The Legion [Mods] (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
letsgolegion) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
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.
no subject
When she puts down her weapon, it seems to confuse him briefly, long enough for her words to trickle across. There's no sign apparent as to whether they're sinking in, just that steady panting and the trickle of something dark and viscous down his chin. There's no sign of retreat, just calm consideration as Sombra stands there, vulnerable and hand extended to him.
It gnaws at him even now. He doesn't want to hurt her. This is necessary. She says it isn't, but she doesn't know, she doesn't understand what he's been shown. The chance he's been given. He has his orders.
He thinks of a scarf, soft and warm and bright red against stark white. 'Soy tu amiga.'
Felix, however, seems to be irritated by the lack of action taking place. In an exaggerated roll of his head, he shifts in behind Locus. Christ's sake. I have to do everything myself, don't I? he grouses.
And, planting a foot against Locus's back, he hoists himself onto the gear with surprising lightness, before seizing hold of the chains anchored to the mechanism and yanking sharply, forcing Locus into motion. The chains twist and rake against one another as they pull at his limbs, and with a bellow of pain he jerks forward.
You don't get to go all soft on me now, you traitorous asshole. Get her.
Another yank, and Locus swipes for her again.
no subject
From there, with one hand already tugging up her gun— the other giving Felix a salute with her middle finger— she opens fire on the silhouette actively pulling the reins. "Pinche cabrón!"
no subject
And again, that breathy laughter escapes the broken helmet. Sorry to disappoint, manic pixie psycho. But you can't kill what's already dead.
Again, the chains tug, and Locus presses the distance between them. Felix's grip twists, and a choked gurgle from the back of his throat as that split mouth widens, raggedly sucking in hair as he staggers towards her.
no subject
Worse comes to worst, she'll teleport.
If it prolongs their chase, if she has to bury herself in the nightmare and hide, she will. Tells herself as much as her heel scuffs the edge.
"Locus—" The barrel's aimed at his head, held up in warning while he staggers closer. Holds her breath for a single, dangerous beat— and then with a chastising growl (intended entirely for herself), fires off a burst of ammunition at his left leg.
no subject
She hijacks the telemetry from the accelerometers, makes them lie to the other systems in the armor. They're not smart. They don't even count as dumb. They're just layered levels of instructions, if-thens created by human engineers brainstorming every terrible thing a soldier can do or have done to themselves. But if those systems could think, their decision would be simple.
You are falling.
Falls end suddenly.
Protect your wearer.
Once the poor stupid armor thinks it's moving fast enough to break a human when it hits, Cortana fakes a deceleration. No stop is instantaneous, however it feels to the human experiencing it, and within a fraction of a second, the armor reacts, dumping all other feedback and locking the underlayer in a catastrophic shutdown that the designers long ago decided was preferable to death.
"Okay, got it, he's stuck until his armor can reboot--" Cortana lets awareness of the outside world return, and Sombra will just have to imagine the surprised blink. "--What the hell?"
no subject
But it hurts. It tugs and pulls at his tendons, his bones. He needs to move, needs to bring Sombra into the fold, and not even this is allowed to stop him. If his body rebels, it must be broken and reformed.
Oh to Hell with this...
And a second later there's three knives, thrown in quick succession over Locus's shoulder, aimed directly at Sombra.
no subject
As he moves (predictably, she thinks) for his knives in utter frustration, Sombra doesn't bother to dodge. Her stare is fixed on him, on committing his face to memory before reality distorts. Snaps clean across digital space away from Locus' own personal purgatory back out into the empty metal hallways from before.
And then, after a beat, her attention shifts towards Cortana's obvious bewilderment:
"What?"
no subject
The tactical window returns with her, the motion tracker's absence of any hostiles only so comforting in this jumpscare nightmare they've been dumped into. For the moment, at least, Cortana's too exasperated for her own demons to be chasing them, and the way is refreshingly free of tentacles or twisted, almost fungal creatures that were once people. Small mercies.
no subject
Tired or not, she's not taking the chance.
"He had a friend." Said bitterly enough to be entirely transparent - not that it matters when they're sharing the same mental space. "A dead, pain in the ass friend."
And then, with a weary little shrug as the thermoptic camouflage masks her silhouette (not the bloody trail she leaves behind, but when the flooring shifts from metal to flesh again, it won't matter), Sombra adds: "I did what I had to do to keep you covered, manita."
no subject
"How bad is it?" Sombra lacks both Mjolnir's precision feedback (not to mention biofoam injectors) and the Chief's unbreakable stoicism, so Cortana's not sure she can judge the severity of the injuries.
no subject
Still, it's the question that has her shaking her head, more keen to denial than acknowledgement in the moment. "I'll live."
The cut at her throat is easy. Hardly bleeds anymore except for when she pulls at it on occasion, but the impact laid into the one across her side's made the bleeding more persistent, and it's exacerbated by the heightened pace she's keeping. Eventually she's going to have to stop and apply pressure. Try to bandage it with— something.
There'll have to be something.
no subject
"Let's see about finding someplace to hole up for a while." Maybe someplace with an opening too small for any hulking monsters with weird complexes and mouthy friends. Up springs a hologram showing a map of what Cortana can detect of their surroundings with the omnicomm's sensors.
A maze of twisty passages, all alike. Hopefully they won't run into any more grues for a while.