Blurred Lines Mods (blurred_mods) wrote in blurred_lines, @ 2009-01-02 20:20:00 |
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4. 5.35pm The Death Eaters Arrive at the DMLE (cont)
Sitting up as best as he could he fought to breath again, looking at the other man as he was yelled at again by this person, this insane individual who once was his son as he frowned. "PROUD?" he yelled, voice cracking half way there as he looked at the boy a look of disgust on his face. "What have you ever done that would make me PROUD of you? You are a disgrace, associating with those people who sent those vile body parts to my wife!" he yelled his mind centered right now, only on the fact that the boy had joined up with the other person. "You want me to be proud of you? You're insane, you may be a better fighter than I had originally thought but that doesn't distract from the mere fact that you are associating yourself with killers," he spat out, glaring at the boy. He was angry, furious as he glared at the still laughing boy as he shook his head.WAVE 4
Leoben, Walden vs Akhil, Gawain
Walden had been waiting for this since October 31st and as he helped lead the way down the staircase he could feel his heart pounding against his ribcage. It wouldn't be long before the descended upon Azkaban to free their friends and family.
He glanced over at Ben quickly as they reached the second floor and without a word he pushed forward into the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. There were already groups sectioned off and fighting and Walden motioned for Ben to follow as he slid into the fray.
Ben's heart was pounding equally hard. But he was excited. As much as he would normally dislike something like this, the prospect of getting their people back was more than enough motivation to participate. He was right on Walden's tail, only pausing to pull his mask down and tighten the grip on his wand before he burst onto the floor.
Ben vs Gawain
Ben went after the first Ministry official he laid eyes on. No pulling punches on this one. "Confringo!" he hissed behind his mask, swishing his wand at the man.
Gawain was watching every door like a hawk and keeping an eye on his surroundings and co-workers as well. A swell of panic kept rising within him and he tried exceptionally hard to keep a positive outlook.
The two new Death Eaters entered the office and Gawain saw the smaller figure point his wand and he protected himself from the blast with a hurried blocking spell. He quickly countered with a body bind and prepared himself to fight the newcomer.
Ben dodged his own blasting spell as it was deflected back at him, and he only barely got a proper shield charm up in time to block the body bind. It had to be an auror, certainly. An experienced one at that. He bloody fast.
He silently sent a tripping jinx at him, hoping to slow him down enough to be able to use more effective... and painful spells.
The jinx caught his leg and he tripped up slightly, his balance wavering. His body threatened to give in and land in a pile on the floor but somehow he managed to right himself and he extended his arm in Ben's direction with another blasting curse. It seemed to be the popular choice between the two of them and who was he to switch things up? He stopped himself from glancing around the room to check on the others, especially Kate, and he kept his eyes locked on Ben.
Ben felt a stab of satisfaction as his spell connected and he raised his wand to give this one plenty to complain about. But he was slow and the blasting curse connected squarely with his ribs, sending him two meters back and crashing into a wall. Pain seared through his side and he was nearly positive a rib or four was broken, by the way his chest felt constricted.
Still, he half-grunted a shield charm to protect himself while he scrambled to his feet, vaguely dazed from his impact against the wall. His advantage lost, Ben settled for a distraction. "Incendio!" he said with a flick of his wand.
Gawain was satisfied with his work but the fire that poured from Ben's direction caused him to stagger slightly and he was more focused on keeping away from the fire than he was on Ben's injuries. He'd seen the other hit the wall and he knew the impact would have done some damage so he wasn't about to get up and walk away.
For the sake of Salazar, moving hurt. Enough to actually send a worm of anger and frustration though him. Ben was glaring daggers behind his mask and with every intention of making this man hurt, he all but growled "Crucio!", aiming for his chest.
Again Gawain blocked the attempt and his heart jumped at the near miss of the Unforgivable. He'd been hit with a Crucio once in his career and he never wanted to have to feel pain like that ever again. It was the worst feeling imaginable and after just a few moments he could imagine that even death would be a welcome interruption.
He quickly extended his ward arm again, his eyes locked on Ben's masked face. "Incendio!"
