letsgolegion: (Default)
The Legion [Mods] ([personal profile] letsgolegion) wrote in [community profile] legionmissions2017-01-03 12:57 am

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.
goddamngrenades: (boooring)

[personal profile] goddamngrenades 2017-01-07 06:36 am (UTC)(link)
"I am fine, Connie." As fine as he can be while bleeding, but there is a quiet thrum as the healing unit starts up. York extends a hand to her, beckoning her closer still. "You see South or anyone else?"
short_changed: (Ugh excuse you)

[personal profile] short_changed 2017-01-07 06:50 am (UTC)(link)
"You're not, York. Just stay put okay? And- no, not really, we're all kind of scattered."

Okay, healing unit is on, that's some progress. With one last look towards the hallway she came from she steps closer to York, trying to look past the blood on his armour to where his wounds were.

"What happened to you?"
goddamngrenades: (this has got to lie down)

[personal profile] goddamngrenades 2017-01-07 08:32 am (UTC)(link)
Just a little closer. Just a little closer and there's an aggrieved glimmer to York's eye, a moment where his expression goes from congenial and calm to a sharp grimace, a pained furrow of his brow and curl of his lip that smooths out before he can speak.

His mouth opens to form words but no breath, no speech rolls out. Wires. Bloody, vein like cables and tendrils that pulse and twitch and throb with the beating of York's heart pour out of his mouth like stringy vomit, snapping out to curl around CT's shoulders and throat. they wrench at the clasps on her helmet and now, now she is close enough to see the rest of the wires burrowed deep into York's skin and torn outward, bursting from every joint and seam of his armor, moving him like a living puppet.
short_changed: (Too late)

[personal profile] short_changed 2017-01-07 08:58 am (UTC)(link)
Her steps falter at his flinch but it's not quick enough to keep her out of reach of those wires when they suddenly shoot out from him. The wires around her throat silence her startled cry and she fights to keep her footing, to lean away as much as she can but the wires bind tighter around her shoulders and neck and god, she can't look away from the horror lurking under her friend's skin.

"Y-rk!!"

Click, click, click- and with a shove her helmet goes toppling to the ground and she's never been less grateful for the brush of stale air against her cheeks as she is now; not with the smell of rot and blood and the unfiltered sight of York's mutilated body before her.

Fighting for air between grit teeth she tries to turn her head away, to twist out of his grip but the wires hold her tight.
goddamngrenades: (boooring)

[personal profile] goddamngrenades 2017-01-07 06:32 pm (UTC)(link)
Behind that luminescent blue, behind the twist of power that tries to sooth the struggling CT, tries to calm her- there's a green glow. Delta having taken root and taken over, similar threads of green shot through the wires that now wind and curl, grasping at her skin. No Neural port to invade, here, and a corded mass attempts to force it's way past her lips, thinner tendrils curling to slide up her nostrils for a more...direct attempt at reaching her brain.

All he has to do is tap in and then? She would see. That this place is where they belong. That it's safe here, that they can be a part of something greater than them again-

With jerky, twitching movements York's hands are moved up to clasp at her elbows, holding her still while the wires do their work.
short_changed: (Scream)

[personal profile] short_changed 2017-01-07 07:08 pm (UTC)(link)
There's only so much she can do to jerk her head away from the thicker force of the wires trying to push past her lips, it's the smaller ones she can feel going up her nose that draw a wet, panicked noise from her. This wasn't York- that flash of green overriding his eyes and pulsing through the wires around her was all Delta...and that made it all the more terrible.

Nose blocked as the slick wires continue to slide in she gasps for breath and the blood slick mass swells in- but her eyes are open locked on the empty space past York's shoulder, and with a force of will and desperation her form disappears from the centre of the mass of wires.

It's not a graceful landing as Connie touches down in the space she had seen behind her friend, and it's not quiet either. Gagging and coughing she ducks low and tries to sweep York's feet out from under him
goddamngrenades: (Who me?)

[personal profile] goddamngrenades 2017-01-08 07:27 pm (UTC)(link)
The wires hover in the air where she'd been as York's head is made to swing around and stare. It's a solid tactic, attempting to get him off his feet. Her boots strike his ankles but rather than being swept and falling- they swing free, only barely having been set on the ground in the first place.

Wires and bulging veins have erupted from the nerual implant, spidering up like so many jointless legs, leaving york Hanging free from that point. A lure on a hook. One of these limbs peels away from the wall and snaps forward, trying to ensnare CT a second time.
short_changed: (Roger that)

[personal profile] short_changed 2017-01-08 09:55 pm (UTC)(link)
Now that Connie can see the attack coming she can dodge, bringing out her knife to slash at the wires as they reach for her. A quick two swipes of her blade and they appear to break through her attack, reaching for her face again-

But her image flickers out of view as she teleports back to her original position, this time drawing her gun and aiming at the mass of wires on the ceiling and pulls the trigger. One, two shots and then she's grabbing her helmet and on the move again.
goddamngrenades: (this has got to lie down)

[personal profile] goddamngrenades 2017-01-09 09:27 am (UTC)(link)
They convulse and curl in on themselves, dropping down, the whole mess of wires and veins rolling in as York lands on his feet and crumples to the ground like a puppet with his strings cut. Rather than pursue they wind inward to curl around York's body and surround him in a protective shell from further bullets. A slick, techno-organic cocoon he'd never asked for.
short_changed: (Fuck you in particular)

[personal profile] short_changed 2017-01-09 08:20 pm (UTC)(link)
Shoving her helmet on it takes a second of re-calibration as the locks click back into place and the visor lights up once more. Her heart sinks to see how limp York's body is as he falls to the floor, even as the wires and cables curl around him possessively. This wasn't York's darkness and corruption showing. It was Delta; she'd seen the veins of wires growing out of his chip at the back of York's neck. If the Faceless could corrupt an AI...god, that makes their chances even slimmer.

She keeps her gun aimed at the mass, but her finger's off the trigger, breathing hard around the pain in her throat as she rasps out, "So help me Delta, you better not be the thing that kills him."

With that she turns on her heel and sprints away from her friend. She can't save him like this. Not on her own.