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

[letsgolegion]

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]

Comments

York

[goddamngrenades]

His first salient thought is that Cortana is a beast. The little cell she'd sequestered Delta in holds true even after the turning, keeping York viscerally aware of his own aches, pains, and mental isolation and just as relieved to be able to think without an audience. Little of it's kind. Less is coherent. All lizard brain aches and agreement so long as relief is offered, the robotic surgery suite an odd point of familiarity in the middle of a fucking hellish experience.

Moving feels like a shit idea but- as soon as he can? He reaches back to rest a hand on his implant, eyes in the middle distance. No wires. No veins.

Just the usual hard patch of the chip and nothing else out of the ordinary. If it weren't for the bone deep ache and new bitching scars he'd think it'd never happened. Just a very real, very weird, very bloody hallucination. For the moment he's...alright. If. Rattled. He is by turns attempting humor with a rough rasp of voice or dozing, trying to put it all behind him and focus on other people from where he's laid out prone on the bed. At least until Delta attempts some manner of conversation through his cage- his reaction is immediate and uncharacteristic as it is instinctive-

He rips Delta's chip from its housing, slams it into a storage slot on his bracer, and throws that across the room to the nearest empty bed.

Pissed- yes. Betrayed? Incredibly. So callous as to want to destroy Delta? Never.

But he's done with the voice in his head and that formerly soothing wash of green.

[agnominal]

He is, to his mind, partially responsible for what happened to York. He can't decide if he feels more guilt or relief, knowing that he wasn't the only one to crumple.

They haven't spoken since...since the discussion about Chorus, really. Their encounter inside The In-Between doesn't count -- maybe, he thinks, depending on how much of that was really him -- but he finds himself drifting towards where York is being kept before sequestering himself away for the remainder of the trip.

He arrives just in time to see the AI chip go flying, and he hesitates at the door.

[goddamngrenades]

York turns his back on the door (he can't really keep anything from happening if someone really wanted to fuck him up right now) and does his best to fall in a protective curl. Moving his legs still hurts but then so does everything else. Doesn't matter who's around or what's going on, he's not moving.

He has clocked out for the moment, fuck everything.

Delta's chip, on the other hand, lights up the storage unit with a hastily cobbled together morse code of blinking lights, attempting to communicate in that fashion if York wouldn't permit him their usual means. In the storage unit he is- isolated. Blind.

[agnominal]

Locus's eyes shift from York's body language -- a clear sign that he is in no mood to talk -- to the AI chip. Freelancers were given AI, he knows this, but he wasn't aware any had retained theirs. Washington no longer worked with one under any circumstances, and the Epsilon unit...

Quietly, he moves towards where the chip had landed on the bed, plucking it up before glancing back in York's direction.

Why would he discard it now?

[goddamngrenades]

From the holes in his armor to the holes in his skin, york had been and is still a mess. But wires aside... He hadn't changed. The empty node on the nape of his neck is where he'd been hung by those wires. Where the strings come from.

In locus' hand, the blinking slows. Detatched from york's mind he is, technically, free of the box cortana made for hi. Enough to force out a quizzical bit of code- a holographic question mark now that he's got it online.

[agnominal]

It takes a minute more than it really should have to come to the conclusion he needs to. York didn't transform. He was a byproduct. What had morphed, changed as he had changed, was that node on the back of his neck, the source of...

His AI.

York wasn't the monster here. So there was no point in discussing it with him. Brow furrowing, Locus lowered his gaze to the AI before closing his fingers around it securely. Looks like I have more in common with a machine, after all. You were wrong, Washington.

Silently, he drifts out of the room again, Delta's chip still in hand.

[goddamngrenades]

It takes a moment for Delta to work through the limited means available to him before he can form a more concrete image. Hovering and green, armored and still, he tips his helmet up to Locus. A tinny speaker crackles to life on the underside of the storage unit.

Hello.

[agnominal]

The image chosen doesn't surprise him. He's already seen Cortana here, but Delta more closely resembles Epsilon in form. Just green, instead of blue.

"York didn't mention that he had an AI."

