2023-03-04: antibody.activate(abort)

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<Pose Tracker> Asciel Colette has posed.

===HAMHUNG, KHANKA, REPUBLIC OF EAST ASIA===

        A mile long facility has appeared in Khanka's key eastern seaport which wasn't there one month ago. Like a vast plate of half-rusted, barren iron, it stretches and plunges into the water. Inhospitable and seemingly left derelict despite its recent existence - already graffiti peppers its sides, and already there's clear signs of breaking and entering - if you know where to look.

        ...except...

        Quite a lot of that graffiti has taken a turn into acting as warnings. Notices in Korean that translate to 'you WILL get stuck' or '02-14 he still hasn't come back' or 'BARELY MADE IT OUT ALIVE PLEASE DONT GO'.

        There's only a few 'official' entrances - most loosely padlocked, sized for trucks to descend into long, dimly lit tunnels. One interfaces with a nearby trainyard in an ad hoc way. There's some security, but all of it unmanned, save for the single vigilant guard at the main truck causeway. No matter which entryway is taken...

        ...those who venture inside are met with worse than mere darkness.

        Inside this place, a vast maze of passages and tunnels sprouts and branches across multiple floors. Only faint emergency lighting is on - casting every square inch in a deep, dim red. All of it is unmarked - every door once had some sort of placard above it, but they have all been removed. Inner ventilation oscillates in function - gradually spinning to send gentle gusts of wind through the halls...then reversing, sucking air back the way it came.

        Things gently clunk and pulse behind the walls. Each footstep in certain sections is met with a reverberating action - like something is walking in lockstep from underneath. Internal shutters grip shut - then slowly, carefully widen back up, often in response to being touched.

        ...and the noise.

        Distant alarms grate at the ears. Each one slightly different in pitch and tone. All of them...always oddly distant.

        But combinedit raises and lowers in volume at a slow rhythm. Like...breathing.

>only four more hours. i've been training them as antibodies manually, but by now i cannot afford to do that. already i can feel it. losing exact sight as i'm parted. it hurts.

||transitioning involvement. processing at 25%.||

||something feels wrong. it hurts. do not allow it. do not allow it.|| 

<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.


The appearance of a mile long facility in Khanka is certainly noteworthy, especially the rumors, rumors confirmed by so much graffiti.

Leina finds herself offput, wary from the mere sight of it, especially the messages. It feels like one of those super difficult games Shiro used to play where people left messages warning or trolling.

Except this is no game, Leina takes a breath, then another, and checks her gun again, wondering if for ninety seventh time where she shouldn't still be back in Fujinomiya, comforting Sayla, Banagher, Mineva, and Judau.

One passage after another she threads with a flashlight, on occasion marking the wall with one of those neon markers that gaudily stands out as a smear in the dark.

The sounds unnerve, and at multiple points she stops to listen. Something wrong pounds into her psyche, quietly she hits her earbud and notes, "Spade-7, no contacts yet, there's something... I don't know. I really don't like this."

Leina always loved horror films, even when she was a kid and they couldn't afford to see them very often, but being a part of one? That's different.

<Pose Tracker> Neon Genesis Junior High Students has posed.

"There's something odd happening in Khanka." Gridman reports, looking at a Shuffle Alliance notification on his phone. "I'd like one of you to check it out. We haven't done enough for our allies since the city came back to reality."

And while all four Neon Genesis Junior High readily agreed, the moment Gridman left the room, a fierce battle began. The battlefield: Max's kitchen. The weapons: rock, paper, or scissors.

With Sky Vitter defeating Buster Borr, and Battle Tracto Max defeating Samurai Calibur ("You MUST stop choosing scissors, Calibur."), it all comes down to this.

"Heh. Easy." Borr snickers, turning to face Calibur.

Rock! Paper! Scissors!

Buster Borr: Rock!
Samurai Calibur: PAPER!?

"WHAT?" Borr yells. Max looks on, brows raised in bemusement, while Vit has already returned to his phone.

"I--I knew this day would come." Calibur says, with a glint in his eye. "I--I've been ready."

"Damn it, Calibur..." Borr groans.

---

And so, a short personage in a dashing suit stands before the graffiti-covered facility. A knife in one hand and a flashlight in the other, Buster Borr looks supremely irritated. Who knows what Shozo will get up to while they're out taking care of this?

