6274/Hunting for the Cult Part II - Flirting: Asgard Style

Hunting for the Cult Part II - Flirting: Asgard Style
Date of Scene:	19 May 2021
Location:	Condemned Building - The Glades
Synopsis:	Sif flirts in the unique way of the Asgardians so they can find out more about what the cultists are doing in Starling City. Vin, Thea and Sif discover an abandoned building where mutants are being held and all the best ways on how to break someone's bones.
Cast of Characters:	Thea Queen, Sif, Vintridr

---

Thea Queen has posed:
Time seems to fly when people are having fun ..., or something. For Sif it's enduring the advances of the two bodyguards before they are ready to go once the party is well underway. For Vin it's enduring insults from Mr. Sloan's wife while going to the bathroom to clean up. And Thea has her little time spelunking inside the building, seeking for info on the various offices...

A while later she pipes up on comms, "I have found various invoices for flight trips to Cairo. Noted as 'shipments'." a small frown, "A bit more than would be the usual.." she murmurs. "And one more planned for tomorrow night."

Eventually the party does start going on full swing, which means no more guests arriving and so the two bodyguards turn to Sif. "So, ready to roll?" one grins, the other already moving to get the car. No need to wait for an answer!

Sif has posed:
Stronger, more confident men with centuries of experience on the hunt have sniffed after Sif. The courtly dance goes on forever. She has no trouble keeping the pair interested without letting them get more than she's willing to give them. This, of course, only amplifies their desire, disarming them psychologically instead of physically.

They're more concerned with her posterior and anterior assets, in short, than with what else she might have behind the veil of cloth.

"Yes," she says at their question. "Let us ride." Her eyes twinkle suggestively as a smile falser than a three dollar bill minted by a blind counterfeiter with two hours' training. "I am looking forward to ... playing ... with both of you."

She's learned from Loki. Conceal the truth behind a bodyguard of lesser truths, speaking to the ego.

Thea Queen has posed:
Riding? Playing? Well, those trigger words do get the effect wanted. The larger one, the one Sif approached initially reaches up to the collar of his shirt to loosen it a bit. Getting a bit heated in here isn't it?! Yet clearly he's melting like butter under Sif's warm smile and words! No time to really look into checking how fake the smile is! Eyes are on other assets...

A honk is heard from a Mercedes, the man then turning. "Shall we?" at least he tries to be a gentleman, offering Sif his arm to lead her on to the car so they can get on going to it. Assuming Sif goes with him he leads her to the Mercedes waiting, opening the back door for her to go in and then off they start on travelling. Through Starling. It can be a beautiful city really, but the roads they are starting to go into soon leave the more luxurious neighborhoods and enter the Glades, the one where crime is prevalent. The one driving asks. "You know the boss won't be happy with this.", then the response. "I don't care, this shit pays well, but we are in America. We need to live life for once." yea, he surely is about to live life alright. They soon start nearing a large building. Looks mostly abandoned though.

---

Inside Thea makes her way back out of her spelunking, the lil hobbit sneaky as they get. Lots of training! Both in her personal life and when she became a vigilante. <Vin, meet me by the door. We need to follow after them.> and off they are in pursuit!

Vintridr has posed:
     << Understood, >> comes Vin's response. <<) I believe Lady Sif has managed to snare herself some good targets. If they're as foolish as she can make them they might even take her somewhere important for... Privacy. >>

    There's a hint of amusement in her voice. << Regardless, our best bet would be to follow her -- Not that she needs the help, but they're the most likely to yield useful information. >>

Sif has posed:
As an entertainment, while noting where they are going and counting corners and city blocks and other such markers, Sif also counts the number of times she has to fend off clutches and the number of times she has to let one land to keep their attention focused on anything but the fact that the woman the two men are with is actually in control.

She hasn't decided what it is yet, but there is a price for each such time. Probably a broken bone. Or worse. She's working on it.

That's going on in her head. In her face, though not reaching her eyes, there's a broad, playful grin, a throaty growl behind each fake-sounding objection, and a little gasp for the times they "luckily" land a feel.

"Oh, is this where we're going?" she asks, as if suddenly aware of the surroundings outside of the car, jabbing her finger in the direction of the approaching building. "That looks very mysterious. Like the sort of place that one could really..." Her face develops a genuine smile. Predatory in nature. And it reaches her eyes. "...just let go in. Can we do that? Just ... let go? All-out? Do what comes naturally?"

