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The promise had a lot of people coming, Derek noticed. There was a long train of various mercenaries. Yet it confused him.

Why hadn’t the nations used their military forces? Were they depleted that much? And how was this more profitable? The reward was enormous. Someone could probably buy his own island with it.

Chortal Point was one of the ground zero areas, so the last few miles were still desert. Derek’s eyes picked up trace amounts of radiation, even countless years after the fact.

One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight- he shook the counting from his head, and took his fluvoxamine from his inner pockets. His two energy pistols were well concealed, and he was well ahead of the group itself.

The lab was given via GPS, supplied by Azerian military. Derek’s bike was parked about five miles from the GPS point. He leaned on it, supporting himself with one foot, arms crossed.

The convoy still had some way to go, but they’d probably be caught up in the space of five minutes or so, and Derek’s bike wouldn’t take running in the heat for too long. It got to nearly 120 Fahrenheit here, coaxing sweat from Derek’s brow. The sun was high in the sky, and no cloud dared bargain with it for its royal perch.

He sighed, and wondered why he was working undercover here, especially with such a ratty group. Since only so many could fit on the APCs, a lot were going on horseback, some even on foot. So the APCs had to go the speed of the slowest.

He looked down at his destination- Chortal Point. There were stairs carved from the massive crater where the ancient bomb had detonated. Derek knew it had been larger before. As far as the eye could see, the massive depression stretched. He imagined what it must be like surrounded by slowly curving walls, the only way out a poorly carved, hardly used staircase. Derek wasn’t even sure it was stable.

His mirrored sunglasses noted him to a glimmer of white light. He turned around. From the convoy came a white wolfling, whose mad green hair and red bandanna he could see even from that distance. He turned to Yash, his ally who had come almost without rhyme or reason.

“Friend of yours?” He asked, but didn't give Yash time to answer. He approached the coming wolfling.

"You in a rush?" He shouted from about a hundred yards away. It stopped the wolfling in his tracks as he looked towards Derek.

Blaze stopped as he came to stand next to the human of the group, overlooking the crater, he noticed a strong metallic scent emanating from his presence, Blaze assumed it was from weapons of some sort and neglected any further thought on it. "No..." he stated in reply to the question he'd been asked without much real interest as he looked about the valley. He looked toward the long stairway down, it didn't look like he'd be able to run down very quickly. "See ya there" he said quietly, then without much warning he suddenly jumped off the ledge, hands out alchemy flowing from them, his flamulation began to glow as he went down. Moments later as he neared the bottom, he manipulated the air around him to slow his decent enough to allow him to land safely.

He looked toward the top and made a large flame which he shot up to signal to the others he'd made it. Then began to follow a small dirt path at the bottom of the stairs that seemed to head in the direction they were supposed to go.

"I like his style," Derek said, taking a folded garment from the back of his motorcycle, and then revving up the engine. He put on the parachute, then hopped onto his motorcycle.

It was a good bike, but...they were a dime a dozen anyway, and it would be stolen if he just left it here.Besides, he couldn't be shown up by an Accarian.

He looked at his medication and gave some serious thought to what he was doing. He was feeding his OCD. He could give himself long term psychological problems if he tried this. He calmly opened the fluvoxamine, and then threw the pills down the crater and gave the engine a roar.

"See you there, Accarian." He put the motorcycle into drive and went straight off the edge.

As the bike went off the ground, he backflipped off the seat, seperating himself from the doomed vehicle. He did a single barrel roll and let himself free fall away from the cliff until he was about two hundred feet from the ground. He hit the cord and the parachute flew open.

He landed softly- his bike didn't. As it hit the ground a fiery explosion engulfed it.

He looked at the small flame the wolfling was holding in his hand and smiled.

"Mine's bigger," he said.

~Rein walks behind the rest of them not really fitting in being a fox type Kea-sai. the walk was long and hard as the sun beat down hard on her. only having her own rations she had to be careful that no-one stole them.~

I hate this heat.

~as she reaches her locations she witness's too people racing down.~

What fools.

~she thought about using her alchemy her alchemy to help her get down but instead decided that would take too much energy. Thats when she noticed the worn out stairs.~

I guess I'll take those.