Muttering to themself, they flip their knife in the air, catching it cleanly. "If this is like that haunted house thing, I'm out. If Gridman wants some bullshit checked out so badly he can just..."

And so on. 

<Pose Tracker> Roux Louka has posed.


Roux Louka has come for several reasons.

The first is, you know, this is weird - bizarre. The second is Leina. Roux doesn't really question it any more at this point, but it's her responsibility. Leina is family, whatever the formalities.

Roux is wearing the same outfit she wore in the intrusion elsewhere in the REA. It resembles a racing bodysuit in a lot of ways, but the close-eyed can probably tell it's a colony militia styled suit with ballistic armor and a semi-collapsible normal suit helmet. It's not as good AS a normal suit, but the idea is to be able to pull it on when some idiot breaches something nearby in desperation or to make an escape. Lots of people get that idea.

Roux currently has the helmet worn in a partially collapsed state, like a structured hoodie. The racing-pleather is accented by a mesh glove on the right arm, with a gyrojet pistol sitting in a ready-tactical holster. As they go in, Roux raises her arm, checking the power, and clicking the glove on.

"Yeah," Roux says into her earpiece-throatmic combo, to answer Leina. "I don't see anything either. I still have visual on your light, though." Roux has been hanging back approximately ten meters from Leina, you see, when the space - the cramped, dark, ominous space - permitted it.

Roux turns her head to look back towards Liam, who has also been on ten-meter spacing check. He gets a mic-murmur check. "You spot anything? Remember, if you see anything weird, just report it. Don't be silent if you have a reason to talk, alright?"

"The vibes here are completely awful. I can still hear the life support system... maybe there's something wrong with the area's intakes?"

<Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.


        Something appeared on the coast of Khanka. Roux wanted to investigate, but needed a little additional firepower--and as a fellow member of Koji and Sayaka's club for perilous dimensional secrets, she tapped him for the job.

        Whether she was expecting it or not, she got a supersoldier.

        "Nothing on visual thus far." Liam's voice is middling-deep, and thus far untouched by interference. It's coming from the subvocal mic setup in his own helmet, a sleek black-and-silver affair with a reflective faceplate. The rest of his powered armor--for that is clearly and unquestionably what it is--follows the same aesthetic. Dense plates. Sleek, clean lines. Virtually silent except for the steady clunk-clunk-clunk of his footsteps on the ground. An equally menacing rifle rests in his hands, the stock braced against his left elbow.

        Liam smuggled his on-foot kit out aboard the Proto Helios, but he's never had reason to use it until now. He had it thoroughly scrubbed of trackers by both NERV and the PPL, of course, but it doesn't look like anything wholesome. "Presence of nearby minds, Spade-7...?" The silvered visor glances forward, at the person leading the group. Leina's been tagged and prioritized by his HUD. If she vanishes, he'll know the instant it happens.

        In theory.

<Pose Tracker> Sonia Sophia-Grace has posed.

There isn't a saying that the things that are warned about are the ones you are more prepared to face. Actually, it's almost the opposite, Sonia thinks, in that knowing that there is a issue makes it harder to prepare for, especially when it's something seemingly as finite as a building and missing people. There's no such thing as a Infinite Ikea, after all.

Picking her way through a door that isn't too near the rest, she cracks and tucks a soft glowstick into a pocket on her vest, and eases the door shut silently behind her. She doesn't need to step further to realize that something is off, and freezes, touch the wall - "Hello?" She asks of it. "Can you hear me?" 

<Pose Tracker> Asciel Colette has posed.

        The facility seems to be divided into distinct segments - though it's so massive that it can be tricky to tell. One particularly large and very mechanical pathway clearly has the marks of this being a chokepoint several transit vehicles would use. Side rooms herald all sorts of different purposes - but most have been vacated of furnishings, and some have had floors ripped out rather messily.

        It's clear that someone's been in one such room unwisely...

        ...because a severed arm is caught between several girders.

        One thing is definitely notable about this area - keeping track of the twists and turns indicates that it's a mirror image of what came before that large juncture earlier.

        ...suddenly...

        "I-is somebody still alive in here?!" A timid sounding voice calls from a door past what appears to have been a mess hall. There's a few areas that haven't been cleaned where food was clearly upturned in a hurry. "You have to help me, I'm locked in here!!"

        A knocking frantically sounds at the door on the other end...

        ...but once anyone closes in...

