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thisavrou_log2018-02-20 09:13 pm
savmods) wrote in thisavrou_log2018-02-20 09:13 pm
February Event Log II: Every Cloud
Who: Anyone and Everyone
When: February 20-28
Where: Avagi
What: The storms break through.
Warnings: Scary creature image, and descriptions of monstrous transformation. Label your content.
[OOC: A couple notes! Regarding the Mirtos: the NPCs can be written into any thread, as can transformed PCs once their change is complete. (At that point, they will be effectively dead, and serving as the storm's avatars.) To interact with them partially through their transformations, we suggest hitting up the players involved.
Regarding the memorials: suggestions for how to activate them can be deposited here on the OOC post. While it can be assumed some measure of success will be had, the specific way the portals activate will affect both player control of the station and defense against the storms going forward. We encourage players to try a multitude of options, and to question for as many details as they might need.]
When: February 20-28
Where: Avagi
What: The storms break through.
Warnings: Scary creature image, and descriptions of monstrous transformation. Label your content.
| Over the last week, those who stayed behind have taken steps to safeguard living spaces from the spreading smog—both through sealing off safe zones and through more creative ways. The away team has likewise made great strides, traversing more than half of the station's exterior and making a couple discoveries of their own. Today, their route takes them into a new section: one that will have lasting consequences for both their journey and Avagi as a whole. |
| The Breach |
A number of side passages and small rooms dot the approach. Thick doors, once unsealed, reveal a space that can only be described as eerily familiar. A slab of metal and hard plastics dominates the space, filling a pedestal at the room's center. Small pieces of similar machinery decorate the room's edges, and the area between is occupied by everything from sleeping mats to office chairs, arranged in a circle. The room is large, with a high ceiling, inscriptions at the walls, and a bizarre sense of reverence that washes over the travelers as they enter. Almost exactly like the Ingress memorial they know. As this section is possesses both working generators and breathable air, it offers a valuable rest stop for even the more wary—and, of course, a place to search for signs of earlier passage. Some might occupy themselves deciphering the inscriptions. Others, ransacking the adjacent rooms for anything of use. But a rare few individuals will find themselves pursuing something. A sound, pressing at the edge of your awareness. Scrat̸̕c̵h̸̶i̧̡n̡g͘ at the walls. A small group find themselves searching not forward, but back. One of the side passages adjacent to the memorial's entrance terminates in a strange door: marked by a familiar "X". The sounds come from behind it, and for all that no speech or lifesigns will answer the investigation, the pace of the scraping increases when one tries. Loud. Frenzied. Those gathered outside may be sympathetic or panicked, looking to help whatever's trapped, or just to get away. Whatever the case, their efforts will be interrupted when the door shatters. Flakes of thin, brittle metal shower outward, and those present might catch glimpses of a figure—dim and skeletal, with a hideously vacant gaze. Then the storm rushes out from behind the breach in its containment: an endless void, eager to swallow everything and everyone you know. Merely staring at the storm can have effects. Fighting is impossible. Individuals may slow the rush with magic or technology, or drag others out of the way, but the away team as a whole will be forced to flee behind the Ingress chamber's solid seals. There is no way to go back, but this strange memorial and its adjoining passages are safe. The same doesn't apply to everyone who came with you. Cayde-6, Neriel Lavellan and the Big Sister were among those who found the door—and in the process of retreat, they put themselves directly in the storm's path to allow others to escape. Once enveloped, they will fall unconscious, and while their bodies can be recovered to safety with the rest, no amount of effort will rouse them. |
| The Monsters |
While locked out of one space, the storm has not stopped spreading elsewhere—including back along the path you traveled. Its effort to consume the living area you know will be halted by one Erik Lensherr—who, much like the explorers who happened across the breach in the first place, will be forced unconscious by direct exposure to the storms. Despite their losses, both home and away teams will have a brief period to recover: two days of relative peace in their respective sealed spaces, to recuperate or repair what they can. But strange shapes can be seen in the shadows. And then, your sleeping friends wake up. Their features are ashen. Their pulse is slow. Strange marks creep down their limbs and features, corroding through metal and impressing into flesh. From the moment they wake, they are prone to periods of listlessness. Still, they stand and move of their own power, respond to their name and remember what you've said. At first. Over the next few days, the affected will grow thinner, features smudging to dull grey. Hunger gnaws at their insides, but food seems pointless and unappealing, insufferable even when they're made to choke it down. Manic bursts of energy possess them, mood swinging from complete disinterest to outbursts of vicious, energetic rage. Can't you hear it?, they ask. Don't you understand? They may struggle to break back through the barriers. They may not bother—knowing, after all, that all your efforts will gain you nothing in the end. They know what's waiting in the dark. They hear the call, like all their kind. The clouds that gather around the Ingress' eye, the absence that consumes. The voice. Their voice. The storms have claimed them, and the storms take memory and friendship, speech and empathy and strength of will. The affected will become Mirtos: skeletal, dark avatars of the storm. And they have come to channel it to you.  