~as she reaches the stairs she realizes that while they do go right where she needs them. they really aren't in the best shape. as she decends the stars some parts are slick and she almost slips several times. it has taken her a very long time to get down just the first half of the stairs without getting herself killed. She sits down to take a rest~

I wonder how long that has taken me.

(( fixed and sorry about that))

There's too many people, Loeth thought for himself as he approached to the point of meeting in Chortal Point, finding that thief won't be an easy task. I wonder if all this is even worth it, this blazing heat and dried ground is so different from Salem's weather, where white snow covered the ground in winter and you could see green everywhere in summer. Then, the image of his father appeared in his mind and Loeth shoke his head in own dissaproval. No, he thought, I can't give up, not until finding my presious ring... (O.O.C = I swear this isn't a Gollum's allusion)

Loeth walked near the great crater and saw something that caught his attention. What the hell is going on here? he said out loud this time as he saw the fire show going in the bottom of the crater and a human and a kea-sai talking near it. He took a look at the long stairway leading down, mmm, he thought, this stairs doesn't look like a good work, and they obviously didn't considered kea-sais when they made them... Loeth then just sighed and started going down...

(also had to change mine now --.--)

Derek looked back, a little embarrassed, but not feeling much loss about the bike. He could buy three without twitching at his next paycheck.

If there were things to love about his job, a good amount of them would be in the pay. He flipped open his cell phone, about to call a private order to get another Katana delivered about ten miles out.

Nothing but static. Not even a "no service." Total static. He smacked the cell phone again. Still dead.

He looked up at the glaring sun. "This place is hot," he said to himself, "In more ways than the heat. Radioactivity everywhere." He threw a couple red capped pills at his new friend/rival. "Keep these a secret. I was planning to use them for myself, but I brought a double dosage. Besides, that stunt ought to have earned you something." He chuckled a bit and then took two dry. "They're Rad-pills. Keep you from glowing in the dark going through here. The base is radiation proof, but we've got a ways to walk before we get there. Speaking of which, that eh...incident probably ruffled a few feathers, so we should probably get moving now. Wouldn't advise running though. This heat'll wear you out before you can feel it."

((Demecas, this is not FMA, you can't just wave your hand and make stairs that go several hundred feet down. It also makes little sense considering I already said there were stairs.

Plz fix ty.))

Blaze was headed in toward their destination when he heard the explosion behind him, he turned to see the human boasting about his bigger fire "I wasn't trying to make it big, just enough to see..." Blaze mumbled. He turned again and began to walk, half-listening to the human mutter about heat and radiation, Blaze grabbed the pills tossed at him, and looked toward the human as he explained what they were, he looked at the pills then at the human suspiciously, then smiled, his flammulation glowed and he waved his hand around gathering moisture from the air, it took a few moments, being so dry around, but he managed to gather it into a bit of water, which he took into his mouth, then swallowed with the pills.

The human mentioned heat and Blaze grinned "I like things hot." he said as he took off running. This little job looked like it was turning out more fun than he expected.

((It seems to me, to warp that much land would require some quite a lot of skill in alchemy, and exert a lot of one's energy, and take a few minutes and a lot of focus, not to mention there was already a staircase...))

The sprinter was off before Derek even knew what was going on. "Hope you do, kid."

He would've taken his time, but he wanted to get ahead of the convoy. And then something hit him.

He was totally insane. He'd just smashed his bike to compete with stunts. He looked over. It was totally engulfed in flames.

Yet somehow, he figured he needed to do that. He needed to take his OCD pills out the window. He needed a release. Of course, now he had no way of keeping away from the convoy, or up with his new friend.

Lucky for him he'd managed to keep most of his supplies in his backpack.

He opened it up. Climbing pick he might need later, plasma torch, and a geiger counter. He turned the counter on, and it gave some half-hearted ticks. Nothing to be worried about yet.

He didn't even catch that wolf's name. It didn't matter anyway. He put his hand above his eyes to shield away the sun. The wolfling was already a good distance away, only visible due to the fact that the crater opened downward.

