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Date & Time: Backdated to 10/13; evening
Location: Manchester, UK @ 2am
Characters: Charlie Cutter & Tempest
Format: Tempest and Charlie on a mission to fetch supplies for the medbay
Warnings: Swearing and skullduggery

In the grand scheme of things, finding a medical supply warehouse had taken a sight more digging through the absolutely massive list of records on hand through the AI that it would've been to simply target a hospital and be done with it, but there was something off putting about lifting equipment out of the places it was actually needed. Steal a box load of syringes from a warehouse and someone just needs to place a new order; jack them from a hospital and someone's personally been fucked.

It does mean going in blind though - Charlie's not willing to spend the extra day on the ground to do the usual recon work he'd usually insist on. Finding things like building plans, identifying which security systems they'll have to disable and what kind of people they have walking the ground itself is going to be somewhat of a 'fly by the seat of their pants' sort of thing, but everything else has been as well researched as he could manage. He's certain pulling a few boxes, a few stone of equipment from this particular warehouse won't make a difference to anyone in the grand scheme of things. Someone might get chewed out for leaving a door unlatched, but as far as time travel fallout goes, this is as minimal impact as he can think to make it. Besides: it's bloody Manchester. Charlie can almost guarantee this won't be the first time someone's busted in.

The transporter drops him and Tempest off some fifteen miles from the actual location. "Oh for fuck's sake," is the first thing out of Charlie's mouth when they hit the ground and he realizes its gone off a touch wrong. He's slightly nauseous from the jump, pale - though that may be because it's full winter here, everything icy and drab and grey as the smoke rising in the distance from the factory district.

All that careful planning and now they've got to hot wire a car.

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"Realist, not pessimist, love." She counters, in her best impression of his accent. Hell, but she really was picking up on his damn pet names. Dammit.

She heaves a sigh and keeps an eye out for any of those cameras anyway, fingers twitching in the confines of Charlie's borrowed coat. Does he really think walking right in the front is a good idea? She couldn't think of a worst idea, save for maybe trying to get another car once they were done.

"Are we climbing the fence, or are you really planning to just walk in?"

There's no hiding that distinctly derisive tone to the question, but Charlie does his best to ignore it anyway. "No, we're not just walking in," he says, tone tight despite himself. "We'll take a nice little walk round the far side of the lot and hop the fence from there."

They haven't got time to fully case the place, but there's nothing stopping them from walking the perimeter - especially since, so long as they've got sharp eyes, she can take out any cameras they might theoretically have posted before someone gets a good look at them.

"Oh, good," Tempest relents, and there's no sarcasm in the answer for once. "I certainly hope it is, at least, warmer outside." Because even if she's alert for cameras or guards or what-have-you, it was still fucking cold and the next time she went on a mission she was bringing heavier clothes.

"No guarantees," he says - which is true enough; more than likely, the warehouse hasn't got any kind of central heating. Though for her sake he adds quickly enough: "You can hold on to the jacket for now though. Just mind the tear in the sleeve, would you? I don't want it getting worse."

It doesn't take long to make their way back to the warehouse in question. Charlie slows his pace to an amble, sticking to the shadow cast by the fence itself. He pauses entirely in a dark spot, going momentarily quiet. There's a camera near the main gate leading into the lot itself. He reaches out, catching his knuckles against her shoulder amicably enough. "There. Light 'er up, my darling."

"I will care for it as if it were my own." Which . . . well, she does take good care of anything that keeps her warm, at least. So Charlie's jacket is safe.

At Charlie's signal she grins a bit, and a few murmured Elven words later, lightning is once again raining down on the poor camera. It shorts out quickly, and the lights near it flicker for a few moments before staying on. "There you go, dear."

There's a split second where Charlie throws her a proper grin and then the moment's over and he moves forward, all shoulders, toward the gates of the warehouse. He pauses just under the camera, glancing in through heavy chain link gate and giving what he can see of the lot inside a thorough once over. The loss of the camera doesn't seem to have drawn anyone out, which seems to suggest a short handed staff (or a lazy one), which is good enough news for him to skirt along the length of the gate to the corner of the lot and around. Charlie keeps an eye out for cameras as he goes, but thirty paces along the side of the perimeter and he doesn't see anything like a second camera.