Perhaps, for a time, you can keep your friends under control. But they aren't the only dangers out there. The shape seen in the initial breach was not a hallucination, and that Mirtos made it through the doors before they closed. The home team will similarly find a pair of creatures lurking in their shadows: visually identifiable as the mummified bodies the away team found and left behind. As their brethren awake, these Mirtos will grow more aggressive, attacking those who enter the dark spaces. Like the storm they embody, they absorb all forms of energy, from laser blasts to the kinetic force of a weapon. In true nightmare form, you may find yourself swinging as violently as you can, only to grow weak and collapse on contact with your foe. They can be distracted easily by groups, but don't forget the targets who they've touched, and anyone who escapes would do well not to walk the halls alone. Individuals who physically contact them will find the life draining from them. Repeated contact, or touch uninterrupted for long periods, will produce another empty, husk-like corpse. Containment has more effect, but even that can't be relied on. The Mirtos corrode all material they come across, and sections of solid decking or thick doors will become spongy and brittle in a matter of days. With no way out, and no effective method of defense, Avagians will be left with only one recourse: finding a way to end them. |
| The Light |
Since the current Avagians first came to the station, it's been clear that the Ingress remnants hold a near-religious significance to those who'd lived here before—and perhaps not without reason. The shrines set up by former residents have twice spawned portals leading to other worlds. The Ingress memorial in your own sector has always brought a sense of peace—and, after the recent time distortions, began flickering with a silver light that seeks and holds attention. Even the recent revival from death was preceded by a strange encounter at the memorial. Both in the away team's temporary campsite and your own domain, another fact will become quickly apparent: the Mirtos avoid the memorials at all costs. No attacks will be made in these spaces, and even your partially-transformed allies will find themselves discomforted by the bright glow. As closely as the storms have surrounded this station, it's clear the Ingress energy that forms your portals acts as a deterrent, too. Over the next week, the challenge is simple: find a way to activate this power of your own accord.  While your home may have been scoured, new clues can be found in the area the away team has opened up. As en route, inscriptions can be found along the walls of their memorial—but this time, densely packed enough to line the room. Written in a variety of languages, some passages pray overtly to "the light", while others call to a variety of named deities—and still others read as one-sided conversations, with persons acknowledged missing or deceased. A child's drawing shows a block roughly recognizeable as their memorial, but blazing at its peak with light. Oddly absent is any sign of technological control. No interfaces are plugged into the wrecked pieces of machine, though those who have worked with Ingress tech themselves are welcome to make their own attempts. With the danger of the storms outside, and the Mirtos wandering within, no method of investigation is the wrong one—but apathy spells certain death. |
[OOC: A couple notes! Regarding the Mirtos: the NPCs can be written into any thread, as can transformed PCs once their change is complete. (At that point, they will be effectively dead, and serving as the storm's avatars.) To interact with them partially through their transformations, we suggest hitting up the players involved.
Regarding the memorials: suggestions for how to activate them can be deposited here on the OOC post. While it can be assumed some measure of success will be had, the specific way the portals activate will affect both player control of the station and defense against the storms going forward. We encourage players to try a multitude of options, and to question for as many details as they might need.]
Cayde-6 // OTA
Curiosity killed the cat. It's a saying so old Cayde's not even sure where its origins are from. Definitely pre-Golden Age. How appropriate it is, he supposes he'll never know, on the account of his having never interacted with a cat. But then there was something about it being brought back, so it rendered the whole thing kind of pointless if it were meant as advice.
It's not a thought he dwells much upon as he wanders back along the empty corridors with whoever else has tagged along. At least having other people along proves that he's not imagining things. Something's making noise. Something else is here. And if it's something bad? He's putting a hole through its head.
Let the others root around and figure out things, and he'll figure this out with his gun if needs be. Of course, when they reach that same door marked off with an "X" the Exo brings up a hand, signaling a halt. "...Ghost, just to check- that's the same door we checked out earlier, right? With the bodies?" He pauses, waiting for his unseen companion to respond before nodding to himself. "Then...theoretically there shouldn't be anyone in there capable of moving, right? This just bodes all sorts of terrible. Can we get a reading? What distortion?"
"I'm not sure how to describe-- Cayde! Something's happening! The doors-!"
"MOVE!"
Cayde throws himself in front of the nearest person that might prove less durable than someone made of metal, his handcannon raised and taking aim past the rain of shrapnel. His finger oddly enough freezes upon the trigger, his optics focusing on the movement beyond the vague shapes that have emerged. He can hear his Ghost cry out in his head, and he turns, gesturing wildly. "Run, run, run!" He'll be right behind them.