And yes, this is over comms. There's a hint there.

Thea Queen has posed:
No doubt there will be ink running on the papers tomorrow with Thea seen leaving the party at a near-running pace on those heels. Did the young Queen go back to drinking, or maybe she forgot her drugs in the car? Still, she doesn't care! So run she does. "I hate heels.." she murmurs to Vin as they make way to an SUV..

"Go in Vin, and say hello to Spartan. He is a friend." On the driver's seat is a rather tall, large man, dressed in leathers with an helmet on. Another vigilante? Most likely. And this one has that 'bodyguard' vibe to him. He nods at Vin if and when she gets in while Thea jumps in the back.

"You know ..." She is saying while quickly getting out of her dress to fetch her own leathers, black and red. ".. I really envy that you are able to just get your armor out of nowhere, Vin..." yes, she does. Because she wouldn't need to be doing all these gymnastics to get into it! In close quarters...

Spartan speaks up, "I saw them driving off this lane, towards the Glades. We should catch up with them soon." they stay at some distance though.

Sif's question does bring out a response from Thea, <Take them out, we are almost there.>

As for the two men with Sif, they have indeed been racking up 'points' to get taken out of them by ways of beating soon enough. They start walking towards the entrance.

Vintridr has posed:
    "Running - and fighting - in high heels is a skill set all on its own," Vin replies with a bit of a smirk. "If you'd like I'll teach you sometime."

    Spartan gets a curt one-professional-to-another nod, and she joins Thea in the back, her flowing dress replaced in a rainbow shimmer with what from a distance looks like an archaically stylized and slightly gaudy set of scale mail -- if you don't know enough about metallurgy to realize that no known gold or silver alloy would move and reflect quite like that.

    "A perk of the position as useful as it is necessary," she agrees. "Even Odin Glad-of-War could not predict perfectly when one of us would be called to take the worthy fallen to their reward."

    She performs a quick check of her own gear, then moves to help Thea with hers in the no-nonsense manner of someone who's had to help a comrade in arms gear up for battle a thousand times and will likely do it a thousand more before her own end.

    As Thea gives the go signal to Sif, she adds her own comment. << Please don't hog all the fun before we even get there, Lady Sif. >>

Sif has posed:
When they reach the door, Sif fakes a stumble and goes down to one knee, slipping her hand beneath the skirt on her right side, standing up quickly, before her escorts can even really bend to help, with two daggers in her right hand. It's a simple matter to slip under their arms, twist around, and hand off one of the daggers to her left hand, a hand that continues in a smooth manoeuvre to sweep left, catching her companion on the left in the wrist, sharp blade penetrating all the way through before he has a chance to register pain.

As agony reaches his brain, his wrist is pinned by the dagger deep in the door's frame, the crosspiece holding his hand immobile by both force and raw pain.

This just sets up the same motion in the other direction as she turns back, catching the second man in a similar pin, albeit in the palm instead of the wrist.

Sif then pauses, a hard, cold, cruel look in her eyes as she watches the pair's reaction.

"You dared lay hand on Lady Sif without permission!" she seethes. "And now you will pay the price! You, seventeen times, so seventeen of your bones snapped. You, only thirteen."

She pauses again to let that statement sink in past into their pain- and shock-addled brains before smiling.

It's not a nice smile. It's the smile of a predator just before the prey is pounced upon, and her eyes gleam with unholy joy at the carnage to come.

"And once I'm finished with my punishment," she says, stepping to the left to her first victim. "My real playmates will arrive. And you will wish that you were still in my tender mercies."

The comms get shattered by a scream of pain as she casually snaps in rapid succession all four bones of the man's small finger.

"Do come quickly. If I enjoy this too much..."

She leaves the sentence unfinished. For the men's benefit, not the people on comms.

Thea Queen has posed:
"Totally jealous..." Thea says to Vin as she watches that quick change of outfit. Much quicker than her maneuvers! But with Vin's help she eventually is dressed to rumble. No wardrobe malfunctions either! She puts the hood up, mask on. As Vin says that to Sif though she says quietly to her, "She is totally going to hog all the fun..."

---The first man takes a second to understand what's going on just before he lets out a cry of agony. They are trained fighters though, and just on that peak human. Sure, no chance against an Asgardian, but there's still the start of a defense maneuver from the second one before he gets pinned too.

