legionmissions | SILENT HORIZON - [Part 2: Facing the Faceless/Escape] [modplot]

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SILENT HORIZON - [Part 2: Facing the Faceless/Escape] [modplot]

Who| Everyone in Silent Horizon plot
What| Fighting the Faceless, a perilous escape, and a chance to have a breather
Where| In the In-Between, the Silent Horizon, and then the Legion Cruiser
When| Chronologically, only hours have passed in the outside world from when the team disappeared, but it's up to players whether their characters perceived it as being hours or days
Warnings/Notes| Gore, blood, body horror, all the usual

They hear the voice again, calling out to them. Not the Faceless, not the dark whispers of this world. It's the same tinny voice that warned them, that told them not to give into the Faceless' offer. It's the voice that told them their Phalanxed teammates can still be saved if the Faceless is killed in time before they die.

It calls out again. Wherever they are, whatever the landscape is doing, they can hear it.

"I know you have no reason to trust me. I know you've been probably hearing lots of voices in this place, telling you all kinds of things. But I'm trying to help you. There's a way to end this, to stop the Faceless. Just follow my voice. My language synthesizer is broadcasting in the telepathic range like telepathic earplugs and I've managed to reconfigure it to broadcast through the entire In-Between. You should be hearing it wherever you are and you should be able to use its broadcast strength to navigate. I think I've managed to secure it from the Faceless and his Phalanx but there's no way to be sure."

How loud the voice is changes as they get closer or farther away. They can use it to navigate, albeit very crudely. And now that it's clearer, it's far more recognizable: it's the voice of the Robotican in the horrible footage that played before they were taken -- the one that had his head knocked off.

"My name is N-45LEN/Keth Series. My organic crewmates call --" He pauses, and sounds distraught. "--called me Lenny. I was a crew member of the Silent Horizon. This entire dimension is called the In-Between. It's made up of the body of the Faceless and I'm currently trapped at its core. I can see you Legionnaires from here through...what appears to be some kind structure for processing what equates to ocular stimuli for the Faceless. If any of you get lost, I can see enough to guide you here."

If they need it, they'll find that he can give them individualized directions, no matter what the landscape does, and he can give them to multiple people simultaneously. Having a complex processor for a brain has its perks.

"My organic teammate and I managed to discover the core of the Faceless and its nature, but I'm currently incapacitated and Bob...he just lost it. He nearly destroyed what was left of me and ran off before we could stop the Faceless. I saw him eventually accept the Faceless' offer and turn. If you make it here where I am, you may be able to destroy the Faceless' body enough to kill him, save your teammates, and destroy this dimension once and for all."

A pause.

"And if you could maybe take me with you when you leave, uh, I would appreciate that. Like, a lot."

[ooc post here]

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He's fought with the armor in worse shape, and the biofoam's doing its job. Cortana busies herself with making minuscule tweaks to compensate for the damage, but that's just because she's Cortana, not because they're necessary. Nothing here's bad enough she needs to harangue him to Engineering or the Medbay, and she mutes all the techs as well. They'll live, and so will the Chief.

He's the only person who'll get an honest answer from her--have fun with that mandatory session, Dr. Ry'kerr--but even the Chief is going to have to push through some flippancy. The nightmare's over. She's fine.

"Don't know how much you heard yet, but the ship we were looking for got hijacked by some entity calling itself the Faceless that was trying to assimilate everything it came across. Really terrible recruiting pitch--'hope is a lie, everything is doomed, join me and survive.' Some people bought it."

If he thinks that sounds pretty much exactly like the Gravemind...that's because it sounds pretty much exactly like the Gravemind.

He's silent again, apparently processing, or maybe just wishing he could make this go away. 76 can only stall so long by wiping his hands down with an antiseptic towel, crumpling it up when he's finished and tossing it onto the nearest available surface.

"Appreciate it."

But of course, the last thing he wants is to feel like he's indebted to someone, even if it's over something as simple as keeping a secret.

Her head is killing her, and she wants to rest, but she digs her fingers into Victor's shoulders and hangs on for dear life. The good doctor hits the shield with a satisfying thunk.

"If- If- we knock him out, do you think he'll be OK?" she asked as Victor backed up and prepared to zoom along.

Her arms come up to block the raking claws as they slash across her. Luckily her gauntlets take the brunt of the strike even as the hit shoves her back against the fleshy ground- and then just as quickly the beast was gone. Scrambling to her feet she shakes the tingles out from her arms, watching the monster chase the head no matter who seemed to hold it.

Like a bull and a red cape. Her head snaps up at the shout and with a curse under her breath she scrambles forward, teleporting in staggered steps to catch the short pitch.

Immediately casting a glance back to her last location she teleports back and reappears amongst a group of doubles. They need to find a better way to give the monster the ring-around.

"We can't get Lenny out with this thing alive!"

Connie left her helmet by York's bedside, something she'll pick up the next time she goes to check in on him, but right now there's another Freelancer she's been meaning to talk to. She had seen South at the beginning of the mission, but not while they were all fighting for their lives (in one way or another) in the ship. Connie has no idea what sort of state the other woman might be in from her ordeal but...she's come as prepared as she can be.

