MURDERWORLD [mod plot] [Reunion/Rescue]

[letsgolegion]

Who| Everyone who wants in
What| The reunion/rescue of the folks in Murderworld
Where| The Temperate Zone
When| Day 3, at the very end of the arena
Warnings/Notes|

Thanks to the heroes that broke into Arcade's control room, the arena was officially over, and now that the Science Police and Legion had been contacted, people were being gathered up in an area in the temperate Zone and being extracted by portable threshold gates. A first aid station had been set up to triage those who needed immediate emergency care and patch up what injuries they could to hold people over until they got home.

Grief counselors were already on standby to help the Legionnaires and Harrubian dissidents and their families deal with the crisis they had just faced.

Arcade had already been taken away by the Science Police to face trial for multi-murder, and while some of the raw footage of the arena had already been uploaded to the UP internet, the Legionnaires had made the best of a bad situation.

The fact of the matter was every Legionnaire that had been kidnapped had survived. Arcade had been stopped. Almost all of Arcade's "Tributes" had been killed or detained by the Legionnaires and some of the Harubbian dissidents. The arena had ended on Day 3 instead of Day 30, which had saved dozens of lives. And the upload of the raw footage had been stopped mid-stream so that only a few people would have to deal with their ordeal becoming public knowledge.

Now it was time for friends and teammates to reunite and for everyone to head back to the safety of Legion World.

[ooc: Anyone can start a thread, regardless of whether they're a Legionnaire that was in the arena, or a Legionnaire outside the arena checking up on their friends.]

Comments

[sir_vancelot]

Vance had an ice pack.

To be honest, that was the second thing he'd gone looking for once they'd been rescued and brought to a central location. The first had been more hydration gel or whatever they had available because he was definitely dehydrated after three days of intermittent nosebleeds. He hadn't even bothered to clean his face off yet, so there was blood around his mouth and on his shirt.

All of that could wait, though, because he was laid out flat on the ground, once ice pack over his forehead, one behind his neck and an arm thrown over his eyes. And enough left in the tank that, while he didn't move when he felt someone approach, he did at least quirk a half smile. "Anybody able to tell yet when we'll be getting off this rock?"

[walkingballpit]

Once all of the missing Legionnaires had been accounted for, Robbie immediately violated what felt like half a dozen sub-rules and ignored everything else to find his friends. He wanted to see for himself that they were still breathing, and then he'd be able to breathe.

He must've made too much noise when he snuck up on Vance though. Maybe he bit his lip so hard at the blood that it made a sound. Who knows? It meant he'd be slower finding the others. "Soon. I think everyone's all keyed-up with adrenaline, and nobody's thinking straight. You know that moment when you smash through the door and they've already saved themselves?"

Robbie laughed a little, and, yeah, it was that tight, high pitched laugh when your blood and head are buzzing and there's nothing to do except rummage around for something to help with the blood. The only thing keeping him this calm - keeping the laugh from sounding crazed - was that Vance had an ice pack. An ice pack meant he was fine. Nobody's going to bleed to death with ice pack. No triage station would waste an ice pack on a lost cause. "That's me, right now. Times four."

[sir_vancelot]

"Excuse me if I don't sit up. It just makes the headache worse."

And yes, he's already been given the good drugs for it. But even in this far-flung future, they take time to kick in. Which is why he has the ice packs.

He does take his arm from his eyes, squinting up at Robbie before offering his hand. With the intention of pulling his friend down to his level. Or, at least, to sit down. "I get it. Adrenaline crash big time, right?"

[walkingballpit]

"Don't get too comfy. I'll pick you up before I get you a bed pan."

Vance with a headache, with blood on his face. Robbie doesn't have to think too hard to come up with overextension, but... Vance was a considerable badass lately. Robbie would prefer it if someone clocked his friend for being rude.

However, Vance apologized for not sitting up. Who does that anymore? Besides Captain Clean-Cut Supertights, who remains the boy-next-door-circa-1940. Vance was more likely to spontaneously turn into cotton candy.

Robbie let himself get pulled down, taking a seat next to Vance. "Yeah. All dressed up and no place to go. I didn't make the kidnappee cut. They're all scared of me."

