legionmissions | TOTAL ECLIPSO THE HEART [modplot/log]

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TOTAL ECLIPSO THE HEART [modplot/log]

Apokolips was intimidating enough when it was bleak and dead but now it's even more of a living nightmare. As Eclipso, Catastrophists, and monsters menace the defense garrison, screams cut through the air the way they used to back when Apokolips' old ruler was alive.

Catastrophists toss themselves into the firepits in droves and smoke starts to rise from them. Somehow their sacrificial bloodshed seems to be doing something to the core of the planet. It groans and strains and the ground shakes as machinery under the surface starts to slowly get stoked back to life.

Some of the Catastrophists even rise into the air while wearing winged uniforms and clash with garrison members capable of flight - Apokolips' old parademon troops, reborn in a new form.

This world is a death engine, and if they don't manage to stop it it from restarting, Chronoblivion's forces will have an entire world to make war from.

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Zenyatta's role in this mission has been mostly support. When Legionnaires start falling under dark influences, he uses an Orb of Harmony to guide them back the other way. He has similarly healed wounds and tried to stop as many of the Catastrophists he can from tossing their lives away. Where the Orb of Harmony fails, an Orb of Destruction (or sometimes the orbs themselves) to the head does the trick. They cannot throw themselves to the fire if they are unconscious.

He also keeps an eye on Washington. Zenyatta wants to help the man to come out of this mission in better condition than the last. He's not babysitting Wash, merely checking in from time to time and offering his aid when needed.

"Washington, be wary. I sense something approaches us." It could be the heat of the fires that cause the air to shimmer and swirl in the distance, but it could be something else entirely as well.

"Must be Tuesday, right?" If it worked on the Joker, why the hell wouldn't it work on Eclipso?

Wash pauses for a moment in front of the T-Gate - long enough to face the pursuing spirit of God's wrath and all that bullshit and hold his arms out to his sides, come at me, bitch written loud and clear in his body language.

Then he turns and dives through the T-Gate, because that unearthly scream is going to break his armor apart if he stays there for too long and he is not waiting around for that to happen.

Wash is pretty damn certain Zenyatta is keeping tabs on him, even in the middle of the chaos. On one hand, he feels like he should be offended, because he can damn well handle himself; on the other hand, he sure hadn't been acting like it when he'd met Zenyatta, and he can't exactly blame the guy for making sure a teammate comes out the other side of a mission in one piece.

"It's Freelancer in the field, Avatar." No better time to test terrible nicknames that may or may not work, right? "And this place is playing hell with my motion trackers. Do you have a direction?" Between the shifting scenery and the aerial combat, his motion trackers are false flagging so badly they're just about useless to him.

"-- that I'd assume they're some kind of unholy horror from realms of existence man dare not imagine?" Rich finishes. "Yeah, I'm gonna assume that. That's just how this day has been going."

They start to see them, little creepy etched figures moving towards them with jarring movements. They're not even close to being solid and alive. The only solid thing about them is the very real and solid blood that's spattered on them.

"Oranges and lemons" say the bells of St. Clement's
"You owe me five farthings" say the bells of St. Martin's

"Creepy nursery rhymes? Seriously?" Rich blasts at them but it does nothing. "Physical attacks don't seem to be cutting it"

When will you pay me?" say the bells of Old Bailey
"When I grow rich" say the bells of Shoreditch
"When will that be?" say the bells of Stepney
"I do not know" say the great bells of Bow

They start creeping closer and closer, their movements almost playful. Rich blasts one of the pillar-like constructs of Apokolips so it falls on one of them, but the little sketchy creature just pulls itself out from under it.

"Here comes a candle to light you to bed,
Here comes a chopper to chop off your head,
Chip chop chip chop - the last man's dead."

"Oh come on."

Way over the top.

Rich puts his mug down on some rubble because it'll probably get broken but he at least wants to try to put it off the side. (It's a good boss mug. It's got so much layered in coffee from never being washed that he could put hot water in it and just make more coffee out of it, which is a state of being all good boss mugs have.)

Then he turns to Eclipso with Nova force flaring up around each fist.

"Man, does it feel good to be at full power again."

He's powerful like this but all he wanted in his heart is what he used to have, nothing more.

He blasts Nova Force in Eclipso's direction.

