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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That pulls a grin from her. A real, honest grin, her stare entirely fixed so he knows exactly how responsible he is for it.

"Don't say that too loudly, vato. You don't want to tip them off to your daring escape before it's even started."

Not that they probably aren't already anticipating more than a few Legionnaires bypassing the arrival process. She'd like to count herself among them (she could if she wanted to, after all) but the less of a disturbance she makes now, the better it is for her in the long run.

Lena had made her play, putting herself at risk for Sombra. She should be grateful for it, should want to return the favor and actively fighting to save her compatriot in their final hour.

But if they don't kill these hearts, none of it will mean anything, and as far as tactical losses go—

Well, Lena's heroic sacrifices are appreciated.

Claws tacky with viscera, Sombra seizes the opportunity to retreat, scrabbling to her feet and darting for the nearest pulsing heart where it's set against a fleshy wall. Click— snap— gun leveled and ready in an instant.

Sorry, not sorry, amiga.

"Not anymore," is offered easily, with the same tired smile, even if it isn't completely true. The medical beds had done their work, but they hadn't replenished her energy. The chronal accelerator was clearly in need of a bad recharge, given the flashing red warning light in the bottom corner. She was trying not to think about that, after having faced the nightmare of disappearing over and over again when people had needed her most.

It had all been a dream -- but out here, it was entirely possible, and entirely out of her hands until they returned to Legion World.

"Didn't hear nothin' 'bout any casualties, but I gotta be honest, I ain't been listening too much," Lena offers, trying to get off the subject of how they were both doing. As much as she appreciates Jack's attempts to fall back into old habits, she knows he'll appreciate the subject change more -- almost as much as she wants it.

Any other person who just stuck their neck out for who they perceived as a friend might have been offended. That person isn't Lena Oxton -- she was there for the sole purpose of holding this monster's attention, so Sombra could get away. Sure, a little help would have been nice to dispatch it more quickly, but now that she's seen his face (or what was left of it), she can't say she's upset that Sombra has chosen another target.

Jack launches himself at her, and snaps herself out of her trance, darting away just before he could snatch her. A spitfire of bullets aims at his foot, purposefully missing just to hold his attention. The second look she gets means there is no mistake -- its Jack Morrison.

"Jack--snap out of it, love! Its me--its Lena!"

This is probably useless. She knows it before the words are even out of her mouth.

Their ever so familiar brand of dry banter continues, and a muscle on his face twitches beneath the smoke. It's pretty handy during these moments. He can feel the atmosphere shift around them, as if they're both trying to fight the air of familiarity of What Once Was, and it's making him anxious. His arms fold a little tighter against his chest.

"Sounds like you've been reading one too many tabloids," he retorts, a single eye emerging from the cloud. "But guess I made an impression on some poor schmuck being click-baited into whatever sensational bullshit he could get his mitts on. Infamy travels fast."

His eye is open wide, the brown color of his iris a duller version of it. His eyelid blinks carefully, the skin wrinkled and textured, utterly void of any eyelashes and most of his eyebrow too for that matter. His facial hair, for the most part, had taken quite a hit. There's some scraggly patches along his jawline but anything heavily scarred over is completely hairless.

"Good."

Lena being injured, of course, the last thing he wants, even though he's the one who did this to her in the first place. The red flashing light on the chronal accelerator doesn't go unnoticed, and with his mask off, it's easy to see his eyes flick to it.

He's silent for a long moment, and it's clear he's not quite sure about how to proceed. The hardest part is starting.

"I'm sorry."

Really, he'd welcome the challenge, but he feels like voicing the sentiment will just invite more grins like that from Azúcar, so he refrains. 76 doesn't quite know how to deal with this kind of teasing, a sort of camaraderie--well, he does, but that part of him is long-buried. Instead, he offers a sound in the back of his throat that might be a laugh as he leans back a little on the bed.

"I'll let you get some rest."

Lord knows they all need it--and it's a convenient exit from the situation, to boot.

"Mercenary circles can get pretty imaginative."

Especially when they don't understand powers that might seem supernatural at first glance. But, good. Reyes doesn't actually eat souls. 76's gaze is fixed squarely on him as the smoke continues to dissipate, waiting for some kind of terrible reveal that...doesn't really come.

