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legionmissions2017-01-03 12:57 am
letsgolegion) wrote in legionmissions2017-01-03 12:57 am
Entry tags:
SILENT HORIZON - [Part 1: The In-Between] [modplot]
Who| Everyone who signed up
What| 2 spoopy
Where| In The In-Between, the pocket dimension inside the Silent Horizon
When| After Valor's Day. Mission starts shortly before "No Sanity Clause" and runs simultaneously in game time
Warnings/Notes| Potential warnings for EVERYTHING. This is a horror plot that may tread a lot of ground. Please keep in mind that you can stumble on disturbing stuff in almost any thread. We advise all players to put warnings in the subjects of threads when they lean towards cut-worthy stuff.
The mission was simple. The team had to board the derelict Silent Horizon, a ship with an experimental stardrive, after it finally reappeared in UP space, many hours after it was supposed to reappear, during its first field test. No life signs were aboard, but the presence of several Roboticans on the crew -- who were undetectable by bioscan -- meant that the ship had to be boarded to make sure the Robotican crewmen were gone, too.
The United Planets government, concerned about the loss of the crew members, asked the Legion to step in, in case the threat on board was of a metapowered nature. Due to the massive danger implied by an entire starship crew going missing, the response team sent on the mission was relatively large, more than enough to handle any hostiles. None of this "we'll just send one tiny team to go alone into a giant starship against an unknown threat" business. No, if there was a hostile force on the ship, the plan was "let's drop 25+ Legionnaires on its head." Safety in numbers.
It was a good idea. In theory. In most cases, it would've given them the edge that would've let them face something very nasty without succumbing to it themselves. But in practice, it just meant that it was a much larger team that suddenly went missing after watching the last video log of the previous crew on the command deck.
Screams poured out of the screen the moment it started to play -- automatically -- when they entered the command deck. Onscreen, they saw the original crew murdering each other, tearing each other apart in a blood-soaked rampage.
"Wait, stop! What's wrong with everyone? Why are you --?" cried out one of the Robotican crew members, clearly immune from whatever was causing the madness, but his cries went unheeded as one of his Coluan crew-mates bashed his head clean off with a chair.
After the video played, the darkness swept in, wrapping around the whole team of Legionnaires, making them feel frozen all the way down to their bones and stealing consciousness away from them. When they woke again, they all found themselves separated, waking up in a realm of nightmares.
The halls breathe here -- at least in the places that have walls. They flex in and out, like the passageways inside the lungs. Sometimes the walls give way to open nightmare-scapes, remote and foggy, or bright and alien and exposed. The landscape bends and shifts around them, reacting to their thoughts and fears. And every so often, far off, there is the pitter-pat of something strange moving through this place. Like the sound of many feet -- or hands -- slapping against the ground or flesh-walls.
At some point, there is always a voice that each of them hears, tinny and robotic and distant, warning them of a being called the Faceless, that rules this realm. They're told not to feed from his blood, that if they do they'll be made a part of this place. If they accept his offer, and change forms, they'll eventually bleed to death, and if the Faceless isn't stopped before they die, those that die in their mutated forms will belong to him forever.
It's not the only voice they'll hear, though. This is a land filled with whispers. And screams. And the sounds of begging sometimes, too.
And for some of the Legionnaires, the In-Between speaks to them, touches something deep and dark inside them -- and it's calling them home.
What| 2 spoopy
Where| In The In-Between, the pocket dimension inside the Silent Horizon
When| After Valor's Day. Mission starts shortly before "No Sanity Clause" and runs simultaneously in game time
Warnings/Notes| Potential warnings for EVERYTHING. This is a horror plot that may tread a lot of ground. Please keep in mind that you can stumble on disturbing stuff in almost any thread. We advise all players to put warnings in the subjects of threads when they lean towards cut-worthy stuff.
The mission was simple. The team had to board the derelict Silent Horizon, a ship with an experimental stardrive, after it finally reappeared in UP space, many hours after it was supposed to reappear, during its first field test. No life signs were aboard, but the presence of several Roboticans on the crew -- who were undetectable by bioscan -- meant that the ship had to be boarded to make sure the Robotican crewmen were gone, too.