Ben's side made him slow, favouring the broken ribs as he tried to sidestep the flames. He was almost successful. Before he was entirely sure what had happened, the left sleeve of his robes were burning happily.
Which Ben was not happy about. He could smell his own sizzling skin as his heart jumped in his throat. Desperately, he beat at his arm, trying to put himself out. This was not going how he'd imagined.
Gawain reacted automatically when he saw Ben's sleeve catch flame and he fired a blasting spell at the Death Eater. He noticed the second Death Eater was involved in his own scuffle with Patil but he was keeping a close eye on his partner. Akhil seemed to be on the losing end of things and so Gawain kept one eye on Ben and the other on his colleague, planning to pull him away if necessary.
The flames were spreading despite his efforts, his beating more fanning the flames than smothering them. Immersed in his attempts to keep himself from being burned alive, the blasting spell caught him in the stomach. He crashed into the wall again, his head crunching sickly against a desk on his way back down. Ben was unconscious by the time he hit the floor, flames still eating away at his arm.
WAVE 5
Severus, Antonin vs Nicholas, Sebastian
Up until this point the fighting had been minimum, Severus knew. But they were about to reach the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, which were Aurors, and Hitwizards - in other words a bunch of angry hornets that were very likely to be infuriated at having their nest invaded. As the floor reached bottom and the inane woman's voice said, "level two, department of magical law enforcement", Severus mentally prepared himself for the necessity of taking out as many individuals as was possible to do quickly. Others had been sent in before him, so when the doors opened, he would be walking out into a battle field in office form.
The doors opened, and Severus grasped his wand tightly, ready for anything that might be thrown at him, and as he stepped out of the lift, he raised his wand at the first man he saw, an Auror approximately his height with brown hair. The Expelliarmus was shot silently, followed by a just slightly spoken incarcerous.
Sebastian had been confused, wondering why they were getting the alarms before they were informed of what was happening and then the lift opened and suddenly an spell shot past his head and he reflectively ducked out of the way, the second one missing him as well as he pointed his wand at the person who had stepped out. Shooting an Expelliarmus, only his was speaking, he followed it up with an Incendio before moving out of the way where he had been, not wanting to get in anyone's way.
Severus ducked the disarming spell, but was not amused with the fire that suddenly shot towards him, he ducked and quickly hissed Aguamenti to extinguish any possibility of fire from the bit of his robe that had been singed. Just as quickly he moved to the side, this time shooting a verbal impedimenta, and a still spoken, but much less loudly so furnunculus towards the other man.
He didn't want to cause the Auror great harm, but he was also not going to be particularly kind. Having been on the receiving end of a furnunculus at least once in practise, Severus knew how painful, and more importantly distracting said hex could be when presented with it in a combat situation. A flash of red light from the corner of his eye made him snap Protego, almost by instinct, and whatever the spell was, from whomever's wand it had originated, hit the shield and bounced into the wall.
Sebastian kept his eyes focused on the Death Eater in front of him, throwing up his own Protegoas quickly as he could before ducking out of the way of the second one, before casting a impedimenta back at the other man before he cast a deprimo a few seconds later, keeping on moving knowing that the first rule of battle was to never let your enemy pin you down. And he figured it worked for magical circumstances as well.
As it turned out, the first shield charm had been a rather useful coincidence, as Sebastian's impedimenta hit it, and that on the heals of the other charm, crumbled Snape's protego so that he was forced to do something resembling a dance move to avoid the deprimo that the Auror had sent his direction. It sped behind Severus, blasting a hole in the door to the men's toilets. Severus frowned, snapping densaugeo at the Auror, followed by incendio, and a stupefy that was not spoken out loud. Almost as quickly as he snapped off the hexes and spells, Severus realised he should have started with the stunning spell, halt the man, and then utilize the others, but there was no going back on that order right now.
Sebastian dropped to the ground as soon as he saw the spells, his hands not appreciating the motion of that but the spells flew over his head and he moved, legs going under him, crouching slightly. Standing up quickly, wand out he cast a furnunculus followed by a freezing charm and then a protego charm just in case, wanting to not get hurt in this.