Rich is the last one through. The scream is already rattling his helmet, making it vibrate like its going to shatter. It's feels a bit like one of those cartoons where a cartoon character has a bell rung while their head is inside it.

"Of course she's gotta start screaming in tongues or whatever it is," he grumps as he dives through, sparing one last glance to make sure she's still enraged enough to follow.

She is. She flies after him, still screaming, so he dives in, and the second he's through the gate, he dives off to the side of it.

Edited 2017-10-01 07:15 (UTC)

She dives after him through the boom tube gate and finds herself on...

Shanghalla? The massive statues of dead Legionnaires greet her. There are also memorials for fallen Science Police officers and the graves of heroes from a thousand worlds.

She stops when she reaches the other side, confused. She clearly thought they were escaping to Legion World or another world but this strikes her as strange... but by the time she turns around the gate has closed.

"What? What is this?"

"It's a trap," Ray smirks, before pulling open the Book of Magic to the page he'd marked. He couldn't help but feel a little giddy at the prospect. After all, it wasn't every day you got to use an ancient book of spells to send an evil angel into the broken walnut shells of damnation.

"reaH em!" he shouts, light spilling forth from the book, "I tsac siht lleps no dewollah dnuorg, ni eht ecneserp fo nellaf seoreh. I, dnomyaR ztnatS, retaefed fo rezoG, rosivda to ruhtrA, gniK fo eht snotirB, od ybereh tsac eeht ospilcE morf siht mlaer won dna eromreverof. I tsac eeht otni lanrete tnemrot inhtiw ehT mooR htiW a esooM! suhT yas I, dna suht llahs ti eb!"

Edited 2017-10-01 10:22 (UTC)

Rico keeps merrily blasting away, ignoring Rich's little quips and comments. As he's completely oblivious to common horror motifs, nursery rhymes are not that terribly creepy as far as things go. So he doesn't know what the hell he's complaining about.

Rock-a-bye baby, on the treetop
When the wind blows, the cradle will rock
When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall
And down will come baby, cradle and all-

That's quite enough. "High-ex!" Rico barks, squeezing the trigger with a little more force than necessary. A nearby Abstract Child just a little too close for comfort blows apart in an angry scribble, but only for a second. It reappears back in real space only a moment later, seemingly unharmed. But as it does, it flashes an almost-garbled message to both Rich and Rico, the information entering their brains. Rico jolts back as it lances straight into his mind, and his face freezes for a split second in confusion.

"Lullabies?" Rico echoes dumbly. Of all the things. What even was it? Nothing but an emotional comfort, something sung to coddled children to put them to sleep, who dreamed knowing they were loved and cared for. It takes a second to even remember what it is, being so far removed from any relevance or experience in his life. He shoots it again just on principle, and snarls when it has no effect. Drokk it.

"Nova Prime! They need to be sung a lullaby! That'll put these creeps to sleep!" he exposits, just a tad unnecessarily.

There's a very expectant pause and look after the end of his sentence.

"My apologies, Freelancer." Maybe at a later time, Zenyatta will comment and ponder on the name he was just called. (He also files away the need to learn everyone's heroic name after the mission.) However, he's more concerned about the disturbance he feels. The shimmering becomes more pronounced, and it appears to grow larger. Or... is it coming closer?

"The location is at your 5:00." Zenyatta opts for that directional instead of saying South South East, hoping it would be understood quicker and accurately. "I believe it is coming nearer or growing larger." Both?

He hears it, too. These things have been doing that, even as they've tried to kill them. It's like they want to kill but also want to die and are willing to give people the knowledge to put them out of their misery. The problem? Rich hasn't heard a lullaby in ages.

"Don't look at me. I can't carry a tune in a bucket and I haven't been around kids for years," he says, blasting one of them, but it just reforms.

Lullabies just haven't been something he's needed in his mental rolodex for a while so it's hard shifting gears from the combat that's been his entire life since Xandar fell...to whimsy. God, can he even remember the ones his mom sang him? There are plenty of common ones that he probably knows, that are on TV all the time, but it's not like he's used to mentally going there that often.

"I'm many things," a soldier, a cop, a superhero, "but one thing I'm not is the singing star of 'Happy Funtime Gymboree.'"