The junction ahead has a sealable door, but the darkness is at his heels. Grunting a curse, Cayde summons his little A.I. to hand, and it appears in a brief sparkle of light. He shoves the Little Light to the nearest of his current compatriots (and possibly them as well as they close in on the doorway) despite its shout in protest and in fear, not sparing a second glance as he turns finally lets loose with his shots, light flaring as he shoots at the surging mass, futile, desperate.
It doesn't stop. It just keeps coming. Too fast.
Swinging his fist around, Cayde punches the door panel to close. It won't hold this, not for long, but maybe it'll gain the others some time as he watches the storm come. The sensation is all too familiar, the hungry void, just like the Darkness...
It all...
fades....
to...
b̵̺̱̭̗̮̦̮̝͓̫l̸͎͙͙̦͍̮̗͇͈̹a̵̡̧̡̱̮͖̖̼͚͜c̴̡̻̫̻̭̥̠̗̦͙k̸̹̫̯̲̫̠͇̬͜ͅ.
II. The Monsters in Our Heads - Side A
There's a dimness to the normally vibrant blue optics, a flicker like a straining flashlight whose batteries are on their last legs. The gleam of his metal plating is dulled, almost brittle in appearance, the dark lines that mar the Exo's face looking more like cracks rather than the inky spread of veins on affected organics.
His Ghost has been beside itself with worry, hovering as close as it would dare, lamenting that it hasn't been able to restore its Guardian. "It's nothing like I've ever seen before..." it says. "The Light...it just keeps fading." It might be odd that the little A.I. seems to be distancing itself from Cayde in this state, but it's not because it doesn't care. Someone might want to look out for the little guy though. Now and then it seems so distracted that it bumps into walls or people.
III. The Monsters in Our Heads - Side B
One might think it impossible for someone with a robot body to...thin out, but somehow, whatever's been eating away at the Exo has managed exactly that. It's like parts of him have been deteriorating beneath the equipment he wears. Maybe the others have given more of a hard time. Maybe not. Cayde has ceased to try, although he keeps his dim but unblinking stare leveled upon the doors where the barriers that hold the storm at bay lie.
He hears it. It's in his head. It's just like back then, only it's been engulfing him slower. Twisting him into something else. The faint glimmer of Light that he tried to hold onto is snuffed out like a candle.
The change comes without warning- but whoever is with his Ghost will know when it happens as the little A.I.'s vertices expand in alarm as it whirls about to look in whatever direction the room is that his Guardian might have been left to rest. "...no..!"
IV. Can Still See the Light - (Ghost Interlude)
"...I don't know what to do..."
The Little Light drifts back into the sanctuary of the Ingress memorial, the calm and comfort at odds with the frustration and worry within it. As much as it would be welcoming, it won't help the situation beyond these walls.
Its blue light swivels up towards the glow sitting atop the memorial, a mirror to the one back on the other end of the station where they'd first come. He'd known others had been trying to activate this one, for it wasn't until recently that it had sat unlit, a confounding puzzle.
But now it's awoken... Whatever it is.
A moment or two passes before the Ghost snaps out of it, shaking itself out. Certainly that feeling is there, those unusual readings it had picked up in the first attempts to study the anomaly with Cayde. Vertices twitch anxiously at the thought of its Guardian, lost and roaming these halls, propelled by whatever dark power was driven by the storm. One of its vertices shifts almost like a narrowing of an eye.
"We need your help," it begins, approaching the memorial and its comforting glow. "Whatever you are, whoever you are... Please. I know you've helped us before. There are so many things we still don't understand about what's going on now, and the storm's surrounded us. ...we've nowhere to go. It's taken people, changed them..."
The Ghost cringes, then forces itself to relax again, blue-eyelight wide as it looks to the silvery glow. Attempts to access the memorial as a system hadn't worked when it lay dormant, but now... Would it work?
"We don't know what to do, I don't know what to do...
"So please..."
It vanishes into the light with a brilliant flash.
V. Wildcard!
((OOC: Anything specific you might want to do? Mirtos encounters? Feel free to make up a prompt too, or poke me via PM or
SHIRO | ota + 1 closed
[For once, he sticks with the main team. Scanning the scrawled designs and etchings in the wall with his device. To send back to Allura and the others, in case they can find anything to help translate. It's strangely calm...]
[Which of course is when all hell breaks loose.]
[In the flurry of panic and activity, the sudden horrifying realization of what's happened, it's all he can do to search for his people. Keep track of Alfor. Find the familiar faces he's making sure to protect. To stay by. Lavellan is unaccounted for. Chara is absent. Others--]
Has anyone seen Chara! Lavellan!
