The guards coming to switch shifts weren't expecting what they were hit with. Frost grunted as his knife got stuck in a bone, pulling it back from the guard's neck before discarding the body to the floor. They'd have four hours until the next set of guards arrived to swap, and that would be more than enough time to do what they needed to.
Lana finished with her own guard to Frost's left. She struggled, dropping the body and immediately looking at her bloodied clothes with disgust. "Does this ever get easier?" She wondered aloud.
Frost flicked the blood from his knife and then sheathed it. "It's best to not think of obstacles as people," he said, "easier that way."
"Hm," Lana said, clearly not approving of the implications behind that.
Frost meanwhile, slapped the side of the dead man's head playfully as you would a child. You weren't a particularly difficult obstacle, he thought. Frost realized long ago that he didn't really view people as people. His brain didn't work like that of a normal person. He was sick, frankly, but his sickness wasn't something of any present concern. No. For now, it was incredibly helpful. People without this sickness, like Lana, might hesitate when it mattered most.
If Frost was face to face with a sibling who was out to get him, he'd fire the shot before she could utter a word. Thinking this, he eyed Lana from the side, watching as she desperately cleaned off the blood.
"Let's move," he said. He stood up and stretched his legs, then marched out into the rain. Lex was dealing with the other guardpost, so there was a chance he'd already arrived inside. Every moment they delayed was a moment he had to stand awkwardly in the lobby. A moment was all it might take to be figured out!
The rain washed away the blood on their uniforms. Frost took his chance to slick his hair back and try to hide as much of it under the beret as was possible. The rain was so dense that he couldn't see where he was going. He walked aimlessly ahead, thinking idly to himself about how funny it would be if he accidentally marched off the edge of the platform and left Lana in utter confusion. In the torrents of rain, his body would be washed away and never found like those guards from earlier.
Not funny, he reminded himself as he cleared his throat.
Walking into the lobby felt like entering a different world. He was familiar with the scenery, of course. It was a square room with doors leading in every different direction like a maze. He struggled to remember what went where, though, since his last visit was exclusively to the administrative block. The whole place had a rustic vibe like an old hotel. The lobby even had a chandelier. It was very unbecoming of a military installment, so Frost assumed that they'd procured it from a previous owner.
Was it left or right? He thought. This was the prevailing thought in his head, above analyzing the scenery.
Lex was already ahead spewing some bullshit to the lady at the front desk. This was yet another oddity for a military base. The Realmguard, as a law enforcement entity, had many unrelated visitors, so it was essential to have someone to point people in the right direction.
"I've never been to the lower levels," Lex was saying. "Where do I go?"
"Sure!" The lady beamed with a fake smile. She pointed down the hallway to Frost's left. "Take that hall, and then the elevator will take you wherever you need. With clearance, of course." She added that last part as insurance in case they weren't supposed to be there. They had guard outfits of course, so there was no real reason for suspicion.
"Right. Thanks!" Lex waved them on, and they started down the hallway with haste.
It was left, Frost thought, yeah, I totally knew that.
Stella arrived in the lobby in a frenzy. She took a short break to go to the armoury and gear herself before rushing to join the internal battle. When she arrived, there were three men that she didn't recognize looking around with relative confusion. They were like patrons of a zoo wondering where to find the animal of their choices.
One was tall, well-built and decently handsome despite looking under the weather. He had short brown hair and kind eyes. The one beside him was clutching a crystal. He looked to be the oldest of the group and had blonde hair that was starting to be dotted with grey. The third and final man was stocky and had massive muscles despite looking immensely youthful. He was clutching an icon of eternity around his neck with an expression of worry on his face.
"I've never been to the archives before," Ren was saying. "Which way is it?"
"It must be left," Parsh said confidently.
"Why?" Ren countered, visibly confused.
"Why not just ask the desk lady?" Drask wondered, ever the peaceful one.
Stella drew her revolver and pointed it at the three men. "Hands up!" She demanded.
Ren, initially not taking the threat seriously, turned slowly. Upon realizing that a gun was trained on his head, he raised his hands with a disarming smile. He'd never seen this woman in his life, and was currently hoping he'd never see her again after this. "Calm down," he requested sincerely.
"You are?" Stella asked.
"You first!" Ren fired back, keeping his hands firmly in the air.
"Commander Stella Whitehall of the Realmguard! Identify yourself, now!" She cried, making it clear that this would be her last time asking by pushing the gun forward.
"Ren Hoffmann from the Special Operations Department." He set a hand out to pre-empt his action. With Stella's permission, he drew his badge and flashed it. "I don't mean to alarm you, Commander, but we're after a dangerous criminal called Frost Direshard, and we believe he might be in your basement as we speak."
Parsh and Drask nodded.
"Frost Direshard," Stella muttered under her breath. Havas' hunch was right, then. There really was another Direshard bastard child running around. She turned to the desk lady in anger. "Agatha. Has anyone other than me been through here in the last ten minutes?" She asked.
"Not even two minutes ago, three guards came in from the shift change and asked me for directions to the basement," she admitted honestly. "I didn't think much of it. They were in uniform."
Stella closed her eyes and turned her head down in shame. A sigh escaped her lips, and then she raised her weapon and shot Agatha straight through the forehead. The woman collapsed back into her chair, which spun away briefly before coming to a stop a little bit from its initial position. Agatha's head slumped at an unnatural angle, mouth still open in protest.
"We have no need for incompetence around here," Stella growled. "You three are with me. We've got rats to hunt."
There were two elevators side by side. Conveniently, the screen over the top of them indicated that they were both idle on this floor. They stepped into the left elevator and scanned the relevant clearance found on the guards. The buttons inside illuminated accordingly, showing just how far they were allowed to go with a badge like that. The current badge only allowed them to go to basement five.
"The archives are in basement fourty," Lex said.
"Well then we'll have to find a better badge on five!" Frost said. They didn't have time to waste debating the subject. He fingered the button, the doors slid closed, and they were on their way. The elevator shifted out of place and started a steady descent.
The room fell into silence for a few seconds. Lana was tapping her boot on the ground before she eventually admitted aloud, "I'm nervous."
Lex nodded, adjusting his glasses.. "It's only natural. Nerves are a good thing. It just means you were daring enough to try."
Lana looked reassured. She smiled. "You get nervous, Lex? I thought you were just a robot."
"Not funny," he replied dryly. "Of course I get nervous. I make mistakes. I hesitate. We all do."
"Thanks," she said. "But I'm not going to hesitate." Her facial expression became serious as she spoke these words of affirmation to herself.
Frost said nothing, just reclined into the corner of the elevator and yawned. After a moment, he felt both of their prying eyes on him like they were expecting him to divulge his feelings.
He shrugged. "I couldn't possibly get nervous from something like this." He drew his Daxter and checked the bullet counter. "The opportunity to kick some heads in? You kidding? I'm more excited than anything else!"
The elevator slid to a stop as Lex and Lana barely tried to hide their disgusted expressions. They both drew their pistols as the door slid open to a white hallway almost like a laboratory.
"You know," Lana sighed, "I don't know what kind of answer I was expecting from a guy like you."