Hopefully the lack of niceties doesn't offend, but...Locus is rather to-the-point on the best of days. There was a reason he wasn't the 'people person'.

[goddamngrenades]

He wanted to get to know you as himself rather than as a former member of a classified military project. Something that was a moot point considering Locus' experience with the freelancers.

[short_changed]

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.

[goddamngrenades]

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.

[short_changed]

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."

[goddamngrenades]

"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.

[short_changed]

"I've had worse."

She replies as a corner of her mouth twitches into a tired smile, just a little sad as she takes his hand and gives it a gentle squeeze.

"How're you holding up?"

[goddamngrenades]

"Better now that I'm alone in my head." D's chip is in a storage unit on the adjacent bed- or. Well.

SHOULD be unless Locus has already come and collected him while he was dozing. Either way the unit is there and York doesn't find himself terribly concerned at the moment.

[short_changed]

Connie shouldn't be surprised that York would pull him after all that's happened. She vaguely wonders when was the last time he did. Or could, rather, once they went on the run.

"I'm sorry I couldn't do more to help you both sooner."

For a second the memory of York dangling from the wires threaded through the ceiling and black coils around her throat flashes to mind- she fights back a shudder, shaking her head as her fingers tighten in his hand with a shaky breath.

[goddamngrenades]

"We woke up in a pile of corpses. Her corpses." He doesn't really need to elaborate on that. "I'm not surprised D snapped."

Just the name had been a trigger from the get go- it's how he was broken. York's not surprised by the breaking-

Just that there was no word. No sign. No attempt at conversation. Just. A blank, horrible nothing leaving him half blind up till the change.

[whyarewehere]

"You look like shit."

It's a friendly hello, by Grif standards. He didn't get to experience the Faceless's particular brand of bodyscaping personally, but he doesn't look all that great himself. Grif's uniform is stained with blood. Some is his, some is Dipper's, some just belongs to nameless corpse monsters.

...They weren't always nameless, but he's really trying not to think about that. Or anything at all, right now.

He's carrying two bottles of water.

"Here."

Grif sets one on the side table just within York's reach, the seal already cracked. He then plunks down without ceremony on the empty bed on the side York didn't throw Delta, not realizing he's probably dodged a conversational bullet.

Grif takes a long pull of water himself, then stretches out.

"Jesus Christ."

[goddamngrenades]

"..." There's no informal or friendly 'fuck you' fired back, not so much as a flinch as York registers that yes, there is someone in the room and no, they aren't a threat. Just Grif. One person he hadn't seen in the middle of that mess.

One person Delta hand't tried to kill. So.

That's a bonus.

He blinks blearily at him for a moment before snorting and reaching out, trying to ignore the new aches and pains, the odd patches of scartissue that won't really heal properly just yet on his skin where the wires had been. "The fuck happened to you?"

[whyarewehere]

"I'm never running again. Nobody can make me. Fuck that."

It's... Grif. That's not an answer to that question. He settles his gaze on the ceiling instead of on York, it's more comfortable in more ways than one.

He seems to be done talking, but then he adds, "Me and Montana got the robot's head out of there. So."

Her name is absolutely, one hundred percent Montana.

[goddamngrenades]

"...Monty's been dead for years. Who the fuck are you talking about?" That's enough to prompt him to sit up (as much as it isn't painful) and squint across the space to Grif. Because-

Montana? No. That uptight demo dude has been gone forever, unfortunately.

[whyarewehere]

"You know, new chick? Short?" Grif extends an arm to mime something roughly approximating Connie's height in the air.

"She's alive," he adds, after thinking about it for a moment.

Helpful, Grif.

[goddamngrenades]

"Connie?" A beat. "Connecticut, you idiot."

There's no heat to it, no venom. If anything it's halfway fond, somewhere in the exasperated groan. "Seriously, what other state would she be?"

[whyarewehere]

"Hey, she answered to Montana!"

Because Connie is smart and knows Grif is an idiot. But to Grif, this is clear evidence.

...He'd gesture, but he's found that actually hurts and it's better to just be still. He could be worse. He could be York. But tired is tired.

[goddamngrenades]

"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.