The first spell flew just past Severus, missing him by mere centimetres, and he snapped a protego out before the freezing charm could hit him. It bounced off the shield, and Severus used that distraction to throw a blasting curse towards the Auror.
To be honest, he really just wanted to get the Auror stunned, roped, and finished so that he could move on to another one and hopefully soon enough they would reach their end goal so that they could get to Azkaban and go the fuck home. But such thoughts were not conducive to winning, so he shot the incarcerous at the Auror with a bit more venom than he might have otherwise done, hoping that it would catch him already.
Ducking away from the spell there he managed to stumble slightly and knock his leg against the desk, dead legging it and scraping it up but he could still move as he raised his wand and fired another incendio at the Death Eater.
Marius, Bellatrix vs Kate, Millicent, Gina
Gina didn't understand where they all could possibly be coming from. The stream of death eaters rushing onto the second floor seemed endless, and every time she managed to get one of them off her arse, they only seemed to be replaced by two more. This was ridiculous and horrifying and she technically wasn't even cleared for field work again yet because of her ankle injury, for which she was still supposed to be using the crutches that she'd tossed against the wall for support. In the long run, though, she supposed that in the long run, fighting for both the ministry and one's life outweighed the consequences of pulling oneself off of paperwork duty early.
Between attempting to help burn paperwork and fighting off the incoming waves of death eaters rushing in from the stairwell, Gina was running purely on adrenylin, attempting to dodge curses while sending out her own at the same time. Keeping her back up against the outer wall, she spotted another death eater with their wand raised, casting a silent Expelliarmus!, immediately followed by a binding spell in attempts to slow them up.
Kate had been in the toilets when the alarm went off, which was ridiculous timing and placement for such a thing to occur. Uncertain of why the alarm was going off, but certain that it could only be something bad, she'd ran from the woman's toilet, and apparently straight into a fight with bloody Death Eaters. They were seriously everywhere and Kate was having a difficult time keeping up. But adrenaline had kicked in and she was determined to not let herself slip as she had done at Hogwarts, even though this was maybe ten times as complicated - they were in a tiny place, the ways out were trapped, unless they could pull down the anti-apparation wards, and the spells were rebounding off of the walls around them, as well as those simply shot at them by a Death Eater - or two.
There weren't enough shield charms in the world to protect from all of the hexes being shot in the room, so Kate simply raised her wand at the Death Eater nearest her and shot a silent stupefy and then an incarcerous. Although the latter was spoken aloud, she felt anyone would have been hard pressed to have heard it over the din of spells being shouted, hexes hitting desks, and the walls.
Spells were flying in every direction as Marius followed close to Bellatrix. As was his style he was using far more offensive spells than defensive ones, and from somewhere an expelliarmus hit him squarely in the stomach sending him flying backwards. His wand skittered across the floor and hit the wall next to him. He narrowly dodged some spell or other that followed and groped for his wand, clasping his fingers around it and fighting off the splitting headache and the pain in his shoulder. Luckily it wasn't his wand arm and he raised his wand and fired a Cruciatus in the direction he though the Expelliarmus had come from.
A stray hex (or intentional; there were too many bodies and too many spells for Gina to deduce whom was firing what at whom) shattered against Gina's shield charm, lowering her defences just long enough for the Marius's Cruciatus curse to make contact. It was a moment that Gina would live to regret, the spell surging through her body, every muscle twisting and screaming in pain, and there was no amount of training or experience that could keep a crucio from aching like a bitch. The blinding pain faded after a few seconds -- perhaps the department being this crowded did have its benefits -- and Gina had control of herself again. Wand momentarily forgotten and despite physical dueling not being her forte, upon spotting her crutches laying in a heap up against the wall, Gina decided to wing it. Grabbing the handle of one of them, she put all her strength into slamming the end of the prop into the Death Eater who had hexed her's stomach.
The exhilaration of battle had pinked Bellatrix's typically porcelain cheeks and given her eyes a feral gleam. This is what she ached for - this vengeance - and to see it enacted upon these despicable people who deigned uphold 'law' and 'order', excited her to no end. She was the arm of Lord Voldemort, the battering ram of His great displeasure ...