"As far as traps go, it's a pretty good one, too," says Rich, as the spell starts to work.

He's wearing a glove on his flesh and blood hand and the other arm is just an energy tentacle at the moment, but that doesn't stop him from pretending to buff his nails against his uniform.

Magical energy starts wrapping around Eclipso, turning into glowing chains and humming as it builds up energy and momentum.

He gestures around at the massive monuments everywhere. Several of the ones closest to them are of dead Legionnaires.

"The ground here's about as consecrated as you can get, by several thousand religions, there are holy relics buried everywhere due to so many heroes and even some religious leaders being buried here." He points to the spot where magic is trapping Eclipso. The soil under her is slightly disturbed. "Oh, also, before we fought you, we came here and bled on the ground a lil' bit. You know, 'anointed it with the blood of heroes'? That kind of thing."

He grins.

"They're going to be able to see this from space," he says, not knowing he's echoing the words another hero said 1000 years before.

"Rider, that mug is disgusting." Even under the glow of her barrier, Shepard's pursed-lip disapproval shows. Like all career military, she has Opinions about tidiness.

He looks like he's more or less got Eclipso handled, but she pulls a large sniper rifle off her back anyway, its barrel and stock extending automatically and its scope popping up as she readies the weapon.

An Abstract Child flits closer to Rich, alarmingly close before it snatches back, giggling in the wind. Next time it lunges forward, it won't just be teasing.

"What, and you'd think I'd know any 'Happy Funtime Gymboree'?" Rico replies sardonically. Whatever the hell that means. "I don't know any lullabies! You think the Academy would allow me to hear that? So unless you want be part of a new finger painting, out with it!"

If it really comes down to it, Rico's already thinking of a tiny strain of music in the back of his head. A melody that he knows, that he caught on the Tri-D display in the Mega-Mega-Mall while he was on one of his jaunts. But he's not quite sure if that would count as a lullaby...

Just that second, an Abstract Child creeps just that little bit closer to Rico and tries to 'tag' him. Rico ducks under the attempt, but the next one scores a slash down his uniform despite him throwing himself to the side. He backs into Rich and snags his other arm, shouting into his ear.

"Try!"

Zenyatta doesn't know Rico beyond the fact that they are on this mission together, but he saw Eclipso encase the man in dark energy. Something must be done. Not knowing a person never stopped him from aiding them.

"You be--" His words are forgotten at the sensation of Rico growing taller. But, that's not it at all. Zenyatta looks down at the ground beneath him, puzzled. It was as if gravity chose that moment to become stronger and caused Zenyatta to hover lower. The moment passes quickly. Zenyatta returns his normal hovering height. "You belong only to yourself, but this... this is not you. It is Eclipso."

"Can't always take a thing like that for granted. You're one to talk about belonging to yourself, droid."

Rico looks with a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, even as he's seemingly puzzled that he doesn't stay down. "Who do you belong to, I wonder?" he muses, drumming his fingers on his daystick in a patient rhythm as he comes down from his outcropping of rock to circle Zenyatta like a buzzard, his heavy tread shattering the earth beneath him with every footstep.

"This is the most me I've ever felt since coming here," he says as he spreads his arms wide open. The gold on his chest gleams in the light, against the wink of a ruby set in an eagle's eye, reflecting the obsessive spark in his visor. "This is who I'm supposed to be. Don't try to tell me that this doesn't feel right."

Zenyatta straightens, allowing Rico to circle him. His orbs still, and Zenyatta allocates some of his resources to imbue his orbs with more energy. Rico is more physically imposing, but Zenyatta steels himself for a battle of words and ideals. If he could touch on something, some connection, some common ground, then perhaps he could give Rico an Orb of Harmony to help pull him into balance. Right now, it probably wouldn't help and could escalate the situation.

"I belong only to myself. My soul is mine, and no one 'owns' me." The fight for omnic rights grew in the aftermath of the Omnic Crisis. The Shambali believe that omnics have a soul. This is a topic dear to Zenyatta, and no one can convince him that he is not a living being and not property.

"Tell me, what makes you feel 'right' as you are now? What has changed?"