[littlecousin]

"Holy cats, Vance, you look like you were staked out for the tides."

So that was a "no," then. Or possibly she hadn't even asked anyone.

Nita, none the worse for wear if her chipper tone was anything to go by--and it wasn't, always--dropped to the ground to sit next to him. If Vance deigned to glance over, he'd see that, characteristically, she'd shed most of her clothes and had been wandering around barefoot in a t-shirt for who knew how long. Also, at some point, she'd come into possession of a trident, which she had balanced across her crossed legs. And she was looking a little damp.

So, situation normal with the New Warriors' Atlantean representative.

"Can I get you something? I think I have some gumdrops in my pack still."

[sir_vancelot]

Vance grunted slightly, moving his arm a bit so that he could look over at her. Without moving his head much because, yeah, that still hurt. "I've forgotten how much of a pain in the ass the TK was back when we started. The blood's because I kept trying overextending myself."

Because Vance could take a blow from some of the strongest guys out there now. Had gone toe to two with Zuras, had taken a hit straight to his shields from one of the strongest entities in the known universe and hadn't flinched. He'd have adjusted soon enough. If he'd had time to do so.

"Gumdrops would be good. I've got a couple of hydration packs that are helping a lot, too." He hadn't lost a lot of blood, but that didn't mean it wasn't having an effect on him.

[littlecousin]

Last Nita remembered, Vance hadn't been that strong--lots of potential, but not that strong. She didn't comment on it because she didn't want to think about it. Instead, she dug around in her pack and came out with a big handful of gumdrops wrapped in a bit of plastic that looked like it had been torn off something (largely because it had been.)

"All yours. I never want to be anywhere near sugar again."

[headinjuries]

Three days felt like forever.

Sam dropped like a rock wherever he happened to be after the first aid staff had given him a look-over. He was sitting with his knees up to his chest, watching others get treated or get ushered out via threshold gate, but he wasn't rushing to find a gate out himself. They'd get to him sooner or later.

What was left of the surrender flag he'd gotten as his "weapon" was sitting on the ground next to him - now just half of a stick that had snapped somewhere in the middle, one end stained with blood.

"Well, I hope the movie was at least better than this." He never had seen the Hunger Games. (Or read the book, for that matter, but he hadn't realized the book was a thing until the movie.) Now, though, he probably didn't need to, because he more than got the general idea: screaming, people dying, and a government getting its butt kicked in the end.

Probably no xenomorphs, though? He hoped.

[whyarewehere]

"Probably. I think they're only allowed to have so many people die before it's R rated."

Grif plunked down without an ounce of grace, dumping a small stack of protein bars out from under his shirt. He'd just finished going around and asking each person that had them for one. They're not great, but he is hungry, dude.

He started unwrapping one nonchalantly, as if it were just any day back on the station and they weren't all beat to hell and exhausted.

[headinjuries]

"If it were R, that might've gotten me to sneak in and see it." Sometimes, to be fair, Sam did go see the perfectly appropriate movie he'd actually bought the ticket for. But not every time.

He'd...barely been thinking about the hungry thing until Grif started eating in front of him, but with that to remind him, his brain was from zero to feed me, Seymour in two seconds flat. "Dude. Share the wealth."

[whyarewehere]

Grif squinted at Sam a little. This was his, he just did all that work (walking around) to get it. Rude.

...But they'd also just spent three days in a space death arena.

He passed one of the bars to Sam

"Alright fine, but don't tell anybody. I only have so many and I have a reputation."

It wasn't like they were just handing them out and he could've probably just asked for more instead of being underhanded, and it definitely wasn't like he was willing to be helpful and share. Neither of those things.

[unrecovered]

Wash won't stop. More accurately, he can't.

It's been three days of hell: three days of being attacked every time he turns around; three days of finding teammates alive only to be teleported away from them and left worrying about whether they'd make it out in one piece; three days of knowing he's being watched and hunted and the odds are against him; three days of little rest and constant injury. His paranoia and insomnia were getting better on Legion World; after the past three days, they're worse than they've been in a very long time. He's going to have a lot of work to do to get back to where he'd been before this whole mess had started, but he can't do it now. Once Wash stops to think - if he even pauses for reflection - the weight of it all is going to come crashing down on him all at once, and he'll eventually have to drag himself out the other side. It's going to be a very ugly breakdown, and he is not having it in public. He refuses to even come close.

