"Goddamn, looks like we're in luck!" You hear your brother exclaim in the dark, "There's a door over here..." You have to shield your eyes as Cameron opens the door he found, bright florescent illumination floods into the nurses office from the hallway. You peek around the portal to make sure the hall is empty... it is, in fact, completely devoid of life. Perfect. You turn around to call out to the rest of your companions, only to find Amelia's face half an inch from your own.
"Gahhwk!" You fall backwards into the hallway, the arctic fox girl is giggling above you.
"Aw, am I really that ugly?" She puts her hands on her hips, rolling her eyes, "Sheesh, I can take a hint, just call the Wicked Witch of the Wastes, I guess." She cracks a smile and you can't help but join her. She calls back to your wolf-friend, "Hey, Andy! We got ourselves a way out over here!" You hear Anders call out in the affirmative when the report of two loud blasts rips through the room you just exited. It sounded like someone was firing a really big gun.
"Anders!" You cry out in alarm as you try to dive back into the room to find him. Your brother stops you, grabbing hold of your waste and pulling you back into the hall. You hear a few sharp cracks as another gun answers the former.
"Hey, we don't have any guns, we aren't going to be able to help him-!" You shove your brother off, after everything Anders has done for you, you can't leave him behind. The mission is all or nothing, everyone is coming home and you've decided that, you owe them that. You proceed into the room again, but Anders sprints out from the darkness.
"Get moving, NOW!" He pushes you to turn around and you find Cameron and Amelia already heading down the hall, "Over there should be a stairwell, we should try to make it out of this lower level first, then we can search for an exit to this school." You nod and the others move in the direction the wolf indicated. "I expected them to get through the barricade, I didn't expect them to be using a shotgun. They also have a couple of smaller arms as well, so we're a little out-gunned." You can smell a warm, sulfurous odor on Anders, implying he was the one who returned fire. Knowing the wolf-man, you can probably count at least one of your pursuers out of the chase.
You catch up with the rest of your group at the stairwell and push on up to the next floor. "So," Cameron starts to say, "Between the four of us, we have one gun, an acrobat, three claws and a wing, is that right?" Tallying up your resources down to the claw does make it seem like your armaments are pretty paltry. Which they are. You do notice a weight on your belt, however.
"Oh! and I got this!" You can't believe you forgot, you picked up a really solid pipe-wrench back at the maintenance room you entered through. It is definitely large enough to crack skulls and feels good in your hand.
Cameron knits his eyebrows together a little, "Okay... And we got an over-sized wrench. This is still going to be difficult, so we have to play to our strengths. None of these goons have anything on me for hand-to-hand. Darien, with all that new strength of yours, I sure as shit wouldn't want to be standing in the way of that skull-crusher you got. Amelia, you move with an incredible amount of agility, just stay out of sight when the fighting starts," The fox huffs a little at that, but a small twinkle in her eyes suggest she'll be doing more than hiding during a fight, "And Anders, you're the only one with a gun, so you'll have to cover us as we move in the open. We only stand a chance in a fight if we can close the engagement distance, which means -we- have to choose when and where to strike. Otherwise, we keep our heads low and use the classrooms as cover. Everyone on the same page?" You nod your agreement and hear acknowledgements from the old wolf and young fox. "Alright, let's move." Cam slowly opens the door to the ground floor hallway.
With Anders covering you, all of you are able to make it quickly to your first checkpoint. Cameron stays on point, you and Amelia make up the center of the formation and, once you're clear, Anders brings up the rear. As soon as you enter the room, your nose is assaulted by a pungent smell. Musk, dirt, barn, sweat and sex reek up the space you find yourself in and you can discern noises coming from across the room. You hear Cameron cuss a little further in, but you can't see much in the dark area. You hit the lights and immediately wish you hadn't...
At the far-side of the room, you can see a makeshift cage of sorts. It looks more like a pen, actually, it's made of a few steel bars cemented to the floor with layers of chicken-wire wrapped around them with a padlocked gate. This couldn't have been made in the last two days since the explosion, was the school already seized before the events that turned this city upside down? As important as that line of questioning may be for later, right now you have something much more appalling on your hands. The ones you find in the cage.
"What on god's green earth..." Ander's comes in behind you, his voice in awe at the scene before you. Within the cage is a variety of man-sized animals, at least a dozen, maybe more. They are all sprawled around each other, some engaged in sexual acts, others curled up by themselves in various corners, most are forced to lay in their own in filth. The sight makes you want to wretch, it makes you want to take your wrench and shove it down the throats of everyone involved in this travesty and make them wade through a sea of misery before you put an end to their sad lives... Again, you feel a little bit of your old self slip away, but... is that a bad thing? Don't the ones who hurt you and these people deserve that? You have to shake your head vigorously to refocus yourself.
Amelia moves beside Cameron as she gazes at the pen, "I don't recognize any of these faces, they can't be from my lab, so that means..."
"We were pulled off the street..." Everyone looks to see which of the humanimals spoke. A doe-like creature picks herself up from one of the corners, she is completely naked much like all the others in there with her. Her voice is cracked, but strong, "A couple days ago, most of us were running away from ground-zero of what seemed to be a terrorist attack." She goes on and grips the wire fence closest to you, her eyes are slightly sunken in her gaunt face, "We didn't know what was happening and suddenly we were surrounded by these creatures..." She looks down, awareness of her changed form making her slightly self-conscious. She looks back up at you and continues, "I don't remember much after that, just waking up in this godforsaken cage... I was still human then." She adds bitterly.
You can see your brother staring hard at the cage, his eyes are hard and impassive, like he's calculating something. You turn back to the doe, "What's your name and how did you get like this?" Your curiosity getting the better of you, but in the back of your mind you know that time really is of the essence here.
"Cass, as for how I got this way? Look around and take your best guess. Everyone here had something taken from them when they were captured. Dignity, shame, self-worth, we had that ripped from us." As if to illustrate her point, a bat-like creature starts to moan as he gets his rocks off in the mouth of another of the pen's occupants, Cass stares you down hard, "Look, get us out of here, any of us that -wants- to go anyway..." She gestures behind her, eyes taking on an almost pleading quality, "Please... We can't survive here, we want to find our families and get back to our homes. We can also help you in any way we can, we'd owe you..." Her eyes dart to the door that leads out of the classroom, "Plus, you'd have greater numbers to help you get past the guards, we can-" A chilling voice booms through the doorway, cutting Cass off.
"Well, well, look what we have here, a kitten, a puppy, a ghost... and a winged sssnake. Hey, boys, looks like we hit the jackpot! Why don't we show'em a -real- good time..." The voice cackles mirthlessly to his followers. Your heart drops as you see...