He looks old. Tired--they both do, and the apparent disfigurements don't exactly help. What strikes Jack most of all is that he still looks like Reyes, and there's a part of him that aches at the sight of his old friend. His fingers itch again, wanting to reach out.

"Not what I expected."

She does. More than she'd like to admit, she needs it.

And there's such a weariness in those few seconds between breaths when they aren't talking, but it's steeped in shock, in survival instincts that want nothing more than for her to stay alert and active against the logical fact that it's over. Done.

"Si te quedas conmigo, lo haré por ti."

Not that Sombra has it in her to wait for an answer before she's shut her eyes again, shoulders going slack by degrees. Whether he leaves or stays is up to him.

Well, he certainly eats something. The stories of the gruesome shriveled up corpses might be a wild exaggeration, but usually with tall tales there's a grain of truth hidden in there somewhere. No matter the reason, he's not going to say a damn thing anyway.

Half of his face is still covered, the smoke still lingering like he's trying to avoid a full reveal. Like he knows what might happen if he affirms that underneath the unfamiliar and overly edgy exterior, that he's still the same man. That it might change things. He has to keep telling himself not to forget.

"Good thing I wasn't aiming to meet it, then."

He bristles a little. The skin stretched out over his cheekbones suddenly disintegrate, like his skin was made of old clay.

"It takes practice," she replied. There were some things that Miku could not justifiably get herself to let go. "Which somehow makes it much harder than it has any right to be." She smiled a little at Pidge.

"I'm sorry I don't know you better, I'd be happy to lend an ear."

He laughs a bit--and it sounds more real this time, an indication that he understands. But it's a nervous sound, too, and he doesn't seem entirely comfortable with the sentiment behind the words.

Still, Jack waits. Not very long, but he watches her eyes close and her breathing slow. He's not sure if she's asleep or not by the time he stands up and finds another part of the medbay to haunt, but either way, the sentiment is there.

Rest assured, 76 takes everything with a grain of salt--desiccated corpses left in Reaper's wake doesn't mean souls, but it does speak to some kind of other life-draining ability. The real question is whether or not Reaper needs to do it to survive, or if he's just that sadistic. He certainly wouldn't put the latter past him, at this point.

76 can deal with the smoke, but watching parts of Reaper's face crumble is a little disconcerting, especially when he doesn't know the nature of these strange powers.

"Jesus, you're falling apart."

He snarls, the sound strained as if trying to reign it back but failing miserably. The black cloud swarms around his head like a plague of insects, the other side of his face dissolving to reveal bone and teeth, his eyes bloodshot from fatigue, as his anger spikes. But as soon as it had happened, he's pulling himself back together again, head turned away from Jack.

"Yeah, no shit," he finally rasps out. "Think I wear a mask for fun? If you think making me see how far I've fallen will goad me into spilling my guts about Talon objectives, you're sorely mistaken."

Or whatever it is Jack really wants to talk about. He can't be convinced otherwise that everyone now has an ulterior motive for everything, especially when all they've been doing since they met on Legion World was try their damned best from beating the shit out of each other.

Stephen wakes up in a medical bed, clearly being tended to for blood loss and exhaustion and whatever it was that happened to him.

Oh.

He groaned, pressing the palms of his trembling hands to his eyes. What...

He was alive, at least.

The memories of the awful things he'd seen...the awful things he'd done...the awful thing he'd been...how dare he succumb to that...that thing!? How could he attack his teammates...a kid, Kubo...he felt sick to his stomach and leaned over the side of the bed, sure he was going to retch. Fortunately they must have had him on some future medication because it didn't come, and he'd already probably emptied his stomach earlier. But the disgust was on a level he'd never experienced before. Disgust at himself.

He'd sworn an oath.

Do no harm.

He looked down at his shaking hands. A flash of those horrible scythe-things they'd been.

Instruments of healing, turned killing.

He felt ill again, the sensation of not-being-in-a-human-shape was starting to weigh on him and he just felt...out of sorts. He quickly threw open the thin blanket covering him just to make sure he had proper legs. Tattered clothes, but they were there. His uniform was shredded, though. He rubbed his face involuntarily, he could still feel like he had a beak though there was nothing there...extra legs...a shudder. He wanted to forget. His failure, his weakness, what he'd done to himself...

