legionmissions | SILENT HORIZON - [Part 1: The In-Between] [modplot]

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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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I

They've seen this horror movie. That's York's first thought when the mission's described. They've seen it, some of them have lived it, and sending in a small team? Isn't happening. Having seen it he figures that as long as they stick together and keep an eye out? Everyone will make it out okay. It's just an Alien or something that killed everything off or a virus or- something. Something small, something containable, something they can paint a target on and kill.

Then the video.

Then the people ripping each other apart for no reason.

Then the world goes dark in a terrifyingly familiar way, everything distant and cold and the one conscious thought York has before he blacks out is that there's something on this ship that hates them.

They wake little by little in the comforting embrace of his armor, breath shallow and strained and surrounded on all sides by something malleable and cumbersome. It's only when York pulls on a hand and yanks himself free he realizes he'd been buried in corpses. Bodies, too many to count- with familiar blonde hair. York stumbles free, old pain and guilt that's not even his roaring to life as voices tear through his mind and the surrounding environment, echoing, rebounding, overlapping in a deafening cacophony of insidious pain.

Allison-

-put that thing down. You're gonna make me la-

-not be concerned. This is perfectly normal-

-gave you the schematics, they're just- they're too complex-

-not your fault Agent York and Texas-

-Tex don't- don't let 'em-

Allison Allison Allison Allison Allison Allison Allison ALLISON

Panic stirs him to movement, to get away, to climb free of this literal mire of grief that he never asked for, tripping over bodies bent and burnt, a million imagined deaths for a woman he'd never known strewn about like dried leaves, leaving him struggling against the irregular relief of the cliff's face as he tries to claw his way free.

II

He'd lost his helmet somewhere along the way. In the pit or at the crash- more familiar faces, more burnt bodies twisted in unnatural angles, straps tight enough to stop the bleeding but not to prevent bones for breaking. Maybe it'd fallen off, maybe he'd torn it off to vomit, maybe he'd thrown it at another goddamn ghost that wouldn't leave him alone. Trying to find anyone's been impossible and Delta-

Delta's been quiet. No cool wash of calm in the back of his mind, no commentary, no grounding reminder that none of this is real. It feels real. Smells real. This must be some kind of hell and he must have earned it- sure as shit makes more sense than the happy possibility of being a hero. He'd fallen earlier or. Something. He can't remember. But that has to explain the pain in his head, the blood welling at the back of his neck at odd intervals. Without reflective surfaces he can't see the web of something growing under his skin. Can't notice the odd glint to his good eye as he wanders, calling out at anyone that looks like they're alive.

III

"Help-" it's faint, the voice. York's voice. Low and strained and exhausted, echoing endlessly in the dark. At the far end of the hall he's standing, head up, eye bright despite the lack of light. Almost luminescent. "I got turned around."

Everyone did. There's no one right way around, no one answer, and he seems well. A little stiff, voice a little stilted, and terribly still. There's no sigh of relief. No rush to meet whomever he meets in the hall. Just that quiet voice, pleading. "Help."

Closer inspection shows why his posture is so stiff and awkward. Why he doesn't move- blood smeared tendrils have grown out from the base of his neck, under and through his skin- leaving him standing suspended by a singular point. Bulging tangles writhe at his throat, pierce the plating of his armor from the outside in, winding in great coils around his limbs as he's puppeted in grotesque, jerky motions to beacon people close.

The signal crackles across the EM spectrum, as loud as a shout but considerably better organized. The UNSC distress protocols in the header grab Cortana's attention in the digital equivalent of an adrenaline rush, even a Gamma-level priority like a friendly mayday triggering her directives in a split second of deep-seated command before she slaps those troubling remnants of her loyalty programming back down to a murmur where they belong and she can think rather than react.

In a sea of radio interference and hallucination, why is this coming through so clearly?

"Sombra, distress call from Delta. York's in trouble." Regardless of how honest the call for help may be, it's certainly factual regardless--they're all in trouble. "The protocols all check out, but I think it's a trap."

She's halfway through mapping out the details of yet another shifting landscape, fingertips drawn up thoughtfully over a holographic display, editing away any unhelpful clutter. By now she's heard (and reluctantly acknowledged) enough of those disembodied voices to know all about the Faceless; if it really is the root of all of this, drawing a line of figurative string through the labyrinth might equate to having an edge if she eventually finds another living, sane human being.