One thing they share though is that they both look incredulous up at this .., woman? What the heck is going on here. And then she goes and introduces herself. "... Who?" they appear confused. They haven't heard of her! "J-just let us go we were just going to have some fun!"

The other nods while trying to fight through the pain. A pain that they are slowly starting to control, not as at a loss as perhaps a normal human would be. Crushing bones though?

"Wait, wait, we will tal----" stopped by crushing bones..

The sound of an SUV arriving is heard, wheels screeching as Spartan brings it to a stop not far from where they are. Thea jumps out of the backseat, "Lady Sif!" is she worried she may kill them?

Vintridr has posed:
    Vin gives Thea's outfit a quick final once-over, then nods. "The hunt is on," she declares as the SUV comes to a halt, opening the door and letting Thea step out first before following behind on her right-hand side.

    "They need to be able to speak to answer our questions, Lady Sif," she points out.

Sif has posed:
Sif rolls her eyes as she just gets the first man to his thirteen broken bones the fast way: hammering the pinned hand hard. OK, so that might wind up closer to 15. She's in a rush. What's a couple more broken bones in the hand between friends.

"I have not placed their lives in any danger!" she says peevishly. "The daggers are placed where there is no immediate threat of death and I've only broken bones in the hand."

Ignoring any ineffectual blows her first victim might try on her person, she turns to the second one. "This one gets seventeen. He moved quickly, so the dagger went through his palm breaking, by my hearing, two. Actually laudable combat training. For this I will reduce his total broken bones to ten additional instead of fifteen. For one of Midgard he almost earns the right to touch me."

Her gaze swivels Thea's way and Sif winks out of the line of sight. It appears that good cop/bad cop is a thing in Asgard too, though it may work out to be bad cop/worse cop...

Thea Queen has posed:
With sword on her back and bow in hand Thea approaches at a near running pace. No heels anymore at least! Great! Just bones being broken. It makes her wince, almost as if in sympathy. And good cop? She can schmooze it up with the best so... "You better start talking. When she gets on a roll...." a grave look on her expression, a glance to Vin. "Like last time, she just ...." her expression is one of dread!

"Tell us what's going on here, and fast. Our Lady Sif's patience is at it's limit!"

The two men are now in dear, dear pain. Look, they have training, but broken bones, so expertly done, do get the job done in getting that resistance down for them. "Who are you with ..? Uh .., we don't know anything. Al-Fidr just has us keep them in here until they are ready to get packed and off..." them? Who might those be? And considering they actually have those tattoos. They probably know more than what they are saying..

Thea doesn't look too happy but looks to the door. "We should check inside.."

Vintridr has posed:
    Vintridr moves ahead of Thea to lay a restraining hand on Sif's bicep. "Softly, Lady. These mortals are much more fragile than you're used to."

    To the goons, she levels a much more stern gaze. "Packed /who/ in there? Speak quickly, and speak truth; your lives are already forfeit as far as Lady Sif is concerned. Give her a reason not to claim them - and it will need to be good."

Sif has posed:
Sending Vin some Valkyrior battle code gestures, Sif growls at that, relying on Vin to 'hold her back' as she steps forward, letting the impression of a rabid dog being held back by a handler fill the pair's mind. "I don't believe them!" she snarls. "Let me have them for five minutes and they will be ready to tell me the history of history itself!"

Visibly angry at being held back, she lashes out in visible frustration at a nearby block of concrete, kicking it so hard her sandal almost explodes off her foot in much the same was as the concrete explodes into shards, the spalling, sharp pieces peppering the closest of the pair with stinging, but not life-threatening, shrapnel.

"Give them to me and I will destroy their bodies and then their souls!"

Thea Queen has posed:
"The mutants. The mutants!" One of them exclaims, recoiling from the shrapnel hitting his face. Exploding concrete is indeed a sight these ones aren't used to seeing, specially done by a FOOT. "We keep them in here and .., then they are sent off through our boss's private flight company. I don't know the purpose!" he states, eyes wide.

Remember good cop Thea? Well, not as good anymore when she moves in and delivers a punch squarely on the man's jaw. Cheap shot! And it sends him into unconsciousness. The other just stares, grits his teeth and shakes his head. "I don't know anything else!" his free hand rising up in a gesture of 'peace' and perhaps a gesture of 'please don't hit me'.

