Permafrost: Thunderbird

Chapter 25: Conflicting Confronts

⭐️Chapter 25: Conflicting Confronts

The Infernos and co were still wandering the halls at the same time the Wave Crashers were. Of course, they were in different areas at the moment, but that didn't matter. What mattered was Bird, and later the other experiments if nothing bad happened along the way. They didn't make a plan for nothing. As each pair walked down their respective halls, they glanced nervously at the sides, hoping to find some door that could lead to Bird...but most of them were either numbered, labeled without a number, or just plain blank.

There were sometimes small descriptions underneath the rooms like "feather tester experiment" or "shark jaws + scales experiment", but nothing about a Thunderbird project. Sometimes even scientists would walk out of the doors or turn corners, and each duo found themselves hiding behind potted plants in the hall, or leaping into a nearby vent grate. No sign of security cameras yet, but perhaps there were some in the rooms or near more important areas. Regardless, each member had their weapon ready for covering it when they could. They'd decided to not fully destroy or disable cameras yet so the scientists wouldn't catch on as quickly.

This was a little harder than they thought, but...

She had to be here somewhere.

-----

The Wave Crashers' chat from before soon came to a stop as they happened to come across a room attached to the hallway they were currently in. From it, 4 different paths branched out in different directions. Thrash looked back at the group.

"Split up?" Thorne asked.

"Split up," Thrash ordered.

And like that, the other three had gone down different paths without question. This left Fang on his own to either go down the other path or just...wander around. He sighed as he made a move for the last path, having nothing else better to do...

-----

Ryn and Silvia were carefully examining the doors and their labels for any signs of Bird. So far nothing had come up, and because these experiments didn't seem to be ordered by the type of creature or thing they were, it made it all the more difficult. As the duo examined one particular sign involving colorful birds, a gruff voice pierced the silence of the halls.

"Well, well. If it ain't the cheater and her little friend."

Both girls spun around to find Thrash looking at them complacently, grinning from ear to ear while also giving them a bit of a glare. Upon inspecting him further, the two also noticed the amount of equipment he had on him. Dang, how did he get all that gear? Did he suck up to or smooth talk someone in the lab? Did he steal it like he stole the Rinkling weapons? Well, either way it didn't matter.

"You and your goons took Bird, didn't you?" Silvia snapped, going straight to the point.

"Give the girl a prize...though it's not like you'll need it when I'm finished with you both," Thrash chuckled.

"You're such a sleazy jerk, you know that?! All we ever wanted to do was have fun, but you just insist on pursuing us..." Silvia retorted. "Do you even have anything better to do?"

"Oh am I now? What does that make you, an angel who could do no wrong? Besides, you and your team are the only interesting people in town, everyone else is too weak to put up a fight and already bursts into tears at the thought of even confronting us!" Thrash exclaimed.

"Hah! In your dreams, salty boy," Silvia spat.

"Don't excuse yourself from bein' salty when you know perfectly well that YOU get salty too!" Thrash spat back.