"A trap?"

Everything is a trap, isn't it? Another way to keep them circling the drain. But if the call for help seems legitimate, is it an acute observation or paranoia on their part to immediately assume the worst?

(Being smart, that's what she thinks it is.)

"What, you don't think it's him sending it out?"

"Watch your left, gravitational anomaly." With a few of her spare cycles, Cortana helps Sombra pick out salient details in their confusing environment, highlighting the danger zone in red. It looks like the latest incarnation of this haunted house is a projection from five-dimensional space, but it's hard to say until they start moving again and she can gather more data.

"I think it's real enough, as far as that goes." Exasperation tinges her voice; Cortana prefers to be the one giving the runaround, not getting it. "But I haven't been able to punch through any of the EM interference without using tricks I know Delta doesn't have the horsepower to pull, so why am I picking this up now? Why let it through unless it's bait?"

"Gracias."

Offhanded, a passive acceptance of her added input. There's something to be said for how nice it is, having someone else around that can actually help for a change. Sure, Reaper and Amélie are smart in their own elements, and they can— from time to time— lend a solid hand in her work. But it isn't like this: the kind of sharpened, tactical processing that mirrors her own - a seamless symbiosis.

Well, mostly seamless. They still disagree from time to time.

"So the Faceless is trying to box us in." Business as usual, right? Her attention shifts, eyeline falling on that marked-off anomaly instead. "Nothing we can't handle."

The tradeoff is worth it: a functional ally that can be saved is a card in their own pocket. One they sorely need without any other immediate options for defensive buffers.

And then, after a beat, she belatedly adds (in reference to the start of their conversation): "Azúcar."

Cortana is the one figurative soul in the Legion aside from Gabe that Sombra won't bar from either knowing or mentioning her real name (mostly because with the kind of hacking Cortana is capable of, she can't keep her old records off limits). But if that name gets used within earshot of anyone from Overwatch— anyone allied with Overwatch— she's screwed out of one exceptionally long con.

That's a risk she's jumped through a painfully long list of steps to avoid, even here.

"I'm going to be charitable and assume you're implying I can't maintain op-sec because you're under a lot of stress right now." Screw up code names in front of unauthorized personnel? Really? What kind of two-bit operation is Talon running that Sombra thinks she has to caution against that?

No hard feelings, though. Cortana sets a nav point on Sombra's screen. It's almost like normal, except for the fact Sombra isn't a brick with legs and has said more in a few hours than Cortana generally hears from the Chief in weeks.

"I reserve the right to activate your camo or translocator first and explain second, incidentally."

"Oh like I'm the only one under stress."

Flicking her fingertips, she swats away her prior workload, focusing instead on the navigational point that's been set for her. In truth, it's a teasing deflection (and a mild one at that) designed to detract from just how protective she is in regards to her identity.

But then again, considering their current link, it's probably a wholly transparent one.

"—wait, what? No manches, mija."

Her actions are her own, and she needs every tool at her disposal in a dire situation; asking her to sacrifice part of that control? It's a tall, tall order.

Congrats, Cortana. You've hit the sensitive subject jackpot.

"Azúcar--" See, look, she's trying! Even her tone isn't too annoyed, by Cortana standards. "--Those milliseconds could save your life."

Cortana respects her current partner's computer skills, her instincts for duplicity. Sombra's about as good as a human can get at the things she wants to be good at, the things that would make her a great ONI operative...but she's not a soldier.

She's not a Spartan.

"We'll figure it out when we get there."

Realistically, she knows what she isn't. Going into hiding, changing her name, embedding an entire arsenal of inorganic upgrades under her own skin— it's a testament to her limitations. If she were like Gabriel, like Amélie, none of those measures might been necessary; that she excels in spite of it keeps her from ever lamenting the fact (and the side effects of genetic modification? too messy for her tastes), but it's left her deceptively adhered to the idea of control. Over herself, her surroundings - exacerbating the innate itch she's always had to keep even her closest companions in check.

If she can't keep up, she'll make the logical choice and pass Cortana the keys. Until then, Sombra holds fast out of stubborn necessity, stalking impatiently towards their final destination.

Hopefully York's still alive by the time they arrive.

Locksmith & Delta

w i l d c a r d :P

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