Which means here's a good a place as any to go over; if there is any staff on the ground, they'll hopefully be keeping an eye on the front now that the camera's out. Taking a step back, Charlie surveys the high paneled fence. He throws Tempest a sidelong glance.

"Don't suppose flying's in your roster, is it?"

Charlie will hear her sigh before she answers, which pretty much answers the question. "Sadly, no." She gives the top of the fence a good, long look. That was going to be a bitch to climb. "I almost regret not ever bothering to learn it. Not a spell really found in my, ah, particular system."

She could go into specifics about that, but she'll save that for after they get in and out of the building. It wasn't a spell she ever had a need for, anyway. Until now, that is. She glances back to Charlie, eyebrow raised. "What material is the fence made of? I could try to melt it." Because fire was always an option in Tempest's mind.

Bother. --But the fire might be an option. Frowning, Charlie raps his knuckles on the paneling. "Well it's not aluminum. Suppose it could be some kind of compressed plastic." In which case burning it would reek like a real motherfucker, but maybe if she has the right sort of spell in her arsenal. Some kind of flash fire or something that burned especially hot...

"It might work, though I'd recommend being quick about it."

Tempest kneels down and presses a hand against the paneling, frowning thoughtfully. She could be quick about it for sure, however it would also be loud and would draw a lot of unwanted attention.

"Well." She says after a long moment, sitting back on her heels. "I do not know how long it would take without attempting it first." She presses a hand against the paneling and calls up her spell in her mind. While she could control the intensity of her fire magic, well . . . she had no idea what this stuff was or how quickly it would burn. The space between her hand and the panel begins to glow, though, as the spell kicks in. The next thing she says is in a joking, but distracted tone, what with her concentration on what she's doing.

"If this does not work, I could just throw you over the fence and hope you land on your feet."

"Broken my ankle enough times, thanks," he says in return, chipper enough as the paneling under her hand starts to fizzle and-- yup, there's that awful smell. "If you can't burn straight through it, try just weakening a few points - I'll see if I can't put my foot through it instead."

Though the noise of that wouldn't be terrible subtle.

"I would heal it for you." She counters, glancing up with a brief grin before turning her attention back to melting the panel. She doesn't really hear what he says next, though, putting more concentration on intensifying her spell to burn through it faster. As it starts to melt she draws her hand back a bit so it doesn't get on her, and Charlie will be able to see the spell itself - though there isn't much to see, just a small ball of fire hovering just in front of her palm.

Between a year in Exsilium and some pretty substantial nerd cred, getting a proper look at the spell isn't exactly world shattering stuff - though he won't turn the opportunity down. The smell's horrendous, though in the grand scheme of things it's probably less likely to draw attention that smashing through it would be. Hell, burning their way through might actually be more covert than scaling the fence.

--So long as now one comes down this side street anyway, as there's nothing terribly dim about a ball of fire. Charlie shoots a glance up and down lane, mentally counting off the time it takes for her to burn through the paneling.

With the spell burning hotter, it doesn't take long for her to burn the entire way through. Though once that's done, there's a matter of making a hole big enough for both of them to fit through. She shifts so she's sitting properly on her knees and brings her other hand up, another spell appearing in that hand so she can work twice as fast.

"Watch the sleeves," he mutters, eying the nearness of the leather jacket's cuffs to her hands and, consequently, the twin balls of flame. But it's really more useless fussing than it is anything terribly constructive.

"I said I would be careful with it." She mutters back, half-amused and half-exasperated. If only he knew who important warm garments were to her.

A few more minutes pass before she lets the spell fade, and she stands up, dusting off her pants before kicking in the center of the panel she was burning around. It falls easily, revealing a hole big enough for them to crawl through.

"Gentlemen first." She gestures dramatically.

"Oh, lovely." And while he'd rather not have to get on his hands and knees for this nonsense, that's probably asking for more than is really polite. So down he goes, popping his head in through the hole in the paneling. He pauses before going any further, listening hard for anyone the crack of the weakened perimeter might've drawn near.

