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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...I was doing the same, with less reason.

A point of commonality in the midst of this horrorshow. The display flickers and Delta, concerned by the storage unit's damage, clears his throat. If you could- there is a more stable storage unit in the munitions locker.

The EM situation is so much nicer now...meaning Cortana has a chance to drop a line to her other self and get the details rather than admit there are two of her on the loose.

...Well, hell. Yeah, Delta can stay right where he is. The Faceless might be dead, but that doesn't mean Delta returned to sanity along with the humans, given the AI predisposition to instability.

Not your fault. 'Soothing' cannot be considered Cortana's strong suit, but she's trying. Azúcar's fine. A little beat up, but who isn't?

Simultaneously, she speaks aloud to Connie, gently sending a few tendrils of code into the implant to check on the healing unit. "Not unless your helmet works on his armor. The implant won't hold me and I don't think he wants anyone in his mind right now."

Pause.

"I reiterate my opinion of your Director's programming skills, by the way."

"No you fucking don't."

Does she sound like Azúcar anymore? The answer is no. Tense and angry, fed up with the idea of giving in, she sounds more than ever like the girl off the streets she used to be. Ignores another heavy tremor and glances around for the nearest uncollapsed tunnel, throwing her translocator as far as it'll go before turning her attention back towards him, bloodied fingers latching onto his jawline and wrenching it upwards to face her. "The Faceless is dead, whoever or whatever was controlling you is dead— I didn't do this to watch you die with them, Locus— stand up."

Consonants razor-sharp, as far as she's concerned, he can have the luxury of self-loathing when he's not operating on her watch.

So the Chronoblivion is another Galra. Another Zarkon. Another megalomaniac trying to claim a universe that didn't belong to it just because it could, and because it could, who cared about how many lives it ruined in the process. Whatever sympathy she had for the unfortunate absorbed into the mass of flesh had to wait, not with her teammates lives on the line.

Pidge was already ignoring it before it finished it's thought, aiming her attention and bayard at the hearts. But a bayard is not an efficient weapon for destroying targets one at a time. It's slow firing. It sticks. It takes time to retract.

And that leaves her vulnerable.

Edited 2017-01-18 02:43 (UTC)

Connie's never been a heavy hitter for her team; she didn't have the physicality or the armour enhancements for it, but she could be a wonderful distraction. The bright green light of the weapon and the ensuing gout of blood from the heart it pierced catches Connie's attention- following the source back to the figure who had fired it...and to the fleshy-techno abomination that was closing in behind them.

Gritting her teeth Connie breaks into a run drawing her knife as she blinks through the air to reappear behind Pidge to block the monstrosity's path with two other armoured projections of herself at her side.

"I got your back, move!"

"Survival is reason enough." He says. He's not sure how much he still believes that.

But then, Delta has a request. It's something to do that doesn't require focus on what they've just come out of. A welcome respite. The further away he can push this, the better off he'll be. A quick glance around tells him exactly where said locker is.

An AI storage unit ought to be relatively easy to spot amidst everything else.

His gaze wrenched up to meet hers, he stares back at her for a moment, uncertain. Why? The question bounces in echoes around his head. Why save him? Why didn't she take the killing shot earlier, when her life was clearly in danger? Why is she...

Stand up.

He does, with effort. Every ounce of him aches, body covered in wounds, but there's enough strength in him yet to manage that much with her prompting.

It had been close, getting York out of there and back to the ship without getting trapped in the collapse of both the In-Between and the wreckage of the Silent Horizon. Connie's not built to be the bull rushing people out of sticky situations, and as she rubs at the ache in her shoulders she wishes that Maine was there. Once York's been checked out by the medbay personnel and laid out to rest, Connie pulls up a chair by his bed and slumps into her seat when she finds him dozing.

Might not be much of a comfort to have her watching over but she'll be there the next time he wakes up. Of course by then she might be hunched over in her seat half asleep herself.

"Always knew you wanted to get your hands on me." It's a rough, twisted rasp of sound, but York manages something. It's flat and automatic but it's audible. Something for Connie to know he's not dead.

Something to keep him from screaming a second time as she hefts him up.

Inside-

It's a ragged mess. A screaming shattered mass of code and broken protocols and failsafes that faled to be safe every which way. You're good?

D couldn't hurt her, he knew that but this thing-

It reached in and tore D up without so much as a sign. Not a blip. Not a blink.