And the magical ropes that went flying toward her fizzled in a quick gust of white-hot light. Please. She needed to keep her head and maintain a measure of control over her cohorts.
So when Gina swung her crutch out at Marius, she wheeled and uttered a vanishing spell. No need for him to get bruised up too terribly (though she supposed some wounding would make him look valiant and noble). A flourish of her wand and she turned on the ginger upstart with a curled lip, the Killing Curse so tempting on the tip of her tongue. But not yet. She wanted to play with her food ...
"Imperio!"
There were two of them, and Kate would have honestly preferred the two to one odds. She wasn't going to let Gina be out there by herself - and when she saw the unforgivable curse applied towards her colleague, she realised that her gloves needed to come off. Expelliarmus was all very well and fine, but simply disarming wasn't going to be enough. She pointed her wand at the taller of the two Death Eaters and shot Deprimo at the wall behind him. No doubt someone in the Ministry would absolutely hate that, but Kate could live with it- if someone was around to hate it, that would mean there was someone in the Ministry alive to hate it, and if it was going to the Death Eaters, then they could have it in pieces. With the Deprimo shot at him, she fired off a silent stupefy, and then a conjunctivitus curse that was not silent, but was at least still fairly quiet. She spun and shot incendio towards the other Death Eater, and then quickly cast Protego between herself and Gina and the Death Eaters, hoping she could duck or avoid any Unforgivables.
With Bellatrix next to him, Marius let her cast the unforgivable as he cast a Protego of his own, protecting the both of them. He followed it quickly with another Crucio, favoring the more painful spell, though holding off on the killing curse until Bellatrix was using them as well. A fire spell came toward him and was deflected but the Deprimo that hit above his head was not. Chunks of the wall shattered down on them, one of which hit his shoulder with a thud.
Dueling so frequently during school and since he had joined the Death Eaters had given Marius an above average tolerance to pain and he only used the ache to fuel his next few spells. He didn't know the woman he was pointing his wand toward but he didn't care.
The smell of ash clung to Millicent's hands, to her hair and clothes, clogging her nostrils every time she turned. She ignored it. It, like so many other things right now, was not important. There was nothing left, now, but to make them bleed as much as possible for everything they took.
She came out into the melee with wand ready and violence in mind, moving quickly - without even thinking, acting on instinct - to flank the first black-cloaked figure she saw. A wall exploded nearby, but Mill barely flinched, casting her blasting curse directly at the nearest Death Eater.
Whether it was the protego Kate called out or quickly rolling out of the way upon hearing the first syllables of the Imperius curse cried out, Gina dodged being hit by the spell by inches. She almost laughed in relief; getting hit was that one terrified her more than the cruciatus curse did.
Pulling herself up to her feet, Gina cast another binding curse out, this time at the Death Eater who had attempted to Imperius her. If the death eater wanted to see what it was like to be trapped and helpless in the middle of a battle, it was going to be done the legal way (where they could be taken off to prison once the fighting had finished.)
Marius had always been intrigued at the idea of hitting a person with a Deprimo spell and as he watched the ginger girl lift her wand toward Bellatrix he raised his own wand and sent one in her direction, before casting another Protego around himself and his step-mother. He had no worry that Bellatrix wasn't perfectly able to take care of herself in this situation but they would work better as a team.
Gina wasn't sure what had hit her at first -- there was a flash of blinding pain in her leg that sent her plummeting to the ground when she had only just managed to climb to her feet. Defence was momentarily forgotten; she only wanted to find out what the hell had just happened. The answer didn't take long to reveal itself: a small hole had been blasted clear through her lower leg, blood beginning to blossom out of the gouge. Severing the end of her robes hastily, she tied the scrap tightly around her leg in attempts to stop the bloodflow rushing to it (praying that it hadn't hit any arteries). Gina pushed herself quickly back up against a wall, hoping to avoid any more attacks hiting her from behind now that her movement was greatly diminished, and began firing off offensive hexes at the Death Eater who'd hit her, one after another.
