Forums » General Roleplay » On the Wings of Freedom: 1x1

Alexis didn't expect interrogators to be nice in the first place. They were supposed to force information out of people, after all. Though she had to admit she was afraid. Alexis had never actually been in this situation. She had always been someone to watch from afar. When the commander came in, she shrunk in posture, turning as much as she could away from the man, flinching as the chair was set down in front of her.

She was forced to look at him, however and she did so with as much defiance as she could muster. If only the sun wasn't beginning to shine in the room, she thought, if only I still didn't feel so weak from this damned tranquilizer. Too much light in an area meant she'd have to use more magic just to use her shadow form to slip out of the bonds but even casting another night spell to fill the room seemed too much. She said nothing when he asked her about where the experiment went. To be honest, she didn't know herself. She could lie.

Instead, she spat at him. Following it up with a slur of curse words in German.

The commander leaned back, putting the back of his hand to the spot she spat on, and wiping it off. He paused for a moment, before giving a little grin. "So dass Sie denken Sie sind zäh, Mädchen..." he said, before raising his hand at her and slapping her across her right cheek, with a lot of force. "I could just kill you right here, if you really have no information to offer."

He stood, pulling a gun from his waist and resting it directly on her forehead. "You want to reconsider? Because I have food waiting for me in the next room, and I could care less about taking the time to get information out of you."

"Hey, wait a minute," Wolfe said, stepping forward, but stopping when his commander looked at him. "We were ordered to get what information we could. You can't just give up after a couple of minutes..."

"I can do whatever the hell I want. If she won't cooperate, it isn't worth the time!"

(The german phrase is 'So you think you are tough, girl' I wasn't sure on my German, so I thought I'd let you know what I meant.)

The slap woke her up even more and as she shook off the sting she found herself staring, once again, at the wrong end of a barrel. The mercenary had stopped his commander yet again. She could laugh. The scene was comical from her point of view. Sure she has had her share of insubordination towards her commanding officer but never in a situation as serious as this.

But as time went on in their little talk, Alexis thought about her situation. Just how is she going to ever find Erasai? She had fallen asleep before she could even see where the girl had run off to. The only people that knew was Zuzu... and the mercenary.

The thought perplexed her as she eyed the subordinate talking to his commander. What was his deal, not telling the commander where she had run off to? If anything, Zuzu would know. He didn't seem like the type to just up and leave. What if Zuzu was pursuing her this very moment? Alexis blinked. She had to find Zuzu. But who would know where he was at this very moment... The people that hired him...

"I don't know where she is exactly, but I know how to get that information," she said, keeping her head down as she spoke.

Wolfe went quiet the moment she spoke, and the commander looked at her with a renewed interest. He pulled his gun away from Alexis' head, but only a little. "That's more like it," he said, grinning. "And just how can you get us this information?"

Wolfe muttered something under his breath as he took a step back into his original place. He seemed to be irritated now, but wasn't going to express it any further than that.

(sorry, short but I need to base my next post off your answer to this)

So far so good. She just needed to weave around the conditions somehow that worked her situation more in her favor. Alexis wasn't into the whole cultist thing but she felt that the cultists, whoever they were, would be her way out. An she had to do this in a way that didn't get them actively involved. That and she had to lead these people away somehow. The only real threat to this working out was the other mercenary that "saved" her. He may know where Erasai had flown to so that may be a bump on the road if she started conjuring up lies about the girl's location. One step at a time, she thought to herself. First was to find a way to at least free herself.

"I'm... not alone," Alexis said. "I have informants from my mercenary group left behind in the confusion a few days ago. They're stranded like me but continue to pursue the experiment despite moving without a commanding officer. It's all in the matter of finding them. I know where one or two of them are, if they're even still there. For protection purposes I cannot disclose that information to you, sir. I'll have to go there myself. But I can guarantee you information by the end of the day. If not, you can kill me." It was a big lie. She was alone, as far as she knew but if she could just find an opportunity to escape AND locate Erasai again, she'll take the risk.

The commander narrowed his eyes. He looked back to Wolfe, who knew what the Commander was about to ask. So Wolfe spoke first.

"I was stationed the night the incident happened, outside her apartment. I watched, not seeing any interaction other than the man that took her out toward the mountain side, which I followed. There was no suspicious phone calls that I could hear either, after tapping her lines, and using a wave hack, no calls on her phone either... that supports her words." He closed his eyes, as if he regretted saying that.