That being when she finally does find South, still in blood splattered armour, she takes a seat beside her and taps a bottle of what appears to be strawberry yoohoo and a bottle of water against her arm.

"They don't have any booze on the ship, but until we get back to base this is the best we'll get."

"Hey, what else are friends for."

Nonchalant— or possibly just down-to-the-bone exhausted— either way the delivery's the same. "Aside from almost killing each other anyway, right?"

That's a joke, Jack.

Mostly.

From there she shifts back, seemingly content in her own space (and a little pain relief might be responsible for that) for the first time in what feels like forever, sinking down comfortably into the covers. "You should probably get some rest. People are going to be loco once we get back: the Legion, the press, the public— they're all gonna want to get a piece of you."

Of all of them, probably.

South turns her head slowly to look at Connie and the offered beverages, then reaches up to remove her helmet and set it aside. She looks ill - face pale and clammy, forehead furrowed in pain from the headache. Without a word, she reaches for the water over the yoohoo and opens it slowly in order to take a few sips.

"I won't need it." South turning down booze; you know it's bad.

76 tries not to flinch, but he is standing again, t-shirt in his fist. He's at a complete loss for words, facing Gabriel's...well...face, but he tries not to let it show on his own expression. He can't let Reyes seize on any weakness.

This is harder to look at than he thought, however, because even though they're enemies now, he can't quite shake all the years they spent as friends. Closer than friends--brothers. What Reaper is now is something that 76 wouldn't wish on anyone.

"You're doing that on purpose." Not that he isn't going to be completely petulant about the immediate situation. He wants to see Reyes' entire face. "Stop it."

Miku is a master at being able to hunch herself down and hide, and she knows her own sort, which is why she stands nearby. Her boot is missing, and her body hurts, and her head aches, but she feels the need to damage control.

And there's so much damage to control. "Can I stay nearby you?" she asks finally, after a long silence stretches out between her watching Pidge from the corner of her eye and slowly, slowly, slowly drifting closer. Miku's voice is a little hoarse from screaming for ages, but that doesn't keep the polite tone out of it.

The brief pause has him stilling too, unable to think of anything biting to say. Or maybe he's just letting this moment soak in, staring straight back at Jack through the dark cloud, trying not to remember that despite the bullshit that's happened around them, that they'd been like brothers.

He laughs— it's a tired sound— and the smoke ripples gently, almost cautiously. Even if it's deliberately slow, it's making progress, revealing more and more of the heavy damage. A large jagged scar starts to show up along his cheek, hinting that it might've just gone straight through his eye and took the eyelid with it. The exposed teeth on the most damaged part of his face clack sharply.

"No," he snaps, tension returning in his shoulders for a brief moment before relaxing again. "What do you want, Jack?"

Edited (words fail) 2017-01-24 06:13 (UTC)

"Of course she did, she's a giant troll." Which is part of what he's always liked about her, really. Shit Grif needs to learn about most of the Freelancers, though, is that Wash being super serious now? Is very much out of the norm for the group.

"Hold on, love!"

The creature they had been fighting is easily dispatched by Lena's pistols in the same instant that the creature who had once been Soldier: 76's attacks. As a result, she's more than a little startled by his descent on her.

She doesn't waste another second, zipping close so that she can fire directly at its head, shielded by that strange visor -- shoot first, ask questions later had never really been her MO, but recent events had forced her to adapt. Its easy to confuse a techno-amalgamation for one of the corrupted omnics she had spent so much time fighting.

She would have never regretted her adaptability until that moment, until after she's emptied both clips and stuck herself in a reload phase so close to him.

"--Jack?"

Edited 2017-01-24 09:20 (UTC)

The smile she offers is mechanical, but present, as she takes the towel from him -- almost like she doesn't hear who is talking to her until her sweat-soaked forehead was already buried in the towel. Lena doesn't look at him or answer right away, which might not surprise him. He'd tried to kill her, after spending years and years convincing the world he was dead. He wouldn't let her help him, out of some belief that he'd be able to handle it himself--

Or at least, that'd been what she had thought at the time. The cool temperature of the damp towel helps. When she pulls it away, she finds it muddled with grey and red.

"Thanks," is what she manages after she has a moment to think about it. Her melancholy seems to roll off her like water when she looks up to him and though her smile is no less tired, it is more genuine. "How you feelin'?"

But that -- she regrets it almost as soon as its out of her mouth. It was born of concern but the answer is easy enough for her to guess on her own. "Actually--you don't have to answer that."

He wouldn’t blame her if she refused the towel, or shied away from him, or otherwise exhibited some kind of reflexive fear response that she tries to poorly hide. He certainly doesn’t deserve anything from her, and it’s not hard to see the way she doesn’t meet his eyes.

“I’m okay.”

Jack has always been very, very good at compartmentalization—nobody ever wanted to see him as anything less than unshakeable, or perhaps he just convinced himself that’s what he needed to be. His tone is sincere, familiar, like he’s trying to dig up the man he used to be for her sake. Jack isn’t sure how convincing it is, but he knows that she’ll appreciate the effort.