The protective spell around him helped protect Marius from the barrage of hexes being sent his way, but as he was also distracted with sending more offensive spells toward the other two women who could still be seen. Something slashed across his arm just under where his shoulder had taken the brunt of the wall. The pain was becoming more prominent in his mind but he would not show weakness in front of Bellatrix and he would not let his father down. He was going to be a part of this. With renewed energy Marius begain sending slashing curses at all three women, one after the other. Kate was grateful that once again she'd cast a protego, and it caught off the first of the slashing curses, as she moved quickly to avoid another one. And it was at that point she realised that Gina had been injured, but she could hardly stop to think about it. She cast a finger removing jinx at the Death Eater that had harmed Gina, and followed it quickly with a stupify, she didn't want to see Gina hurt any further, and so she sent an impedimenta towards the other Death Eater, hoping to move them away from the two of them.
Millicent had joined them, and for a split second Kate didn't even think about Millicent as the Minister of Magic, but then it hit her that the Minister had joined them, and Kate followed up her jinxes, and her impedimenta with a few slashing curses of her own.
While Aurors were trained to battle until the end if need be, they were also taught that they should get out of the way if at all possible if they were becoming more of a hindrance than a help to the fight, which is exactly where Gina was feeling her place had become in this fight. She couldn't even stand up, let alone be helpful to Kate and Millicent in overtaking the two death eaters in this state. It was frustrating beyond belief, knowing that she had to fall back from the fight, but she didn't want either of the others to have to distract themselves from potentially protecting themselves while keeping an eye out for her.
Casting a shield spell around herself and keeping her back up against the wall, Gina slid along the ground and back through the door of the ladies lavatory. Hopefully she could get her leg fixed up and run back into the fray as soon as possible.
Casting Crucio three times for the three women with a vicious snap of her wand, Bellatrix gave Marius a tactical glance and spun her wand over her head like a lasso. A tongue of flame leapt forth from the tip, snapping at the other women as she attempted to literally herd them into the loo, where the space would be tight and they could be easily picked off.
The women's toilet? Marius had never planned on entering one. There were some thing a gentleman did not do. But that was where the women had gone and so he resisted the urge to protest as he also sent a fire spell in their direction. They would make easy targets stuck in a room he assumed was tiny. He hesitated for a moment before the door before shoving it open and casting a few blasting spells at the ceiling hoping to cave it in above them.
There was a lot of fire flying in to a very small enclosed space, as well as quite a few more people here now than there had been a minute ago. Casting another shield spell around herself, though, unfortunately distracted her from the collapsing ceiling above where she was stationed (hiding out inside one of the stalls, using the door as a shield between spells), several of the tiles crashing down into her makeshift hideout, and the door to the stall swinging off of its hinges. "Shit." Gritting her teeth against the still excruciating pain in her leg, Gina cast a stream of high pressure water from the tip of her wand, aiming it at the Death Eaters in attempts to put out the flames and hoping to blast them back. And what the hell, they were in the loo -- Gina concluded they might as well use the resources provided to them. She moved her aim down towards the sinks and cast a blasting curse at the sinks, the pipes exploding with more wild spurts of water, rendering any further fire spells pointless.
Kate was not thrilled about the fact that the Death Eaters had joined them in the toilets. Were they absolutely insane. Casting a shield between herself and Gina, she was mometarily pleased at the pipes exploding that Gina had thought up - of course that meant that now there was water going everywhere and the floor was decidedly more slick than she was comfortable with. She cast stupefy at the taller of the two Death Eaters, and followed it up with a blasting curse towards the wall directly behind the Death Eater. But she was worried - there was too little space and too much debris, and the blasting curses meant that pieces of wall and sink were flying everywhere and that increased the opportunity for them to be more injured. She cast another shield charm and then she pointed her wand at the water squirting from the pipes and tried (mostly successfully, although it wasn't something she did frequently) to push it into a straight stream towards the shorter Death Eater's face. She would see if the masks would protect from water in the eyes.