So he's given the grief counselors a wide berth, waved off the ministrations of the first aid station ("It's healed. They've all healed. I'm fine," being the very definition of two truths and a lie), and is currently making his way around the area, searching for familiar faces and making sure everyone's intact. It's easy enough to see that he's not okay - he's still twitchy and way too keyed up to be anywhere close to 'okay' - but he's not about to talk about that right now. He'd rather make sure everyone else is okay and deal with his imminent breakdown later, or possibly not at all.

[goddamngrenades]

It's probably a fucked up kind of commentary that this isn't all that unfamiliar. The framing of it- shit yeah- that's weird as balls. An arena full of violent delights? Stuff out of science fiction, he thinks, with an AI subletting part of his brain. But the palpable wave of exhaustion and grief, the relief stringing through the air, huddled people limping to a medic's station or grief counseling?

Ok they didn't have counseling available immediately after their return from the front but damn if that isn't a sign that these people care more.

It's all a little familiar. Which makes, well, finding a familiar face a little less odd than it should be. At least until he gets close enough in the crowd to see signs of...age. Wash was younger than him, was the bright eye'd rookie, was the focused optimist, sorta. And now it's like- well. Looking at himself after his first fucking tour. But worse. "Wash!"

Jesus fuck the kid (doesn't look like a kid, gonna skip that) looks like he needs a hug and a nap.

[unrecovered]

Wash stops short when he hears a familiar voice (and he hasn't heard that voice in so long) call his name. He turns, searches for the source, and-

This isn't happening. It's just not possible.

He reaches out and taps the shoulder of the person nearest him (one of the triage workers, probably on their way to someone who needs their help a hell of a lot more than he does) and points. "That guy over there with the scar over his eye - you see him, right?"

The triage worker looks unsure. "Yeah?"

Unsure isn't good enough. "So he's actually there, right?"

Now the worker just looks concerned. "Yeah. He is."

"Great." Wash pats their shoulder and lets them go before they start asking him too many questions; instead, he files away the fact that he's not hallucinating and looks over at...

At York.

Deep down, he'd known this was always a possibility. The Time Trapper had grabbed Grif from an earlier point on the timeline, after all; there's no reason for the rest of Wash's past to be off limits. God knows he's got some damned capable people back there.

But...but it's his past. He put it behind him. He'd had to. The past had tried to eat him alive for a good long while, and he'd let it: let it drive him to commit ill-conceived revenge that wasn't entirely his to take; let it nearly get him killed over and over; let it ruin him worse than he already had been. He'd buried it, because it was the only way he could move forward and make things better. If he let it back in, it would consume him-

And yet here it is, here and now, calling his name and staring him in the face, when he's so far past his breaking point he can't even see it anymore and is barely clinging to stability by his fingertips, and he-

He can't do this right now. He just can't.

He turns on his heel and walks away.

[iamresponding]

Rich had taken the arena pretty well other than worrying like crazy about Sam after getting separated. Even with Vance and Nita, he'd worried but also trusted that they could look out for themselves, so mostly he was concerned with Sam making it because he was so young. In the end, though, Sam had come through, and Vance and Nita were alive. Nobody on the team had died, Arcade had been stopped, and dozens of innocents had been saved. He chalked that up as a win.

That meant he'd weathered things pretty well, mentally. Really, nothing could compare to the horrors of the Annihilation War, and for exactly that reason, the only part of this whole business that had gotten him twitchy and shaky was those damn giant bugs.

Because he was doing okay, that meant he was with it enough to keep an eye out for anyone that maybe wasn't, and Wash had "not-okay" all over his face. Rich was good at spotting not-okay. How many times had he pulled a soldier off a position of importance because he could tell they were suffering from shell shock and needed to be rotated out? More time than he could count.

Right now, though, it wasn't about strategy, now he could try to help someone else breathe because they deserved to. So he grabbed some of the stuff provided by the aid station, stuffed it in a pocket and went over to Wash.