"Well then... I guess we'll have to find another way then," the commander said, pulling the hammer back on his gun and readying to kill Alexis.

"You've got to be kidding me... you are a pain in the ass," Wolfe said, slipping out his knives and cutting into his two companions around him, before quickly pulling out his own gun and aiming it at his commander. The other man turned quickly, ready to fire at the traitor, but found his arm quickly broken by a surprisingly quick Wolfe, and his gun dropping to the ground.

"I'll be happy when they promote me in your place, you piece of shit," Wolfe said, pulling the trigger and killing the commander with a bullet to his head.

Wolfe looked around him, and then sighed. "God damn, impatient ass. I've always hated him..." he said, giving a sigh and pulling out a piece of cloth and wiping off his gun. He looked to Alexis and smirked. "Don't think you are lucky... I'm going to properly use what information you can give me, and find the experiment. That will secure me a promotion..." He forced Alexis' hand open, shoving the gun into it, and making sure to press her hand around it.

He took it back, and placed it in a cracked hole in the wall. Removing his blades from his fellow mercenaries nearby, he cleaned them as well and then turned to Alexis. "Your finger prints are on the gun, so it will be very easy to pin this all on you. But I won't, unless you give me reason to, like running. A simple call to someone, telling them were the gun is, and they will be on you in no time. So, it will be in your best interest to cooperate."

He untied her from the chair, but continued to bind her hands together with the rope. "Let's find the experiment, okay? And then you can go free." He pat her down, to make sure there were any weapons that his team might have missed.

Her plans were cut short by the mercenary, just as she had feared. But she hadn't expected it to occur so early. Just when she thought the commander was really going to shoot her, she suddenly found herself being let up by the mercenary. What just happened? she thought. Surely she didn't just watch him kill his own commanding officer. She gripped the gun in her hand, thinking he was giving it to her but to have him pull it away confused her until it finally became clear as to what he was doing.

As the man explained everything, she gave a slow nod, still unsure of what to make of the situation. So, what then? Was she stuck with him until she found Erasai? Things weren't turning out the way she liked but at least she wasn't in complete captivity.

When he began patting her down again, she squirmed away from him. She was in a jacket, a bikini top and a skirt. Where could she possibly hide anything?

She couldn't do much given the situation she was in so Alexis had no choice but to comply. "Fine. But we're doing it my way. I don't want civilians getting involved and complicating the situation as it is. What I'm looking for is a leftist religious community. People who believe that Erasai is some kind of angel, I'm sure you've seen them in the news for the past few days. My companion, Zuzu, is connected with them. They should know his whereabouts. If we find him, we find Erasai. Make sense?"

He rubbed the back of his head. Things were already going astray, with her giving him orders. But what could he do, really? He couldn't completely control her by himself.

"Fine, fine, but don't try to pull anything. I really don't want any more trouble than needed." He opened the door and peered out, making sure there was no one around. He motioned for her to follow. "I'll untie your hands when I feel we are far enough from this place. But you can still lead the way." He would follow her to wherever she wanted to go, and on occasion, he would mumble to himself about being a bit hasty with killing his comrades.

"Fine by me," Alexis said, taking the opportunity to walk out of the building when it was safe. It was still quite early in the morning so the biting chill was still present as they walked through the large warehouse lot. "Do you have a car or anything? I assume so since you managed to drag me here from the forest... Thanks by the way. You're doing a lot more than you should be to save another mercenary. I don't think I've ever caught your name."

He smirked a bit, saying, "Of course I have a vehicle. I like to think I can get somethings right, you know." He led her to his SUV and opened the passenger door for her to climb in, helping her if she needed it. He hadn't climbed into a vehicle with his hands tied before, and wasn't sure how difficult it might be for her.

"I'm Ryan Wolfe," he said, when she hinted to asking his name. "Just Wolfe though, is what I prefer. And you are Alexis Annikova, if my sources were correct. Unfortunately, I don't know much after that. Besides that you belong to an unknown mercenary group."

She took her seat and buckled up with her tied hands. "It's a relatively new mercenary group based in Europe. Not big enough to be considered a PMC or organized enough to go global, but..." Alexis shrugged.