Thea grunts, a glance back to the two Asgardians and a chinjerk towards the entrance. "Let's go." voice deadly quiet. She slides the door open, it giving way to a large corridor that leads further down into the place. As for illumination? Zero, unless we count the moonlight entering through a few broken windows, and through the door.

Thea fetches a small flashlight from her suit and turns it on, attaching it to her bow and stepping in.

Vintridr has posed:
     Vin's glare becomes colder with every self-condemning word the men utter. When Thea and Sif finish their interrogation she briefly assists Spartan by - literally - tossing both of them into the back of the van, taking moderate care not to damage anything important with the impact, then follows Thea inside, moving ahead to take point once Thea has crossed the perimeter.

    Mere darkness holds little fear for the Valkyrior; while being unable to rely on vision can be inconvenient, it's nothing she hasn't had to deal with plenty of times. Her eyes slide half-shut and her footsteps become much more measured as she shifts her focus from sight to her other senses - hearing, scent, even touch as she lets herself feel the air flow around her...

Sif has posed:
The lack of light is even less of a burden for the legendarily sensitive eyes of Sif the All-Seeing. All her accented senses stretched to their limit, beyond even Asgardian senses and training, she takes the lead, wearing but a single sandal and carrying a dagger, freshly blooded, dripping, in each hand ready to parry or attack as the need may arise. She keeps her eyes away from the spot of light of Thea's flashlight to prevent being dazzled, assuming Thea will give ample verbal warning if she sees something in its cone of illumination.

"If you see anything, Thea Queen, give the alarum and fall back to support with your bow. Vintridr and I will take vanguard in combat, keeping you free to pepper in your inimitable style."

Thea Queen has posed:
Inimitable style! Well, that's enough for the young Queen to puff up her chest. Of course that the style is sort of a copy from her brother's. And she is not even as good! But no need to share that with the class.. "Will do." is what she says in return, still in that low, deadly quiet tone. Clearly someone isn't happy with mutant kidnapping. But who would?

As they walk past the corridors it's noticeable that this supposed 'abandoned' building has had some activity as of late. Marks of passage, some trash here and there mostly of fast food joints. And recent too. As for people? None so far..

The Asgardians sharp senses do start to catch up some sound ahead as they move past to another corridor, closed doors on each side, a section of them. From within a couple they can hear more noticeable sounds. People sleeping? The chain locks on the door show those particular doors can only be opened from the outside. Cells perhaps..

Yet they also notice this looks like the perfect place for an ambush.

Vintridr has posed:
    Vin's quick, easy-to-miss hand-signs to that effect - 'potential ambush ahead' are all but superfluous; she's well aware that Lady Sif has probably seen at least as many ambushes like this one as she has, both from the perspective of ambusher as ambushee, and both are equally well aware of Valkyrior standard policy on traps and ambushes.

    She continues forward as if she hasn't spotted anything, as if she's as sound-deaf as Midgard's children seem to be, as if she were a rank novice who couldn't tell the silence of absence from the silence of people doing their best to make no sound.

As if she can't feel the ripples their breath makes in the wind.

The best ambush, after all, is one where the prey doesn't realize until too late that they're not the hunter.

Sif has posed:
Sif did, indeed, know both the likeliness of the ambush prospect and the Valkyrior answer to them.

She trained them for it, after all.

Letting Vin slip past her, she held out an arm in front of Thea, whispering, barely audible, "Proceed as if nothing is amiss. Do not shine your light to the sides far, nor up. Get fascinated with the far wall."

Then she invoked the second part of the Valkyrior policy: flanking.

Flitting with astonishing quiet, helped by a bare foot and a lightly sandaled one, into the darkness to the widest part of open space, Sif wound her way through obstacles with deadly silence, counting out the bodies she could sense by sight, by sound, even by heat as she passed them. She picked her place from whence to attack when Vin triggered the trap.

One Asgardian trumps one riot.

This is two.

And an archer of legendary proficiency.

Thea Queen has posed:
Thea was already starting to tense up, the hairs on the back of her neck up in that instinctive manner that she has been trained in. Something is amiss...! But then Sif's whisper. So they want to pull a Kenobi. Fine! Thea can do that... She continues moving ahead, just peering to the sides from the edges of her hood, the light pointed forward..

