Of course as a telepath in her head currently he knew what she was going to do before she did it. There were so many options open to him, he could wrench the gun away, use telekinesis to divert the bullets but he had not even bothered dodging seeing that he was no even there and she had already determine that portions of this had been in her head.

A few bullets pass through him, Rhaine jerked in front of him, it is apparent that he is using telekinesis, that the hold isn't real but is maintained telekinetically. His illusions and ability to alter perceptions had been that great indeed.

Now, Shine. That could have hurt. Such crude weapons, effective but a mere minor annoyance. I do have an offer for you though you cannot win.

Aegir sighed. He could not get complete cover behind the girl that stared out and struggled feebly.

Perhaps he wanted to play with her more, perhaps he wanted to give her a situation she could win, why he offered was her best guess though. Perhaps it was because she had wanted the truth and he could both deny and see to it at the same time in a contradiction. Perhaps it was to make up for this mess, who could say with any real certainty.

I want to do something a scenario with your mind, it intrigues me. By now you must realize that Rena will not let you leave. But she could care less about this one here …

Submit to my whims at some point in the immediate future and she gets lost. You leave through. That door and the two of you split up, Rena will want me to track you and not Rhaine so she can actually get out of here with a little help of course.

The alternative is that you get caught together, Rena has ordered Tinman after you two and he can be rather relentless. The choice is yours. The matter is are you both screwed or just you? Regardless of you choice they will find you, Shine.

“Don't trust him, Shine!” Rhaine struggles uselessly. These things were always lying. She did not entered into deals with them and knew how they operated after all which gave her pause in this situation.

Juniper smirked slightly as the rounds passed through him. It'd be lying to claim that that was p]exactly what she'd had in mind, but it had been edifying in it's own way. She rested her thumb on the hammer and eased it back home before dropping the gun back to her side. She'd known that it wasn't Aegir, of course, but she point had been to make sure he wasn't overlapping his face to something real in the room. Now she knew that his telekinesis could similarly be manifested indrectly, another note in the file. Though a disheartening one. If he wasn't feeling gamey, it would've been a small issue to simply push the two of them flat against the ground until Tinman showed up.

"Rhaine . . . it isn't really a matter of trust exactly. Rena's only using you to chip away at me, if she's got to make a choice she'll go with me. As for Tinman, he shouldn't be that hard to draw off. He's a little single-minded." There was a bit of a shudder through her form as she just . . . relaxed. The form of the security guard melting away as Juniper shrank, hair and eyes shifting color. Soon enough, she was back to her own shape, a silent acknowledgement of his previous statement and admission that he was holding the cards at the moment. As much as it galled her.

"I was always ready to put myself up if it gave you a window of escape . . . I was just hoping I'd find some way to free up your hands first. I'd feel a lot better if I knew you were armed." she smirked a bit, "Guess I'll have to settle for showing you a parlor trick." taking a moment, she cinched the belt around her waist tight, though the pants legs still bunched up at her feet. Unlike Rhaine she had the benefit of the guard's white undershirt , though the neck hole and arms seemed rather stretched out on her comparatively lithe form.

She looked away to the monitor screens for a moment. If this was all in her head . . . then surely. . . they were still in the lab. She wondered what she had hit when shooting blindly before. Then she cast her eyes down at the floor for a moment.

Fine, I'll submit. she said, her lips pressing together in a grimace, apparently not comfortable letting Rhaine out of her sight, Don't you screw me on this, Aegir. I want her safe, comprende?

He feels her swirl of thoughts. Of course he realizes that she'd except even before the offer is pitched and while she had just met Rhaine he figured that she would seize upon the small victory knowing that she was forfeit regardless, that she could only bring Rhaine down.

The blond was attractive and he read a mixture of fear and disbelief there. And … well beneath it all he could sense the gratitude there. She really didn't trust him though that was not much of an issue.

A weapon would do no good. I will see her out of of here myself. Now go. You realize where you are and no you have not struck anything vital. You must lead Tinman further away as my abilities do not function on it.

Leave and it will peruse. If Rhaine hides here until it passes then leaves behind it I can lead her out.

He considers the arrangement made. He would collect soon enough. He released Rhaine and gave her a little shove towards her before the image faded from both their minds leaving them alone as they heard Tinman getting closer. The room, however did not change back yet.

Pushed forward Rhaine staggers a few steps confused at what had just occurred. She does not know if it is the drug or not but she wants to kiss Shine in appreciation but time is short and she doesn't want to give her the wrong idea.

