August Event Log: Part I

[savmods]

Who: Everyone
When: August 9 and onward
Where: An unexpected destination
What: The newcomers go on a trip and end up far from where they expected
Warnings: Potential violence. Please label your content!

NOTE: PLEASE READ THIS OOC POST FIRST.

When the time comes for the travelers to go on the off-world trip that will help restore Thisavrou, they are not alone. Others who have settled on the planets longer and come to call them home are also prepared to travel; through the Ingress and do their part. Yet when the newcomers step through, whether they stepped through the Ingress seconds or hours apart, they will find that they have arrived at the same time, and only newcomers are in sight.

What awaits them is not a land of plenty. The land is barren, and dark storms in the sky resemble those held at bay by the Ingress complex—but much, much closer. Those who traveled on the Moira may recognize the landscape; though they have come through at a different point from the crash, they are on the Midway Hub. And there is no portal back. They are trapped.

hitting the road

Though some have been here before, the Midway Hub is not as they remember it. The storms fill the sky, leaving it dark and ominous even when they are not sweeping across the landscape—but they have clearly done so in recent times, and often. While never a lush land, large patches of ground an acre or more wide looking nothing more than utterly dead; the thistle that naturally grows is brittle, black and unable to be consumed even with the usual preparations to make it edible, and here and there animal corpses are found twisted into unnatural poses, but seemingly uninjured. These places are particularly concentrated near the broken Ingresses litter the landscape. While Midway Hub as a whole may seem naturally arid, these dead spots leave no hope that anything can possibly live there again.

The travelers have two options: stay where they are, or move on. While it might seem that they've been tricked into coming here and been left abandoned, those with the technological ability to do so may detect a sign of hope: a familiar energy source, far in the distance. Although none of the Ingresses they pass will ever work again, the faint energy shows that one still-functioning Ingress lies far in the distance, days away.

Although technological scanning or impressive memory of the landscape indicates that they are not separated from their destination by one of the gates that divide the land, they are also far from the shelter of the facility at the center of the Hub. Any attempt to travel in a direction other than that of the energy signal will result in a strange disorientation after several hours, bringing individuals back to their original path as though they've gone in circles. Meanwhile, though travelers will feel the need to slake their hunger and thirst through any natural water sources they discover, wildlife they can hunt for food and any supplies they have on them, if they don't find sustenance, they'll find that they will never pass out or reach the point of starvation. Instead, they'll be left alive and awake but feeling utterly hollow.

storm front

At regular intervals, the energy storms above descend onto the land, bringing not rain but violent clashes of negative energy and thunder so loud that nothing can be heard above it. The passing of the storms leaves some strange effects. The ground is warped and rotted by their touch, even solid stone degrading to a spongy surface. The air is tepid and oddly charged. Prolonged contact with air or ground will not supply energy, however — it drains it from organic and synthetic life alike.

Those who remember their last trip to the Hub, or simply explore in the right direction, may come across the cave complexes with their glowing surfaces and streams. The light is dimmer now, a sickly green, but drinking from the streams will still restore the energy lost, for a time. This time, however, the lethargy that inevitably follows is much more severe, and the drinkers are left with a raw, empty feeling leeching in from the wasteland around.

Those who are exposed to the storms, either by finding themselves in very close proximity or even closely observing them for too long as they approach, may lose their sight, or hearing, even much of the ability to feel touch — whatever sense they used in observation. What lingers in its place is a numbness. A hunger. And as time passes, the time between storms decreases; what seemed like hours between the storms becomes scarcely one, and their intensity grows.

wild life

Sentient beings are not the only ones affected by the storms; these creatures, attracted to sound and able to track by scent, and these panthers, which once looked normal but have been twisted by the storms into more monstrous forms, are numerous enough that travelers must be constantly alert for their presence. Though natural predators, the threat the creatures represent is not itself natural. They are also more aggressive. Some strange instinct drives them, not a need for food. While the panthers themselves can be caught and their meat cooked, it has little taste, offering nutrition but not satisfaction.

old familiar places

Although it's difficult to track the passage of time without day-night cycles, after what seems like more than a week of the travelers' unexpected trip, the storms abruptly come rushing in at the group of travelers, as if they're herding the group to move faster toward their destination and the Ingress energy that awaits them. The true nature of that destination becomes clear when debris appears on the horizon; the energy comes from the wreckage of the Moira, the interstellar ship that crashed here months ago.

Despite the trauma of impact, large sections of the ship remain surprisingly intact, though few of them are properly vertically oriented. If travelers are able to make their way inside the damaged sections of the ship, they'll find familiar territory, if they are one of those who traveled on the Moira, as well as shelter—something that's increasingly necessary as the storms seem to center over the ship, leaving little hope for survival outside. Useful items may be scavenged from the ship if they are willing to explore, but no personal items of any kind remain.

Strangely, the deeper travelers go into the crashed ship, the less familiar their surroundings will seem, regardless of their orientation. The inward-leading paths into the ship become generic metal, and as with the travel on the surface of the planet, they may find themselves back where they started. And no matter how far they go or how hard they try, they will find themselves unable to make it to the Ingress chamber itself...for now.

Comments

Asriel Dreemurr | ota

[pleasereset]

[Arrival]



[Asriel's learned to hate space travel. He really has.

When Asriel agrees to go scavenging for resources, it's mostly for a selfish reason. Instead of gathering up resources as a "peace offering", he's mostly just interested in finding plants, vegetables, and other resources to take care of his family. After being told by the Savrii to leave the planet, being told how awful he is and how he's responsible for every thing that's gone wrong on Thisavrou, he doesn't really feel like making up to the Savrii.

But... Chara's garden got ruined by the cold weather, didn't it? Maybe Asriel could bring back a few things to restore it. It wouldn't fix the damage he learned he's done after the Shadows attacked. Nothing would. But at least it would be there for when his family returned home.

... If they do come home.

As it turns out, it doesn't matter anyway. When Asriel steps out of the Ingress, a barren but familiar landscape greets him. He remembers this place well - it's where he tried to shatter his own disk.

When he turns back to find out what happened, the way back to Thisavrou is gone. Asriel can only stare in dull shock as he slowly starts to realize they're trapped here. The Savrii wantd them gone, and they succeeded in getting rid of them.]

They... they tricked us.

[Caves]



[Food and water have to come from somewhere, and as much as Asriel doesn't want to, he decides to investigate the caves in hopes of some kind of food or water. He doesn't really find any food, but there's water to drink from after a while of searching. And for a while, it cures both his thirst and hunger.

But after a while, his body feels heavy. He feels so incredibly tired.

... Maybe he can sleep here, for just a little bit. It had to be safer in here than the storms outside, right?

Maybe not. But he leans against a cave wall anyway, and lets himself drift off.]

[Hunting/Scavenging]



[Asriel isn't a hunter by any means. He's never really had to find his own food before. But even if no one here can actually starve to death, the aching in his stomach from not eating sends him on an anxious search for food.

He turns over rocks, looking for anything even slightly edible. So far he hasn't really found anything. He's seen an occasional panther in the distant before quickly moving in the other direction, but he's not really sure if he could bring himself to...

... Well, in any case, he's not going to let himself starve here.

He won't go through that ever again.]

Arrival

[yorisearching]

[Yori recognizes the rocks of Midway all too well, remembers being uncertain whether the invitation would bring the lost crew any respite or only a fast imprisonment. And now--

Is this on purpose? What chance is there that the Ingress simply malfunctioned...for all the newcomers...at the same time? Or could there be any forgivable reason the Savrii have turned on them? An outside force?

The Ingress is unpredictable enough that she can't read either possibility at zero. But she can't make any kind of reassuring argument for hope, either.

Asriel's flat, desolate voice is the one that penetrates her frantic calculation. What can she say? She hurries through the crowd to kneel beside the small pilot.]

It looks that way.

[She reaches to offer a hug, if Asriel is in any condition to accept it. At least they're all together. Things could be a lot worse.]

Cayde-6 | OTA

[deal_me_in]

     For the record? Cayde hadn't trusted a thing the Savrii had said. They were already clearly hiding things from them, whether out of simple neglect or on purpose, and he hadn't been particularly impressed by their inability to repair the Ingress. And then there were the things he'd heard from 76, which only further convinced the Exo that he was completely justified in his distrust.

     Yet somehow it seemed everyone was going. To a peaceful world, eh? There's no such thing, in Cayde's mind. That alone has made him suspicious. He's pretty sure he's not the only one paranoid about the whole venture, but he's also not sure just how many people the Savrii are sending out. Just how many people have been drawn through the Ingress? And how many of those are equipped for dealing with any trouble? ...dangit he better not end up playing babysitter. It'd be like Tower duty all over again.



Arrival

     "Where the hell are we?! Peaceful and abundant my shiny little backside!"

     The first words coming out of the Exo's mouth hardly seem to underline the exact distress of their situation. His tone however drips with all the distrust that he's held in the Savrii's words. Blue optics scan the bleak horizon, what can be made out of it for how dark and...dead everything appears. It made Europa looked like a vacation resort.

     "Cayde, those structures...." The red and gray Ghost looks around, its blue lens about the only brightest thing aside from Cayde's own eyes in contrast to the dark landscape surrounding them. "They look familiar- Could it be..? But there are so many...!"

     "So many what?" The Exo glances at his Ghost.

     "...Ingresses...."

     If he could frown, Cayde would, but somehow he seems to convey the idea with what bits move around his optics alone. "I got a bad feeling about this."



Moving On

     The Ghost had picked up a faint energy reading. Of course it had to be nowhere near where they've all been left stranded, and Cayde's got no qualms about going to check things out. That's part of the job description anyway, and in a place where there's absolutely nothing else around and the skies look near ready to tear apart whatever might be caught beneath it? Yeah. He's moving.

     As a Hunter he's used to working alone. Scoping out things ahead. Heck, just keeping moving. His favorite gun's in hand, a Guardian in his element. His Ghost is unseen, merged with the Hunter to give directions and warnings internally. Less to worry about, especially if the storms build up any time soon. He really doesn't like the look of those skies.

     Maybe you catch up with him. Maybe he catches up with you. Either way, Cayde won't be adverse to the company, and if you look like you're struggling, he might just end up conveniently hanging around within your vicinity. You know. Just in case.