[If no one stops him, the Black Paladin might actually go charging out there to try and find them.]
BREACH | message; team voltron
[It's got to be brief. It's got to be fast. But they have to know. He has to get the message back. He promised--]
Listen up! Everyone! Something's coming! The storms got inside! They're heading your way and something's living in them! Get your armor, get somewhere defensible. That's an order!
CONTAIN | ota
[He's seen what they can do, by now. It's going to be futile in the end, but it might buy the people back there a few days' time. A little longer. Anything he can do.]
[Including sealing the nearest set of doors. With his hand. It's glowing like a star, leaving a trail of molten metal in its wake. The best they can do... As the door threatens to pull open before he gets to the bottom.]
Hold it! Keep it steady! I'll make it as solid as I can!
FIGHT | ota
[In the end, it's going to come down to a fight.]
[Trying to find Chara, or Frisk, or evading one of the people who used to be a friend... it's going to come down to a fight in a hallway, or an empty room. He'd been so careful. He'd done his best to keep his promise.]
[But now it's a losing battle. Because he couldn't keep one last promise. Because he couldn't save Chara.]
[For the first time since he woke up with it, his right hand occasionally flickers, as he fights this nightmare. Strikes out against it again and again -- no longer trying to win. Just trying to get back to the safe zone, now.]
wildcard | ota
(( any ingress activating adventures will get their own separate header once I know what's going down, but!! anything else goes here!! ))
diana prince | dceu | ota
Diana knows that, as a group, they are too slow to react to the creature that escapes from the room. They should have killed it immediately, and not let it out of their sight. But it's too late for that now. It's loose, and the longer they spend in the semi-darkness, the more dangerous it becomes. The group is caught between two impossible options--go back to help defend those they'd left behind, or continue on and hope they find the other inhabitants. It is agonizing, and occupies the entirety of her mind.
That is how the Mirtos finds its opportunity to attack, as she's standing guard on the outskirts of their camp during the night.
The scratching on the walls has quieted, but she doesn't notice. A mistake, undoubtedly. The creature stalks up behind her, ready to pounce, grab her and turn her into one of its kind. Only because of her millennia of training does Diana finally realize something has changed, alerting her senses to the differences around her. Though its movements are whisper-quiet, she still catches them, slinging her shield from her back and whipping around just in time to smash its shriveled hand away from grasping her arm. But it doesn't seem fazed, continuing to move towards her, its hideous, skeletal face staring at her unblinkingly. They begin to circle one another, the hunter and the hunted.
The latter is not a role befitting an Amazon, so Diana lunges forward with her shield, aiming to crush the creature's face--but all it does is hiss against the surface of her buckler, smoke rising.
i finally see the pattern [light]
Antiope had always trained her warriors to be observant before anything else. If one does not see the course of a battle before it happens, how could they expect to win? After her misstep earlier, when she'd allowed the creature to nearly overpower her, Diana clears her mind and focuses. She sees that the creatures will not go towards the center of the huge room, staying close to the edges of the camp. When she approaches the memorial in the middle of the area, she doesn't see much that's different about it from the one they have on their side of the ship. But it must be the key. It must.
She stares into the flickering light for a long time before raising one arm and preparing to slam her bracelet into the side of the memorial. If no conventional means of power will activate the memorial, she will try a dose of divine energy.
Whether or not channeling her own energy into the memorial works, Diana begins to spend half an hour, twice a day, seated in front of the memorial. She always brings something with her--a small sliver of food, cloth dabbed with oil to burn, a splash of water on the altar, an item precious to her left at the foot of the shrine. She even finds a piece of wood from a broken chair, using a borrowed knife to carve it into the shape of a bull. If they had any livestock she would make a sacrifice, but the wooden figure will have to do. Once she's placed her offering, she sits silently, eyes closed and legs crossed, praying to the gods to show her the way to save the people of the Avagi. She could not save the people of Veld, or Steve, but she will not fail those trapped on this station. She cannot.
i never learn, i never learn [wildcard]
[hit me up on plurk at
This is the worst trip I've ever been on (Erik OTA)
[ It's getting harder to breathe. Erik moves as little as possible, sleeps as much as he can. Which usually is more difficult to do, but with the fatigue brought on by oxygen deprivation and the nonstop work of the past few months, he is actually able to rest more than usual.
It's during one of the periods he's awake, but not talking to anybody. Simply brushing up on some metallurgy, reading one of the books he had rescued from the library and taking notes on his A.C.E. that he realizes will probably seem incoherent when he goes back to read them later.
When the alarms start he jumps to his feet before he even fully processes what's happening and runs out into the hall. The storm is there. In the hall. Boiling through the corridors like a terrible hallucination. He turns to the others who were in the safe room with him. ]
Get out of here! I can seal it off. Just go!
