Phase 2: Out of the frying pan and into the fire!

With the first floor obliterated, it only stood to reason that the super weapon CEDIT's intel spoke of was somewhere on the lower floors. The infiltration had gone well, but almost too easy... Certainly, the next floors down would be better defended. Why wouldn't they put their toughest defenses on the first floor? You supposed a trademark of most terrorist groups was that they treated their lowest ranks as pretty expendable.

"The elevator is toasted," Au Revoir pointed out. She'd pushed the elevator button at some point, causing it to screech up. Now that the door finally opened, it stuck halfway, then the entire thing came loose and skid back down the shaft, spewing sparks that could only contribute to the already sizable flame you folks had already started. New York City was going to need to call in a real fire squad after this mission wrapped up...

"I don't think we were exactly making a stealth approach before, but I'd say we've lost any chance we had at netting a Silent Assassin on this stage." Despedida pulled a tiny spy drone from her hip pocket and released it into the air; the tiny white orb seemed to float, unhampered by its lack of any obvious means of propulsion. Slowly, it made its way across the room, scanning for any hidden passages. "It's got nada. We've gotta either take the stairs or the elevator shaft."

The stairs were probably a death trap at this point. You decided on the elevator shaft... at least that flaming wreckage a moment ago ought to have scared any stragglers off. "Ooooh, I concur, New Ciao. If we rappel down, I will get a good arm and shoulder workout!" Au Revoir patted one of her biceps with a big grin.

That wasn't chief among your concerns, but this wouldn't be the first elevator shaft you'd descended as a CEDIT agent. It just might be the most dangerous...

Au Revoir led the way down the dark elevator shaft, while Despedida's drone lit the space in front of her. Despedida climbed behind you in the darkness, no longer wearing those special gloves, which now dangled on a clasp at the end of her over-sized jacket. The air smelled thickly of smoke, with that major mechanical malfunction of an elevator having sped through the space in front of you. It surely didn't seem like a safe place to spend a lot of time.

As you continued descending, you saw Au Revoir pick up speed, swing through one of the doors, and disappear. Shouting followed, then two gunshots. The Frenchwoman emerged soon enough, covered in a new coat of red and beaming. "Took care of that for you two!"

"Oh yeah?" Grinning in the darkness, Despedida had her drone fly down the shaft in front, taking its light with it. Your group stopped for a moment... then watched as a set of lasers shot from the drone's camera eye, slicing through a door. From behind it, a red-robed Deliverer's body fell, then tumbled into the elevator shaft below, thudding in the darkness. The camera returned to its place and restored your light. "He he he. That's what campers get."

Gulping, you decided to leave the theatrics to the two of them. You didn't have a way to murder enemy combatants out of the blue like they did. What was wrong with an old fashioned service pistol...?

As the descent dragged on and on, you felt your arms growing tired. You sensed Despedida was in the same boat as you and heard her panting just above you. Au Revoir barely seemed winded at all and still chatted happily, even as her two allies became increasingly incapable of responding to her.

Things couldn't stay smooth sailing forever. As you cleared what felt like it must be the hundredth subterranean floor and finally spotted the lit entrance of some underground laboratory (as well as the fallen body of the Deliverer from earlier), a new figure emerged. This one looked a little different than the others... they wore something like a red hazmat suit, covering their entire body, with a featureless, dimly lit rectangle where the face ought to be. The whole thing was covered in black tubes, all connecting back to a huge flamethrower pack on their back. To that flamethrower pack was connected... a really huge flamethrower. "CEDIT dogs." The figure barked irritably in a muffled voice only vaguely recognizable as a woman's, then pointed its flamethrower's nozzle upward. "Die!"

Au Revoir was all the way down at the bottom... as you and Despedida flung yourself into the door one story above the attacker and flames shot up through the shaft, you worried about the fate of the largest of the three of you. Thankfully, the woman's huge hand clasped onto the floor behind you two, then dragged in the rest of the woman, grinning from ear to ear. "Ha! Easily dodged, easy!" She stood up and proudly pressing her hands to her hips.

This laboratory area where you all had deposited yourselves was dark; Despedida's light illuminating it made it seem as though it was probably abandoned. Not that it mattered... the super weapon was surely down below you with that hulking Deliverer boss you'd caught a glimpse of.

... Unfortunately, that little drone wasn't the only source of light in the area. "Uuuuuuuh... Yo!" Despedida pointed behind Au Revoir, towards something you couldn't see from your angle. "Yo yo yo!"

"Hm?" The big woman turned around; you realized the tip of her long, braided ponytail was on fire, rapidly spreading to the seat of her pants. "Oh, that is a small problem."

A small problem? The way that fire was spreading, she'd look like a giant torch in just a minute! You realized you had little time to react and save her. "The drone!" Despedida urged. You had the key, so you were the only one that could activate the team's fire response drone to stop the spread of the flames.

You could use the drone... but was that really the right move? After all, if you used it now, you wouldn't have it to help you whenever you encountered that huge pyromaniac again.