     Hunger isn't something he usually needs to worry about, his Exo body resilient in such aspects, but there's something else that drags at him, and he can feel it gnawing away the longer they carry on. The Ghost has sensed it too, his concern voiced but unheard by anyone save for Cayde. "...we keep moving. We're still heading in the right direction, right?"


Where the Wild Things Are

     It's both a relief and not, seeing that there are some manner of lifeforms in this bleak place. And after periods of nothingness interspersed with dodging storms, Cayde's all too happy for some stress relief. Okay, he just wants to shoot something. He might just be imagining Savrii as he opens fire with his handcannon, his Ace of Spades flaring with each shot. Some of these things look way too close to Thrall. Although that suits him just fine. Just more incentive to blow their ugly faces away. Not that he needs the incentive.

( arrival )

[sleepdarts]

If the situation had any form of humour in it Ana might have chuckled, but this time Cayde will have to live with a silent agreement. Ana also doesn't trust the Savrii, and though she's had a few unpleasant thoughts about this place since her arrival here their actions have only intensified that belief as of late.

"A smart feeling." At least he'd be ready when something happened, and he's already prepared for the worst.

There's a slight nod as Ana steps next to him, giving him a quick glance before assessing the scene in front of them.

"Though I might not have felt good about what they promised either." Not with the way that everyone was herded together and encouraged to go out.

Commander Infodump (Kazuhira Miller) | OTA

[warandpeace]

surprise destination - open to all.

[He's not exactly happy to play along, but strained relations or not Miller does see the necessity for the mission. The events of the past months have resulted in heavy losses for everyone, Ingress refugees and Savrii locals, and much of the time Kaz does favor the benefit of the group as a whole regardless of tensions. That's why he doesn't even argue the necessity to go on a supply run; he'd paid people to do so before and understands that they're in need.]

[He shuts down his restaurant, sends Mama to a nice kennel (expecting a fairly prompt return but he pays them a month's worth of time), and packs up any hunting/gathering necessities before going. He's still in productive spirits when they're sent.]

[But are they doing anything actively useful? Not at all. Instead, a half-hour after their arrival Kaz is finding himself breaking brittle thistles apart to find them barren. Seems like they even made them leave with the hope of finding food, and he brought little more than emergency water and some smaller protein bars. Kaz is going to have to improvise.]

You don't remember having been here, do you?

[He says to someone nearby. He's hoping that one Ingress with the slime is around or that cave with the odd colored liquid or they'll be really hard up for water.]



the moira - open to all.

[Months ago Kaz walked through the wreckage of the ship in search of a young body and relics of their past. It's barely recognizable as that wreckage to him now. In fact, that's the most disorienting thing he's experienced since getting here.]

[He remembers the tall ceilings that could accommodate huge robots, the telltale signs of habitation here and there, but everything is disorientingly impersonal. There's no personal items, no signs of a good year of their lives. To him? This feels more like they'd violently dismembered that example ship based on the Moira rather than on the Moira herself. He wonders, again, what happened to the captains that once worked at the Midway Hub.]

[Between Kaz's inability to succumb to what's now an aching stomach and the ferocity of a dehydration headache, his suspicions are growing in strength. He can't quite put a finger on it yet. Not real seems too easy but he wouldn't put it past them for a first guess.]

No wonder the Savrii have managed to force integration in the past. [He's grumbling to himself. There are debris that are useful, though. He walks up to someone, carrying a found coiled nylon rope to help with climbing over his shoulder.] Help me look around for supplies.

surprise destination - open to all.

[popkins]

[Desolation and on a dying world, Roland wonders if this is his eternal fate in life. Ka has a humorlessly funny way of working and as soon as he asks himself the question he knows it's true. So long as he can walk he will be walking amongst ruins.

The question snaps him out of his reverie and he looks to his side at the man with the odd sunglasses. He thinks of Jake's sunglasses, far too big for his young face, and bitterness and love inside him rival the storm brewing in the sky.]

No.

[Roland says this only after a long moment of thought, trying to remember if he had been on this world before. The look of it doesn't match Mid-World but the feel of it certainly does.

He stands with one boot on a rock, his thumbs hooked in the matching gun belts crossing above his crotch, his wide-brimmed hat pulled low over his brow. Roland watches the storm but looks away as the lightning begins to crackle. The storm's a bad sign he'll reckon. Roland looks to his unknown companion instead.]

Do you?

Yori | ota

[yorisearching]

hitting the road

The pangs of betrayal are sharp. Yori feels them as keenly as anyone else.

But there's nothing she can do about that. What she can do is hand out granola bars and chocolate, bottles of water and bottles of juice, from her long-hoarded supply in the old Moira pac-disc. How familiar.

She's brought it out one sackful at a time to hand to Users who complain about hunger. They might as well start out on a more hopeful note than starvation.

It's not like she can eat any of it herself. Despite her careful attention to fill and store one battery after another, they won't last forever. She'd like everyone to work together at least until she runs out of time herself. She's noticed Users don't focus very well if they run out of their own messy energy. Hard to blame them.

This journey is far too familiar.



storm front

a: When rest becomes unavoidable, curled into a worried ball of armor, Yori feels the strange thunderous surges of the storm even as she tries to rest. Without conscious direction she seeks the pattern in her sleep.

She wakes numb, a hungry absence where warmth should be.

It feels a little like she's low on energy, but charging from her reserve battery doesn't help. She's not even sure how much she needs, and stops too soon rather than risk damage.

She goes in search of a familiar face, a moment's comfort, but her half-numb feet betray her into a full-length fall. Yori stays there a moment.


b: Later, the risks have become obvious. At the first hint of thunder growling from the horizon, Yori wraps an old shirt around her head and tries hard not to look up. She can't lose more. She can't become more of a burden on everyone else. And yet how can she focus on anything except analyzing the oncoming danger?

One step at a time. She can't feel very much, but she can still see the ground. If she stays cautious.

Inevitably she runs into someone else. "Sorry," she calls between thunderclaps. Distraction might be a good thing in this case.


old familiar places

Despite everything, Yori's happy to see the sad bulk of the Moira. At least it's a change from the wandering. She remembers the ship fondly, crashes and all.

On the other hand, they abandoned Moira because none of them could find any way forward then. She's not certain anything has changed.

She tries to examine the wreck for signs of change or any hint of a new idea. She does find Navigation, her function for months, but every screen is smashed and dark. Yori frowns sadly at the computers, worlds destroyed, and wonders how long before the last of the crew follows.

"You did your best," she murmurs to the lingering memory of programs she'd never had a chance to meet face to face.

storm front: a

[notglitching]

He'd been by her apartment three times in the last two user-weeks. The first two, Yori had been out. The third, resting. Rinzler had hesitated outside the door for long micros before moving on. He'd run into her eventually. She didn't need to know now.

This wasn't where Rinzler had expected. Certainly, it wasn't how. His own scans of the clouds had been staggering in their silence: not the surge and crackle of life-giving power pushed to an extreme, but an aching drain of energy raw and painful just to read. He doesn't notice the empty echo it leaves in his perceptions when he turns away.

Not until he finds the blue-lit body slumped across the ground. Not until he tries to sense her, tries to check—and reads nothing, functions returning null null {} all around.

"Yori—!"

Harsh and panicked isn't the tone Rinzler had intended for his first words to Yori since acquiring his voice. It's certainly what she'll be hearing, though—along with some very rapid steps.

chara | ota | will match formats

[inconsequence]

arrival; i wait in intermission, i remove inhibition / it's not safe to seek the attention

They will not protest, when the order is issued. The threat of intermediaries still hangs slick and heavy like a storm cloud, gathering thickly at the corners of their vision. As much as they would favor an imminent denial, just to be contrarian, the risks fall farther than the benefits.

Do they not always?

Slinking through an Ingress at long last, unaccompanied for the first time since their dreadful error, since they allowed Shepard to lead them so horribly astray (ha ha), the world opens to them in a panorama of storm-blasted, gray-dust wasteland. The fingertips at their side twitch - scarred, blistered, bandaged, pocked, and bandaged again. The Knife slips from its sheath, held steady, wary, even.

They'd emptied the house of its necessities when they'd gone; most are now couched in the pack that hangs from their back. Packages of seeds, unplanted. A book. A potted plant too fragile to be stuffed in and zipped up, and so is clasped in their hands with a sort of grim resolve. It snaps at the empty air idly, here and again.

There is nothing for it to eat in the ashen waste. And for the first time in perhaps, longer than they care to remember - the child is alone.

Well and truly.

They feed their plant handfuls of cinder-like dirt and let it nibble at the hangnails that redden the tips of their fingernails. They've no attachment to the Moira, and they do not happen near it. It is not their loss to mourn.

It never was.

storm; i awaken with the thunder / a bold statement to end my slumber

[The bright crack of lightning shrills across contours of memory, bolting them awake in the chilled fraction of a second. They'd opened fire and it sprayed dust behind their combined, battered body, and their joined SOULs had trembled like moths trapped with flypaper. The hot stench of cordite, the sound of someone yelling for a shotgun, because that beast had killed the child - as though any of them cared for the hideous, bloodied smear of a thing curled in the monster's arms! As if, as if - ]

[They've sat up, bolt-straight, their heart pounding a rapid cadence in the hollow of their chest. Their fingertips have worked around the golden shape of the Locket, twining into the spool of the chain. It does nothing to ease the hot drum of their own blood against their veins.]

[It's...]

[...]

[Ha ha.]

[It's just thunder.]

[It's nothing at all. It's nothing to be freaking out about. The child laughs, and the sound hitches like an empty, broken recording; something as false and plastic as the smile plastered to their cheeks.]

[It is only when they begin to laugh that they realize that no sound is issuing from their throat.]

[Whatever words they might have intended to say aloud will no longer come; they are rendered mute, and will remain so for the days to come. Hollow.]

[Hollow.]

[Hollow.]

wildlife; i don't need any protection, and this beast is interjecting / and this SOUL can't help but connect it

But they can still FIGHT.