Rather than fighting all three of them at once, Marius had no qualms with leaving two to Bellatrix and pointing his wand at the ginger in the stall. Water began to stream in every direction which would nullify most fire spells, but there were plenty of other options available. After casting another shield charm, Marius cast an incantation which picked the hurt girl up in the air and slammed her hard into the ceiling. He flicked his wand again and her limbs shook like a rag doll as he crashed her into the tiles above again and again. He let the spell end as he cast another shield charm to protect himself and watched her fall.
Gina realised a little too late what spell the Death Eater had cast at her, and despite an almost manic flailing to grab hold of anything that would keep her from leaving the ground, she was yanked away, up out of the stall, smashing again and again into the ceiling. Tiles and dust and chunks of plaster rained down with every collision as water still sprayed through the room, and despite silently coaching herself "don't drop your wand, don't drop your wand," the third crash left her wand slipping from her hands and down into the rubble below. After that she lost count of how many times she hit -- it didn't matter in comparison, after all, to the pain that was shooting through her head and her body.
And then, for a brief fraction of a second, it stopped... until she plummeted through the air, landing hard on her side in the debris, something snapping loudly and painfully in her arm and her head smacking hard on the edge of the toilet. Catching her breath seemed an impossibility, her lungs burning from the surrounding dust and getting the wind knocked out of her. Maybe it was for the best. Maybe she could play dead and they'd go away.
Kate had joined Mill in a fight against one Death Eater, but she was distracted by Gina being sent against the ceiling. Kate was hardly a newbie - although she was more new to the department than Gina was -and she had been through several fights, but this sent fury through her limbs. It was this sort of thing that she hated about the Death Eaters, and she was pretty certain she didn't care any longer for playing fair.
After shooting a finger removing jinx at the Death Eater she and Mill were fighting, and casting a quick shield charm to protect her from that Death Eater, she turned her attention to Death Eater that had just sent Gina against the ceiling time and time again and without any hesitation she shot in quick succession a blasting curse, a finger removing jinx, and a furnunculus. If he was going to treat Gina that way, then he was not going to be given time to enjoy that feeling of power.
The girl was still lying motionless on the floor but Marius would not risk she could not continue to fight.
"Accio wand," he cast, and her wand shot from the rubble to his waiting hand. He shoved it in a pocket as he cast another shield charm. Several spells hit him at once, and though the shield could dampen most of it, it was always the damn blasting curses that got him in the end. It hit his shield with the weight of a carriage and knocked him back hard. "Bitch," he muttered under his breath before lifting his wand again. "Avada Kedavra!"
Kate really did not treasure having unforgivable curses flying at her, particularly killing curses, and it was nothing more than quick reflexes and the fact that she'd already made to move towards Gina that kept the curse from hitting her full on. As the green light just barely passed by her shoulder, causing something behind her to explode, Kate could only think that it was time to end this shit. She didn't particularly have time to consider how ridiculous it was that she was stuck in the women's toilets in the Ministry of Magic, with the Minister of Magic, and two Death Eaters, destroying the room, and fighting for their lives. No doubt later, the absurdity of the situation would sink in, but right now she could think only that if there were unforgivables afoot, they needed to get out of there.
She pointed her wand at the Death Eater. "Imperio."
They were not the only ones that could use unforgivables, she thought, and frankly, of the three of them, imperius was the one she was least likely to feel guilty about, particularly in this scenario. She cast a blasting curse at the other Death Eater, to help Mill out, and then protego, a shield charm around she and Gina, and Gina did not look particularly good. SHIT.
Everything was a blur for Gina. The sounds were bleeding together, a flood of unforgivables and explosions, and when she finally was able to force her eyes open, she was met with what actually did seem to be a flood. Water was still spraying everywhere, she had no idea how to get her wand back, and she couldn't bloody move as it was. She tensed up as she noticed someone move in closer to her, and was relieved once she realised it was Kate. "I don't think I can move, Kate, I don't... he has my wand.. is the Minister okay?"
"She's still moving," Kate said quickly, tensely, Gina had blood everywhere and Kate didn't want to think about how many bones might have been broken during the Death Eaters assault. She turned her hand around pointing the wand at the Death Eater and shooting Accio wand right back at him. They had to get out of here, and Kate had no idea how they were going to manage it. She hadn't actually expected the Death Eaters to follow them into the toilets and now they were trapped.
