Ettie's refusal to cooperate is infuriating, foolish, and most of all, dangerous. Ananke can't help but blink incredulously at this man, who probably knows nothing about fighting the infected, acting like he's going to take charge and have it end well. "First off, I am not leaving this place until the operation is over, and if either of us try to run around alone, we will die. Second-" But it's too late. Ettie has already turned around and started to move.

Again.

Towards danger.

Like a moron.

"Wait!" Barking out her orders gets her nowhere, so she sprints just past him and juts her arm out in front. Not the smartest move to do to a man with a gun, but she has armor and he's probably not willing to shoot his only possible ally, so Ananke is willing to take the risk. "You don't understand how this works. You will never, and I guarantee you, will never kill an infected horde by yourself. It takes support. It takes teamwork. It takes experience. And if you run in there alone, you will have none of those things." Even the one from before didn't die until Ananke and half a dozen of her teammates had gunned it down.

"If a military soldier that's killed dozens of them before can't survive by themselves, what makes you think you will? Now, you can cooperate, and do as I say, and I can keep you alive. I can even get you to an exit if you want to leave so badly. But you have to listen to me, because I guarantee I know how the Infected work better than you do." It's not a brag, it's a fact. For every civilian in these walls, today is a nightmare. For her, it's every day. She rides out, kills infected for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and comes back home every day to wash off the blood and grime. And men like Ettie, with their big guns and bigger egos- they never understand.

This is why she hates dealing with civilians.

He cooperates- barely. Ananke can't tell where this man gets off being so confident when they're surrounded by monsters and one wrong move away from dying, but fine. If he wants to lose a dick-measuring contest with a woman, far be it for Ananke to stop him. At least now they can move as a passable unit, long enough for him to get out of her hair. At this point, she's tempted to 'let' him escape just so there's no chance of her having to deal with him afterwards.

(Besides, he's technically Criminal Activity's problem, not hers.)

"Of course, sir. I'm sure that's very important to you," she says in a rare moment of snark.

Their journey through the hallways is tense, but initially uneventful. The thundering of footfalls and gunshots above mask their sound slightly, but also that of any infected they might come across. Considering the latter's sense of hearing, Ananke makes sure to move slowly and carefully. Their corners are clear. There are no oddly moving shadows in the distance.

But then the sounds fade momentarily- a reprieve in the fighting above?- and before they pick up again, the specialist hears something echoing a few meters ahead. Something is being dragged against the floor. It's too light to be a body... She recognizes this particular pattern of noises, but it's interrupted, as if every fourth beat were interrupted.

Feral, Ananke mouths to Ettie. She tries to gesture the meaning with one hand. Twenty meters. Injured. She can't risk speaking out loud lest it hear her, but she can't imagine the man knows the usual military call signs.

Whether or not the man understands her, he at least can read the situation enough not to charge in immediately. Good. Maybe they won't both die here horribly after all. With both of them positioned on either side of the opening, they'd each be able to get a clear shot of the monster.

She switches hand signals, just in case, counting down her fingers to the moment when she wants both of them to go in. There's a dozen thoughts running through her head, but she narrows it down to one idea- whatever is down the other end of that hall, it is not human and therefore must be eradicated. That's her mission. That's her objective. Even if her life is threatened- or this civilian's- their lives are outweighed by those of the Stronghold.

Three seconds. Three signals. Three deep breaths.

Go.

Ananke goes first. She rounds the corner, gun raised to eye level. The infected is there, like she'd thought. It's back left leg is snapped at the ankle. Even if it charges at them, it won't make it in time so long as she doesn't miss.

She pulls the trigger.

There's a multitude of lessons that have been drilled into Ananke as a member of the Nest Elimination team. The first and foremost is to never, ever let your guard down. Not when the infected gets shot. Not when the infected goes down. Not until its head is rolling or its heart is torn out by the roots. So when the thing they're shooting gets right back up and lunges at her and Ettie, Ananke is ready for it. Granted, she still has to dodge and reposition herself, circling around, but she manages to keep her wits about her at least.

The same can't be said for the blonde. Tch. Panicking. Classic rookie mistake. His struggling isn't in vain, however, because it's enough to give Ananke a few precious seconds to act. She could shoot at it, and at this close of a range, that would mean certain death for it, but a certain someone did just warn her about the dangers of friendly fire...

So instead, she opts for the knife. As the infected goes reeling from the hit to its head, Ananke swoops in from above and drives her dagger into the chest cavity left behind by their earlier bullets. The sudden spike of pain causes the creature's body to lurch and writhe, but Ananke keeps an iron grip on her knife. That split second of pain and distraction is all she needs to twist her blade and carve its heart into two. For good measure, she saws the dagger back and forth, jerking it through flesh and bone and muscle to rip the vulnerable organ into shreds.

As soon as it's done, the specialist frees her blade and retreats as far as the hallway will allow her, not willing to stay in close quarters for too long.