2: My head will burst, my life will end (The Monsters)
[ Silence.
Then t̡h͟͡e̷̡͟ ̕͢҉s͟͝o͝n͡҉g̢
He stirs awake. Long limbs shifting, fingers curling, pulling him forward even though he doesn't understand why. The desire to move is too powerful to ignore. ]
3: So I'd like to start this off by saying (The Solution)
[ Somewhere deep inside him, Erik is screaming. He looks at nothing, slumped against a wall. The desire, the obsession, comes in waves. It's the only thing he feels. Somewhere deep inside, he knows this is wrong. Something is wrong something is wrong something is...
t́h̛e̸ ͟͞sin̕͏gí̡ng̡̡͡ ́͞g҉e̵t̵҉ś͡ ͢͝͡ló̷ù̸de̢r̢̀
Somebody approaches. He doesn't look to see who. He doesn't care. His fingers start to scratch at the wall as if by their own volition, following the tracks he has already scratched there. Bloody fingernails worn to stubs, the dark red, almost black blood staining gray skin. ]
I hear it. It's there. It's out there don't you hear that fucking music it's coming from the walls.
4: Live in love. (Wildcard!)
3
[This is not a man Rogue has ever met. This isn't Magneto. This isn't even Erik. It's some shell of a man, turning grey and as though some giant ran their thumb pad over him, smearing the lines.
It's awful to watch this once great man claw at the walls. He's fallen so far and she can't even enjoy it. She's not even sure she wants to.]
Erik- there ain't any music. You're just imagining things. [Her voice is soft and warm, as though speaking to a child.] C'mon. We should get you to the infirmary.
liiiiight
Instead, with the creatures they found being seemingly impervious to everything he could throw at them, he's taken on a different role. His speed and vision allow him to make an effective guard to watch over the camp while avoiding threats. Normally, with memorial providing a safe zone, he had no reason to check around there. It's only when he's heading back from his shift (despite his insistence that, no, he really does not need to take a break) that he comes across the women sitting front of it.
He watches for a while, sharp eyes darting between her and the sacrifice he's set up. Part of him understands the desire to try something, anything in a drastic situation. The other, more practical half can't help but feel dismissive. It's that part that comes through when he finally speaks.
"If you were going to get an answer, I imagine it would have happened by now."
ayyyy
She can hear a voice whispering in the back of her mind, telling her that this is pointless. There's nobody left to pray to, and it isn't as if she can pray to herself, even if she's the last of her kind. But even for a god, death was not quite the end--there was something afterwards, even if she couldn't say she'd ever glimpsed it herself. So it makes sense to say that she's praying to the spirits of the gods, though she doesn't think anyone but her mother and sisters would really understand what she meant.
The cloth releases the faint scent of cloves as it burns; a small bit of oil she'd gotten on Kaittos before leaving. She focuses on the scent, sending her prayers to wherever they might need to go. She has to believe that someone is listening, that they'll find a way to save themselves from the Mirtos. If she doesn't, well. She won't think about what it means if they lose hope.
Her thoughts are interrupted by a voice, one she's doesn't recognize--but the tone of disbelief is all too familiar. Diana takes a deep breath, trying to stay focused. "Some truths take time to reveal themselves."
Nova Barnett née Clone Shepard | Mass Effect | away team
[She looks a bit like that thing that brings the storm, she realizes, and it doesn't feel as odd to look at as the humans on the away team.
[Which is itself a red flag. She's been trying so hard to remember that she is human, she's not a monster, she's not like those aliens of her world and this one. This monster that looks so much like the one that had attacked her way back on the Moira shouldn't feel more familiar to her than humans.]
I'm not like that! [This sudden panicked, furious outburst by the memorial is as much trying to convince herself as the others.] I don't scratch walls, I don't let the storm in - [at whoever's nearest:] You have to believe me.
(Plotting thread or Plurk if you'd like to discuss! I'm good with threadjacking if a character wants to object to or build on someone else's suggestion on what to do with her.)
no subject
Why wouldn't I believe you?
[There's an edge of appeasement in her tone, as Clara tries shifting to guide Nova closer to the memorial. Is this outburst because of their location? Or is it because she's further deteriorating and becoming one of those creatures? ]
Think we should go someplace I can get a better look at you.
[Like the memorial that they're right nearby.]
no subject
He steps forward, walking around her and towards the memorial itself. He'd taken a look at it earlier, of course, but this was far beyond any technology or magic (if there was any difference in this world, as some writer he couldn't remember the name of had once said,) he had encountered before. Better to let the experts puzzle out its meaning if they could find time in between trying not to die to the storm or the monsters it had brought along.
EMIYA was fairly sure that this praying woman was not one of those experts. From her manner, her dress, and the ritual she was engaged in she seemed as out of time as any Servant he had ever met. The photograph catches his eye, distracting him from his appraisal.