As they continue moving further up there are more doors on the sides of the corridor even if ahead they can note it opening up to an ample area, filled with crates. But before they reach it they can notice, that rise in aggression, that silence that comes right before a battle begins. It's something almost tangible for someone who has been born and bred in battle for so many centuries...

The doors they were moving past, these ones without locks, open wide all of a sudden. Inside there's more of those men Vin and Thea had met before, dressed in black, using blades that resemble khopeshes. They attack quickly, without hesitation, strikes aimed to kill and their speed very much close to peak human. Silent but deadly..

Thea jumps back immediately, moving to be between the two Asgardians maelstrom of aggression and lets out a couple of arrows, taking out one of the men!

"Gods, I hate fighting in close quarters like this..." Thea complains, rolling away from a khopesh aimed at her head!

Vintridr has posed:
A key word in that description: peak human.

Silent - to a mortal's ears, perhaps.

Deadly... Compared to two of their three supposed 'prey' they don't know the meaning of the word.

    Vintridr's first assailant takes a sword through the entirety of his chest before he even realized his target wasn't unarmed. He lives barely long enough to feel the kick that shoves him free of it and propels him into two of the men behind him as the Valkyrie spins to deflect another sword-blow with her shield before driving the rim into the throat of the wielder -- probably not fatally, but he's going to be too busy trying not to choke to be much of a threat for the immediate future.

    Vin only barely bothers to register him dropping to the ground as she continues her turn for a sweeping slash intercepting the next upraised sword by the wrist of its owner, the grin on her face somehow much more intimidating than the concealed faces of her opponents.

    "Think of it as an additional challenge," she responds to Thea. "One gets to choose one's battlefield only very rarely."

Sif has posed:
And the trap is sprung and the attackers, as planned, rush past Sif to engage Vin and Thea.

Well, momentarily.

It's time to play her favourite game: battle!

The dagger in Sif's left hand just goes straight into the eye, out of nothingness and blackness, of a straggling attacker, the slender Asgardian stiletto tickling the basal ganglia of the goon from the eye socket, casually smashing through any and all protective bone in its zeal to end the life of the man. The dagger in the right flies true through the night to bury itself in the neck of a second from behind, severing the spine in a vicious internal decapitation.

Irrelevant side note: it takes the brain up to fifteen seconds to die after decapitation, with the victim fully aware and still in control of his eyes and mouth, but not lungs nor the rest of the body. The body hits the ground, eyes rolling, mouth moving in grotesque imitation of a scream of agony without a sound escaping. Eyes seeing nothing in the darkness until the final curtain closes on him, bringing with it the final darkness.

By the time the third target is even aware that something has gone awry, Sif has grabbed that one by both legs and started swinging him around like an oversized, wailing club, his arms extended from the G-forces and surprise, the blade clutched in his hand adding just a bit more length to her impromptu living polearm.

A fourth goes down to that ludicrous weapon before a fifth gets the polearm thrown at him.

Sif pauses to pick up a kopesh, test it, shrug and throw it away. Her fists are harder.

Thea Queen has posed:
An additional challenge... Suuuuure! Thea just barely rolls away from that khopesh hitting the ground where she had been moments ago, coming back up with an arrow knocked up and shooting the man. Bit hard shooting from the ground.. But she manages. It hits the man's shoulder, making him go off balance and enter the 'blender of destruction' that is the two Asgardians in battle.

The carnage doesn't go unnoticed to Thea, how easy they fall to violence and deadly blows. No restraint! So that's the Asgardian way. Fascinating but also rather intimidating..

The men continue to come out, perhaps hoping that higher numbers and cramped quarters would give them an advantage but soon enough they find their numbers dwindling. At an alarming rate too. Blood paints the walls as sword, shield, dagger and arrows continue to take them out in succession.

"They are on the retreat!" Thea announces when the few that are left make a run for it, like rats! Running off to those darker corridors to try and evade the killing going on. Thea still shoots one last arrow, hitting one on the behind. It slows the man, but doesn't kill him. Only his pride is dead..

Thea breathes a bit harder now but is miraculously free of injury. Of course that the two asgardians flanking her did help in keeping that so, she nodding at the others with a faint smile when it's all done. "Hopefully that's the last of them for now.." she blatantly trying not to look at the bodies on the ground.

Vintridr has posed:
    The heat of battle is... dangerously addictive, to the Valkyrior. Vintridr is no exception; once engaged, it takes significant mental effort to /stop/ fighting while foes still draw breath. It takes a moment before the fact that Thea's shouted observation was /not/ an implicit order to pursue.