The United Planets government, concerned about the loss of the crew members, asked the Legion to step in, in case the threat on board was of a metapowered nature. Due to the massive danger implied by an entire starship crew going missing, the response team sent on the mission was relatively large, more than enough to handle any hostiles. None of this "we'll just send one tiny team to go alone into a giant starship against an unknown threat" business. No, if there was a hostile force on the ship, the plan was "let's drop 25+ Legionnaires on its head." Safety in numbers.
It was a good idea. In theory. In most cases, it would've given them the edge that would've let them face something very nasty without succumbing to it themselves. But in practice, it just meant that it was a much larger team that suddenly went missing after watching the last video log of the previous crew on the command deck.
Screams poured out of the screen the moment it started to play -- automatically -- when they entered the command deck. Onscreen, they saw the original crew murdering each other, tearing each other apart in a blood-soaked rampage.
"Wait, stop! What's wrong with everyone? Why are you --?" cried out one of the Robotican crew members, clearly immune from whatever was causing the madness, but his cries went unheeded as one of his Coluan crew-mates bashed his head clean off with a chair.
After the video played, the darkness swept in, wrapping around the whole team of Legionnaires, making them feel frozen all the way down to their bones and stealing consciousness away from them. When they woke again, they all found themselves separated, waking up in a realm of nightmares.
The halls breathe here -- at least in the places that have walls. They flex in and out, like the passageways inside the lungs. Sometimes the walls give way to open nightmare-scapes, remote and foggy, or bright and alien and exposed. The landscape bends and shifts around them, reacting to their thoughts and fears. And every so often, far off, there is the pitter-pat of something strange moving through this place. Like the sound of many feet -- or hands -- slapping against the ground or flesh-walls.
At some point, there is always a voice that each of them hears, tinny and robotic and distant, warning them of a being called the Faceless, that rules this realm. They're told not to feed from his blood, that if they do they'll be made a part of this place. If they accept his offer, and change forms, they'll eventually bleed to death, and if the Faceless isn't stopped before they die, those that die in their mutated forms will belong to him forever.
It's not the only voice they'll hear, though. This is a land filled with whispers. And screams. And the sounds of begging sometimes, too.
And for some of the Legionnaires, the In-Between speaks to them, touches something deep and dark inside them -- and it's calling them home.
Doctor Strange (TW: Lots and lots of body horror, medical imagery, gore, car crash)
Help.
He had to help or he needed help, he wasn't sure which one. Someone needed help, right? Or was it him? Who was screaming?
Was it him?
This blasted spaceship. Stephen leaned against one of the walls, a greasy, stained hospital corridor. He squinted, knowing this couldn't be real, yet...it had to be. No, it wasn't--it was a spaceship, he was in a spaceship, and something bad had happened. Of course something bad would happen when he gets to go on a mission, gets to go into space--which in any other case, would be extremely awesome. He had a feeling he was trapped in some kind of horrific sci fi movie, except that it was, you know, real. And he knew how those movies turned out too, practically everybody died.
He glanced down at the yellow, aging linoleum floor. Blood was splattered on it. Fresh, too. And the smell...stench, really. Like death. Someone was yelling.
People.
Doctors. They were rushing someone on a stretcher to the OR. Frantic footsteps, yelling, the waving of clipboards, worried faces.
Christine.
"Christine!"
Stephen raced forwards, following the trail of blood. "Christine, wait! I can help!"
She wasn't looking at him, though, like he wasn't even there. Her face was contorted in incredible worry, as she looked down at the patient. Who was the patient? Stephen ran faster, trying to catch up to them to see if he could assist.
...
The patient was him.
Bloodied, bruised, his hands mangled...mangled beyond all reason, beyond help, beyond hope...blood everywhere, so much of it--
The sound of a car crashing echoed through the halls and without warning, a sports car--his car!?--smashed through the dirty, stained walls and he dove out of the way only just in time.
There was a terrific rending noise like the whole world was getting torn in two, and Stephen shut his eyes--he was shoved to the side by crashing walls, though they didn't really sound like walls. They sort of sounded like wet meat. Schlup, slurp. He peeked an eye open, the car embedded in the ceiling and the wall where it had 'landed', but instead a break in the drywall and concrete, it looked like someone had smashed into a butcher shop. Goo and unidentified flesh dripped from the hole in the celing, splashing on him. He was a doctor, he wasn't afraid of this, but...it was certainly disgusting. And it didn't make any sense. There was something horribly wrong...this couldn't be real. This was a dream! It had to be!