Their eyes burn with an unbridled rage, smoldering bright and scarlet. They care very little, what it is they are facing - whether it is a mutant panther or a faceless thing with far too much keratin in its fleshy maw than is typical. It will see the end of a Knife either way, from an atypically silent figure. A green sweater striped with a single blaze of yellow down the middle marks their identity as well as the flare of brown hair or of the pair of scarlet eyes, though the rain and dust have darkened and dampened nearly every inch of them to something far less immediately recognizable.

All but the eyes.

The eyes, those are the same.

Unfortunately.

wildcard; so don't lead, i won't follow / there's no sense in waiting for tomorrow

[If you want a closed starter let me know and we can fix something up! Chara's mostly avoiding a lot of their close/positive CR for various reasons following the shadow event, but if you wanna try and make something work we can!]

storm, also i have no willpower

[lavelly]

[Maybe it will life Chara's spirits to know that they're not the only ones suffering a detriment from the storm. Or not.

Either way, Lavellan has no idea of it himself, when one robs him of his sight. He realizes what's happened much more quickly and much more spectacularly, as he almost immediately loses his balance trying to find a rock or tree or something to brace himself against, and spits out a curse from surprise and pain.

There's a good chance he'll trip over Chara if they're not careful, as complete and sudden as his blindness is. He hadn't gotten his bearings beforehand, and he doesn't remember the direction of the rest of the group; all he can do is grope clumsily in front of him as he tries to make his way back.]

Yondu Udonta | OTA

[yondu]

unfair punishment.

[Yondu never had a reason to trust the Savrii. He could play along fine. Sure, in a new spot? He'll work with it, yeah.]

[But then those piece of shit motherfuckers trick them into dropping into some sort of off planet shithole even though anyone new didn't do anything. By Savrii judgment he guesses someone could pop out of their mama, fresh from the oven, and be guilty of murder!]

[Yondu is looking pretty pissed off as he walks through the barren Midway Hub wasteland. Animals laying around, flesh things curled up like corpses of insects. No food or water to be seen. Just dead soil with dead things on it.]

Homey place y'all had here. [He's caught wind from mutterings and conversations around him this is somewhere some people had been before, but he's short on the long-version of the story.]


storms and caves.

[There's another one of those creatures following someone. Luckily, not him this time. Thank heavens. But right before it can pounce, someone'll hear the whoosh of a flying arrow, perhaps a streak of red out of the corner of their eye, and some soft, melodic whistling.]

[He drops that predator, tearing a hole through it easily, and catches the arrow by his head.]

Another one o' them storms is comin' and I think we better get in them caves.

storms and caves.

[switchcircuit]

[Red is not handling any of this well. Up until the last day on Cloudbank her life had been uneventful, cozy even, with plenty of pizza from Junction Jan's and any color of sky she wanted. Now she's starving, she's cold, at least she has some decently sensible boots and jeans thanks to Ahab. She feels miserable but she's doing her best to stay positive.

She had gotten separated from most of the others and Red felt as if she were on her last legs, barely able to keep upright.

She's not used to wild animals either. Red doesn't know she's being hunted until it would have been too late. The whistle is what alerts her to anything at all, and she ducks down and falls onto one hip with wide eyes and watches in horror as the creature is felled with one bright streak of red.

Red looks up from the place she's fallen to the source of the whistling and is immediately relieved by all that blue skin.]

Mr. Udonta! Oh thank my lucky stars.

venom snake | ota.

[alterplex]

a. GLORIA, I THINK THEY GOT YOUR NUMBER. (STORMFRONT.)

[ After the first time losing the sensation in his remaining arm, Venom learns not to approach the crash of thunder or acknowledge it aside from the vague tremor he occasionally feels from the ground up, rattling his teeth from where he has his electronic cigarette clamped between his lips. It's exhausting, it's irritating, it's too much— the steady crash of punishment that rains down on them makes him feel like he's constantly swallowing dirty water, crushing gravel on his molars with each breath.

At the very least, he has experience on his side. He's done this before, the whole song-and-dance of crouching knee-deep in shit and mud, smelling like trash and rotting carcasses until he doesn't remember what air tastes like. He can tolerate it, the slog of nausea and hearing loss, the disorientation and fatigue.

He's not sure that the others are so amenable, though.

In the event that he runs across anyone struggling with their eyes or ears or sanity, he'll pull closer to them and offer a hand, a look, a side to lean on. ]

...Keep moving. Can you walk?


b. I THINK THEY'VE GOT THE ALIAS THAT YOU'VE BEEN LIVING UNDER. (OLD FAMILIAR PLACES.)

[ This is suspicious.

The more Venom travels, the less he believes what he's seeing— not the pathways, not the metal lining the halls, not the chambers that he finds intact. This isn't the first time that his memories aren't aligning with reality, though, so he's not alarmed as much as he feels vaguely sick; he can't trust the tiling under his feet, and vertigo hits him like a freighter.

He takes a step back, away from another incongruity that twists his features into a frown. Somewhere along the way, he bumps into someone: whoever he runs into, he'll turn and fix a sharp, searching eye on them before he lets the tension ebb from his shoulders in increments. ]

...Something isn't right.

[ Straight to business. ]

c. BUT YOU REALLY DON'T REMEMBER: WAS IT SOMETHING THAT THEY SAID? (WILDCARD.)

( obligatory wildcard option! let me know if you want me to set something up specifically for you, homie— feel free to PM me at my journal, or shoot me a PP at deuil! )

CLOSED : LAVELLAN.

[alterplex]

[ It looks like they're fated to meet like this: one of them unsteady on his feet, fighting the elements while trying to remain inconspicuous. Venom spots Lavellan careening in his peripheral, identifies Lavellan immediately because his previous circumstances left such a lasting mark.

He's by the familiar slump of those shoulders before they can topple, catching Lavellan mid-step before it can lurch into a stumble. ]

—Hey.

[ Taciturn, as per usual. The concern bleeds through that single syllable, regardless. ]

You okay?

big boss | ota + cast

[camouflage]

(WILDLIFE) in these killing fields

[john hasn't trusted an organized body of civilization with a ruling government for decades. therefore, when he arrived on thisavrou and discovered that the savrii were Peaceful, didn't have a militant force, and relied instead upon a force called Intermediaries, he couldn't have trusted them less. so, to say he's not surprised about getting press-ganged into going to work on some planet, then said planet being a wasteland meant to kill them, is an understatement.

even if he wasn't exactly expecting to get ported off to some hell-hole. but you make do.

while this isn't exactly charted territory for big boss, he's not about to sit around and wait to die. walking off in any ol' direction had quickly (okay, maybe not quickly, unless you consider several lost hours of time expedient) shown him that whatever he was walking to was his Final Destination. especially after the second time of coming back around to a familiar rock formation, marking it, and then determining he was going in circles. with a General Direction figured out for him, the only things left to worry about were water and food. luckily for him, he was paranoid after decades of conducting a shadow war against a british man with a love of james bond villainy, so that meant he, at least, had starting supplies. some basic provisions, first aid, etc.

which meant that hunting his first panther? had honestly just been for sport. when there's nothing to do except survive and walk, learning to kill the local, homicidal fauna is never a bad choice. of course, that also meant going after the tooth-faced creatures would have to happen and he was never one to turn down a challenge.

that's where a stumbling refugee comes into play. maybe they were hungry, maybe they were curious, john doesn't know. what he does know is that they've practically walked right into the bait trap, a pile of fresh panther limbs, he's set for one of those alien monsters. and they're about five seconds away from getting themselves killed.

so he hurls a small stone out from behind the rock-formation he's currently hiding behind, hoping they'll get the message.]

(FAMILIAR PLACES) hail mary

[the last week had been A Struggle. actually, the last few days. the first part of the week had been absolutely fine. of course, after you lose your eyesight due a freak storm and have to stumble around in the dark, trying to find the ability to hear a pin drop so you wouldn't get eaten alive, days tend to get hard. how he hasn't died thus far, john honestly didn't know.

it's the din of voices and the scratching of footwear against the planet's dry and dead surface that finally leads him to the moira. or, well, what he hears is the moira. it's all anyone can talk or ask about once they arrive upon the behemoth structure. plus, the loud echo of footsteps on metal is a little bit of a giveaway that it's definitely something.

whether by help or by his own fortitude, along with a makeshift 'cane' that is definitely made from the bone of Something, john manages to find his way around. or, well, he definitely doesn't stumble into a wall or a doorway that's on its side or pieces of the warped ship sticking out. it's a minor miracle. he's almost glad he can't see the destruction; something that had taken the life of a kid and his dog.

when exploring turns out to be as productive as trying to go 'off-roading' on the planet, the old soldier, missing one eye completely and blind in the other, finds somewhere to hole up, check his inventory, and wait for the inevitable bad news.]

(CAST) catch me if i go

[he's makin a list, checkin it twice, gonna find out who's dead or fine, big boss is gonna find you.

whether traveling out in wasteland city or exploring the moira, john will be on the 'lookout' for those familiar faces from his own homeworld. the catch is, he's blind, so it's less of a lookout and more of 'hey, i hear a voice i recognize'. wanna avoid him? silence is golden.]

(WILDCARD)

do what's in ur heart fam

(FAMILIAR PLACES) hail mary

[popkins]

[Roland isn't so much watching the man stagger around (stagger isn't the right word, the man is being careful, taking his time, using all of his senses, and Roland gives him credit for each one of these things) as he is listening to him. This world is much more natural to him than Kauto and it might be bizarre but he can survive much better here. No water? No problem. No food? No problem. No shelter? No problem.

The Gunslinger is in his element here. That doesn't mean it's close to ideal for him but rather he's not really worried and having to fend for himself is so far beyond second nature by this point it's more natural than soft beds and take-away food. His old back hadn't even known what to do with the mattress in the hotel on Kauto.

Roland's standing nearby perfectly still, his dextrously long fingers carefully rolling tobacco in a tidy little cigarette. When the stranger sets himself down in the protected overhang of the destroyed ship nearby to him, Roland finally looks over. The stranger begins checking his gear and again, the Gunslinger's impressed. This man isn't soft like most of the others.

He carefully licks the paper to seal the cigarette shut before he speaks up.]

Long days, Sai. Want a smoke?