    She pulls herself back from the brink with an effort of will, slamming the pommel of her sword against her shield. "We hold the field!" - the traditional victory cry of the Valkyrior... And along with it, a call to bring any of her sisters still lost in the rage back to sanity.

Sif has posed:
Sif is technically Valkyrior, if only honorary in position, fully-steeped in culture. But she is also known for her legendary battle rages which have served her both well, yanking victory from the jaws of defeat, and poorly, as she came close to hurting innocents or allies.

She never QUITE crossed that line, but she's known for flirting with its edge.

An attack from ambush? Anger. (Appreciative anger, yes, but anger.) An attack by overwhelming numbers? Fury. A mortal under her protection at risk? Rage.

The difference in the controlled, almost surgical style of Vintridr in battle vs. the energetic, grandiloquent, borderline-showboating of Sif is instructive. She doesn't want just victory. She wants total domination: cowing the enemy into abject terror before striking them down in their tracks. And she gets this in spades once the men realize what has been unleashed.

The problem is that they're running away and SHE DOESN'T LIKE THAT!

One falls to a mighty leap and an elbow to the base of the neck, a force so violent that it not only snaps the neck but detaches several ribs. Another is about to get beheaded by hand when...

"We hold the field!"

The phrase echoes in her mind and her training under the same initial teacher who taught Vintridr, deep-seated and lurking in wait, catches hold.

She stops.

"We hold the field!" she echoes back, adjusting what's left of her gown for dignity and stalking back barefooted, the other sandal lost somewhere in the melee. Pausing only to recover her daggers, which she sheathes in the now clearly visible sheathes at thigh and calf, she rejoins the other two.

"That was actually a bit of exercise," she says to Vintridr. "Either they were exceptional for mortals or I've been slacking."

Thea Queen has posed:
Watching the Asgardians fight is indeed a terrifying sight. One that leaves the young Queen's bloodlust brimming to the surface too. These men, they are holding captives and who knows what else they have been doing. Still, she is but human so her rage comes more in terms of wide-eyed expression or hunched shoulders. Anger. But she nods as well when it's done.

"We hold the field.." She echoes the others in a murmur, lowering her bow, breathing now hard and fast as she cools off from it all.

The stench of blood permeates the corridor now after the short, brutal fight but she attempts to ignore it all, stepping back and nearly stumbling on a fallen body before she settles her gaze on the doors that are still closed. These ones with locks. She moves to one, taking out a small pin and beginning to methodically work on the lock to open it up.

Not that those locks seem as if they'd hold under Asgardian strength!

"We need to take these people out." She says.

Vintridr has posed:
    Asgardian strength or Asgardian steel; either of them is more than sufficient against most alloys of Midgard. While Thea works her skills at one door, Vin heads over to another and yanks the lock off the door with all the effort of plucking a plum off a tree branch, then reaches for the handle to pull the door open.

    "We may require some better light," she comments to Thea before opening the door and calling to those inside. "Be at ease; we've come to aid you. I am Vintridr, Wind-Reader of the Valkyrior. Do any of you urgently need a healer's attentions?"

    The full armour, not to mention the bloodied sword still in her hands, may not be as reassuring as she'd like, sadly, but at least the language should help put them at ease...

Sif has posed:
Sif is even more direct. She pulls the door through the frame, ultimately in three pieces. "Relax, please," she says to anybody on the other side who might be soiling themselves at about this point. "I am here to lead you to safety. I am Sif of Asgard and sworn defender of Midgard. That's your plane. So you are under my protection now. There's no need to fear."

She's not as bloody as Vintridr, and she has many years of courtly functions behind her, so knows how to make pleasant faces and kind looking expressions that belie the tattered gown about her and the knives strapped to one leg that are both dripping blood.

"If you need the attention of healers, I can have them summoned on your behalf or, if urgency is at stake, we have a vehicle we can use to transport you forthwith to a healing enclave."

Thea Queen has posed:
Within the two cells they come across a pair of mutants. Visibly so by how they display certain characteristics. One with eyes just a touch wider and fully blue, the other with ears that elongate almost as if it was an elf. They are both male and coil back to the corners of their 'cells' when the two valkyries wander in. Specially the one with the ears with the not-so-subtle way in which Sif 'opens' the door.