"Your comrades, I assume? Left behind in your own world?" He bends over towards it, not touching it just yet and not because he needs to for a better look. He wants to see a reaction.
sideswipe | away team | ota
[When it happens, he's absolutely frozen. In complete and utter terror. No way. This can't happen. This... this isn't right. This is so wrong it's terrifying. He saw his friends just fall and he couldn't do anything. Cayde and Lavellan.]
[They just fall.]
[He's standing there, completely still. Unable to even make a sound as the storm starts roaring forward again. He should run. He should go get to safety. But his friends...]
BIG GODDAMN HERO;
[He made a choice.]
[There sure are a lot of mirtos in here. They probably are trying to get to you. Or claw their way into the room you're hiding in. Regardless, this is going to be A Problem pretty fast. Since they're basically invulnerable.]
[But you know what? They may be invulnerable, but they still have to obey the laws of physics. The laws of physics which say that when something slams into them with great force, their bodies will, temporarily, go flying.]
[So that's exactly what happens. A red car, slamming hard into the twisted, wretched bodies.]
[The door opens.]
[Get in loser, we're going to the Ingress.]
wildcard;
(( anything else you want with the giant robot! ))
The Big Sister | curtain call | OTA
The Big Sister doesn’t trust the scratching at the door.
She stands watch as the others investigate, fingers hot with ADAM as she readies herself to react if necessary.
She knows what it’s like to have no voice. She knows that there are other ways of making oneself understood—knocking, grunting, whatever sound can be used to produce deliberate responses. Whatever’s on the other side of the door isn’t doing that. Either it’s an animal or it’s a person who’s been reduced to one and in her experience, either one can be dangerous. So she stands and she watches, ready to fight even if the other investigators aren’t.
As it turns out, when the door bursts open in a spray of metal, there’s little she can do to stop it. The storm surges forward and the Big Sister barely has time to counter with a burst of Telekinesis in an attempt to hold it back. She remembers when she had first seen the sky after coming through the Ingress for the first time, she had thought it was an ocean. Perhaps that memory is what drives her now to push against the storm as if it’s water, as if her plasmids can control it just like they control the encroaching ocean in Rapture.
But it isn’t water. The storm pushes back, not like the uncaring weight of the ocean, but like something with intent, driving ravenously against her Telekinesis, and then her armor, and then her.
She feels only a moment of cold before she falls unconscious.
ii. and we drown [the call]
When she first awakens, the Big Sister thinks the calling must be her sisters. They’re the only ones whose voices have ever burrowed so deep into her mind, though they’ve never sounded quite like this before. It’s only when she’s fully awake that she realizes it’s something else—something wrong.
Someone had removed her helmet while she was unconscious and she quickly puts it back on. Maybe it can block the call or at least dampen it. Even when it doesn’t, she can’t bring herself to take it off. She needs to be ready—though, for what, she isn't quite sure.
She wants to go out into the storm. She wants to fight it—or she wants to fight for it. She needs to kill it but she also simply needs it, with a urgency as base and irresistible as hunger.
The Big Sister isn’t stupid. She knows something is terribly wrong, but she doesn’t know how to even begin to understand it, much less communicate it. In the end, she’ll punch in a message on her ACE and approach whoever is brave enough not to shy away.
The message is simple: "Storm is calling."
light!
The second time she appears however, with little offerings he doesn't understand, to spend more time sitting and doing very little in front of the memorial, the blue-lined program waits.
He's not going to interrupt this time either, but he's also not leaving. If she was doing it more than once then it had to be important, and if it was helping in some way he couldn't detect, then he should be doing it too!
It's only when Diana stirs again that he speaks up, however reluctantly; conversation wasn't his forte but he'll never find out if he doesn't just ask.
"What are you doing?"
vetra nyx | home team | ota
You heard the lady!
[After Shepard's warning over the ACE devices, anyway. That hadn't exactly been a quiet announcement. And it wasn't something you just ignored, either. She jams her helmet on. Seals it, and reaches out to grab the nearest person. Whoever happened to be close by.]
[Because when Commander Shepard gives you an order, you follow it.]
Get to the Ingress! Move it!
... OR FIGHT;
[Of course, there's always going to be someone who didn't hear. Or someone who couldn't comply. She knows full well -- after trying a few times -- her rifle rounds won't do much more than surprise the creatures. She's aware of this. But that doesn't mean she won't try.]
[She has to try.]
[If it keeps them falling back a little ways, it means she can grab supplies. Maybe just a few seconds. But that's all she'll need. If they're all going to hole up, then they'll need everything they can get.]