Closed to Chara

[notglitching]

He'd looked for them. When Frisk and he had faced the shadow. Afterwards, between the other attacks. Even the eventual assumption that they'd been derezzed didn't halt the search completely—not with their TAB ID's continued presence. The Savrii disconnected TABs of those who left or couldn't be revived. But Chara's was still there.

And still not replying to his texts.

Maybe they encountered his shadow. Maybe they learned what he was to Clu. It's luck, as much anything that lets him spot the small frame, roaming past the outskirts of the group, and at first Rinzler hesitates Chara is intact. Chara looks fine.

Chara is an ally who he failed to protect.

Rinzler follows. His steps are light, no effort to broadcast the pursuit, but he makes no effort to hide the low rattling of errors either. It seems quieter than usual.

[inconsequence]

It isn't long before someone finds them. Inevitable, really. And of all the possibilities, admittedly, Rinzler is -

He's the least unwanted. They will admit that much, though not an inch more. The storm has gathered on the horizon in a slow, heavy creep of thick rainclouds, but they've not sought shelter. Not yet. What point in that would there be?

He's quiet, but a lifetime of paranoia built on the foundations of fearing the looming of someone behind them has them turning sharply, eyes narrowing to crimson slits. He's a spiked, oily streak of shadow behind them, but he's unmistakable.

"If you've something to say, sir, I suggest you say it," snaps Chara. They are, of course speaking figuratively - because Rinzler does not say things in the conventional manner, does he?

Does he.

ana amari ( open )

[sleepdarts]

( hitting the road )

( Ana's heard enough about the Midway Hub that it doesn't take her long to guess that this is where they've been brought. She's also not too surprised,
given her failing trust in the Savrii. Gathering everyone together and sending them all out... it smelled like a trap if there ever was one, and it would have taken less for Ana to leave without her supply pack.

Though she entered the Ingress with Jack arriving in the crowd of people has them scattered, and starts her on searching for him and her other familiar faces.
If she knows you then Ana might just check in, make sure that you're okay.
They've got a bleak outlook ahead.

Though Ana has food in her pack she's still checking the plant life, seeing if any of it is edible or can be used for something. She's not so skilled in the latter,
though the sight of it alone makes her doubt that it would be good to eat.
It still doesn't stop her from checking every so often as they walk -- just in case.
It looks like a long road out, and they'll need something to eat. All of them )

( wildlife )

( She's near her camp when she hears the sound, head turning from where she was stood to try and follow the noise. Her rifle had been left with Jack as she'd gone to deliver food to someone nearby, though she still had her sidearm on her )

Did you hear that?

( She's checking that it's not just her, not with the people moving around and noises from the storms. Ana passes the small parcel over, just a ration, but needed )

( closed to jack )

( It had started as they'd been walking, things feeling a little quieter, Ana missing Jack's approaching footsteps until he'd had to get her attention by touch.

Now it's gone, completely. For the past day Ana hadn't heard a single sound --
Jack, her own voice. It left her feeling vulnerable to what was around her,
and frankly a little lost. Sure she could still communicate -- she'd needed to use other methods back in the day before, but Ana had never had to rely on them so heavily. She valued her senses, and how they'd kept her alive, now--

There's a quick tap tap. I. Then Ana pauses. It was easy falling back into old routines -- sleep shifts, brief conversations on the task at hand. A solid shift from the days previously where they'd simply been together, relieved that they hadn't lost the other.

Part of it is refreshing. Missions always were easy with the two of them, and they needed to say little to get the job done, simply knowing what to do and what the other needed. It's when you can't speak that trying to becomes hardest.

Ana taps again. It's getting late. Her watch was first. That was one thing that she'd been adamant about, still doing her duty. It was more dangerous without her hearing but she'd been able to set up some other warnings, she could still see; patrol. She couldn't stop, couldn't give in )

{ wildlife }

[frostedplum]

"Hear what?" Mei takes the package and carefully tucks it into one of the many pockets inside her parka before unclipping her blaster from her belt. "Thank you for that." Meaning the rations. She'll dig into it later, once she's sure it's safe. Ana wouldn't be bringing up hearing a noise unless she thought it might be something worth investigating, so Mei listens closely to their surroundings, waiting to see if her ears do pick something up this time.


[ ooc: let me know if switching to prose is okay? it's easier on my eyes when there are longer paragraphs of text, but i can zoom in on the page if you prefer brackets. ]

rey | star wars: tfa | ota

[ventifact]

BY THE GRACE OF THE FIRE AND THE FLAMES [arrival/hitting the road]

Only once before in her life had Rey felt what she would call betrayal: when Devi and Strunk, two scavengers on Jakku she thought she could trust, had stolen the Ghtroc 690 light freighter she had worked so hard to repair on Jakku. Almost a year of work put into the starship, and the second she had set foot off it, they'd flown into atmo and abandoned her with nothing to show for her work. As she'd watched them fly away from in front of Unkar Plutt's trading hut, she feels the same bitterness, the same wrongness as now.

They had trusted the Savrii, and they had been betrayed.

This is the second time Rey has realized she'd let herself get too comfortable in a soft lifestyle. She only knows this because the second she realizes where they've all been dumped, she shifts back into worst-case-scenario survival mode. Immediately, she pulls her goggles over her head and wraps her head and face with the extra cloth of her scavenging clothes to protect her airways and skin from the dirt and ash. Even though the Midway Hub looks different than the first time--somehow even more desolate and hopeless--she recognizes it all too well. BB-9 whirs and beeps worriedly beside her, and Rey crouches to pat the droid's round head.

"I've been in worse spots," she assures the robot, voice quiet and muffled behind the layers of cloth on her face. "Scan for an energy source, any energy source. It'll be our best bet of getting off this fracking rock again."

YOU'RE THE FACE OF THE FUTURE [storm front]

Experience has given Rey an edge when it comes to anticipating storms on hostile planets. The sandstorms on Jakku could kick up at any moment, sweeping over the horizon in just seconds. While the storms on the Midway Hub are a little different and, in their own way, more ferocious, her reflex to find shelter isn't much dulled. She scans the immediate area for cover, and spots the cave's entrance in moments.

"Storm's coming, get to the cave!" She doesn't know if anyone around her has heard, but she doesn't wait to find out. Hefting her bag of very limited supplies over her shoulder, Rey bolts for the entrance, BB-9 rolling and beeping wildly behind her. The storm has reached them, the wind whips her face and limbs, but she pushes on towards the dully glowing haven.

Everything seems to go still once she's inside, and she pulls off her goggles and the cloth around her face. She feels somehow weaker than before, and drags her feet as she moves into the cavern, slowly realizing that she's been here before. Her teeth grit as she swings her quarterstaff from her shoulders, using one end to poke at the greenish water. "Wonder if it's the same as last time..."

THE BLOOD IN MY VEINS [familiar places]

When the wreckage of the Moira comes into view, Rey doesn't know if she wants to cheer or vomit. Though it's only been months, it seems as if ages have passed since she was last on this ship. A deep breath in and out, and she approaches the ship. Though parts of the outer shell look fairly intact, she wonders if that's the case for the inside.

But this is the best chance for escape they've come across, and if BB-9's readings are correct, part of the ship is alive and might be useful.

The scavenger detaches her lightsaber from her belt and ignites the blue blade, picking a spot on the Moira's hull. The fastest way in will be to make a door, after all.

WILDCARD

[hit me with anything!! i can be reached at watchet, as always.]

Storm Front

[deal_me_in]

     He's no fool Hunter. Given their surroundings alone, gut instinct tells him one of those storms is not something he wants to end up getting caught in. His Ghost locates shelter as Rey gives a shout for cover, and Cayde wastes no time in high-tailing it towards the caves in question. When he comes within visible range of the opening that Rey and her droid vanish into, the Exo does a bit of a vanishing trick himself, disappearing in a lick of violet light-

     -and reappearing out of thin air just within the cavern's entrance in that same brief flicker of light. His legs threaten to give out beneath him, resulting in a stumble, but he stubbornly manages to keep his feet where they're supposed to be, although not without the support of the nearby glowing walls. Lifting his head, he looks around before glancing back towards the mouth of the cave as the storm comes down outside.

     Something materializes from him, emerging in a brief sparkle of light, slightly bigger than his hand, made up of angles situated around a central lens-eye of sorts. The Ghost hovers at the Exo's shoulder, looking outside as its vertices twitch.

     "I'm not sure what to make of it. Other than that I'm glad we're not stuck in that. Are you all right, Cayde?" it asks, looking back at its Guardian, concerned.

     "Fine, I'll be fine," he says with a wave of his hand, standing away from the wall as though to prove the point. He's not arguing about being out of the storm though. Turning, he looks towards the young woman he'd followed inside. "...you've been here before?" he asks, catching her murmuring. Even his Ghost has swiveled about, floating a little past Cayde to look towards Rey and the glowing water.

Aloy | OTA

[toservelife]

Aloy doesn't immediately see betrayal in where they end up. At first she wonders if it's a genuine mistake - apparently Ingresses don't always work the way the Savrii want them to, especially if newcomers keep randomly popping through. Or maybe this world has simply changed in a short space of time - it happened to her world, after all.

Then she hears the mutterings of others - that the newcomers are the only ones who ended up here, the older settlers are elsewhere completely; that they've been to this place before. They've been disposed of.

The injustice of it sets her teeth on edge - not just of the Savrii sending her here too even though she's done nothing to them, but that they'd send anyone here at all. Like dumping them in a dead wilderness to die is a fair way to deal with anybody. Even as a Nora outcast, she at least had land she could live off.

But they're not done yet.

The Hunt

She's out near the edge of the group when the feeling hits her - it's vague, but she's learned to trust that kind of instinct: she knows what being followed feels like. The ghost of a movement under a jutting rock; the skittering sound of little rocks bouncing down a slope and echoing in the dead space.

Followed is the wrong word. Hunted is more like it.

She catches up to the nearest person, still watching that area out of the corner of her eye as the familiar feeling of adrenaline starts to light up in her veins. "Hey - we've got company. Do you have anything to fight with?"