Both rooms are small, dirty, the two dressed in rather plain clothes and appearing to have been here for a time.

"What .., you are here to save us?" incredulous sounding. They know what happened to the others already.

"We thought .., they'd be taking us away like they did the others."

Thea walks lifts her hands in appeasement, smiling just so under her mask, some relief on her expression. The captives were alive. At least that. "We will bring you somewhere safe.." she murmurs to them, gentle and soothing as is her way. Sometimes.

The two start stepping out, slowly and carefully. "We were living in the tunnels.." the one with large eyes explains. "They came, and took us. They were always talking a foreign language, we couldn't understand. The others, they started taking them away." a look over to the other captive. "I think we are the only two left here.."

Thea looks at the Asgardians with a frown. "Egypt, most likely from what I saw on those papers."

Vintridr has posed:
    Vintridr offers the youth a kind smile as her armour is replaced by the dress she'd worn earlier in a shimmer of rainbow light. "I admit that guiding people to their final reward is my job, but you've still got quite some time left on this world before I'll see you in that capacity," she replies, looking the young man over for exterior injuries. "What is your name, and do you need someone to be notified you're hale and safe?"

    She'd spent a stint or two at search and rescue organizations in her time; the lingo comes back to her quite naturally.

Sif has posed:
By contrast, Sif is not able to rainbow-poof into something unthreatening and unbloodied, and hasn't got the training in S&R. What she has, however, is aplomb. A certain stately grace that shines through the blood, torn clothing, and violent tearing open of a door.

She is a Lady.

Breeding counts sometimes.

She stretches out an assisting, supporting arm with a calm smile of encouragement. "Come," she commands. "You are free now. Straighten up and be proud. Face the world with renewed vigour, knowing that Lady Sif of Asgard is behind you and Vintridr of Asgard, Valkyrior shieldmaiden is before you. You are free. You are safe. You are hale. You are alive."

Assisting the young man in navigation of the ... cluttered ... area outside the doors, she guides him toward the exit.

"Thea Queen, it is a good thing you did here today," she says to the archer. "I am proud of you."

Thea Queen has posed:
The two mutants seem thankful, following after the Asgardians, the one with wide blue eys saying up to Vin. "Benjamin, or well, Ben.." he tentatively smiles, still somewhat unsure about this whole situation. Maybe he's dreaming! But soon enough they are emerging out of the building where Spartan awaits.

Thea comes after them, hood slightly lowered, collapsing the bow closed in her hand, a faint guarded smile on her lips at Sif's words. She nods, a glance over her shoulder. "We all did." she says to them, "And while this is not over it's a start. I will have to look further into the info we got from the gala."

The two mutants give their thanks to the Asgardians, clearly very grateful about the rescue, being lead by Spartan afterwards.

Thea turns back up to Vin and Sif, "Thank you both for your help in this. I wouldn't had been able to do it without you." she admits. She knows her limits! "You already know this but .., if you need anything from me. Just need to call." a beat, a look to Vin. "Lady Vin, you have shown Lady Sif the wonders of a phone already, I hope?"

Better make sure!

Vintridr has posed:
    Vin smiles at him. "The son of the right hand? It's a good name; I trust you'll do it honor in your days. For now, let's get you home..."

    To Thea, she replies, "Don't sell yourself short, young Queen; we wouldn't have known to look here if you hadn't led us. Victory is earned as much by a leader as by the warriors they led."

    She offers a formal salute, only slightly marred by the fact that she's once again in evening dress. "You led us well and with honor. Thank you -- and likewise, should you ever have need of me again, call and I will come."

Sif has posed:
"Indeed, Thea Queen," Sif adds, slight note of chiding in her voice. "You must learn the Asgardian Way: boasting, but tempered by what happens when outlandish boasts are called out."

Something amuses her as she puts on a reminiscent expression and then laughs.

"I had to back that one up," she said to Vin, "you recall? Leaping from one flying steed to another a score strong? How close did I get to the end? I remember it as 120 before I finally fell. But the wagers said I wouldn't make 60, so though I didn't back my boast, I still won coin." She shakes her head. "Good times, those were. Joyous times."

She shakes her head to bring her back to the here and now.

"Yes, Thea Queen, you have what we poor sword and spear kinds lack: a talent for finding the truth of things. I am pleased to have found you and to have nurtured you into battle."

She's a Lady. She wasn't led...