"Christine!" he ran towards where they had gone down the hallway, minding the destruction from the strange appearance of the car, and dripping meat. They could have gotten hurt--
--there were bodies everywhere. Injured horribly. He immediately set to action, but there were too many--too many, he couldn't save them all. He wasn't an ER doctor, this wasn't his specialty, he couldn't--no, Christine--he ran over to her side, where she was hurt beyond what anyone could scarcely bear.
"Christine! Christine, stay with me," he reached over to check her pulse. She had to be dead. There was no way she could survive with that much damage--this wasn't real. He was dreaming. Wake up, Stephen! Fight this!
"Stephen..." she mumbled, looking up at him with eyes that had someone turned white, like she was dead already. "You let me down. Like you always have. I shouldn't be surprised."
"No. I'm here, I can save you--I'm the best, I can save you--"
"It's your fault," tears spilled from those dead eyes. "You...all I wanted was to help you. And you were so cruel. How could you be so mean, Stephen?!"
"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have...I was horrible to you, Christine, I wanted you to forgive me but--"
"I could never forgive you," she said, her voice small and fading. "I want you to live with the pain that you caused me. Because no one cares for you, Stephen. I was the last one. You have...no...one. No one at all."
He felt a cold chill grab at his soul and not let go. She was right...this didn't make any sense but she was right...if he couldn't get out of this mad landscape...who would miss him? Who would even realize he was gone? Wong? Mordo hated him too...the Ancient One was dead...and Christine surely didn't...
He was alone.
And no one would care when he died.
Stephen sat down suddenly, roughly.
No one had cared that he died.
Suddenly, horrific-looking wounds appeared on his chest, where Dormammu had stabbed him with shards of rock. More wounds appeared where he'd shot him full of holes with some kind of light. They weren't bleeding, they were just sort of there...maybe real, maybe not. He couldn't really feel anything at the moment, he was so cold. The feeling of all those moments...of dying echoing louder and louder in his mind.
No, this wasn't real! This wasn't real, fight it--
He'd did it to save the world, but did they care? Did they know? What was the point of doing all this if no one knew? Wasn't that what he cared about, his name getting known? Recognition? His name on procedures? Well he saved the whole world and they wouldn't know!? He went through all this horror and were they even grateful?
They didn't even care that he'd lost his hands. He looked down at his hands, for some reason his gloves weren't there anymore. Had he taken them off? He couldn't remember. But the scars were..growing. Writhing, like snakes. They opened up, like they'd been torn open, revealing the bones and metal pins inside.
Stephen just stared dully.
His hands. Useless.
Just like him.
Useless.
Unloved, unwanted.
The imagery disappeared on his person, turning into smoke and drifting away into the ceiling. He wasn't actually injured, and his hands were quite fine. But he just sat there, staring numbly at them.
What was the point of fighting back against this place when it was...quite right about everything?
B. One of My Turns
Stephen was a stubborn man, and frightfully optimistic in the face of certain defeat.
The fact that he succumbed was an equally frightening thought, and despite the black grip that was now cemented around his heart, he was still fighting. He'd done something...terrible, he'd...despaired.
Maybe because they were right. He didn't deserve a second chance. He was unloved and unwanted anyway. Might as well stay here, where he belonged.
No--that wasn't right! That was...there was a mission, he had to get back...find the others...right?
Stephen stumbled through the hallway, it was reminiscent of some kind of industrial area now, but every so often there was something odd about the walls. Like it was living...like it was part of an organ...he was a Doctor, he should help...but there was no helping whatever this was...
...might as well just stay here where he belonged--
--no! Where was this all coming from? He'd despaired, yes, but didn't mean he was down and out for the count. He'd made a mistake, and this whole thing was probably a dream anyway...though in his experience, it really, really probably wasn't. Regardless, he had to find the others, he needed help--
--he was getting really tired all of a sudden. He leaned against the weirdly warm steel wall, a part of it shiny like a mirror besides being covered in barnacle-like rusty growths. For some reason he caught a reflection of himself in the glass--
--his eyes were red. Like, actually glowing red. And black streaks were curling round the side of his cheeks...no, wait, what was that? He reached a trembling hand up to his cheekbones when suddenly bone just...spurted out of his skin. Ripped right out.