        -the door parts effortlessly. Beyond, darkness. One slow, steady knock. "You have to help" Another. "You have to help" Faster, and faster. Footstep-paced at first - then distinctly far, far too fast to be footsteps. Scuttling.

        A louder |CLANG|, of several legs sliding and bracing. The whining of servos. Only the barest light beyond gleams off of occasional metallic fixtures, though the shape and size of the source is difficult to determine without a focused flashlight. One would have to get closer.

        A louder HISS: "You have to help me!" - and a long, weighted cable launches out at the group. This thing has its own ideas for what getting 'closer' entails.

        ...Sonia, on the other hand, has found herself in more of an...administrative looking area soon after entering. The only internal light aside from the dim red emergency hues...is a baleful little wall terminal, flickering with a few notes...

        >if you're in here - i might be the only person who's gotten in and out of this place more than once unauthorized, so you'd better listen up.

        >a) it seems to be laid out like a 5 on a dice. center section with 4 other attached points. you're in the middle one.

        >b) i'd ask what the fuck you're doing in here but if you are in here, you're probably the sort of thrill junkie who thinks there's gotta be something good if those things are so ruthless.

        >c) i am only able to write this because i haven't seen them. my friends weren't so lucky. don't fuck around in here. 

<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.


"That's a relief." Roux might hear the sigh of tension coming out of her, as she tells her to report it, not to be silent, "Promise I won't try to tough it out with radio silence, this place is really creeping me out."

Liam asks her a question and, she cants her head to the side following along to the next juncture, "It's hard to really say what I'm feeling. I can't..." There's a pause, and "Do you hear that?" Leina suddenly quickens her pace. "Hold on! We're out here! We're going to get you out of here!"

Then the door parts, and something gives her pause with those scuttling noises. A lump wells in her throat, as she suddenly reaches for her sidearm.

A Newtype Flash warns her at the last second, as she suddenly ducks beneath the arc of the thrown cable, backpeddling, "What's out there!? C-Can anyone see what's out there!?"

She hyperventilates a little, low key panicking, as she tries to instinctually track movement, raising the Gun, but not quite firing yet she backpeddles, trying to grab her trusty plasma torch(Aka her lockpick).

"Hold-Hold on we're trying to get to you-!"

For now however, her advance towards the other end is almost entirely stopped by fear. This primordial fear welling within her of the unknown, the thing in the dark.

If she were sitting in a seat in a movie theater, she'd be smiling right now.

She's not smiling.

<Pose Tracker> Neon Genesis Junior High Students has posed.

As Leina, Roux, and Liam enter the facility, Borr follows in turn. They're quietly grumbling to themself until Liam speaks, and then--

"Hey, you're the plant boy. Man? Whatever. The gardening one. Folks have been keeping it up since you've been gone." Borr points at him. "What are you doing in a place like this?"

Leina, Borr doesn't know, but recognizes from Gridman speaking about her. "Girlie, let me walk in front. Too many people love you, and you're a lot squishier than I am."

"Never seen you before." Borr says to Roux. "What's up? Nice outfit."

...but their levity doesn't last long. At the sight of the severed arm, Borr clicks their flashlight on, grimacing the light falls on it. "Ooh. Guess it's good we didn't send Gridman..."

Moving forward, past the arm, Borr keeps their knife-flashlight combo out in front of them. This place really does have bad vibes -- they don't have to be a Newtype to notice that.

But soon, a voice calls out. Borr is gone in a blur of movement, flashing into view again in front of the door. "Hey! We're here-- huh?"

The voice is further, now. They choose not to race after it again, suspicion drawing their mouth into a thin line. "...Isn't there some kind of story about not following spooky voices in the dark?"

Gridman loves his fairytales.

"SHIT!" They shout, at the CLANG, facing the direction of the noise knife-first. "What the hell. Alright, I think the rest of you should get out of here-- AH FUCK!"

A cable launches at the group! Borr puts themself squarely in between in and the others, dropping the flashlight. Another knife appears in their hand, and they -- perhaps fruitlessly -- lash out at the weighted cable.

If Calibur was here, he could've sliced this thing no problem, dammit! Instead, Borr moves with their inhuman speed, trying to slash the thing in half. If that fails, they'll at least try to draw it away from the "squishier" members of their group. They can take a few hits, it's fine. 

<Pose Tracker> Roux Louka has posed.