It was at that point she became aware of the sounds of people yelling in the other room. The wards were down? Could they Apparate? She glanced over at Millicent, who seemed to still be hanging on and Kate reached for Gina. If she could Apparate, she had no idea where was the best place to take her, but the shield charm wouldn't last forever, and it seemed that the Death Eater had a firm grasp on Gina's wand (fuck) and Kate didn't think they should hang around. She glanced over at Millicent and gave her almost an imperceptable nod, and determining on her flat, she grabbed onto Gina and with her wand, she tried to Apparate them both back to her flat praying that they wouldn't get caught in wards and be killed for the attempt.
Wards come down , DMLE runs
There was a feeling of relief when the wards broke that seemed physical as well as emotional, a sudden drop in the pressure in the air maybe; whatever it was Pepper didn't have time to contemplate it, as he was well aware of the scrapping going on outside. Ducking out of the small office, he allowed himself half a second to glance around the room in dismay at the scene. Something in him did not exactly want to make a target of himself by just yelling out that the wards were down-- and then that train of thought halted as he spotted Alana, much, much worse off than when he'd last seen her.
The pause had not been a good idea as he was jolted back into the big picture, rather efficiently in fact in the form of a blasting curse that Sebastian had just dodged. Stumbling backwards, he swore, red-hot pain lancing through his ribcage and radiating out across his torso and he had an uncomfortable feeling that his moment of inattention had probably just rebroken his ribs. It didn't matter, he'd deal with it later, Alana had more than broken ribs. "Apparate!" he snapped at Sebastian, half-running, half-limping past him and his Death Eater, skirting the mess to try to reach her and to make as many people aware of the ward loss as he could on the way. Hopefully the news would spread quickly, as he intended only to get to Alana and get the fuck out of here.
He spared himself a moment of amusement at the predicament of the Death Eater she was fighting but didn't stop moving, not this time. Objects in motion stayed in motion; the thought sprang into his mind unbidden, laws of momentum or some shit like that, it didn't matter, fuck, Death Eaters were in the Ministry and it didn't matter. Not giving this Death Eater time to hit him with anything, he grabbed Alana roughly, pulling her close to him and visualising his flat. Deliberation, determination, destination. Get us the fuck out of here.
Alana felt a strong, if frantic set of hands jerk her into temporary alertness. She had only a split second to register that she was being held before she experienced the suffocating compression of Apparation. When the sensation faded, the terrible noise of the battle was gone and replaced by someone's hampered breathing, a heartbeat, and a soft, gurgling cry of pain that she recognised as her own. Her head spun like a carousel careening out of control and she succumbed to sleep, or something like it. Her last thought was the comforting and sudden impression of safety as her blurring eyes took in a rather familiar head of dark, curly hair.
Were the wards down? Leon heard a familar crack, and dashing (well, limping) back to the door confirmed his suspicions. It was time to get the hell out. Briefly he wondered whether he'd ever see this department again, but there were more pressing matters to attend to. Where the hell should he take Kingsley? St. Mungo's was probably not a good idea -- if the Ministry had fallen to the Death Eaters, who knew where else had? His colleague clearly needed a Healer, but they would have to get somewhere safe first. Leon's flat was out, he couldn't apparate into it and besides, he didn't really fancy explaining this to his girlfriend. His childhood home floated into his head, and in lieu of any other ideas, he grabbed Kingsley's arm and turned on the spot. Home. His mum was a dab hand with a bandage, at least.
The wards were down and it was time to go. Hacking through the dense layers of magic had been a process of intense focus interrupted by wary glances thrown over his shoulder -- the result of nerves and the fear that the battles occurring outside the cramped office would surge in and interrupt them in their slashing of the wards.
As Pepper sprinted out and the cracks of disapparition began to riddle the background clamor, Frank turned to Alice. "Staying or going?" he asked. Battle through the mess in the Ministry and help evacuation, or get out and start alerting the Order.