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[She looks like an alien imitation of the real thing. Strike one: Not human. Strike two: She's not Commander Shepard, who's also on this team. For a long time now, she's managed to keep the jealousy at bay, but losing her human biology has dredged it back up again.
[However, Clara is just familiar enough from around the school (though Nova's not in any of her classes), and also, paying attention to her without immediately assuming she's not going to attack, so Nova allows her to lead her some of the way before thinking -]
Somewhere you can get rid of me?
[The people who made her had tried to get rid of her once they didn't need her. Who needs her now?]
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He spots the photograph from Veld, and Diana shifts forward almost protectively. No, very protectively. She may be weakened from her earlier attempts to power the memorial, which now flickers with a white glow, but she would do anything to protect her memory of them.
"Yes." Her answer is curt, but not impolite. She's hardly shown the image to anyone, partially because nobody has asked and partially because something selfish in her heart wants to keep them to herself. She misses these men dearly, the first she had ever gotten to know after leaving Themyscira. Her heart aches to think of them. But that is what makes it such a fit offering. The gods looked more favorably upon those who were willing to part with what they cherished the most.
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This time, she can tell that someone is watching her intently, but doesn't rush herself through her prayers. Eventually she does stand, brushing dust from her hands and letting her eyes scan the area around the memorial until she spots someone lingering just on the edge of the circle.
After he addresses her she begins to move towards him, a gentle smile on her face. "Praying," she answers. "It is a memorial, which usually means prayer is expected."
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But he's definitely willing to learn if it seems to be doing something useful! It was doing something now that it hadn't been before. "I have not seen one before." The Grid as far as he knew, had no use for them.
Well. 'Had' might be the operative term, if anyone dared mourn the ISOs.
"... Does it help?" Prayer, or the little assorted items; it's hard to tell exactly which he means when one gloved hand rises to gesture at the small offerings she'd brought.
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"I have never seen one like this before," she admits. The altars on Themyscira were all beautifully carved of marble, decorated with gold, and she had seen a few churches during her time in London and Belgium, with breathtaking stonework and stained glass. But none of those were comparable to the Ingress memorial on the station. She had only recognized it as an altar after something had... called to her, almost. Her belief in its spiritual nature was only reinforced by the sense of peace that had washed over her as soon as she'd settled before it.
His question surprises her, and her brows raise as she thinks about how to answer. "I hope it does," she finally replies. "And even if it doesn't in the end, it helps me."
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Perhaps there was something inside it, that appreciated gifts and acknowledgment. 'Hope' implied there was no certainty of course, but..
But the light had changed. That was something that could be observed.
After a moment, he nods. "If it is helpful then I will do it too." That's awfully straightforward. Where to find little things to bring it though? That was going to take some work to find something that seemed nice enough, relevant enough, to please a hypothetical thing inside the memorial.
"But what is 'praying'? Is it bringing little things?" If he's going to do it, he needs to know what it is!
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She blinks a few times as she registers his words, but a broad smile crosses her face at his blunt declaration. Well, who is she to argue with that? And anything they can try to do to get the memorial functioning again is welcome in her eyes.
The question, though, does catch her off guard. He is full of surprises. Diana thinks, trying to decide how to explain it. "That is only part of it," she offers. "Praying is like... talking to something you believe in. It can be a deity, a person, even an idea. Anything you truly believe in. You talk to them, out loud or in your heart, and you hope they hear you, and answer."
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'Deity' too is nebulous. People, he knew plenty of those.
"...I am .. unsure the people I know could affect much change through talking." Never mind talking in a way where he's not actually speaking aloud, though that one was actually a tempting idea he wished applied to everyone. It would surely be much faster!
Flynn was an exception. He might, that particular User had done phenomenal things as far as the monitor was aware, and perhaps he could still work that User magic on this stuff. But Flynn was not here, and there was no ready substitute. "I may need new things to believe in."
This was going to take some thinking. Did they have enough TIME for that, with those .. things running about, and the station apparently falling apart at the seams?
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She considers his words for a moment, and nods. "It has been... difficult, these last weeks, to believe in much of anything. But you can believe in an idea, or a future--it doesn't have to be something concrete."
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You're lying.
[ He tries to run past her, and in shoving her out of the way his hand touches her skin. He cries out and collapses, trying to pull away. ]
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She's not sure which is worse.
The touch is unwanted, unexpected and it's far too late to stop it by the time it happens. Erik's on the floor, and he's in her head, and she's at his side.] Erik- you're hurt. We need to get you to the med bay.
[She places a gloved hand on his shoulder gently yet firmly.]
light the beacon
Light.
When it fades, he's on his knees. Breathing hard, while his whole arm feels numb from shoulder to fingertips, his left hand braced against the ground in an effort to keep himself upright. All that, taken out of him in one go. It feels like something pulled out of him.