The Spoils

[An audio message sent out to the network near the end of the day:]

We just... [She's panting, it takes a little bit of effort to get the words out.] ...just took down one of the animals here. [Another deep breath.] It should be enough meat to feed a few people - we just need help carrying it back. We're about a mile east, I'll send up a smoke signal.

[Note: Feel free to either be there having just killed a mfing panther or someone on the network or whatever!]


The Cave

She's never seen storms like these - the thunder seems to have made her deaf in one ear, completely stone deaf, and it doesn't abate once they're indoors out of it, either.

Are her fingertips numb? It's hard to say, maybe she's cold.

But the caves are good shelter, at least for the time being - there's plenty of light from...whatever it is that's making everything glow. Even the water shimmers green, and when she scans it with her Focus - it lights up in a blue ring on the side of her head - all the little computer can tell her is that it isn't pure water.

She could have figured that out for herself.

Someone by the water's edge goes to drink some - Aloy calls over before they can touch the surface, "Do you think that's a good idea?"

The Wildcard

[Hit me up with anything! Or contact me - specialmandate with anything you want o/]

GAMES I mean HUNT

[notglitching]

Rinzler might have more allies to watch than the last time he was here, but the outside of the group is still his preferred vantage. Since scans blanked out to null, he's been paying extra attention with visuals: say, to suspicious-looking users running up in his periphery.

This one's approach is met with a smooth turn, the low skipping of corrupted code rising just slightly. Her words, on the other hand? Receive an entirely different sort of interest. Rinzler reaches back, producing a dark ring lit by a red-orange circle: and an outside, bladed edge of white that hums to life as he holds it.

He is something to fight it with. The enforcer's mask tilts out, gaze searching the rocky terrain. Where?

diana prince | dceu | ota

[monomachy]

WOULD YOU GO WITH ME [arrival/hitting the road]

The request had been simple, almost transparently so. The Savrii seemed to hold for them naught but goodwill, and as is her wont, Diana tends to see the best in people when they give her the opportunity. She had been one of the first through the Ingress, willing to help repair relations with the native people in any way she could.

But the planet that was promised is not the one they arrive on, and Diana feels her stomach drop. She turns to question--but the portal is gone. There is nothing behind her but barren wasteland, and in a moment, she knows what has happened: the seemingly good-natured Savrii have stranded those they saw as invaders and interlopers in a desolate place, purged them from the place that some of them had come to call home.

It makes her sick, but she knows that she does not have enough knowledge of the Ingress' strange technology to do anything about it now.

Instead, she brings aid to those around her. They move mostly as a group, and though during the war she had been unable to help most of those suffering around her, now she can. Food is scarce, but Antiope had trained her Amazon warriors to survive on little. Diana shares what she can, though she knows that it will not be enough for long.

IF WE ROLLED DOWN STREETS OF FIRE [wild life]

Since they started moving, Diana has seen shadows out of he corner of her eye. She stays up when the strange sun disappears, watching by the fires for anything that might come close. But the creature (she knows it is a creature of some kind, for she sees its pawprints in the morning) always stays just out of sight.

The second night, it attacks.

She is awake, armored, with her shield resting by her feet. The fire pops and cracks, she shifts, and then hears another cracking--this one not from the fire. In a flash she stands, shield raised just in time to catch the claws of a beast too monstrous in size and appearance to be natural. Sparks fly off the Amazonian metal, screeching along with the creature.

WOULD YOU HOLD ON TO ME TIGHTER [old familiar places]

She is told they are close to the energy source, a promise that seems to have been made for weeks though it has surely only been days. She does not know what it will do for them, but she isn't about to dismiss its promise as folly. Those who have been on Thisavrou much longer than her think it might be the ship they arrived on, and she sees no reason to doubt them.

When the massive ship comes into view, all Diana can do for several moments is stare at it. She's never seen anything like it in her life; the planes she had seen during the war were nothing compared to this. Breathless, she asks: "This was able to fly?"

AS THE SUMMER SUN GOT HIGHER [wildcard]

[i'm down for anything!! hit me up at watchet with ideas or questions!]

go with me

[callamities]

It hasn’t been long since the shutdown of his higher functions had forced him to follow the wandering Creators on their pointless journey. He has some vague awareness that this isn’t what he wanted, but by now, wanting is far beyond what he has energy for. The closest thing he can muster is the understanding that he isn’t meant to be alone and if that means following, then that's what he'll do.

And even if he could muster more than that, the food being offered to him wouldn’t be tempting. He looks up at the Creator, expression blank.

“No, thank you. I don’t need that.” Diana for her part will perceive the being in front of her as a young human man with strange markings adorning the left side of his face resembling curling vines and flowers. They glow a meager white, barely visible. A constant sound hangs around him, a steady, dull tick.

“Is there anything I can do for you?” he asks. The question seems to have little to do with the words he spoke before.

Frisk | OTA

[gainedlove]

* But it refused.

[There's no shock from Frisk when the Savrii's betrayal becomes obvious. In fact, there isn't much of a reaction at all. The small child with a bag too big for them looks up at the stormy sky for several long moments...and then begins to walk.]

[And walk.]

[And walk.]

[Thirst, they can handle easily--the canteen that was a gift from the captains so long ago proves just as useful as it had before. And as it turns out, their hunger is just as easily avoided. It gnaws at them, a chewing and clawing ache in their middle, but they never collapse from it. They've managed without before; they'll just have to wait until there's no other choice.]

[One thing, however, does still nip at their heels and drag them down--the need to sleep. Some ways along the arduous trek one may find a small child sprawled face first on the ground looking gaunt and terribly worn out. Their hair is a matted mess, and the familiar blue and pink stripes muddied by dirt and rain--somehow, it doesn't seem like their state of dishevelment is a recent phenomena. When one approaches, however, they stir slightly and start to attempt to stand.]

[* You can't give up just yet!]

* ...but nobody came.

[In the shelter of one of the less ruined outer sections of the Moira, Frisk sits curled up against the hull with their bag kept close by. They should be doing...something, they're sure. Helping others to search for the source of energy, trying to find supplies, seeing to the comfort of everyone here...but they can't bring themself to care. Besides...it's not like they're of much use as they are now.]

[A crunch of feet on dead soil makes them perk up, lifting their head from where it rests on their knees to look around, brows so faintly furrowed.]

...who's there?

But it refused to let you starve (I warned you)

[notglitching]

[Rinzler has been in a user body. He was stuck in one for user-months in Inugami, and it was weak and fragile and entirely disgusting. He'd died in it, once. Lost a fight, another time. But the very first point of failure he'd discovered?

Came when he spent his first user-week trying not to eat.

The low rumbling is audible. The crunch of footsteps is soft and careful—if perhaps a little heavier than Rinzler usually walks. The thump that follows is anything but that. Tangled purple fur bounces onto Frisk's prone form: a tail, from a massive feline shape dropped unceremoniously at their side. This mutated specimen possesses two skull-like heads with far too many teeth, and is twice as long as Rinzler stands tall. It also seems to have bled out from half a dozen lethal wounds.

He's helping.

Really.]

Liquid Snake | Metal Gear | ota

[saveyourserpent]

[A. LIKE DISTANT VOICES (on the road)]

Liquid has never appreciated being told what to do. His plan had mainly been to go in, gather some things for a bit as a sort of token gesture, then go home and do something else with his time.

Clearly, that didn't work.

It's easier to travel in a harsh environment when you don't really have much of a physical presence, so he's spending a lot of this trip in his smoke form. It's better, really; he didn't bring a ton of supplies based on where they were supposed to be going, so it's not like he has to worry about carrying a lot of things around. So those stormy clouds getting way too close to you? They might not be stormy clouds at all.

Especially when a voice might come out of seemingly nowhere.

"I feel like we're going in circles."

[B. STANDING HERE LOOKING BACK IN TIME (the moira)]

This whole trip's been frustrating, but it's not the worst thing Liquid's ever experienced. It's up there in weird things, but being a Snake he's just fine hunting for food when need be, and even the occasional bout of starvation doesn't seem to cause too much in the way of harm. For now.

He considers it more of a hallucination at first, coming up on the Moira, but even making sure he's corporeal doesn't make the thing disappear.

"Bloody hell, it's still here."

Maybe if he explores in there he can find his old room. Better than staying out here.

"Let's see what's left of it, hm? Unless you'd rather stay out here with... all of this."

[C. WILDCARD]

[just run into him anywhere along the trip if you'd like, or plot with me here or at agentkaz!]

a. on the road. i thought these two should meet for reals :D

[switchcircuit]

Red's finally regained most of her sight and hearing from the storms and for the blessed moment they aren't flaring up again in the sky like God's very own hemorrhoids. Now she has other worries: namely hunger and exhaustion. She had brought a bottle of water with her for the trip and that was her saving grace really, but it won't be enough. It wasn't as if critters roamed around Cloudbank which were edible and not computer processes. What she wouldn't give for a big greasy slice of pizza.

She is literally and figuratively dragging her feet by now. At least she has decent boots and jeans thanks to Ahab. Red thinks to herself she might start chewing on one of those boots soon—

When she screams at a voice suddenly close by. Red claps her hands over her mouth and stands there as still as she can although it feels as if she's trembling all over. Her eyes are wide as she looks around and sees nothing but dust kicked up from the winds, so she assumes. "That's it," she whispers to herself. "I've gone crazy."

siegfried // ota

[gerechtigkeit]

[hitting the road.

It doesn't take him long to realize what's happened, and even worse is the feeling that sits in him, forces him to breathe out and pull himself out of a daze that he hadn't realized he'd been staying in. They'd left them here. They'd gathered all the newcomers, brought them here with a plea, and left them. Were it just Servants like him, Siegfried wouldn't be as bothered- but these are people who wanted to help, who went believing the good nature of the Savrii. The feeling squeezes his chest, and vaguely he realizes that it's anger that sits there, a familiar reminder akin to when Rider asked him if he forgot what it meant to be a hero.

Now isn't the time to dwell on it- people need a leader and a face to direct them, and he can be that. His eyes close, placing his own emotions behind what everyone else wants. This is all beginning to feel familiar.

Someone jars against his elbow, and his eyes flick open again, startled.]

Sorry. [There he goes, apologizing again.] Are you all right?