As they left the lot, Alexis took the liberty to undo the rope herself, bringing her wrists up to her mouth to chew on knot. It took several minutes but eventually loosened it enough to shake off her wrists. She was thinking more clearly now with the tranquilizer fading from her body. "I am not too familiar with the street names around here but in the news I remember an interview held in front of one of the smaller churches. It was a one-story building next to a park and small shops. The most notable detail was a large bronze statue of the Christ with his arms spread out."

Wolfe scratched the back of his head with one of his hands, while he kept the other steering them through the streets as he drove. "That really doesn't narrow it down. It's a really big city, but I guess we will just drive around until you recognize something." He hadn't watched the news in a week, so he honestly didn't have an idea of what she was talking about, but he figured if she saw it, she would know.

"Churches... churches..." he said, looking around as he drove. A catholic church, huge he might add, was on their right, but it didn't have any shops around it. A little further down, they would see a smaller church, shops around it, but no statue. They would keep driving for quite a while, before Wolfe would give a sigh, pulling into a gas station. "Lemme fill this thing up, if we are going to be driving all day." He locked the doors, and took the keys with him as he went to pump the gas. He leaned against the vehicle, and watched the numbers rack up. "Jesus Christ, this thing costs me a fortune." Once it was full, he held his card in front of the scanner on the pump, and with a little beep, he paid.

As he was getting back in, he looked across the way. "You've got to be kidding me..." he said, pointing to the church just across the way, sitting between two mom and pop shops, with a bronze statue of Jesus holding his hands out. "Is that it?"

Alexis was actually beginning to doze off as the search went on. This was probably one of the biggest reasons why she didn't like living in the city: too much of the same thing in one place. Back in the old country, she had nice small commercial zones with wide open fields surrounding it. In here, the streets were narrow, hard to navigate through. Often times the jeep had to stop to let oncoming traffic through narrow chokes on the road.

She was completely detoxified when the clock struck ten in the morning and they stopped at a gas shop. "It could be. Only one way to find out..." Alexis said, zipping up the jacket to make herself more presentable. It definitely looked like the place. It didn't look like anything was going on in that church as there were only a few parked cars in the parking lot.

She tried to open the passenger door but found it safety locked and sighed, feeling more trapped than ever. "Let me out and... no weapons, okay? Going to ask the priest or whoever's running that establishment."

In some of his experiences... he learned the hard way that crazy, nutjob fanatics carried more weapons than him sometimes. But, he would oblige, setting his pistols behind his seat, and moving his knives into the side slot on the door. He then unlocked Alexis' door, and made his way to her side of the vehicle.

He looked down both ways of the street, noticing oddly, that this road didn't seem to be that busy. He made his way across the street, eyeing the statue of Christ and shivering. He didn't much care for religion, and often found it a idiotic scam. But that was his opinion really, and he would do his best to keep that opinion to himself while he was here.

Alexis made her way to the church, stopping at the opened front doors to fix her hair before going in. She didn't want to look like she spent all night in a forest and all morning tied down at a warehouse. Save for a few middle-aged visitors, there was really no one in the church. The priest walked in through a side door just as they entered.

"Ah! Welcome, children. I don't think I remember seeing your faces. Are you new in town?" The priest said, obviously excited to see new patrons. He was an older male, possibly around his fifties, late sixties. Thin, with greying sideburns and a tall stature, he towered over Alexis when he hurried over to shake her hand as well as Wolfe's.

"Um... well, we're just checking out the place, actually well..." Alexis didn't really know how to put the question. Now that she was face to face with her source of information, she wasn't actually sure whether she should just come out and say it or not. "This is about the angel that was all over the news about half a week ago."

"So you've witnessed the Arrival as well, haven't you?"

"The... what?"

"Arrival. Though it doesn't necessarily follow the scriptures predicted in the holy book, our scribes have come to the conclusion that the angel you have seen is an omen of the second coming."

"Um, yes, but do you know where the angel is?"

"Patience, my dear child... In time she will be under the safety of our roof."

"I take it you have people searching for her?"

"Yes, we have several followers studying, waiting for an opportunity to speak and learn from the angel."

"But what about Zuzu?"

The priest paused a moment, his tongue seemingly tied as he was caught off guard. "Er, I'm sorry, who?" The priest asked, feigning a laugh and smiling at the young woman. He turned to Wolfe, "Child, I may know a lot of people but your wife is calling for a name I am not familiar with."