"HUUAHHHHHGHHHH--"
He pressed his hands to the mirror-like surface, trying to get a closer look. Like a knife, the other cheekbone did the same thing. Blood dripped slowly from the eruption. What the--suddenly pain, emanating from his whole face, his mouth on fire, he couldn't see, couldn't think--just pain and something warm where blood dripped from whatever was going on. He could feel it though, pushing past his nose, his mouth--was it bone? He could see it--something bone-like and white, like a beak was erupting from his entire face, or his face was sort of melting into it. It just kept growing and growing, until he caught sight of himself in the mirror.
He almost laughed, it was so absurd--he looked like a ridiculous bird, like a bird-skull had simply replaced his face...wait, he'd seen something like this before. Plague doctor mask?
At least the pain had ebbed. Blood dripped from where the bone 'mask' was connected to the rest of his head, which was fairly normal, right up to his scalp, his hair, sweaty and disheveled, sticking to it.
He seemed like he had a clearer mind now, the shock of this all had really brought him back to himself. They were on a spaceship...something had happened, something had tricked him into despairing, and he had to get out of here. He needed help!
"Is there anybody out there!?" he yelled, making a run for it down the hallway.
His hands began to ache something fierce, even moreso than they usually did.
"I need help! Somebody!?" his hands--his gloves were long gone, somewhere--were starting to--his fingers were melding together. No...no, stop, not his hands! There was nothing he could do...he could only watch helplessly as his fingers melted together, hardening into some kind of bone-like structure, like a spike at the end. It was growing, too, becoming more narrow, and scythe like.
"Stop it! You have to stop! Whoever's doing this...please, we can work this out! What do you want? There's got to be something that you want..." Stephen couldn't figure out what the point of all of this was. Just to torture them? He stared at the horrific-looking scythes that were now where his hands were supposed to be, extending at least three feet out. Despite the madness, he chortled out of sheer absurdity.
"I mean...I could save money on shaving, but not like this..."
C. Comfortably Numb
Help came too late, probably. Or maybe it just wasn't enough.
He couldn't really remember.
It all felt like a dream. And this was reality.
No matter how much he tried...he couldn't free himself from the black grip on his heart. It was like sinking into quicksand.
And the quicksand had eaten him whole.
*****
A golden circle appeared and a skinny, scythe-like arm shot out of it, swiping at anything it assumed was still alive. And then, it shot back into the circle, disappearing completely.
Oh, teleportation had its uses when he wanted to hunt his prey. It was so easy to sneak up on them. A golden circle appears, a quick swipe, and it was all over.
On the rare occasion he felt like exerting himself, he'd make an appearance. Golden circle, and then...WHUMP.
A bony creature, like some enormous skeletal bird. Glowing red eyes were the only sign of life in that bird-skull face, like two rubies lost to the night.
He had some kind of body, covered in a black cloak, but one could see the skittering bone legs underneath. At least seven of them, even as he had a general bird's shape, there was a spidery-sort of undercarriage to the creature.
Tik-tik-tik-tik scurried the legs in the darkness.
Often the last sound a person could hear.
(OOC: Titles belong to Pink Floyd.)
B [cw: eye gore.]
The boy that stood before him was a bit of a mess himself. His clothes were torn in places and the front of his superhero uniform was stained with blood, the source which was very obvious. It dripped from his left eye and dropped down his front. So far, that was the only physical change that'd happened to him so far, but he didn't seem to notice it was even happening.
He didn't seem fussed at all over Stephen mutating. Or fussed about this being Bloody Nightmare Torture Heck-land.
Dipper knew the kinds of things he could survive.
"It wants you to panic. It probably feeds off fear or something. Even if it doesn't, fear makes you forget who you are, so if you're trying to avoid being changed, stop being afraid."
He said it like was it something people could just control.
no subject
"Right. Just stop being afraid. That's fantastic, why didn't I think of that?! It's soooo easy!" Stephen rolled his eyes. Which ended up looking like two red embers in the bird-skull eye sockets going for a sarcastic spin.