[storm front. (part a)]

I can keep an eye out. [This is being said to whoever is keeping watch as people drink from the caves, or looking after a group as they sleep. The storms have kept him busy, but he's been wary of staying for too long, mostly because things seem to keep getting worse, and even he can't seem to make sense of time.]

You need some rest. Take it. I'll be fine.

[He doesn't need it, after all. Whatever the Ingress used to sustain him here in Thisavrou is enough to keep him going without anything for a long while.]

[(part b)

There is also, of course, times where certain people in the group are falling behind, or are too stubborn to ask for help. Siegfried will stop where he is and be by their side momentarily, a tall man willing to offer a shoulder to lean against in case they need support.]

Here. Can you walk?

[And if you're among the group who is too stubborn to ask for help when you should be, you might end up being carried bridal-style until he can be convinced to let you down otherwise.

wildcard.

(have any ideas? wanna hash stuff out? hmu in a pm or on plurk at chromadestino)]

storm front b

[yorisearching]

[As hard as Yori tries to keep up, it's difficult to match the pace after the storms seem to have sapped half the feeling from her hands and feet. Her balance is off and she keeps stepping wrong on the uneven rocks. So, while she wishes it weren't necessary, she appreciates the concern of the tall User.]

I'm not hurt, I just can't quite feel my feet.

[She glances at the ominous sky and back down again fast. Maybe she does need a little bit of help to avoid slowing everyone down. She offers an apologetic smile and grabs hold of the offered arm, just past the elbow.]

Can you help me catch up again? I'll be fine from there.

[Probably. She hopes.]

Elizabeth || OTA

[tearmeanewone]

Hitting the Road

[What? The Savrii pulled a fast one on them and now they're stuck in a barren wasteland with just one hope-- a faint signal that might as well be named "Longshot"?]

[Wow. What a shock.]

[In a certain backwards way she can understand why this happened-- usually when problems started happening in a society, it couldn't be traced back to one specific group no matter how many verbal and philosophical backflips were performed. But in this case? Elizabeth can't say they're wrong about it. She can't say that she's entirely blameless either, her shadow must have murdered dozens of people while she hid and pretended it wasn't happening. But the solution shouldn't be Australia-levels of imprisonment and deportation. Especially now that there's a chance they could make it back. Elizabeth is only disgruntled-- she can imagine how everyone else must feel right now though. Furious.]

[It would really serve the Savrii right if Elizabeth just opened a tear right back into their Ingress complex and marched the entirety of the group back in there. Livid and betrayed, it would probably make for some just desserts. Bad idea aside though, when Elizabeth reaches out she can see doors, but opening them... She reaches to look and the knob disappears, metaphorically. None of them are stable enough to walk anybody through, much less herself. And even if she could, they were just betrayed by the founders and keepers of interdimensional travel-- and most of these people don't know her from Eve. She can't imagine anyone would be terribly thrilled to know she's a natural, walking Ingress.]

[So she does what she's always done: she keeps it to herself.]

[A]

[At least she's prepared for a mission gone wrong. 'Land of plenty' or no, Elizabeth never goes anywhere without being ready for everything to go south. After taking stock of where they are and how everyone is faring, she unpacks her arsenal. Pistol on her hip, rifle over her shoulder. She's saving the shotgun. She checks her ammo stock, nervous that she only has enough for three, maybe four full-blown shoot outs. Who knew how long they'd be out here? Who knew what was even out here with them...]

[It's not particularly cold, but she buttons her apparently bullet-proof coat up to her neck (the card was still in the pocket, and she'd taken a moment to wish she could remember Harry Hart, who had apparently liked her enough to give her a Christmas present). She's going to spend a lot of time in this coat, probably, as they travel towards the signal.]

[Elizabeth stays towards the outside edges of the group, keeping her eyes and ears sharp. She might have one of the only long-range weapons, it doesn't make sense for her to be in the middle of a bunch of people. She really doesn't want to be in the middle of them anyway. Emotions are running too high.]

[B]

[A few days in, Elizabeth comes to a very dark realization: food is limited. She's seen a few animals here and there, but they're big. She'd have to shoot them very accurately, or waste dozens of bullets, trying to bring one down. She's getting hungry and light-headed.]

[They've stopped for the night and Elizabeth spots the telltale twisted limbs of one of the charred animal corpses they've passed before. Everyone else seems occupied with securing their sleep, perhaps exploring a cave, and so Elizabeth casually walks over to the body like she's off to find a private moment.]

[She pauses in front of the corpse and looks. It's alive and here, sure enough, and Elizabeth pulls out a strange ceremonial-looking knife that she'd found in her things-- she had a box of dozens randomly enough. Checking over her shoulder one more time, she opens the tear to the live animal, crouched and spitting at something. Elizabeth stabs the knife into the thing's neck and puts all her weight on it as the animal screeches and struggles. She waits until it's still and tries not to hurl.]

[The only problem, she realizes as she gathers up the kill and starts carting it back towards the camp, is that she has no idea how to skin and cook an animal.]



Familiar Places

[C]

[She shouldn't know it, but the moment she can focus on parts of the Moira she knows what it is. Nothing else they've passed has given her any kind of cognitive dissonance, after all.]

[Her vision fuzzes and there's a sharp pain in her head, and she knows exactly what's happening. No memories come back, just blood dripping from her nose, but that doesn't deter her. She wipes her nosebleed on the collar of her shirt (never the coat) and starts walking with purpose towards the Moira. No doubt there will be more of this sensation inside, but maybe, just maybe, it will trigger something.]

[D]

[It's the strangest thing-- Elizabeth feels tears in certain parts of the ship, dozens of them, maybe a hundred altogether, but in some areas it's just... dead. Devoid of any place in time, or any history. It's unsettling to walk through those, but she does. She spends almost all of her time walking the seemingly endless halls of the wreckage, running her hands over the walls and searching for a tear she can look into. Something strong, something with meaning. She's got a bright red handkerchief in her hand that she almost constantly holds to her face, but that doesn't stop her. She's determined.]

[After what feels like hours, when it's long past dark, Elizabeth finds herself in a large room with giant, shattered windows. No other equipment, just stairs and railings. An observatory, maybe?]

[As she approaches, a tear manifests in the center of the room, a trembling blue crack of floating light. She's alone, as far as she knows, so she touches the tear and it manifests, blue and fuzzy figures appearing on the floor. She recognizes herself immediately, her hair is shorter but otherwise she's the same. She's curled up on the lap of some ridiculously handsome man...]

['Here we are, the two people who could have the world but can't stand the thought of it and what the cost is.'

'That makes us the only sane ones.' The man flashes a pained grin, then slides his fingers into her hair. 'C'mon, Elizavetka. Date's not done yet.'

'Yes.' The image of Elizabeth reaches up for the man's face. 'Definitely not done yet.']

[Elizabeth, the solid one, startles and backs away as the image starts practically attacking this man's lips with her own. This is new. One hundred percent new. Did she... She had a boyfriend on this ship?!]

[Something moves close behind her, and Elizabeth jumps and shuts the tear while whirling around. That was an extremely private moment, even she feels strange watching her past self kiss someone with that kind of intensity. This isn't something for anybody to watch at all.]

What are you doing here? [She barks, defensive and shaken.]

D

[deal_me_in]

[The Exo raises his hands- well, hand and gun since he's holding his handcannon in one.]

Whoa, easy! Was just poking around, same as you.

[Hovering at his shoulder, the Hunter's Ghost moves in front of him just slightly, almost in defense. But at least it's polite.]

Apologies if we've startled you.

[It hesitates, the singular blue lens that seems to be something of an eye twitching just slightly as though to look past her before floating back and closer to Cayde again.]

Calla | OTA

[callamities]

if being afraid is a crime [pre-arrival, outside thisavrou’s ingress]
[There’s a crowd in front of the Ingress. It’s not surprising, given the number of people they’ve mobilized for this trip. They disappear through the portal, on their own or in groups, under the watchful eyes of the Ingress’s Savrii minders.

Calla is here because he has to be. The Creators in charge of this world had requested it and that fact is enough to obey, no matter how terrifying the demand. At least, that’s what he had thought. As the crowd in front of the Ingress grows smaller and smaller, it begins to become clear to Calla that obedience might not be so straightforward.

Case in point: it’s his turn to step through the Ingress—and he can’t make himself move.

He isn’t like most of the newcomers here; he had come here of his own free will. And though he doesn’t understand fully how the Ingress works, he knows that a door you’ve already passed through will only take you back to where you started.

He misses home. But he’s not stupid enough to go back.

He’s also holding up the line. Sorry about that.]

if being wrong's a crime [hitting the road]
[There had been a fair amount of panic when they first arrived. And why shouldn’t there be? The Savrii had declared all of them, Creator and Created alike, obsolete, without even doing them the courtesy of deactivating them before disposing of them. But hysteria won’t change what’s been done to them. It doesn’t change what it means.

It really doesn’t matter. He should’ve been deactivated on Earth 91c weeks ago. The fact that he was allowed to keep functioning on Thisavrou for as long as he did was error enough. This outcome was inevitable—there was never any use fighting it.

So he doesn’t. As the rest of the group gathers themselves and prepares to move, Calla stays seated on the rocky ground, not acknowledging any of them. Even as they begin to move away, he stays where he is.

He’s sure he’d just slow them down, anyway.]

i'm serving forever [still hitting the road]
[It’s days later that Calla's core programming forces him to abandon his original plan and catch up to the rest of the group. It helps that he doesn’t have to sleep and that he, inexplicably, hasn’t run out of energy and shut down yet. But that doesn’t mean he’s doing well. Anyone who approaches him will notice that the flower-shaped circuitry adorning his face isn’t glowing brightly as it usually is. Instead, the glow is so dim that the markings are only shades away from black. Not to mention, his expression is totally blank—not distant, not dazed, but completely vacant.

He will, however, speak if approached, his voice calm and strangely pleasant.]

May I help you with anything?

being wrong

[notglitching]

[Surprise is pointless. Panic, worse. Hysteria changes nothing, and nothing changes the inevitability of betrayal. Especially from users. Especially from those. But fighting? Is what Rinzler is for.