"Hey, I checked in and everyone on the team's been accounted for. Some injuries, but nothing serious, especially with the med-tech on Legion World. A whole hell of a lot of the Harrubians were saved, too. Dozens, they said, and a lot of the ones that died were killed before we even showed up. We gave Arcade such a hard time that he focused most of the heat on us and it gave them better chances." He held out a bottle of water. "You look like you're about to vibrate out of your own skin. It's okay to take a minute and just breathe."

Rich wasn't in the best physical state himself, what with having one arm in a sling, a bloodied face, and a few long nasty cuts on his torso and legs scabbing up, but otherwise, he was visibly pretty relaxed.

[unrecovered]

Wash hears Rich coming and turns to face him - too quickly, with a glance over his shoulder, as though he's still expecting to be attacked...which, in all honesty, he kind of is. The arena may be over and done with, but Wash's reflexes haven't exactly gotten the news update.

"That's good," he says after a moment, accepting the water bottle. He opens it and promptly downs half of it in one go, partially because he's a lot more dehydrated than he'd thought and partially as an excuse to not have to talk for the next few seconds. Everyone's alive, at least in terms of kidnapped Legionnaires. Everyone's okay, or they will be. It's a much better outcome than he could have hoped for, and he's having a hell of a time trying to enjoy it.

That'll come later, once he calms down. Maybe. He hopes.

"I keep forgetting," he finally says, and it's a lie but it's relatable and it flows, "how much it sucks to have the heat on you for days at a time." He raises an eyebrow at Rich's sling. The past few days were hell, right? Great, they all have common ground. They should talk about that instead of how badly Wash is dealing with the Arena now that it's over. He'd love a good subject change right about now.

[deafleppard]

Gwen is a certain definition of "okay" for right now. While she might keeping it together for the most part, but the moment she makes it back to her room? She is going to faceplant straight into her bed and quite possibly sleep for a couple of days straight. That, or just head straight to the mess hall and stuff herself with corndogs, and then do the whole faceplanting thing.

But that was for later. Right now she was still hanging about the extraction point. Or sitting, actually. A nice good spot on the floor.

And it felt good to not be be ambushed or attacked by anything. So good.

She waved over at Wash once she saw him. "What's up? Feels good to have this all over and done with, yeah?"

[unrecovered]

Wash catches the wave out of the corner of his eye - Gwen's not exactly at eye level right now - and heads over. He doesn't join her on the floor, however; he's not stopping until he can stop for a good long while, and that includes wrapping himself as tightly as he can in his blankets on his bed in his room and sleeping for the next forty-eight hours at the very least.

So no sitting. No collapsing. Not quite yet.

"Honestly, I don't think I'll feel good about any of this until I'm back on Legion World and I've had about a week to process this." He shrugs. "Are you handling it okay?"

[deafleppard]

Gwen is, for the most part, okay. She was beat up, tired, and not to mention really damn hungry. But aside from all that, she was still alive and kicking. Well, maybe not so much the "kicking" part definitely alive. She had just let herself fall to the floor at the extraction site. She'd get the hell out of there soon enough, though... after. Some of the other people probably needed it more.

Right now she was just watching the people come and go, drinking some of her water every now and again and offering a wave and smile to anyone who needed it.

But deep down, Gwen knew. These past couple of days...

Had absolutely ruined rabbits for her.

Yet another animal that ended up causing a traumatic experience for Spider-Woman. Might as well include that on the list that already included lizards and koalas.

Yes, koalas.

[mylawn]

The advantage to being mostly dead inside is that 76 isn't any more rattled by the events of a literal death arena than any of the other things he's fought through in his life. Between the robot uprising and the global peacekeeping force and the fall of said global peacekeeping force, it's hard to find something that will rattle him.

So here he is, mostly unrattled despite the experience. He refuses any medical care--both physical and psychological--and instead finds a place to dis-and-re-assemble his gun. It's methodical and almost meditative as he takes it apart and lines up each piece, checking and cleaning them one by one.

It's sort of been a long day.

[good_bamf_ugly]

Being indoctrinated in to this Legion business was a bit of a whirlwind but at least things weren't quiet even if McCree wasn't directly involved in a mission. He paid mind to the broadcasts, helpless as he was to actually do anything about it, and couldn't help but notice a couple of individuals catching his eye. He was willing to take his observations with a grain of salt on account of being so new and the very nature of Arcade's abilities, say nothing for the other Legionnaires's abilities.