"I have no idea what's happening...there was a mission, right? Something...something bad..." Why was it so hard to focus?
"What is all this? Do you know? What's...what's happening to me?"
He peered at the boy. "You're hurt."
Ever the Doctor. He reached out like he wanted to inspect his eye, with his razor-sharp scythes-for-hands.
no subject
He backed away slightly.
"Wait, I am?"
Dipper looked down at himself and saw the blood but still didn't register where it was coming from, even though it still dripped down his face from his eye. His gaze went a little foggy and distant as his brain failed to process where it was coming from.
Blood all over his front just wasn't tripping alarm bells in his head the way it should've been. It all seemed pretty normal.
"I don't feel anything hurting. I thought I was just touching stuff and getting it on my hands." He waved a hand. "Whatever man, it's just a little blood. I'm not the one with a beak right now and I'm not the one freaking out."
His voice went a little more gentle.
"Put the claw hands down and let me see if any of that can come off. And breathe, okay?"
He had to try to get him calmed down. The whole transformation was probably being fed by his fear.
no subject
Breathe. Right. So easy.
Calm down. Right. How could he calm down when he was in this horrific place and his body was betraying him? Was this even real? It felt real. It hurt too much for it to be a dream. And Stephen was familiar enough with the multiverse that this wasn't outside the realm of the impossible. Very little was.
"I don't understand, where is everyone? What happened!?"
no subject
"After that mentally scarring video we saw that I really, really wish I could unsee --" it'd had even him cringing and looking away in horror, and he'd seen some pretty terrifying stuff in his time. "-- this...force swept through the command deck and it seemed to knock everyone out."
He remembered seeing people falling around him, right before his mind had slipped away, too. It was still a little fuzzy but he was used to concentrating through all the scary.
"Then we woke up here." He looked around. "Wherever here is."
A pause.
"I'm thinking of calling it 'The Weird.' Or maybe the Negaverse?" he shrugged. "It's a work in progress. Anyway, let me look at your face and see if this thing can come off or if your face went all weird and turned into it."
He reached up towards Stephen's face, slowly and carefully, making it clear he wasn't trying to hurt him, to see if the mask seemed attached or if it was actually part of him now.
With Stephen's knifey fingers it wasn't like it'd be easy to do it for himself.
no subject
"Or the Strange?" Despite everything, Stephen's sometimes very poor sense of humor was still somehow intact.
Well, Dipper had a point at least. Maybe it was just a mask. And he was in danger of accidentally decapitating himself if he tried so...he leaned forward a bit and bent down so he could reach it better.
If Dipper tried, he would see that the bone in fact, was very much made up of the bone that was once inside Stephen's face. Around the bloodied edges it would seem like the bird-skull was in fact, his own that had just sort of burst from his face, whatever muscle and skin was there had either turned into bone, or been destroyed by it. The fact he hadn't bled to death yet proved it was likely the former.
"I don't think it's a mask. Ow."
no subject
But then he got a closer look at the beak and the way it was clearly a part of his face and Dipper's own face fell. Not good. That wasn't good. It meant that he was changing, and if that was the case, who knew what else this place could do to them?
"I've seen a few of the others, even though we got separated. Not everyone's changing like this so that means there's something --"
His eye stung again and he grimaced and pressed his knuckles against his closed eyelid. When he opened it again, the blood started streaming more evenly. Maybe Stephen was right about him being hurt. He tried to hold onto that thought as hard as he could, even though it was trying to flutter off.
He closed his eye and held his hand over it, trying to put pressure on it, backing away and crouching down, looking up at Strange with his good eye.
"--there's something affecting only some of us. Or it's affecting all of us but some of us faster than others. If this place could magically turn us all into monsters instantly it probably would have done it already. That means it's something that can probably be stopped -- or at least slowed down."
This was what he always did in situations like these. Logiced his way through it. He found the patterns -- or lack thereof -- and figured out the rules. Or he figured out there weren't rules. He wasn't really picky about it, because knowing either at least gave you something to work with.
"I know you're probably freaked out right now. I've had weird things like this happen to me -- like one time I got pulled right out of my body and a demonic triangle possessed it for a while, and I had to talk to my sister through puppets -- but whatever's behind this probably wants us afraid."