"How can you say that?" Rico asks as he tilts his head to the side curiously. "You were made for something, surely? Made for a purpose? You were constructed, bolt by bolt, into the creation of somebody else's vision. You didn't have any kind of say in it. And I'm sure it's stamped into every part of you, somewhere." He waves a dismissive daystick towards Zenyatta's chassis. "In your construction, your vestigial programming, your history, whatever form it takes. You're property. A resource. And you say you belong to yourself?"

Rico laughs out loud, with real amusement, even as there's a thunderous crack of anger that rings out at the end of that statement. He halts in his tracks, seeming to collect his composure before turning his attention towards Zenyatta again.

"I'm the highest authority in Mega City One," he replies, tilting his chin up. "When I'm told to jump, I don't have to say how high. Neither Goodman or the Council have any say in how I live. What I do. What I am. I write the rules."

Rico exhales, eyes closed, content.

"That's what feels right."

Ah, this argument. How many times has Zenyatta heard this? Zenyatta mirrors Rico's head tilt but otherwise remains still, composed. His tone of voice remains even. "When a human is born, do they have any say in it? Are they not the creation of others, based on DNA? Do they not have instincts? Do they not grow from them? Become more than them?"

He straightens once more and doesn't falter at the laughter or the flare up of anger he senses. This is familiar territory. All his life, Zenyatta has heard these arguments, spent long days and nights at the monastery meditating on them. More than the lessons Mondatta has taught him, Zenyatta knows this through every fiber of his being.

"True self is without form. It does not matter how I came to be but what I do now. The same applies to you."

Then he motions around them. The fire pits cast everything in a red-orange glow. Shadows are long and dark. There are cries of pain and terror filling the air. Eclipso converts more Legionnaires over to her side. "You are forgetting Eclipso. This is not Mega City One, and I do not believe that she will let you rule over her. She will turn this world into a weapon if she is not stopped. She has claimed you as one of her champions to support her. Is that what you want?"

The thing is, Rico isn't necessarily talking about Zenyatta. Not really. This exchange is bringing out his more reflective nature, his quieter thoughts, but the faults and cracks in them have been magnified by Eclipso's magic. What he would never say normally comes spilling out, now that he has the power to allow it without repercussion.

"WRONG!" Rico shouts, and he cuts a sharp gesture through the air. "There's a difference between being born, and being made. Some are constructed for a purpose. Genetically engineered from the ground up. Every part of my flesh was once somebody else's flesh. My blood is his blood."

Like the kings of old, the Father of Justice born again. He starts circling Zenyatta again, but this time his stance is decidedly more predatory.

"And that purpose will always be there, whether you like it or not. Whether you choke on it or not. There's a difference. A human isn't drilled on applied violence until his hands are numb. A human doesn't drill a bullet through a skull and gets a pat on the head for it. Be violent, brutal, merciless. Reduced to what you do instead of what you are. I am what I am. I am what they molded me into. And I refuse to apologize for that."

Rico's breath is coming more erratic, his movements more jerky. He's clearly starting to lose his patience, and his control.

"And I think you're forgetting who asks the questions here," he murmurs. "Who gives the orders. Not you, not Eclipso. And even so, is it so bad to exchange one master for another?" He's joking, of course. He'd never. "This may not be Mega City One, but the universe could end and I'd die laughing. You tell me what's worth saving here. And you'd better have a damn good answer for me, or we'll see if I can't find that soul of yours in that tin can body."

The two Legionnaires share more than Zenyatta first realized. Zenyatta had no idea Rico was cloned from another, but to him, it changes little. Rico is still his own person. It gives him context, however. The anger directed towards Zenyatta is actually directed at himself.

Should Zenyatta be concerned for his safety as Rico circles like a hawk ready to swoop on its prey? Absolutely. Is he? No. He's calm. Steady. Still like a placid lake. He'll be the harmony to balance out Rico's discord. Zenyatta will not let himself be intimidated and fall into fear. That can come to him later during reflection and meditation. He files it away now.

"You are worth saving," Zenyatta says simply as a common fact like 1+1=2 or water is wet. If Rico desires the truth and no more questions, then he'll give it to him.

Zenyatta extends a hand toward Rico, and a warm golden Orb of Harmony forms. If allowed, Zenyatta will try to attach his Orb of Harmony to Rico. It will hover to and over his shoulder to provide him an emotional, mental link with Zenyatta; Zenyatta will bring to the forefront positive and calming thoughts in hopes of guiding Rico in that direction.