That said, it would be nice to confirm in person.

A cowboy-shaped shadow casts itself over 76's methodical cleaning. A gun in pieces on the ground emboldens him to come close enough until the jingling spurs of his boots are on either side of the dismantled barrel, nudged a quarter of an inch with little regard other than with a pleased smile.

He tips his hat. "Well ain't that a familiar face."

[mylawn]

The whole ‘death arena’ thing has sort of put a damper on being able to check Legion’s network—if Arcade had given them that reprieve, perhaps 76 would know that McCree is here. As it stands, however, he’s mostly in the dark, so that familiar drawl is all at once alarming. He freezes in place, suddenly wishing his gun wasn’t in pieces in front of him.

Does he know? Who has he encountered so far? 76 expects Reinhardt and Ana to out him immediately—they’re not exactly fans of the whole ‘mysterious vigilante’ thing, but he imagines that if it were the case, McCree might be a little more surprised. He’s not quite sure how to approach this.

So he stands, to start, his body language more than a little hostile and his hand overing at the sidearm on his hip. He hasn’t forgotten that McCree ran off with potentially vital information regarding Gabriel’s uprising.

“Jesse McCree.”

HIs voice is cold. It’s not out of the question that they’d recognize each other from wanted posters. Starting with just his name seems like a good way to test the waters.

[fantasmaniac]

Reaper could care less about the repercussions (reapercussions, heh, get it) of the death arena. It was a strange ordeal, to say the least, but he's been through a pretty nasty robot uprising and endured a lot. So, while it wasn't a walk in the park, it wasn't exactly the most traumatic thing he's ever gone through in his life.

The fight with the Butcher had been effective and ruthless, despite the fact that he was on a team with a couple of kids. As much as he doesn't want to admit it, they did their part. They didn't get in his way. They took him down. It was a rough fight, of course, what with him being basically more augmented than all three of them put together, so he knows he's gonna feel the aftermath in the morning.

It'll go away, he thinks, flipping through the mostly blank "My First Death Arena" scrapbook. He's just standing there by himself with little regards to where, be it in the open or someplace more hidden. It's not like he isn't used to being in a constant state of decay and regeneration anyway. He's used to a bit of constant pain in his day-to-day.

[good_bamf_ugly]

Reaper can add long hard cowboy stares in his day-to-day, especially this day. It's awful hard to not give a sidelong gland at who he is for what he is and what McCree knows him as--some freaky sector of death breaking in on museums on Talon's behalf and almost made a real mess of Athena, or so Winston tells him--but, that scrap book.

McCree's narrowed eyes flit from the book, to Reaper's bone white face, back to the book, and back again while trying very hard to not imagine the book with a pink locket dangling from the spine and warning written in scrawling pink cursive, "𝓓𝓘𝓐𝓡𝓨, 𝓚𝓔𝓔𝓟 𝓞𝓤𝓣"

He's one sharply raised eyebrow away from convincing himself that's actually the case.

Of all the fucking people to also get suckered into this Legion business... why him?

"What the hell are you doing here?" As good as any other how-do-you-do. "And what the hell is that?"

[fantasmaniac]

Why him... well, he's not the only one asking the same exact question. As for McCree, well, he doesn't find it too far-fetched to see him here. Whatever the Legionworld used for a system to pluck these individuals from their own worlds against the will, it sure makes more sense to choose McCree over him.

He doesn't look up from the book, acting like he's completely fascinated by the scrap of cloth tucked away inside one of its pages. A little memento he'd acquired from Butcher, albeit unwittingly. It was clinging to one of the claws on his gauntlet, and he figured (with some humor) that it's only fitting to put it in the book. The stupid thing was basically worthless, but it still came in handy as a good paper weight. Or a trap-springing weight in one of those industrial trap rooms.

"Could ask the same thing of you," he drawls, hiding very well the fact that he's quite exhausted. He doesn't bother answering the second question, though. Seriously, it's just a book, cowboy. "Jesse McCree, worth 60 million, dead or alive."

Of course, on any other given day, he'd probably try and kill him rather than just stand there and converse dryly with him.