"Oh thank you," Roux says to Borr, her tone suddenly rather girlish. "It's not a complete custom job but I tried to make sure it was complimentary, you know. But in a place like that, your looks aren't always the main focus." The bright moment seems to fade; her voice is faltering even through the reply, slipping back towards something softer, grimmer.

Keep on picking their way in... and then there's something hanging trapped in the girders. It's --

A severed arm!!

Roux feels her stomach roil at the sight of it. Externally, she dry-swallows several times and reaches to pull up the frontispiece of the helmet as the other hand sweeps her hair into it, afterwards locking it into place. There's a click as the ballistic cushion poofs out to cradle her head and neck. Then up with the faceplate. The air recycler clicks on, as well.

"It's alright, I'm here," Roux answers the voice of Leina. She's tight - Liam can probably tell in her body posture, and she looks at him and gestures to him to hurry up, even as the mesh glove links in with the tactical suit. NOW Roux pulls out the gun, and behold! Aim assist lights in the helmet!

How much are they worth? Well, they're like a ten percent advantage, but we'll get to that later. Getting that ten percent advantage was worth it to Roux, now that she has to go into these places.

But there is someone crying for help - a door is opened. Roux clicks the gun on and aims it, not into the darkness, but towards the darkness. She bites her lower lip inside of the helmet -- and then something swings out after a loud mechanical noise. Roux swings the gun up but for long critical moments she doesn't fire, and so it is Borr who shoves themselves forwards against the cable.

Roux feels her spine and shoulder muscles tighten as she says, "Shit!" while popping off several shots -- there are hiss-slams of micro-gyro rockets igniting, throwing the high-caliber low-velocity slugs at the cable, the aim-assist vectoring their packages slightly, although any weapon would struggle to keep up with such a twisting shape!

(Only ten percent more accurate - but Roux put it on someone else's card anyway. She didn't feel guilt about this one.)

"Get back!" she shouts, probably towards Leina. "C'mon!" That one was probably to Liam!

<Pose Tracker> Sonia Sophia-Grace has posed.


The area she's in doesn't surprise her. A building like this, like her ship, has to have a administrata area. Sonia's fond of her own little office, when she's not on the bridge. However, there's a flickering terminal with words on the terminal, the only sign of difference compared to herself and her light. Her fingers staying on the walls, she steps over to it, gaze flickering through the words.

"Huh. You can hear me, so I'm guessing you've found some sort of security office... or you've opted to become one with the infinite, and I'm now haunted. Either way, keep talking. Or, well... writing."

"Ah, so like an X, and I'm in the intersection. OK, that doesn't make any sense, I should theoretically be on one of the jut-outs, I just got -into- the building." A pause. "... also, them?"

Curiosity kills the cat, but satisfaction will bring Sonia back.
Also, feasibly, her own skills, and desire to be a terrible person to several people..

<Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.


        Liam turns, and the red-tinted lights built into his breastplate shine on Borr. (Red doesn't ruin night-vision. It's not helping with the general atmosphere.) "Borr," he says. "Investigating. Ally needed backup." The reflective faceplate inclines towards Roux. This Liam is... more mission-oriented than most of what Borr's seen out of him. It speaks to just how unnerving this is.

        A red light shines on the arm. Liam swallows, repeatedly, as bile rises in the back of his throat. "Caught in there," Liam says, more emotion draining out of his voice. "Rest of the body missing."

        'I-is somebody still alive in here?!'

        Liam stops in his tracks. He looks at Borr. "Agreed. Keep line-of-sight--" Footsteps. No. Skittering. "Incoming." Liam's voice could be an old-school TTS for how emotionless it is, if not for the sudden wash of adrenaline intensity in it. He draws the rifle to his shoulder, flicks off the safety, pulls the trigger.

        A sharp shkt-pop echoes down the hallway as a single rail slug races down the accelerator rail. It's almost anti-material caliber, and aimed directly for the source of that cable.

<Pose Tracker> Asciel Colette has posed.

||something's moving. wriggling down my arms. hate hate hate||

||boiling. inflaming. writhing. stop stop stop||

||not l3's doing. it's something else. purge purge purge now now now||

        Borr's knife, thankfully, does sever the cable from wrapping around any of the squishier members of the group - but when they move in to make a strike, that knife lands on a thick plate of rigid metal, dull and marred. This close, Borr can see that this thing's been in a few scrapes already - deep gashes buffed out by circular grinders, along a conical front section. Of course, Liam's high-caliber round is what it takes to actually deter this thing - the shot piercing through its side hull and making it skitter and screech, pouring out with electricity, hurled against a wall from the impact.