It's dead. At least, it should be. But Ananke knows not to simply assume.

(Rule number one.)

The infected stops moving, and from this distance, Ananke can see its chest cavity, torn up and carved out by her own blade. Its heart is exposed and cut into pieces, rupturing in blood and bone from the hole that Ananke made for it. It's dead now. Good as the creatures are at faking it, no amount of pretending will make up for the fact that one of the two major organs it actually needs to survive is now eviscerated.

Not the cleanest way to do it, but a kill is a kill.

The man doesn't seem impressed. “Who's the most savage, I wonder: Infected, or Military?” And to be fair to him, Ananke is harrowing sight like this. Dripping blood and viscera, her helmet shielding her from the worst of the blood and the rest of the world from the worst of her. People have looked at her before like a monster in her own right. They wouldn't be wrong to do so.

"Does it matter?" The specialist answers, blasé as anything. She wipes her dagger clean on her own arm before sheathing it again. It shouldn't matter, so long as he's alive. That's all a civilian like him needs to worry about, isn't it? "This way," she grunts, not bothering with signals this time; they've made more than enough noise that if another infected were coming, it would have come for them by now.

Ananke rolls her eyes as the man vocalizes his displeasure; it seems that beating one of these things is enough to get his ego inflating, enough that he feels confident shooting off his mouth instead of his gun. It's a good thing her helmet covers most of her face, or he might see it, get offended, and kick up even more of a fuss. "Yes, that sounds about right," she admits plainly, almost absent-mindedly. When these people have their mind made up about you, there's very little point in trying to change it, so the specialist tends not to bother. They usually shut up after you agree with them, because they expect you to argue and have no responses prepared otherwise. So what if he doesn't like the military? What would he do about it? Annoy her to death? Leave himself one gun short and all the more likely to die?

Unlike him, the specialist is more concerned with finding a way out instead of getting her verbal licks in. She keeps searching, sweeping along the hallways as procedure suggests, until suddenly she realizes the man has fallen behind.

Rather than deciding to rebel against his oppressive military ruler, however, he has a suggestion instead. Ah, helpful. Maybe. “The Spades have a side entrance they use to cart their cargo in and out of here. But knowing them, it's hidden."

Well, doesn't he seem familiar with the area. Though that makes sense, considering he's probably a patron, and regularly visiting a place does tend to make you more familiar with it. "Fine then," she relents. "If you're so sure there's one here, you can lead the way in looking for it." He could be lying, but there's no point in wasting both of their time, when such a decision could easily lead to both of their deaths. As long as they stick together, it'll minimize the chances of them getting separated and picked off individually.

Following and leading don't feel like very different concepts to Ananke. Sure, the jobs and responsibilities of each position are different, but at the end of the day, when a unit is dispatched onto the field, there are people above you who you need to follow and people below you who will suffer if you don't perform the way you're expected to. You all move as one. You all end up in the same place. If an infected gets the best of you, you all die. Fighting about who gets to call the shots is inconsequential in comparison to that.

Likewise, the specialist doesn't particularly care who's in front and who's behind, provided and the arrangement doesn't result in her dying, so sure. Let the man go in front. "Enjoy it while it lasts," she says flatly. It's not a threat. Whatever tenuous partnership they have, it's bound not to last long, with the raucous above gradually fading out. She has confidence that her team, at the very least, isn't dead. The folks at Criminal Activity, however...

Well, she'll find out soon enough.

Soon being however long it takes for the man to find his so-called secret passage. Ananke lets him look, but takes care to cover their flank while he holsters his gun to check the wall. One bated breath later- and the concrete gives way. Well, aren't the Jabberwocky full of surprises.

Unlike the blonde, Ananke is above sprouting snarky remarks even if things are going her way. Instead she obediently closes the passage behind her before readying her firearm again. If he wants to take his turn being the shield, so be it. "If there are, then hope our trigger fingers are faster than theirs," she mutters instead, readjusting her grip just to be sure.

When he's not making sarcastic quips or complaining about the military, the blond man moves surprisingly well for a civilian. He doesn't get particularly disoriented by the dark or make any moves that would draw attention from an infected- at least, an inattentive one. If in another lifetime, he'd been drafted into the military, he might have made a capable soldier. A capable soldier being one who could shoot and march and throw a good punch or two- something tells Ananke that the 'following orders' part would prove significantly harder for him.

He turns to her, says that the exit must be closer. With her helmet and limited information, the specialist is skeptical, but with nothing to work off of, it's either take his word for it or not. "Lead the way then," she intones. "Unless you're getting cold feet about it." There could be anything waiting for them on the surface. In a worst case scenario, the Jabberwockies wouldn't even be their biggest problem- that'd be the Infected running amok. But the man had insisted on being in front this time, so who is she to try to convince him to relinquish the position?