Slowly, he looks back up at the memorial. There had been light. Light meant something changed. It meant energy flowed. One touch, though, and he'd been here, on the ground, exhausted. More might mean the device, the memorial got stronger, but also that it might pull more from the arm. From himself.
He stares at it, from where he kneels on the floor.
It's possible, he reasons. Possible to throw more at it. And if Shepard were right, then this was their best chance of surviving this mess. Surviving and getting the station back up and running again. He's trying to catch his breath as the options start to flood in, weighing heavy and harsh on his mind. One touch took this much out of him, but something happened. Something changed. Another might tip the scales in their favor.
Or it might...
He'd promised. He'd told them all he'd come back. Looked them in the eye and swore up and down he wasn't going to disappear. He couldn't leave them. How will we know if you just -- you were just gone -- just an empty cockpit -
But if he stays here. If he leaves this alone, sits here on the floor and does nothing, the storms are going to eat away at this place. He'll have to sit here, alive and knowing he did nothing while his friends, his family, suffered around him. How could he live with that?
We're fighting a war. We do what we have to do. When we have to do it.
It takes an effort. It takes a monumental effort to haul himself back to his feet. He has to grit his teeth to do it.
What about you, Shiro? You deserve so much more for all you've given.
No -- it's not enough. It's not enough to hear Angela whisper that, to feel Diana's fingers on his face. Pidge throwing her arms around him, Hunk lifting him off his feet. He loves them, they're his family, they're all that's left out here. Darin with the oranges in his shirt, Allura laughing and racing dinosaurs across empty landscape. The long conferences with Alfor, wondering at the ability to speak to him. Lucio and North smiling, the awkward sort of comfort between him and a man twice his size and fewer words. It's not enough to support promises to Lance, to Keith, to Chara, in their absence, fight on for their sake.
What about you, Shiro?
In those few strides, he's no longer the leader. He's whatever there is left of Shiro. Who wants to be there for his team, for this cracked little family of theirs. Who can't sit idly by in the midst of this, or any mess. If he doesn't try, he's let every single one of them down. Even those who can't even be here to witness it.
I promise I'll come back to you.
He rears his arm back. Purple light blossoms like a star in waves and ripples along its surface.
Shiro slams his hand against the side of the Ingress Memorial in a blaze of purple and silver light. He can't hear if he screamed.
He's sure he did.
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..The monitor doubted he'd manage to be persuasive at all. But it was worth trying, wasn't it? Even if he had to spend some time thinking of who, or what, to address.
He might have to get a second opinion.
"I .. understand how a person or a deity might affect this, or wish to help us," he ventures cautiously. "But how would prayer to a ..." The helmeted figure falters, either unsure of the words he wanted, or unsure if he was simply not grasping what she was trying to convey. "An idea or even the future, aid this?"
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[ He shakes his head, his thoughts clear for the first time in days. Almost. There's still fog at the edges, and it starts to roll back as soon as he becomes aware of the difference. ]
Med Bay can't help.
[ He yanks her glove off and holds her hand. The effect is immediate. He can feel his life force draining along with the fog that has clouded his mind, flowed in his veins along with what's left of his blood. ]
You have to kill me.
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cw: murder
Then he says it and she jerks her hand back. She has to kill him. No- no, she can't. X-Men don't kill, she knows that. She can't kill Magneto, even as she remembers yanking her gloves off in the jet, she knew then she had no idea what she would actually do to them.
But that's Rogue.
There's another in her head now, too, stronger, outweighing her own voice and pushing itself into the open, forcing the words out of her mouth. Rogue squeezes her eyes shut and leans forward. He has to know she doesn't want to do this. She doesn't want another man's blood on her hands. Not someone that's so important to so many people here (so much more important than she will ever be to anyone).
She presses her lips against his just briefly, he's already so weakened. But he has to know now. He has to understand.]
I'm so sorry- [she whispers as she pulls back. With a wave of her hand, a metal bar pries itself off of a nearby door.] But this makes us even.
[The bar imbeds itself in his neck, warm blood seeping on to the floor between them.]
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But he's determined to unravel the mystery, at least insofar as he can help with this endeavor with the memorial. She found some comfort here, it seemed to have an effect on the memorial itself.. and Users knew he could use a little something to ease his own concerns and worries even a little.
"I see." He doesn't, not really, but the monitor is reasonably certain he has the general gist of it.
It is entirely the wrong gist. But that can't be helped. "If I cannot find a way to persuade a deity, or help restore the memorial.. perhaps dwelling on it for a while will.." He raises one hand and makes a small gesture; it's almost indecisive. "..Bring with it something to put faith into."
Of all the things the monitor does, sitting around and thinking is simply NOT PART OF IT. If he changed that, perhaps he'll get a better understanding of what she's trying to convey.
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