But it's quiet same the hum of some nearby electrical work, and so Charlie shifts his shoulders sideways and squirms through to the other side. He's quick enough to get to his feet once through, dusting himself off as he looks around the lot. After a beat, Charlie leans back down to offer her a hand through the fence line.

'Gentleman' is right.

Tempest gives the hand a surprise look, glancing at it, then up at Charlie. But, she takes the offered hand and climbs through the hole, careful of his jacket, before she climbs to her feet and once again dusts herself off.

"It is rather quiet here . . . " She says once she takes a look around, frowning.

"And this would be why you hit the middle man." He makes a broad gesture clearly meant to indicate the lot as a whole. Dead quiet, even after blowing out a security camera and burning a bloody hole through their perimeter. If that's not beautiful, Charlie doesn't know what is. None of this breaking into hospitals and dealing with their tight security bullshit; no sense in making the job more difficult than it has to be.

"Come on, there'll be a fuse box round here somewhere. We'll find it and cut their power which should override any heavy security they've got on the place." With a welcome like this, he can't imagine they're running any kind of state of the art alarm system. Wasting the electricity should leave them a reasonably clear shot, locked doors not withstanding.

And locks? Oh, he can do locks.

"I haven't an idea what a middle man is, but cutting the power seems like a lovely idea." Just because she's researched cameras and the like didn't mean she was keeping up on modern terminology. There was a reason she hadn't texted Charlie any stupid questions lately.

Although . . . "If we happen to run into guards, how shall we handle them?"

"Non-lethally would be my suggestion," said in a way that makes it clear it's more a rule. They've been careful about everything thus far and he's done too much research for them to risk killing off the grandad of some future Prime Minister or Nobel Peace Prize winner or whatever.

Charlie makes his way along the fence line, trusting her to follow. "We're looking for some kind of power box - it'll either be a big massive crate like thing with a plastic cover, or a small box with a bunch of wiring going into it." His bet's on the former (bloody Manchester), but you never be too sure with these retrofitted buildings.

"That much goes without saying." She knew better than to kill on a mission. Besides, it wasn't as if they'd done anything to her to deserve it.

She follows along, a step behind him, looking for what he's describing. She knew about the boxes that held power (she'd read about them!) but she wasn't sure if any of those fit what Charlie had just given her. Stupid modern tech and its stupid . . . boxes, she guessed. "Would it be connected to the building, or out by itself?"

"Could be either - lines might be run mostly underground."

As they go along, Charlie makes an absent attempt at flipping the collar of his pullover sweater up round his neck, zipping it to the top in a lame attempt to keep some heat in. He works his hands in and out of fists, brings his hands up to huff a hot breath of air across his knuckles; the sooner they can get indoors and out of this weather, they better - not that some warehouse storage is likely to be much warmer mind.

"Why—nevermind." She didn't want to know why they would go underground.

She's not warmer than Charlie, even in the borrowed jacket. She hunches her shoulders and balls her hands into fists to stave off the shivering, though it doesn't do a lot of good. "I should just hit the bloody building with lightning and see if that does anything." She mutters, teeth chattering in between.

"Oi," he hisses at her, pulling his hands up into the sleeves of his jumper. "Patience is a virtue you know."

It takes longer than he'd like - Charlie's internal clock ticking down the minutes to when they're to be pulled back by the transporter -, but they do eventually stumble across the fuse box. Luckily, it's a simple box as opposed to one of the larger power unit and smashing in the lack with the screwdriver and a rock salvaged off the lot ground is easy enough. Charlie uses the same screwdriver to pry the cover off it from over top everything, exposing the nested wiring to the night air.

"Alright, now that? Feel free to light that bastard up."

"A virtue I do not have."

But once they come across the box, her mood improves a bit. Thank god, her threat was very close to actually happening. She peers into it, eyeing the wires and whatnot before she reaches out to tug Charlie back a bit. "If you are too close you will end up getting lit up as well."

A quiet chant, a gesture with her hand, and voila; she lights that bastard up with a nice bit of lighting, shorting out the power to the building. She tilts her head, listening to the hum of electric fade. "That should do it."

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