It had taken far longer than Alice would have liked for the wards to come down, and she had been concentrating on the singular task of dismantling them for so long that she wasn't certain of what she had planned to do once they could actually leave. She peered out the door -- DMLE were leaving in swarms. "We should go," she said quickly, but thoughts of her colleagues who might be injured made her bite her lip. "No one's been left here injured, have they?"
With a shakily expelled sigh, Frank turned, leveling his gaze in the same direction as Alice's. He was not one to lose his cool in combat situations, and the skirmish with the vampire had been relatively easy to deal with -- but this was the Ministry of Magic, and the infestation of the followers of Voldemort was tearing it down before their very eyes. He was on edge and more than a little torn between the two responsibilities he and Alice had decided to shoulder.
"I don't know," he said, very quietly. And he didn't, for the last auror he'd seen among the chaos outside of this room was Jo, and she'd been fine. But what about the others -- what about their friends who were not in law enforcement?
"We've got to trust the others to evacuate the injured," he finally bit out, sounding more resolute than he felt.
"Perhaps if the Order knows, something more can be done," Alice said in agreement. She felt as though she was saying this out loud to convince herself that leaving would be the right thing to do, partly because she did not want to go out and fight. She had been grateful to have been shuffled to the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office and fiddle with wards. And now, with everyone disapparating, it seemed as though all was lost.
"Aside from that, we don't know where they'll go next... It'll be best to get the warnings out." She sounded resolute, too, and tried not to let the reality of what was happening crash in on her, otherwise, she wouldn't be able to remain composed. Alice didn't bother offer Frank a smile, she just looked him in the eye, feeling the gravity of the situation.
Her gaze was met and held for a moment -- not long, because they didn't have time to spare; but it certainly felt it as they came to their unanimous decision -- and then he ducked his chin in a single, short nod, and turned away from the door, from the battle they were losing, and from colleagues that could be in need.
If the Ministry had fallen, then the Order now came first.
"Okay," he said. A deep breath in -- and then he was gone.
Alice watched her husband disapparate and suddenly felt a moment of panic and uncertainty. Were they doing the right thing by leaving? But what Frank thought was true -- the Ministry was nothing now, it was in chaos. They had to focus on the Order. She didn't waste any more time before disapparating with a crack.
Shouts from the outer room did nothing to calm Lach's increasingly tense nerves. Well, if this was going to be it then he was not going to be caught off guard hovering over a bleeding patient. "Sit up," he said, releasing Elle as soon as he felt she wouldn't tumble to the floor. He wiped at more blood trickling into his eye and started toward the locker room door, clenching and unclenching his wand until it felt firm in his grasp. Whoever came through that door first was getting an incision hex right to the face.
The sound when he reached the door was not one of victory, however, but frantic movement. '... on the run!' he thought he heard, followed by loud popping noises. Someone must have dismantled the wards around the floor. "Finally." Prepping himself to apparate out, he caught Elle's figure out the corner of his eye. Right. The Oath. If they were caught before he managed to get the both of them out of there then he was going to kill Abercrombie himself.
Rushing to her side, Lach slipped his arm around her back and attempted to coax her to stand. "Time to go, lassie."
Elle swayed dangerously, but managed to grip onto the bench with her good arm to steady herself. She wanted to watch him go, but she couldn't turn her head for fear of the room spinning into darkness. Was this it? There was no way she could apparate out like this. He came back to her, and she looked up to him in confusion. Go? She went to stand, but the movement was too much, and the world spun so quickly the colours all seemed to combine until there was nothing but black, and her body crumbled into Kirke's arms.
Damn it all to Nessie! Lach stumbled back a step as the full force of Elle's weight dropped agaisnt him. "Elle, Elle!" It was no good. Nothing was going to wake her up at the moment and if he continued to shout then the cloaked men were just going to rush in there and find them. Despite the threat to just leave her there to whatever fate had planned, he reaffirmed his grasp on the unconscious auror and listened to his better conscious. Not knowing whether or not Mungo's had also succumbed to attack, Lach held Elle closer to himself and prepared to apparate to his flat in Ayr. "You owe me a shag for this." Within two seconds they were gone.