        ...it seems, indeed, to be dead. Unfortunately...if one is familiar with Bionet's criminal enterprises...it's very clearly a roughly cow-sized mechanical spider Electrocrawler, an invention of the Energy Thief- Julia Ampere. Modified from the norm, though - the 'nose' is blunted and less drill-like, the armor is thicker but the legs more spindly, well adapted to maneuvering in tight spaces like these.

        Doubly unfortunately, in its death throes, it's emitted a chittering, shrieking pulse...and the ambient thumping noises amplify. Above, below, to the sides...and most critically...from the way the group entered the mess hall. The only area that this converging chaos isn't coming from...is where the first crawler made its appearance, through what is clearly a much, much more colossal open area within this facility than anticipated, and what was once an internal aircraft hangar...though numerous strange generators and small manufactories litter its surface instead.

        ...meanwhile, the screen in front of Sonia blanks out, and emits instead:

        >the x is a metaphor for the layout. it's not tiny at the center or whatever. and most of the entries try to lead directly into it, since it's where the ~important shit~ is. you seem to know what you're doing tho

        >this place ain't haunted lmao. security's hyper aggressive and loves making a mess. leaving a few dead bodies is like, a tactic like how cavemen would put the skulls of their enemies on a pike. so fucking tacky vvvvvv

        >so like i have access and stuff? you know. i can reward you probably? somehow? buuuuut guess who could use some bailing out. not a skill issue or anything, i'm just being spawn camped like crazy out here. i'm like 3 floors up from you. guess which elevators aren't working though? any of them! hope ur a good climber. pretty plox? tradesies? oh and you'll probably want, uh, a pretty sick gun or one of those chainsaws that can cut a car in half

<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.


"Okay!" Leina squeaks at Borr, not giving any argument to that, even when she sees them walk by, her mind gropes and just barely remembers them being at Aya.

Still seeing their diminutive height she might, crouch, a tiny bit lower, as well - being behind them implies cover right!?

Roux and Liam's shots go off and Leina feels a touch stunned by this turn of events, she hasn't shot yet, because she doesn't see a target, before Roux shouts to get back.

She's frozen for a few seconds, then its like her brain catches up and she starts running back behind her. "Oh God Oh God Oh God!" As she falls back near behind Roux, hands shaking even as Liam fires.

Did he get it!? What is the thing that he got? It could be any number of horrible things! She's imagining the worst.

And then that shrieking pulse happens and Leina covers her ears, shaking as she shrieks a bit with it, in the aftermath though.

She feels it, the warning, and suddenly she's darting in the opposite direction, towards where that first crawler is coming, "Some-Something's coming, what was it even?!" Leina sees the cow sized mechanical spider-crawler and...

"What even is that!? Did-Who!?"

She was less freaked out at the Institute Raid, perhaps it's because at least there, they were horrors she knew well. Perhaps too well.

The essence of horror is the unknown.

And right now there's so much unknown that she can barely catch her breath, as she keeps her sidearm at the handy, right now pointed back up at the choke point to try and start firing when something appears appears.

<Pose Tracker> Neon Genesis Junior High Students has posed.

Well, something's up with Liam. This definitely isn't the same man Borr met back in Tsutsujidai. Giving him a concerned look, they pause for a second, flipping their knife in the air. "You're not alone, alright? We've got this."

With that, they continue forward, the small Hyper Agent cutting a path through the darkness.

Thanks to Liam, the cable dies -- but begins to shriek. "STOP, STOP, STOP." Borr chants, tonelessly, stabbing it again and again in an effort to silence the awful pulse.

Should it work -- or not work within a good 30 seconds -- Borr will straighten up, retrieve their flashlight (with that second knife vanishing into thin air). and look back at their companions.

"Okay I do not want to go closer to that noise." Borr shouts over the cacophony. "But I don't love going into that wide area either! There might be more of these weird-ass things!"

Borr has no idea what an Electrocrawler is, for better and for worse.

Hearing Leina panic, Borr comes over to her, smiling in what they hope is a calming way. Even with more of those things presumably on the way, it's important to make sure Leina isn't going to have a panic attack.