At first glance it is much like his current setup- though isolated and in much better condition. If you would remove the chip from this armor and insert it into the slot there-

Designated by a slight depression, something that would recede to protect him properly. I would be grateful.

Simple enough.

And a reminder that he wants to put as much distance between himself and what remains of his armor as he can, once they're through here. It'll have to hold until they return to Legion World. Delta, meanwhile, has the option. So he'll oblige him.

The chip comes out with a firm tug, and there's some resistance at first, but it's clearly a slot made for him, and after a solid push in, the device takes the chip with a securing 'click'.

A little of the dread eases out at the sound of his voice as rough as it is, and through grit teeth and a tense grin she replies, "Keep dreaming, York."

Connie grunts and slows to a stop, leaning her weight forward to balance York across her shoulders to fumble at her helmet's clasps one handed.

"It's worth a try. And I still completely agree with you."

Yanking the helmet up and off it takes her a minute to balance it in one hand and slide it up and over York's head without bashing it in his face or knocking his nose in. The visor is dark for a few seconds before it flickers to life as it recalibrates to York's suit. Not that Connie can see, as soon as it's on she readjusts her grip and keeps sprinting.

York slowly rouses, turning over to get the ache out of one side and onto the other- and there's someone watching him. Tentative as anything he reaches out a hand to tap her wrist- just to make sure she's real. All these damn dreams and hallucinations, ghosts and echos-

He doesn't know if he's out. If this isn't some shell his mind's cooked up to keep him comfortable until Delta's done with them.

South is stalking one of those monsters; resisting the call out of pure spite and taking it upon herself to shoot them in their fucking faces. When she can, that is; she's swearing under her breath as she loses sight of hte monster she was trailing, stun gun raised and ready.

"Come on, you filthy, dumb sonnovabitch. Give me something to shoot at."

The hologram blinks out without so much as a word. The space between one slot and the next is a veritable infinity of silence and darkness- then the chip is pressed in, the unit hums online as his chip recedes into the storage device. A plate slides over where it'd been to leave a smooth, unbroken surface and for a moment? All is quiet.

Then the unit blares to life and the unit uncurls. Unfolds into the shape of a solid armored man, roughly ten inches tall. A physical replica of his hologram in full articulated detail from the lights on his helmet to the shade of green on the armor's plating.

Delta stands, taps his fingers together before peering around the room, looking back to the door where York lies beyond. "Thank you."

Connie's arm flinches at the touch as she jerks awake, her eyes red and bleary as she scans the area- but there's no threat. Just York, finally awake. Half out of her seat she slowly settles back down, dragging it a little closer to his side as she does.

"Hey...glad to see you're awake."

"All right, I've got this." Cortana's been riding in Connie's armor long enough to know what to expect, and where she'd been managing holograms before, she now kicks the healing unit into gear, as pointless as her presence is. "You know, I could re-wire this to run on a subroutine. There's no reason it needs even a dumb AI, much less Delta or me."

Ran into worse during the war. There aren't many people she's willing to tell about the Gravemind, even that obliquely, but York's stared into a similar abyss. He's earned a little honesty. You held on. A lot of people didn't. She's not talking about the Faceless, not entirely, and even with her feather-light touch on the implant, that much comes through in a subtle shift, the way someone might look aside when the past rises to haunt them.

Do you want me to do something about the pain? I saw how Delta was handling it. Well, the other Cortana saw, and passed the logs over to her. Functionally the same thing.

One common mistake that's made about Hiccup and Toothless's relationship is that Hiccup controls Toothless. This couldn't have been further from the Truth. Toothless generally listened to Hiccup because he liked the Viking, and because said Viking was better at coming up with battle plans than he was. That doesn't mean Toothless is bad at it.

So when Roland manages to shock him in the hindquarters, Toothless quickly realizes that if Roland's back there, it means he's not right in front of the heart. Toothless twists, turning towards the heart, and fires a plasma blast, blowing the organ to smithereens.

Hiccup takes advantage of the hearts exploding, and directs the cord to make another attempt at wrapping Roland up.

Pidge knew things were advancing on her, she'd been keeping an eye over her shoulder since she realized that friends had a good chance of not really being friends down here.

But she didn't anticipate how vulnerable this would leave her. She can't even drag the bones back and whip them behind her to fight that way. But then Connie appears behind her like an avenging armored valkyrie and Pidge manages to scramble away and vanish.

Invisibility gives her a few precious moments to get around to the back of the monster. Turnabout is fair play, and she's going to make sure this thing is down. Whatever Connie does, she's going to drive the electric end of her bayard right into this thing's spine.