The concept of stopping never processes, but he will pause for a moment. Specifically, in Calla's periphery, where the other program might pick up another ticking rumble—and if he glances up, see a helmeted figure staring down at him skeptically. Is this a new glitch?

Last time Rinzler saw this error, he at least knew how to walk.]

tony stark | ota

[arcreact]

i. hitting the road

[ It's not that Tony's against gestures of goodwill or amends-making on principle. Far from it. But the Savrii haven't done a whole lot to earn warm feelings from him, and don't seem to understand some essential components of negotiation and diplomacy - like the parts where the trade is mutually beneficial, or undertaken willingly. Actually, it feels more like being made to wash dishes after you couldn't pay for your meal, only the dishes are unfathomable horrors, and you never asked to be given a meal in the first place.

But whatever. Space. What else is new?

He stuffs his pacdisc with all the things his paranoid mind assumes they'll need for what's essentially a Star Trek away mission, and goes about following their not-orders with no small amount of snark. And it's manageable at first, when it's all hypotheticals and quips and they haven't stepped through the Ingress yet.

But then they do step through, and even that tenuous humor feels difficult to dredge up. He scans the familiar scenery of the Midway Hub and feels a bit like he's been dropped from a great height. It's a while of disbelieving gaping and pacing before he can summon up a smart remark. ]

Pretty audacious way of taking out the trash, don't you think?

[ Almost gotta admire the balls, if not the morals. ]

ii. storm front

[ "Indomitable spirit" is probably a dramatic way to describe what's mostly "insatiable scientific curiosity." Are they currently living an actual, hang-to-God nightmare scenario of his? Sure. Do things look grim to the point of being borderline hysterical? Yes. Thanks for asking. Is there a chance they're all gonna get fried to death at basically any time? Absolutely.

But damn if it isn't fascinating.

As a storm passes and the travelers creep out from wherever they'd managed to take cover - under outcroppings, in caves, in divots in the ground - Tony makes his way over to the black, twisted remains of ground zero. After a few minutes of poking at the charred vegetative life, scuffing at the blackened soil, and tsking at some poor animal that didn't cheese it in time, he mutters very distinctly: ]

Yeahhh... it's dead, Jim.

[ Just let him have this. It detracts from the looming horror that one of them could be next.

(And if he cuts up his hands more than once sifting through the evidence because the pain receptors aren't working as well as they normally should - well, that's whatever.) ]

iii. old familiar places

[ After what feels like a few months of misery packed into a handful of days, the form of the Moira looms on the horizon. It's hard to say whether the sight of it is a positive thing or not; the harshness of the storm outside has made shelter the most dire of their necessities, particularly as no one has actually succumbed from dehydration or starvation. According to Maslow, that just leaves a roof. It's just unfortunate that the roof in question feels like returning to a crime scene.

It's not that Tony enjoyed his time on the Moira. A cramped, delicate machine hurtling through space with all manner of lunatics trapped inside, the creepy voices on the observation deck, the glass-riddled remnants of the Caducan invasion - it was practically a prison. But still, the circumstances that led to its crash weigh heavy on his conscience. Would any of them be in this situation if not for that one colossal fuckup?

Impossible to say, really.

Either way, as the intrepid travelers pile into the wreckage of the ship and get as settled as they can, Tony takes the time to wander deeper into the bowels of the ship - sometimes climbing or ducking around hallways, doors, and debris that are oriented wrong. Even with the twisted scenery, though, the path to the engine room is familiar - and maybe, in some morbid way, kind of nostalgic. ]

Nice. Glad to see this place is still a dump.

[ His voice echoes eerily around the cavernous room - it was never this quiet (or cold) back when the engines were still alive. The sound travels farther than he'd intended. Oh well. ]

Sorry, kid. I'd pour out a drink for you if I had one.

[ A man talking to a spaceship is probably not the weirdest thing that's happened this week, so at least there's that. ]

iv. wildcard

[ ???? Come at me bro ]

old familiar places

[otiosity]

[Honestly being blind hadn't been so bad. She got to hang out with her dog because she claimed that he was very good at assisting blind people (he wasn't) and holding Pepper's hand when she decided to jump in and save Kitty from his shameful stint as a seeing eye-dog.

Okay, that's not true. Being blind had been a little bit scary. But she'd made it through. Like some kind of roach that's meant to be scuttling around in dark places like this, Hawke always seemed to make it through with just a few scraps and bruises.

But it didn't let up. She'd woken to find her voice gone. Her throat and chest burned when she tried to speak. It reminded her of being ill with the flu as a child, her lungs sore from coughing and a sharp lump in her throat. But it was strange to suffer it and to not to feel ill. In fact, she felt very little at all. Just a funny sort of numbness and exhaustion. So when she realized she couldn't hear, all she could do is silently laugh. There was a joke in there that she couldn't find in her exhaustion.

And like a glutton for punishment she ended up back into the bowels of the Moira. She'd almost forgotten what it had been like, trapped, often afraid, mixed in with memories of playing cards with Tony and Nate late into the night.

Speaking of... There's Tony. Of course he'd return here, returning to the scene of the accident to hope for clarity that would never come. She tries to call out to him, forgetting herself in the normalcy of bantering with him, but she can only choke and cough silently.

So instead she comes up behind him and gives him a good hard jab in the arm with her finger.]

Adrien Arbuckal | OTA

[prorenataa]

A - Wild Life

"Oh come on, Courser!" Adrien chastised the oddly lethargic bahari as the murder cat allowed himself to be rolled by the grotesque panther.

The last time they'd done this, the bahari had been wickedly effective against the creatures, but this time the bahari's heart just wasn't in it. Even at half capacity, the tracker was still big enough and well equipped to provide a certain level of support but it was obvious that he was just going through the motions.

Growling under his breath, Adrien finished dispatching the sightless monster he'd been tangled up with and threw himself into the panther like creature as it barreled towards his companion. Cat and human landed in a tangle of teeth, claws, a switchblade and wicked looking knife. The doctor was coming out the victor in this engagement, but as he stumbled away from the twitching body, it was obvious that he'd taken a rake of claws across his ribs.

"Fucking Fates', that was a cock up," he growled as he walked in the way that suggested he was trying to walk through pain he wasn't admitting too. Teeth clenched, he frowned at where Courser lay down with his chin on his paws, looking vaguely apologetic but otherwise unaffected by either the danger or his companion's concern.

Shaking his head, Adrien looked upwards towards the sky, a low rumble starting in his chest, before he bellowed up at the storm.

"FUCK YOU, SIDEWAYS WITH A RUSTY KNIFE." Pause. "A FUCKING DULL, RUSTY SERRATED KNIFE!"

Yeah, the doctor was not happy. Be careful, he's also armed with at least one handgun and it still has a full clip of bullets.

B - Old Familiar Places

By this point Adrien had mostly retreated from just about every other living soul. He moved mechanically, one foot in front of the other because that's what you had to do to survive. Courser trailed along behind the doctor, his normally colorful scales dull and listless, tailing dragging along the ground.

As they came upon the Moira Adrien didn't appear to noticeably pause or otherwise acknowledge the ship. He simply moved to one of the torn openings and vaulted easily within its hull. Courser silently followed. He said nothing to anyone, simply disappearing into the dark hull.

Eventually, someone might come across him in the destroyed remnants of the medbay. Simply sitting on the floor, knees drawn up with his head resting against them, one hand closed loosely around the grip of the Glock that appeared to be dangling from his fingers. The messenger bag, with it's pacdiscs full of medical equipment lay on one side of him, Courser on the other.

If he was needed, he expected he'd be found and people might want to knock or risk a bullet. Otherwise, he showed absolutely no interest in anything around him.

A

[a_shadow]

She knows Adrien has a temper, but she's never seen him explode quite like this. She's nearby and not in a big hurry to draw nearer, but she does start moving in his direction. She doesn't want to become another target for his ire. But it's got to be hard for those, like him, who don't have the protection of a heavy suit of armor like hers—which is most of the party.

"When was the last time you slept?" she asks calmly as she finishes her approach.

kurt wagner [nightcrawler] ❧ ota

[shadowblends]

❧ on the road again

[Kurt wants to say that he believes it's a mistake; the Savrii didn't mean for them to end up stuck at the Midway Hub again, but ...

How ironic that after a demon invasion, they just so happen to accidentally get dumped into this chaotic place, spread out across the shambles of what's leftover from their last visit here. He's almost certain it's no coincidence that this has happened, but doesn't want to be pessimistic about the situation. That's not the role he is known for.

Instead, he decides to channel the anger into energy that he puts toward collecting supplies. Anything that isn't nailed down goes into his pacdisc and at the end of the night, it's rifled through. Whatever is still of use stays while the remainder gets tossed-- unless, someone else needs it, which he won't even question.

At least he'd been smart enough to pack sealed snacks away in the pacdisc for emergencies. (They had been for when he was working at the hospital, but this counted, too.)

Should anyone want what he deems unnecessary to carry, feel free to bother him. The company would most likely be appreciated, too, since he's been rather quiet after the arrival. Here's to hoping he hasn't stewed all that much about their situation.]

❧ take me down to the riverbend

[Seeing the glowing pools is both a relief and a discomfort. Remembering the sickness he'd suffered from consuming too much of the neon liquid makes his stomach churn, fueling the already fiery burn from the lack of food. He knows that if they drink the water, they'll suffer side-effects, although at some point, it seems to be their only answer.

Whatever snacks he can spare, little Blue shares, careful to make note of his depleting provisions.]

❧ thunders getting louder and louder

[Alternatively, if Kurt cannot be found providing people with supplies, it's possibly because he's seeking shelter in the mouths of the caves, pacing back and forth in an overwrought manner. They had encountered the odd felines from before, but they'd been twisted into something dark and wickedly aggressive, to the point that he's apprehensive about sleeping.

His fear spikes when he imagines what the faceless monsters from before might have evolved into, leaving him gaping up at the illuminated spanse of formations on the roof of the cave. Well, if there's one thing they shouldn't have to worry about, it's a lack of light source.

... assuming nothing happens to it, that is.

Ach! Another thing that he can add to his list of things to fret over later. For now, he retreats further into the cavern, stopping at the edge of one glowing pool to kick a stone in. They'd become complacent and look where it'd gotten them: stuck right back where everything had started. (In Kurt's case, anyway.)

