean she's not going to try. Plus her gauntlets are more of a shot gun type of weapon. Two more blasts are fired and then Val changes the shape of the tunnel.

She keeps the same three meters nearest the party but widens the end facing the ants, give them more room to tear into each other.

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It's so very weird to be in a fight and not be the expositi- back to the ants, ferret boy. Back to the ants.

Yuuno switches off from binding an ant with the antenna shot to an undamaged one. Well, probably undamaged. Maybe? The tunnel is a lot harder to keep track of things in than most of the fights he's been in the thick out before.

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there-is-a-me.livejournal.com

Spoon wades in where needed, although he stays as far away from the #$(*%& gun as is possible.

If anyone had the space to breathe, they could watch him flinch with every report from the muzzle, jerking with memory.

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Between the frenzies of ants with no antennae and the sheer amount of damage being dished out by the bipedal combatants, it isn't long before ant parts are scattered across the floor of the tunnel and no moving ants remain. The stink of smoke fills the dank air as Ellen says, "Is everyone all right?"

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Tanya is reloading with a fresh clip, emptying the used one, counting her ammo left.

Maybe she did notice something in the chaos of battle, since she is fitting a silencer to the end of her gun's barrel

Or maybe the silencer is also a flash suppressor and the commando is more worried about getting blinded by muzzle flash in the tunnels. "I am fine and ready to move,"

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"Anyone else?" Ellen asks. "Because I really think we should keep going if we're going to find where these things are coming from without getting overrun."

She's not having as much trouble with the dim light as some of the other people might. The fluorescent lighting in the Vault was brighter than this, but a lot of its reaches were dimmed for the sake of conserving energy, and she's used to a nice, limited underground environment.

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"I'm ready to keep going," says Yuuno a bit loudly. His ears are ringing a bit from Tanya's shots.

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time_dancer

Val simply nods and using a new force field cleans a path for them out of the carapaces and other bits that are left. She takes a minute to see how much force she needs to apply to squish one of the ants with a force field. Could be useful later.

She may be way out of her depth her but she will see it through to the end.

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bprd_agent_red

Red steps back from a mess of ants, brushing off a few splotches from his coat and dropping what appears to be a leg.

"I'm good."

Since the others seem to be to he starts walking, taking the front again.

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"All right, then," says Ellen, and moves along as well.

There are a few more ants along the way. They're easily handled; this group knows what they're doing, or at least gives the impression thereof. The important thing is that no one ends up scorched... and that up ahead, on the left-hand wall of the tunnel, there's a patch of greater brightness than the phosphorescent fungi can account for. Hellboy, or possibly Spoon, will likely be the first to realize that it's coming from an artificial source.

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