“You can't trust him.” But Rhaine realizes that there is little that can be done in the situation. She really feels bad, powerless given that there isn't much she can do.

“Shine … thank you.” She sets a hand on her shoulder pressing her down to her knees with one hand, her stance widening. This was a bit more than a kiss ..

“A quick lick to get some of your strength back, you'll need it.”

"I can trust him to do what he finds most interesting. That's enough." Juniper said, fixing Rhaine with a faint smile. She blinked slightly at that hand only her shoulder, firmly pushing her down until she was settled on her knees. In that position, with the way Rhaine shifted her stance and angled her hips, her brown eyes settled on the slender slit of flushed pink flesh in front of her. Her shoulders trembled softly as her eyes softened, that faint smell of her touching her nostrils.

"Mnnn. . ." Juniper bit her bottom lip and tore her eyes away, looking to the side, "Don't offer an alchoholic a bottle and tell her "Just a sip", Rhaine." she said, even as her body screamed for it. She pressed her hand against the ground and started to push herself up to her feet again, still not worrying about it.

"If I get started . . . I don't think I'll be able to stop." she admitted, "And time is short. I should get going." she added, a little softly. Despite her bargain, she was still conflicted, she took a step backwards. Aegir had said there were no rules, there as no guarentee that he'd actually follow through, and he'd already broken one arrangement between the two of them. But she had to admit, so long as they were together, Rhaine was slowing her down, and she was just making the girl a bigger target. She reached back, pressing her hands against the monitors behind her, slowly sliding her hand down until she felt what she was looking for.

"Stay strong for me, Rhaine, you're doing great. And say a prayer for me once you're back with your lover." she smiled a bit sadly, turning the invisible handle in her hands and pushed the door open, uncertain if the scene would open like a stage set to reveal what was beyond the room or if she'd just slide through the wall. She stepped back out into the hall, and she did the only thing she could do.

She ran.

She needed her strength or so she had though. Rhaine had been surprised when Shrine resisted for she showed just how strong and sensible she was. Adrenaline had assisted her a but in turning her desires to the present though she could still feel the drug pumping through her.

Old Bucket Head was making too much noise, he was too close for much more than a quick drink. She nods solemnly at Shine's response though a worried look is upon her face that seems to ask silently 'good luck, Shine. I will pray for you.'

She hates this, feeling like Shine is sacrificing for her sake. She did not know a real name or real face, that Aegir thing did not use it for whatever reason. Perhaps it had not desired her to know but why.

The door opened into a hallway that looked different from the hallway that they traveled down, the picture on the wall out there was different, a vase or yellow flowers when before there was a replica of a Van Gogh painting out there.

She hide, her mind getting foggy to the point where she forgets why she's hiding … there is an impression to go after something came here looking for her but the last few minutes were foggy for her … Shine and her had encountered something but she could not recall what.

ANALYZING …

The loud clunking footsteps grew louder. It was steadily catching up, a relentless hunter that constantly checked in with Rena who locked down areas of the facility ahead of Juniper. Her attention was on the new girl and that was where she chose to direct Tinman as she updated the machine with Juniper's where abouts.

“REQUEST GENERATOR THREE, FOUR AND SIX BE SHUT DOWN.”

They were casting Juniper in darkness. The IR of the cameras still traced her by body heat as Tinman perused though it did not receive to many orders.

“VERIFICATION OF TARGET: AMELIA. UPGRADED TO TOP PRIORITY OVER TARGET RHAINE FISCHER. CAPTURE, ESTIMATION TEN MINUTES ...”

There were few rooms left to Juniper. Barracks, a locked armory, a cafeteria an another lab was what she had immediate access to. Tinman by this stage got to the room that Juniper had vacated some time back, directed by Rena it bypassed this and pressed on though.

Juniper ran. She did more than run, she flew down the halls, her head low and her arms cutting through the air like blades. It was a fifty meter dash with corners as she tried to put as much distance between her and the hiding Rhaine as quickly as she could, pushing off of walls to guide her at each intersection.

The halls were empty. Why were the halls empty!? There should've been scientists, security guards, interns . . . anything. This facility was huge, how could they justify shutting parts of it down so a lone demon could have a bit of sport? Didn't anyone have work to do down here!?

Juniper's eyes widened as she saw teeth extrude themselves from the cieling at the end of the hall, a firedoor comming down to close off the route ahead of her. She kicked her feet up, poured on the speed, as fast as she could push herself. And slammed into the metal wall full force, staggering back as her body rippled and wobbled dizzyingly.