Derek cut the parachute from his pack and started jogging. Then he started sprinting. Pretty soon dust clouds started coughing up behind him. The heat didn't mean anything.

Already his new friend/rival seemed to have stopped. Derek kept running with hardened endurance.

He wondered how long the wolfling would wait, or if he was only momentarily pausing to open the door.

As Loeth walked down the stairway, he noticed, on a second look, that the stairs were actually more stable than they looked at first sight, still, he thought, I could have done a much better work if I was asked for the job... hah, what am I thinking? this stairs were probably done a lot of time before I was even born.

When he was near of reaching the bottom he tried to remember the thief's face, in order to be able to recognice him between all this people. As said before, it wasn't going to be easy...

Loeth then noticed on a closer look that the fire had something within. What? he thought, that seems like some sort of vehicle, it must had been an azarian technology. I can't belive it, I hate that azarian attitude of thinking that everything is disposable... Well, if I find who did this I'll ask him if he has anything else he would like to "dispose", I'll gladly take it off his hands.

Yash had been waiting at the door of the facility, under the cover of his invisibility. Since Yash was not aware of the disorder his ally had, he found it strange that he felt the need to compete with a complete stranger to the point where he risked his life. He dismissed the thought after seeing Derek land safely, and chase after his new rival.

As the two ran, Yash took the time to perform another scan of the area's temperature.

[System]Warning!Area temperature at 102° F!

Reallocating energy from weapons systems to central cooling unit. Combat efficiency at 99.327% until area temperature drops by 6°.

As the readout finished, Yash saw that Derek and the white wolfling had reached the door he was standing at. After making himself visible, he stood in silence, staring at the both of them. The rest of the convoy had not yet arrived, and so waiting was the only option all three of them had.

((no the problem was that noone explained what kind of alchemy was in this world. the king that makes medicines and poisons or the king that lets you make things out materials present. also to only shift the land a bit to make natural stairs wouldn't take that much effort compared to trying to shift it into a castle. but anyway I changed it I'm trying not to get killed taking the stairs now. I read the first post wrong is all. I thought the stairs were at the bottom of it leading into the ground.))

~After resting for awhile Rein gets back up and continues to walk down the stairs only to have a chunk of the carved rock come out from under her feet sending her sliding on it with a look of total terror on her face as she road the slab of rock down to the bottom coming to a sudden stop hitting something as her body is sent flying forward and rolling on the ground at the bottom.-

urrrghh that hurt.

~her heart beating rappedly in her chest. she just laid there still trying to calm down. as she is a bit scraped up and sore but not really any worse for ware.~

I really hate this place.

~she says out loud but only really to herself~

Rico was just wandering about. Damn it. I think that [censored] gave me a bad map. Where the hell am I? He keeps walking for another hour. ARGH! Where the hell am I!!!

<Godhand, imagine you walking through Nevada. Now imagine the chance that you would just happen to walk by Area 51. I kinda request you change your entry post if you don't mind, to something a little more deliberate.>

Derek wondered why he was so reckless back there.

After all, he was an agent of the Fourth Prince of Azer. He should be showing some sort of restraint. Yet he knew when things mattered, there wouldn't be any nonsense.

"Anyone think we ought to recon?" he asked. "They're still a bit away, but they'll be coming any minute."

Loeth really surprised when silver kea-sai passed rolling near him, "That couldn't have been on purpose" he thought "I wonder if he's alright, or maybe was a she, I couldn't noticed since it passed too fast"

Loeth made it to where she was and realiced it was actually a female kea-sai. "she has such a pretty silver fur" and Loeth blushed as the thought appeared in his mind, luckily for him it was hardly noticed thanks to his dark fur.

"Hey... Are you alright?" he asked her.

-Doesn't move much-

yea perfectly ok. been walking for god knows how many hour's in the heat. then had to take that death trap of a stair way. only to come cruising to the bottom on a stone slab that should have been part of the stairs. only to come to a sudden stop throwing me from my oh wonderful ride.

-her eyes closed-

if this wasn't going to pay so well i'd kill the guy in charge.

wonder how long it will be before the buzzards come.