But hey, at least he isn't the size of a toddler this time.]

❧ drop me down to the dream below

[Once the week comes where they arrive at their destination, Kurt can hardly believe it.

The Moira (or what's left of it) in front of him, where he can reach out and actually touch the abandoned pieces of the ship. He struggles internally for the longest time before he can no longer resist teleporting here and there, sometimes going deep into the hull with his ability to crawl on the walls.] It may not be in it's grandest state, but this is still amazing!

[Exploring the ship yields decent results; he finds some things that they could use, maybe even need, though he notices that nothing they find is recognizable to anyone that had been on the Moira. It's a bit disappointing and even if he himself had no belongings to mourn over, his friends do.

While he finds it strange that they reach a point where they can proceed no further, he's thankful for the fact that they're able to still seek shelter from the storm continuing to rage outside. There had been a point during the trip where he thought he might have experienced some temporary blindness, but with the lingering effects from having to drink some of the discolored water, he's ninety-nine point nine percent positive that it had been nothing. Perhaps, his overactive imagination had concocted something in a dream he'd happened to have.

The little demon doesn't want to think about that. Focusing on hunting down things they can use for survival is far more important than things that were no longer happening, especially since there's no way of knowing how long they will have to wait at the Ingress chamber.]

❧ wildcard

[ooc: none of these catch your eye? hit me with something!]

thunders getting louder and louder

[brokeassgoing]

[He's getting real tired of watching Kurt pace at the mouth of the cave, but not enough to stop idly blowing smoke rings into the air.]

Wonder if that Panther'll ever taste any better.

The Big Sister | OTA

[handofrapture]

i. i’ve gotta maintain the madness [wildlife]
[It’s the Big Sister’s second time on this planet. She can remember her confusion the first time, staring up at the sky, wondering if it was some vast ocean hanging overhead. There’s less wonder now. They’d clearly been tricked into coming here and more than anything, the Big Sister feels rage. The reasons of the Savrii aren’t important, only that they meant for this to be a lethal trap and now she can’t reach them to demonstrate what a bad idea that was.

The Big Sister had never understood Lamb’s speeches fully. But she expects that she’s justified in calling the Savrii “tyrants.” One did not do this to family, after all.

Absent the actual judges, the Big Sister occupies herself with their would-be executioners instead—namely the local wildlife. A pack of those faceless creatures proves diversion enough. They’ve been following the group of travelers from afar, posing a danger to any who dare stray from the rest. The Big Sister returns the favor, donning her armor and zealously attacking any scouts who split off from their pack. She’s started looking forward to seeing one of the creatures skulking around their makeshift camps.

Until she follows one such solitary creature behind a rocky outcropping and there are two more there lying in wait. Her reaction is immediate upon realizing the ruse, a metallic screech of rage and a blast of telekinetic energy that sends one creature flying into another. That leaves one she can focus on for a few seconds, but she knows she only has so much time before the other two pick themselves up again and it will be three-on-one.

The Big Sister usually prefers to fight alone. But even she can admit that help would be appreciated here.]

ii. just so the stillness makes sense to me [post-storm]



[Eventually, even the Big Sister is forced to acknowledge that continuing to seek out fights is not the best idea anymore. She can feel herself getting weaker from a lack of food and the strange, sapping fog hanging in the air.

She remembers when she first arrived on this planet, how she’d been too weak to even remove her armor without assistance. She’s determined that it won’t happen again. The second her armor starts to feel like a weight rather than an extension of herself, she finds a quiet place to sit down and begins to take it off.

The helmet is the first thing she removes. The heavy dome gives a rusted click as she twists it to the side and then lifts it off. Her face is even more gaunt than usual and her yellowed eyes are not as quick and sharp as they usually are. The Big Sister is used to running on a heady mix of ADAM and rage. Fatigue is not normal for her.

She rests the helmet on her lap, gaze listless as she stares down at the metal dome. She doesn’t move for several beats—and then a few more. After a moment, her eyes start to close.

If anyone comes across her, they’ll find an unusually tall teenage girl in strange armor, head bowed over what seems to be a modified diving helmet in her lap—apparently having fallen asleep after taking it off.]

ii.

[worn_wings]

[ Running from shit weather isn't really his style, but there's something about those storms that makes him uneasy. It's not weather the way he knows it. Last time through the Midway hub he didn't mind the lack of shelter so much-- they'd been cooped up so long on the ship-- but right about now even a fallen building would be welcome.

When things seem to have cleared up he roams a little further from the main group, looking for-- well, anything; shelter or food or threats-- but instead finds a stranger. Not quite sure whether she's friend or foe, he's cautious in approaching, his knife in hand. ]

Hey. You alright?

closed to solid snake

[shashka]

[ in retrospect, he should've anticipated this. for the time being, it had made sense to be as cooperative with the intermediaries as possible, as much as he felt this was some sort of a trap for them all. and, in the end, he'd been right (absently, he wonders if Joy will be fine. they had left her with plenty of easily accessible food and water, after all, but who knew if they'd ever get back). to top off the whole situation, he'd gotten separated from the main group (and one person in particular) during the whole ordeal.

all around him, the storm raged on. one wrong move could spell disaster. and, as far as he could tell, he was all alone.

almost all alone. ]

[soldiergenes]

[ It's getting more and more difficult to believe that they're actually going to make it through this trip alive. They've following a weak signal to some sort of energy source, they're trapped on a planet that's more or less had all the life sucked out of it, and then there are these storms. It seems a whole lot like the Savrii just dropped them here to wither away and die.

Not that Snake (or anyone else, as far as he can tell) plans to just take that lying down. They'll do whatever they can to fight for their survival.

All the same, when the storm hits and there's not much in the way of shelter, there's little that Snake can do other than try to outrun it and seek out some kind of cover. He ends up crouched low to the ground, back pressed against a large boulder, arms wrapped around his head to shield himself as best he can.

And, after a while, it passes. Suddenly everything's quiet, quieter than it should be.

When he peeks out behind his makeshift cover, Snake doesn't see the rest of the entourage. There's only one other person nearby, a man with gray hair whose back is turned to him.

Not realizing at first, Snake approaches him. ] You all right?

Sideswipe | OTA

[redshitlord]

1) ARRIVAL
No...

[It's all he can think to say, in the moment. In the second the portal closes up behind them, and spreads the world out in front of them in vivid, stormy detail. It's too familiar. It's wrenching, terrifyingly familiar.]

[After the shadows, after the Thing with Shepard and Lavellan, it's... too much for the 'bot. Who sinks down. Sitting right where he appeared, his head in his hands. Staring at the ground.]

No, this is... this is so not happening.



2) STORMS AND MONSTERS
[At some point, though, he'll get himself back up on his feet and join the trek. There's not much he can do but pick up anyone who needs a ride and trudge onward.]

[Or snatch someone up from sinking on the spongey ground. Covering them while storms rage.]

[And when monsters arise, Sideswipe is quick to draw his sword and stand his ground in front of those who can't fight back. He's big, he's stronger than a lot of people here. And he can Help.]

[So he will.]



3) THE MOIRA RETURNS
[Seeing the ship again... he doesn't know what to think. What to do. For a minute, he's standing stock-still, staring up at it with wide optics. For all his bravado on the trek forward, it's gone now. It drains out of him like the energy spent in walking.]

[This... isn't how he wanted to see the ship again.]

[How he wanted to see the place he met Riptide. Or all the others just... gone. When things hadn't been this bad.]

[Before anyone can stop him, he's charging into the wreckage. Maybe their room survived. Maybe there's something, anything left of how things used to be. There won't be. But he has to hope.]


4) wildcard!
[Hit me with anything!]

arrival

[tearsinajar]

[ No one should be able to miss the sight of a large robot sinking to its knees. Elena doesn't miss it, turning as she catches sight of him going down in her peripheral. Breaking away from Nate for a moment, she goes to Sideswipe just in time to hear him speaking out about the unexpected transition. ]

Hey... Hey, you're okay. We're going to be okay.

[ Crouching down next to him, she doesn't touch him. She speaks with reassurance, however, leaning in to try and catch his eye. ]

VETRA NYX | ota

[nyx_it]

1) View from "Palaven" (arrival)
[Vetra hasn't been on this planet for more than a few months, but her chain of favors has made one thing clear. Don't trust the Savrii all that much.]

[Even so... she's unprepared for the depth of this betrayal. For them being dumped on a garbage planet. This is worse than anything they've tried terraforming in the Heleus cluster. There's just nothing. For miles.]

[Vetra Nyx says nothing, at first. Just draws in a slow, deep breath... and violently kicks a rock out of her path.]

Great. Now what.


2) Ardat Yakshi (monsters)
Shit!

[Probably not the most intellectual of responses to the sudden appearance of a monstrous, bipedal creature appearing on your six. But still. Effective. It's second-nature to hit the activation on her power armor, to draw her weapon and fire.]

[But it's not as if dextro-safe food has been in high supply. So while she has no issue opening fire, maintaining the fight may be an issue soon enough.]


3) From the Wreckage (the Moira)
[So ... it's a ship. They've come all this way for a ship that can't even fly. That is too badly damaged to be more than just an ugly decoration on the equally ugly landscape. She spends a minute, no more, scanning the debris, before activating her omni-tool.]

[Something in this ship has to be salvageable. Maybe they can start building a wall, or a less temporary shelter than they've managed on the march.]

Okay. So let's see what we can do with all this scrap metal.


4) Wildcard
[Hit her up with anything!]

[yondu]

Ardat Yakshi (monsters).

[Yondu's not been able to eat as much either. He can eat the game fine. He's got a mouth full of teeth to show how much he likes meat. But he's not exactly had a lot of water.]

[The monster is already half dead when Yondu shows up and his whistle precedes him. The arrow whizzes by with a tailstreak of red and tears through the thing once, twice, three times. One last rush through the ankle lets it drop to a lifeless heap on the ground. Dead like everything else seems to be, save for the horribly inconvenient carnivore or two.]

[The arrow returns to its master and he catches it by his head.]

Looked like you could use the hand. [He gestures at... whatever the hell that was with the arrow before "holstering" it in his belt.]