"NO!" she beat her fist uselessly on the firedoor for a moment. How many other passages had they closed off? How many that she hadn't noticed? Were they just shrinking the size of the rat maze over time, forcing her to trod to the final outcome they had in mind? Well, she wasn't going to give it to them easily. She pushed off of the wall and broke back into a run . . . she couldn't double back, doubling back meant running into the Tinman after all, so she had to keep going forward. Her "forwards", however, were getting fewer and fewer by the moment.

The wind whipped through her hair as she ran, the air rushing by her whisking the dew from her body to cool her as she ran. It was kind odd to think of her sweat in those terms . . . but it was sweet, and too thick to compare to what she thought of as sweat. Her lungs and her body burned . . . and her hunger was only intensifying as time went on. Part of her felt bad about turning Rhaine's offer down . . . she really could have used the boost to her strength, but she'd been right to turn her down too. Even that first gnawing sensation of need would be enough to push her to a feeding frenzy if she got a taste, she'd completely lost control before.

"--The hell!?" she stumbled as the lights suddenly cut off, leaving her suddenly stranded in darkness. She put her hand out and, sure enough, the path she'd been following had vanished when she'd stopped, her fingers running over a slab of segmented steel. She sighed softly and closed her eyes pointlessly against the darkness . . . her options were getting slim. It seemed like she needed to figure out where to make a final stand.

The armory was tempting, she had to admit. She doubted she'd be able to get the lock open with the time she had available though, especially not in the dark. She passed it by, her feet winding their way through an eerily silent cafeteria, cleaned to the point that it shined. She walked out the other side, it was too open, too exposed, she needed something she could use for cover if she was going to get by Tinman and try to backtrack.

She pushed her way into the the barracks and cast her gaze around. And then she walked into a foot locker.

"OW! God dammit!" she rubbed her shin, "Stupid ooze powers . . . couldn't have come with tremorsense or something? " she grumbled.

She was cut off, the entire area had been set up by Rena earlier so she could have her fun now. She watched the monitors as the pictures on the majority became greenish white for the most part. Rena had to smile in glee as she realized that Juniper was cut off from escape.

Stuck like a rat in a maze, or rather a rodent stuck in the corner with a large cat looming in on them. Patiently Tinman came. It had used the rockets on it;s legs to burst down the halls. When coming to locked doors minimal power had been restored as the generators of that section briefly. The lights going on for a brief second or two, the fire doors opening ant Tinman passing through before the doors were closed behind it.

Then the lights went back out as the generators were cut off and Tinman came closing the distance as she was stuck in the section of the facility.

Ortix had blind-sense. Seeing without eyes in all directions. It also had a form of tremor-sense sensing movement through vibrations in the ground though normally someone could fool something with tremor-sense by remaining still … they would come up as objects but Ortix had a sense of blind-sense that allowed it to pick up such rouses. Both senses were limited to 30 feet or thereabouts so one could say that Ortix had to be virtually on top of you before you were noticed but that never seemed like a big deal.

Even it's off spring had these abilities though she possessed them they were very limited to 10 feet and she had to attune herself to these abilities. After a day or so she might have gotten use to such things though as it were she would not have the time to get use to them.

She moved through the cafeteria though the place was too opened to the fact that it was probably the wrong place to make a stand against Tinman so she soon pressed on to the barracks, staggering into a foot locker.

The barracks had been designed for about a dozen security in this section of the facility alone. She could here Tinman's approach, the lights turning on long enough for her to see a door at the opposite side of the room before going back out, probably going into another hall. The door was electronical in nature though the was a manual release that she could use to open it.

Sure enough it led into another hall, at each end was a door with the hall twisting in a different direction. The lights had turned on briefly then went out briefly as it was obvious that Tinman was virtually on top of her now.

It was slow going in the darkness, Juniper's bare feet slapping lightly on the cold tile as she pressed onward. Like a bad horror movie, the whole facility seemed to shudder and jump, the humm of electrical power briefly casting everything in a harsh white glow that made her squint and move swiftly forward with blurry eyes, only to suddenly throw her spinning back into darkness again and again. She hadn't really worked out the significance at first, but the big mech's foot falls seemed to grow ever closer, and once she'd heard the rattle of a fire door receding into the ceiling.