For most of the conversation, he was uninterested until he heard the actual location of the experiment. And he showed it. When the man shook his hand, he was quick to release the grip, almost afraid to catch something. Then he turned, placing his fists on his hips as he looked around, and then dug in his ear with his pinky.

Alexis asked about Zuzu, and he mumbled a bit. But his hands immediately rose into the air as soon as the priest assumed Alexis was his wife. "No, no, no. We aren't -- we are just... friends, I suppose. No relation other than that." He definitely didn't like the idea of being tied down, even if it was a misunderstood assumption.

"She just met someone, who was looking for the angel, is all. And I guess that is what he said his name was. Maybe she was mistaken." Threaten this guy would be nice, just to get whatever information he had quicker, but he didn't have his weapons on him.

"Ah, I see. My mistake. I'm terribly sorry, miss... I don't believe I caught your name, but I honestly don't know who you're talking about."

"Alexis. Thanks..." the woman turned to leave, upset that she lost her only lead to Erasai. She was blocked by a stout looking man who was praying at a podium earlier. He wore a rather extravagant grey suit and carried a handkerchief to wipe the beads of sweat from his receding hair line. It was odd to see a man sweating like this despite the chilly weather.

"Pardon me, I couldn't help over hearing the conversation you had with Father Bernard. Alexis, right? Zuzu didn't say anything about a male accompanying him as well..."

"You know Zuzu?"

"Of course," the man said, pulling out his hologram device and pushing a button. The familiar image of the battle between her and Erasai popped up from the projector "I'm the one that hired him to look for you in the first place. I'm sure he went into detail about how we ran things around here. Father hired me, I hired Zuzu..." He quickly shut off the hologram. "It wouldn't be beneficial for us if Father or anyone else finds out it was you in this photograph so... let's um, take this outside. Away from prying ears."

He led them out to the statue. Since it wasn't busy at all around the neighborhood, no one was really in ear shot from the statue. "Okay. Earlier this morning Zuzu said there were some complications with getting a hold of the angel. Something about mercenaries getting in the way. I'm sure that's why you two were separated... Okay and who IS this man following us around? Surely you're not anyone my bodyguard would know." He pointed at Wolfe, uneasy about the fact that Wolfe was allowed to listen to all this.

"Just a man, interested in the Angel as well," Wolfe said, holding up his hands defensively. "I heard, from a witness, that she had been involved at the sighting of the Angel, so I sought her out." Hopefully that information, though general, would be enough to appease him. But he couldn't help but wonder why there seemed to be a chain of people being hired to look for the experiment. It made him wonder just who all might be looking.

That made him give an involuntary frown; thinking of all the competition he would have trying to obtain his target.

The man snorted. "Surely you're in it for more than just simple 'interest'. Both of you are! You're in it for the value of this angel. The money. Am I right?" He said, rubbing his thumb and index finger together at both of their faces. "You may have been an important tool to locating this angel but now that Zuzu is on her tail, I have no need for you... However. As sure as I am of my hired gun's capability of getting his job done, I wouldn't mind getting results more quickly. I'm a generous man, Zuzu can agree with that so I won't leave you in the dark. I'll tell you where Zuzu is for a small price. Deal?"

"You want us to pay you to help you get the job done?" Alexis asked, quite insulted with the statement. She did have her mercenary card. Its funds should be enough to buy a large house but Cecil would have a fit if she spent so much as a dime on anything with it.

"I'm fine with waiting, dear so this decision doesn't concern me. How about we start things small. Ten thousand bones for the city Zuzu's in. Or fifteen thousand for his exact location. I'll even schedule a meeting place with him if you'd like. For an extra thousand, of course." He pulled out his phone, ready to dial his hired gun to show he was being serious.

"What the--" Wolfe said, looking in disbelief. "Are you serious?! That kind of money is completely -- There is no way --" He seemed to really be at a loss for words. This guy was really going to milk them for all they had. Or at least, for all he had. He didn't know if Alexis even had any funds. But this was really the only lead they would be getting. "Jesus Christ... fine."

He pulled out his wallet, ripping a card from it and shoving it angrily at the man. "That's all I got. About thirteen hundred. Please tell me that will be enough for all that you offered to tell."