...how could he forgive himself?

Edited 2017-01-29 00:08 (UTC)

"You ain't gotta be sorry, Jack," Lena responds in kind, perfectly sincere in spite of the way she frowns. Its a brief expression, immediately replaced by a cheeky smile. "You did try to warn me. I just didn't listen. And besides -- you only had me for a second there, yeah?"

Its not entirely accurate -- she took the order as it was given to her the first time, but she hadn't left him behind when she had found Sombra. She knows what he's trying to do though, and telling him not to be sorry won't help. After second of silence, she instead offers forgiveness.

"Its ok, love."

She takes a moment to chew that over, before turning back to Miku and holding out her hand.

"I'm Pidge. Paladin while I'm a super hero."

It seems like as good a time as any to start practicing compartmentalization.

The thing about talking to Cortana is that, most of the time, she has no visible avatar for the Chief to give meaningful looks to. It means he has to talk.

"Sounds like someone we knew," he says. It's flippant too, but loaded with worry. That's far too close to the Gravemind for comfort, and while he hasn't openly discussed it with her, he knows that facing off with the Flood hivemind hurt her badly. This can't have helped, and the Chief's concern hangs between them, the question of her welfare unspoken but obvious.

They haven't been friends for a long time, by most standards, but the circumstances have strengthened it more than years ever could. He respects Cortana, and will give her a chance to come around to it herself before he'll push the issue outright.

Cortana can feel the muscle movements as he side-eyes her, precise little electrical signals shooting up through the suit's interface, and as usual chooses to ignore anything that conflicts with how she's decided the universe should be. In this case, she's decided she's fine.

"This thing only wished it was a tenth as scary as the Flood, Chief. It had no way to force the issue and we didn't need Halo to kill it." Cortana's using an interesting definition of 'force' here, but she's technically correct that the Faceless didn't seem able to do anything without some kind of consent.

Bush league, right?

Considering Sombra looked like she lost a fight with an ODST and an EMP simultaneously, it's just remotely possible the situation doesn't warrant Cortana's breezy assurance.

If it were the Flood, the affected Legionnaires wouldn't have returned. They'd have had even more deaths on the team today, this is true. But people still had to be carried off that shuttle, and Sombra wasn't the only one still walking who looked like they'd been through the wringer.

It's a good sign that Cortana's still brushing things off, but it doesn't mean they're as fine as she wants him to think they are.

"Cortana," says the Chief, gentle but firm. "What happened to you?"

"I don't know. You always had a commitment to aesthetic."

He shrugs, letting Reaper know that he didn't think it was out of the question that he'd wear the outfit simply because he has a flair for the dramatic. Of course, the weird smoke powers made it evident that wasn't the case, but 76 had never thought it out of the realm of possibility.

"They offer you anything?"

76 doesn't really think that Reaper is all in as far as Talon is concerned. If he knows Gabriel--and he likes to think he does--then he's got something else in mind. Some other end goal that even Talon won't see coming.

He doesn't have to, sure, but he's going to be remorseful anyway. Hindsight is twenty-twenty, and he's always thinking about how he could have done something differently. Better. This is no exception--he should have been truthful with her from the start. Not all of it would have been avoidable, but perhaps Lena would have been better prepared. Maybe they could have figured something out.

Jack sighs, shoulders sagging.

"All I'm doing is apologizing to you."

It feels like the only thing he's done since she arrived.

It's so much harder to dodge direct questions when no one's shooting at them...though given that 'direct' is the Chief's only setting, you'd think she'd be used to it by now.

"Nothing that didn't happen to everyone else." She sighs, letting go of some of her control to let the fatigue peek through. "Just a nasty environment to be operating in and lot of bad memories."

Her eyebrows lift a little at that but she doesn't push it. She's probably pushing her luck with South enough as is but even without York asking her too she'd want to stay with South a bit.

"You don't look so good, have you seen the med techs yet?"

"I'm a good distraction."

Connie grins behind her helmet and follows suit after pidge, several image projections appearing around her as the meat monster turns and snarls at them and charges in turn. As it lashes out towards the first of her doubles it flickers out of sight as Connie slides under it's bulk, catching one of it's legs and pivoting with her momentum to knock it flat on its face.

"Go!"

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

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