Juniper was almost tempted to call foul. She stumbled slightly on her way through the barracks, her hand clutched to her chest. Ooh . . . that didn't feel good. Something was off . . . she closed her eyes for a moment, openning them and fixing her gaze on the door standing directly ahead of her. How much longer was her elasticity supposed to last? She didn't have a watch, of course, and the passage of time was notoriously subjective, but she was pretty sure she still had roughly five minutes left. Five minutes until this dread hunger would leave her . . . .assuming Rena's estimation of time was accurate. She turned the knob to the door and stumbled through into another damned hallway.

She didn't need super senses to recognize the vibrations traveling through the floor as they traveled through the bottoms of her feet. Left or right . . . it seemed such a simple choice, but one never knew what lay at the end, did they? She knew she wouldn't get a chance to go back the other way, so she closed her eyes for a moment and considered. Ultimately, she chose the door on the left, based on some vague observation she'd made about the Fighting Fantasy books years ago.

She could almost swear she heard the door to the barracks swing open behind her as she rushed down the hall and wrenched this new door open. Last chance, June, no time for regrets . . .

The darkness benefited Tinman as it went on, the visual receptors it possessed allowed it to see in a broad spectrum of light, ultra violet, infrared … it had a miriade of frequencies that it could shift through.

Methodically it proceeded along it's way keeping in contact with Rena, telling her what generators it needed on or off or what doors opened.

It was a coordinated effort and it was close now as it swung open the door to the barracks just as Juniper opened the door in front of her. She was facing a stairwell, up or down … there of course was a camera in the corner point at the door, a rather odd place for one indicating that Rena already considered that this was a likely route to freedom … perhaps she placed cameras in all the stair wells on this level.

The door of the barracks flew off the hinges, warping as the twisted metal hit the wall … an order by Rena as she wanted Juniper to know that Tinman was here as it stepped into the hall, it's mechanical head turning to the left in her direction.

Jesus Christ! Juniper thought, in pale echo of her first encounter with Rena the night before, closing the door to the stairwell behind her with a hard click. Still, she didn't break the cardinal rule of running for one's life, she didn't look back, not yet. Stairs. Could Tinman even walk on stairs with his broad metallic feet? Well, there way one way to find out. Grabbing hold of the handrail, Juniper half-ran half-jumped up the stairs, trying to make it to the first turn before the door behind her shattered inwards.

She was up half a flight of stairs when it dashed to the stairwell, the rockets on it's legs speeding it up as it “flew” a foot or so off of the ground. Leading with the shoulder and with half a ton of weight behind it and it's speed it hit the door shattering it.

Audio receptors caused it to look upward at her just as she gets out of site and it follows … hits the stairs and stops. Tinman preferred elevators, the “rockets” were actually repulsors that had to push off of solid objects but he had a mere one foot elevation. He used the rockets to dash forward a lot, to make up huge distances.

So it had to hover over each stair, travel over it all then fly over the next and the next which was often far more time consuming then just walking up them which it now did.

She did not have the same sorts of problems with stairs, what took her seconds to do would take him minutes.

“HALT!” It's robotic voice called though as she got to the next floor the stairs went up one more flight.

CAPTURE TIME REASSED AT EIGHTEEN MINUTES. RESPONSE TO HALT, 3% CHANCE OF COMPLIANCE.

Concrete and steel tore free as the Tinman crashed through the wall full force. Juniper winced as a particularly jagged rock caught her inner thigh, but her flesh deformed and bounced it away rather bruising the muscle undernieth. Juniper hopped three stairs in a go to reach the landing as the mechanoid shifed it's bulk to reorient on her. It barely caught a glimpse of her ankle as she made a ninty degree turn and rushed up the next length of stairs, still taking them two at a time as her heart thundered in her chest.

“HALT!” came the monotonous cry .

"Fat chance, Leadbutt!" she shot back, adrenaline gripping her spine as she forced herself not to slow. The machine had slowed, maybe, but it hadn't stopped. It'd never stop. Junipers lungs were still burning from her exertions, and she was starting to feel heavy on her legs. She wasn't an untiring machine, even with a monster's code spliced into her she needed to rest occassionally to get her strength back. Even inasmuch as she'd stolen an advantage from the jaws of defeat, she knew she was still just stalling for time.

She wasn't certain exactly how far she'd climbed, but finally, her legs just give out on her. She dropped to her knees, numbly holding onto the handrail, panting deeply as she tried to claw fresh air into her lungs. Falling back on her ass, she looked back the way she'd come, hoping she'd gotten enough distance. Just five minutes . . . five minutes and she'd be up and moving again. She ran her arm across her forehead and flicked the sweat from her fingers down the stairs. Then she looked up.

". . . How deep is this rabbit warren?" she asked herself.