He reached out and awkwardly patted Stephen's arm. He apparently didn't seem to think there was anything strange at all about being a kid who was comforting an adult that was turning into a plague doctor birdman.
Par for the course, really.
"The important thing? You're not alone. Even if something happens to me or we get separated, the others are wandering around in here, too. Which definitely gives us better chances."
If they could find each other and work together...
no subject
Astral projection was starting to seem positively normal compared to this.
"We should try to stick together as much as we can," Stephen had a feeling that wouldn't last. Not in a place like this. Not when it was so hard to focus.
"Have you run across anyone else? Anyone...um...like me?"
There was a part of him that was absolutely horrified by all this. It was buried mostly under the even odder feeling that this was all normal. The sane bit of his brain was frantic, desperately trying to tell him to get out of here. His face...his hands...look what happened...what if this couldn't be fixed!? What if he had to live the rest of his life like this!? His FACE--
And yet...why not? This was all...not that bad...really...
no subject
Which...was maybe part of the problem. This place was whispering to the part of him that was used to all things strange, trying to make him feel that he belonged here.
"Yeah. I saw...people."
They'd been...a little further gone.
He tugged Strange by the sleeve, to get him up and moving.
"But I also saw other people who were still themselves. We should try to find them."
A
It took effort to peel himself off the wall, his gait a little stiff, his body feeling oddly offcenter and York himself wholly oblivious to the wires that seemed to be growing under his skin, twisting the scar under his bad eye. "You still sane?"
no subject
Stephen squinted, like he was having trouble focusing. Someone was yelling, it wasn't him...was this even real? That guy--he recognized him, right? Nice dude. Wonder if he was real at all. Looked like...wires growing under his skin or something. That wasn't right. That wasn't right at all.
He knew he should run, but he was just so tired of fighting. What was the point? This place seemed nice enough anyway. Like he belonged.
"Sane? That's a relative term."
no subject
He himself is now some 'freaky shit' but that's not as important. "And anything that worked so hard to split us up can't want us partnering up, yeah?"
no subject
"Yeah, well. That's a very good point."
He peered at the other man, squinted as he leaned closer and pointed a shaky finger at the wires-under-the-skin thing.
"In my professional opinion as a Doctor, that's weird."
A
Really, between the heaving meat halls and his choice in weaponry, it was a minor miracle he hadn't tripped over any gore yet and gone on the world's worst slip 'n slide.
"Because if you're gonna sit there and stare at crap too long, you're probably gonna get killed by something. This is just how this kinda thing works. Don't be that guy."
no subject
A loud sigh.
"Maybe I'm already dead? That would explain a lot," he said in a sort of detached voice. He didn't really feel like getting up. It wasn't so bad here. It was actually kind of nice, 'sides the bodies and stuff.
no subject
He began to shove at Stephen's shoulder insistently, aiming to be too annoying to ignore. "C'mon, get up. Staring-at-hands time is over."
no subject
"Ugh. Fine."
Stephen slowly got up, his head swimming with the unreality of things. He managed to get up and leaned against the probably gross wall, rather casually. He shrugged.
"Okay. I'm up. Happy now?"
no subject
Yes, Stephen, falling out of portals remained his strongest impression of you.
no subject
"As awful as this place is, I'm not going to kill anyone." He was adamant about that.
A raise of an eyebrow. Falling onto things, eh? "I'll have you know teleportation is a very useful thing."
Except in this place, where in fact, it was quite useless. Oh, it did work, but all it did was get him from one nightmarescape to another. He hadn't been able to get back to wherever it was they were supposed to get back to, nor could he make a clear enough mental image of it.
no subject
"And yeah, sure. Maybe we can get you to port in right over something big's head, let you knock it out by landing on it." Rocket reached behind his back, unhooking a much smaller, pistol-ish weapon. "Seriously, take this. It'll slow down whatever's trying to rip your face off. Won't kill anything unless you start beating things to death with it."
no subject
He didn't want to kill anything, right?
A shaking hand reached out to take the weapon. It was clear he wasn't going to be good at delicate aiming, not with the weakness and tremor in his hands.
This place...this place was doing something to his mind. But he couldn't quite put his finger on it.
"Sounds like a blast."