Hope she does, anyway. He’s not so forward as to try and comfort with more than words, not when she might not be ready for it, so for lack of something to do with his hands, he leans forward and rests them on his knees.

“Are you hurt?”

The more he sees, the more something twists in his stomach, icy and uncomfortable. The explosion hadn’t been either of their fault, at least he thinks. Given what he’s dug up, he’s reasonably certain that Reaper did not intend to die as a result of his mutiny.

Jack lucked out, in that regard. His own face is marred, but certainly not to this extent, even if he can’t see it in full.

Not yet, anyway.

“What happened to you?”

Pidge saw her in the corner of her eye, but she thought Miku may just be as lost in thought as she was so when she speaks, Pidge starts a bit.

"Oh, uh...sure. No problem." Pidge's reserve is more of out exhaustion than stand-offishness. She'd scoot over for her but she's already kind of jammed against the ship's wall, so she gestures to the empty seat next to her.

Pidge nods.

"Yeah, I think so. But if this thing starts thinking it's in real danger, it'll start bringing out the big guns."

It's a hunch, but it's an educated one even if it does sound a little video-game-y. The hearts are mostly unprotected, the monsters seem to be it's only line of defense.

She nods. "Let's do it," and charges towards the heart and it's monster.

Miku nods and sits down gratefully. "That was something, wasn't it?" she murmured. "I'm glad it's over." It was terrible, and now it was finished. At least they'd been able to save some people. Which was better than no people at all.

"How are you?"

He tries not to focus on how stupid Jack looks with his anime scars, but in reality is probably a little envious of how the boy scout had gotten the better deal out of the two. At least in regards to their physical appearance. He's fine with everything else.

"Beats me," he finally answers, perhaps a little too casually. With his arms folded in a slightly defensive position, he tilts his head and more of the smoke recedes. "I gonna guess someone tried to toy with death, and they got their results."

His first guess had been Mercy, and he can only assume it's her doing— what with the biotic technology she'd practically dedicated her life to. Clearly it was a failure, but he wouldn't give them the satisfaction of having properly brought him back to life only to throw him back into a situation he wanted no part of.

Like Jack, he has his own questions and battles to fight.

Edited 2017-01-25 07:55 (UTC)

There’s no sympathy on his face, but perhaps his expression softens a little, eyebrows pinched together as he doesn’t seem to know what to do with his hands. In another life, reaching out to place a firm hand on Reyes’ shoulder wouldn’t even be a question, and it seems that 76 hasn’t quite lost the muscle memory for such a gesture. It takes a conscious effort for him to keep his arms at his sides. He folds them, instead, trying to feign indifference.

“I hear you eat souls.”

His voice is dry, but there’s the slightest hint of wry amusement in his voice, letting Reaper know that 76 doesn’t really believe it. A commentary on the things people say and how ridiculous those things can be, maybe.

"Over? How is it over? We're only starting to deal with everything this means!"

...She went too far too fast, didn't she? She just wishes she could believe this was over.

"...Sorry. I guess...I'm less OK than I thought."

Miku winced slightly; she'd misstepped. Time to correct that, "No, I mean... 'I'm glad we're not on that ship anymore' over." She raised her hands in a placating manner. "It's easier for me to take things one at a time, now that we have a moment to catch ourselves; it was not my intention to upset you."

She eyed Pidge quietly, considering, and then dropped her eyes to her lap. "Will you talk to someone about this, when we return? It was a... bit too close to home for me, so I think I will."

"No, I'm sorry," Pidge's cheeks went hot, "I...can't really do that. Now that I'm off the ship I keep thinking about the future and trying to connect threads and..."

She shrugs. "It's not really something I can help. I shouldn't have snapped."

But talking to someone didn't quite figure in to that. "I guess I should. I don't really know what I'd talk about, but it couldn't hurt?"

She suspects the whole reason they used her family is because there just is nothing she can do about it from Legion and Pidge's brain knows that talking is only a temporary respite from that fact.

76 immediately balks at the use of “friends”, but all he offers her is a sort of noncommittal noise in the back of his throat. He sort of wonders how he got to the point where it’s easier to hear a joke about how he just tried to kill her than it is to hear her call him a friend. Even the prospect of facing the Legion, the press, the public—he’d rather take that than accept friendship.

“They’ll have to catch me first.”

That is not a joke—he is entirely serious about that.

He’s eerily silent—not even a growl or grunt of exertion as he slams into Azúcar and she digs her nails into him in defense. It doesn’t last long. Though he seems mostly unresponsive, the sting of gunfire in his shoulder, gets his attention, and his grip on Azúcar loosens unceremoniously.

76 wheels around on Tracer, instead, stumbling as a result of the hits he just took, though her unloading her pistols doesn’t at all deter him.

If he recognizes his name at all, he certainly doesn’t show it, turning his attentions to the new threat and lunging at her.

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Page 10 of 14

SILENT HORIZON - [Part 2: Facing the Faceless/Escape] [modplot]

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After the talk with York

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Re: Pidge

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i am, i'm sorry

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