A miniature body. A wonder why they didn't grant him a full-sized one, but given past events? That seems an unlikely venture. Locus merely nods before following his gaze.

"...he will recover." He'll need time. They all will. But given that time they can overcome most. York at the very least has his mind intact, his sense of self. He wasn't the one to transform, after all.

[OOC: Plum did get the RNG for this, but she suggested Grif starting with Lenny on plurk so that's what we're doing!]

Grif is on his last legs. He supposes that's lucky, because it looks like some of the people on this ship have come out of the experience with entirely too many of those. He's limping by the time he reaches the Faceless's apparent throne room. He's been running almost the entire time they've been aboard, he's exhausted and the only thing propelling him now is adrenaline.

He doesn't want to deal with seeing reality bent and broken by transdimensional horrors right now. He doesn't want to deal with anything at all. Fuck this.

Grif comes out of the Faceless's memory with ears ringing and head pounding, and his eyes settle on two points of light in the murky chamber.

To his right, lying suspended on a pair of bony prongs sticking out of the wall, is Lenny's head.

"...Please tell me you're going to pick me up?"

Shit, he has a job to do, doesn't he? Fuck jobs. But Grif still grabs Lenny with a sweaty, blood-grimed hand.

Oaths really are bullshit.

"C'mon dudes," he says. There are fifty-five of them in there and they are all "dude" to him. He tucks it under his arm like a football.

As soon as he does, something moves.

The prongs that were holding Lenny jut forward as a phalanx creature peels itself out of the wall, leaving what looks like a bloody internal mess in its wake as Grif staggers back. Its sightless head remains trained on Lenny, and it opens its maw to screech.

Fuck.

Grif takes off in a circuit around the room, nearly bouncing off Legionnaires phalanxed and non as the beaked creature tries to close with him. Grif's fast, but he's tired. His nerves are basically shot. And as a bonus, Lenny's apparent guardian is after him on seven legs because honestly, why wouldn't it be?

He wants to say something biting to Lenny, something like "your buddy needs to fuck off!" but he's already panting and can't afford to.

Then he trips.

Lenny sails through the air and the beaked creature comes to a hault over Grif, watching it with an almost curious tilt of its eyeless head.

Someone has to grab that. Someone. Anyone. Grif sees a figure in brown armor.

"MONTANA! CATCH!"

The creature's four front claws are on either side of Grif's head. If this gets its attention back and it kills him, they can say he died saving fifty-five people. At least there are worse eulogies.

Edited 2017-01-18 04:23 (UTC)

The thing rears up and brings its arms down to claw at the middle Connie- but then it passes right through her as the image of her armour flickers and disappears. As it's thrown off balance, the armour on the right ducks forward and kicks the feet out from under it to bring it crashing forward.

Even on the ground it's not out of the fight just yet, it's other arm comes shooting out to grab for Connie's leg, forcing her to roll back and out of the way. Distracted as it is it doesn't notice the sudden absence of Pidge in front of it.

Lena's lost count of how long she's been running. She wasn't superhuman -- she was just a girl with an unfortunate medical condition that lent itself very well to field work when that field work involved beating down aggressive robotics that had grown too smart for their chassis. But she has been flitting about for too long, long enough that she'd needed to take a breather in between cutting the Faceless apart, and dodging the various guardians it seemed to be letting loose.

She'd been through enough of this wheelhouse to know what was going on around her was the potential death of several of their crewmates, and she wasn't about to abide by it as long as they had a chance of recovering them. The faster the hearts got taken out, the sooner they would be free of this mess.

She spots Sombra again, and feels some sense of relief flood her -- finally, someone she recognized that wasn't a twisted amalgamation of their former selves. Her relief is short lived, and she doesn't have the recharge power to swoop in to rescue her from the sudden beast that seems to appear behind her without warning.

"Azúcar!" she cries (butchering her name in the process), pointing with her pistol -- there was no way she could take a shot without hitting her. "Behind you!"

"He will never look at me the same way again." The trust won't be there. The understanding. The implicit, instinctive way they communicated with one another-

Those doors are closed to him.

"You're ok?" Priority one, make sure the team is ok. Things he tried to and failed to hold to before but now?

Now it's all he's got. Delta is functional. He's not dying. Connie is breathing. South is- God, let South be ok.

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Page 3 of 14

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

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Pidge - On Offense

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LENNY'S HEAD

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hello i am here to ruin lives

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