But if a fight is what Rico wants, then the Orb of Harmony will not connect. It will dissipate into nothing, and Zenyatta will prepare for a battle.

Of course it's down to him. They've criminalized fun where Rico's from. With how much of a hot mess his and America's universe is, there's no way Rico's going to be able to find inner reserves of whimsy.

Shit shit shit.

"Uuuh. Rock-a-bye baby on the treetop," he sings, wildly out of tune. "When the wind blows, the cradle will rock. When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall. And down will come baby, cradle and all."

It's very obviously not working. One of the children darts forward and slices his thigh right through his uniform before he manages to blast it back.

He can't tell if it's because he can't sing for beans or ... wait. Wait, he knows what it is. The feeling's wrong. He can't just recite a lullaby at them like a spell, these creatures feel like...like they're made of ideas. And feelings. And even though these little monsters very obviously want to turn them inside out, they also want to be put to sleep the same way little kids do when they're the ones scared of monsters. He can't just shout musical words at them, he has to comfort them to sleep, like they're actual kids.

He has to comfort them as he puts them out of their misery.

The idea of that, that something made these twisted things so malformed that all they want is to be comforted to death, causes something to pang in his chest, and that feeling helps. It's a road that leads outside the soldier mentality, and that means something finally clicks, and he remembers. His mother'd never sung normal lullabies. She'd always sung lullabies from things like musicals, like stuff from the Sound of Music. Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens...

But this was the one that always made his heart ache a little, as if he somehow knew, even as a small child, that life would never get that simple again. The song is still a little out of tune but there's more feeling behind it and the more morose sound to it is something he can manage better.

"Summertime, and the livin' is easy
Fish are jumpin' and the cotton is high
Oh, your daddy's rich and your ma is good-lookin'
So hush, little baby, don't you cry..."

This seems to be working better. The little stick children slowing down and swaying in place as they listen.

"Hum with me," Rich says quickly under his breath. "It's the same melody every verse."

Hum if you want to live, Rico.

I am worth saving?

If only he knew how wrong he was, Rico thinks. He's saying it as if it's a fact, but Rico knows how empty a thing like that is. Anything can sound true with enough conviction in your voice. And if this was his answer...

The droid needs to be taught a lesson in kindness. Whatever that orb radiates, whatever that gesture means: Rico will reach out and ruin it. That's why he even allows it to come as close as it does. And if it's an attack, it's a poor one. Rico is confident in his ability to remain impervious to it, and doesn't otherwise react when Zenyatta sends the orb over.

The orb's light flickers and dims when it gets within a hand's span of him, and that's when he looks at it sharply like he's reconsidering allowing it in his presence. And for a second it almost looks like it might dissipate before it even touches him, but Rico stays where he is. He has nothing to fear anymore.

And miraculously, it stays.

"Don't insult my boss mug. It's a good mug. It's a mug that knows what it's about."

And what it's about is apparently holding onto the congealed remains of several thousand past cups of coffee.

"Why haven't you transformed into monsters?!" screeches Eclipso, clearly put out over this whole debacle and Rich punches her into one of Apokolips' strange structures. It collapses and falls on her. It takes her time to drag herself back to her feet again, which gives Shep a whole lot of leeway to take a shot.

"Do you really think the only kinds of power people want are the kinds that let them have power over others? Some people want power not because they want to hurt people, they want it so they can do good with it. They want it to use it protect people."

Edited 2017-10-11 02:51 (UTC)

"My deep, dark fantasy is my bosses listening to me for once," Shepard contributes dryly, her voice a bit muffled by the fact she's more or less talking into her rifle as she draws a bead. Even an anti-materiel shot won't do much here, she suspects, and she flips a setting to maximize knockback instead of penetration, squeezing off a shot aimed directly between Eclipso's eyes. Mass effect weapons make less noise than most, but they kick like a mule and hit like a truck, especially the ones that are supposed to be vehicle-mounted.

"Rider, seriously, when was the last time anyone washed the damn thing?" Don't think a battle against cosmic evil is going to slow her down, Rich. "Can you even taste the actual coffee anymore?"

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TOTAL ECLIPSO THE HEART [modplot/log]

Soldier and Healer vs Woes and Fragmented

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