"Hey. We're okay. Breathe with me." Borr exaggeratedly breathes in, then out. "If you need to get out of here, I'll take you, alright? You just shout my name, Borr, and I'll get you back outside before you can blink."

As the sounds get louder... It doesn't seem like they have much of a choice. With a colorful swear, they charge into the hangar, shouting back over their shoulder.

"Gardening man! You're guarding our back! I've got the front! Fashion lady, you keep Leina safe!" Borr tucks their flashlight into their suit jacket, wishing she'd brought Vit's stupid headlamp. A second knife appears in their hands, and they grit their teeth, moving forward.

<Pose Tracker> Roux Louka has posed.


The whatever-the-hell-it-is is dinged and then goes down in the face of Liam's portable railgun. Roux glances at it. Good, she thinks.

But what wasn't good was how it shrieked, screamed... thrashed... and died. Died! Roux has seen robots die, obviously, in so far as the more sophisticated ones do make it more like death. Her jaw sets.

Roux feels a cold tugging of terror at her guts as she steps nearer to Leina, the smart pistol still held in its controller web glove as she raises it upwards to point. "Did someone kitbash--"

No, it isn't a kitbash. Roux feels tightness. Trembling. Atavistic terror. Her eyes cut to Borr for a moment. Who the hell are they to-- and that's when Roux's instinct gets squashed by drilling and training. Before she was a Gundam pilot, she was in a militia: the plan isn't good. She presses nearer and brings the weapon down as --

Oh my God, Roux thinks as the faceplate lights up. That thing is UGLY -- she clings to the thought as she brings the gun down, swiftly discharging the remaining eight shots in the weapon's barrel directly at the one that seems to be nearest, crawling somewhere on the ground on the other side of Leina. Moving close, around her, without hesitation; she opens up one arm, and if Leina has to hang on, well, the gun's not THAT heavy, and the great thing about gyrojets? Lack of recoil.

Roux tilts it forwards as the clip empties, dumping it and the rest of the barrel as she reaches to clack in a new one, tracking round and shrinking backwards, calling towards Borr, "Why are you in a god damned SUIT???" out of a lack of anything better to do with her throat as she keeps firing, tracking up -- if that one stops moving, explodes, or screams, get the next!

<Pose Tracker> Sonia Sophia-Grace has posed.


"Oh, okay, that's ... still not much of a explanation, most places don't want immediate access to the important stuff except in some really unusual situations-" Sonia inhales to start her lecture, but it blinks with more information, and the opposite end is kept from a Sophia-Grace knowledge dump.

"What type of security am I going to be running into? And are there stairs, or am I going to have to figure out how to climb an elevator shaft?" She asks briskly, cracking another one of her glowsticks while questioning, tucking them into other pockets to give her a better light set-up; and then she trusses up two knives and her handy gun.

Tapping at her radio, Sonia clears her throat, opening the local NERV band. "Hello?" Gun cocking noise. "Building's haunted. This is Captain Sophia-Grace. Is anyone listening?"

The building is not haunted.

<Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.


        Something large and metal hits the deck, felled by gunfire. Liam breathes as the loader slides another slug onto the accelerator, counting down two-one--

        Borr lunges into the fallen construct and starts stabbing it. "Kill confirmed," Liam echoes. Once it's stopped moving, he rushes forward. Red light bathes the mechanical carcass.

        "Electrocrawler," he says, and a hint of anger ignites in his voice. "Julia Ampere makes them. She's the energy thief, with BioNet. It's been modified. I don't think she'd..."

        Spade-7 is panicking. Part of Liam wants to panic, too; he remembers those things swarming him, crawling over his Arm Slave, spot-welding the armor. Draining the batteries dry. If they can take down a Mobile Weapon in numbers, under Julia's direction, then...

        The scuttling gets louder. Liam spins around, keeping his back to the others. "Forward," he says, "go, go, go!" Another electrocrawler bursts out of a side-tunnel, and there's another shkt-pop as a second antimaterial slug races through the darkness. As the others move for the hangar, Liam plays rear-guard, lining up targets and downing them with eerie accuracy. There's no question, however, that the enemy has many more drones than he has bullets.

        A familiar voice speaks into Liam's ear. "<Captain,>" he says, "<Why--get out!>

<Pose Tracker> Asciel Colette has posed.

||one hour left || errors mounting || fading. i need- || 10% connection || 5% connection || dark

> [Logs redacted. Coherence insufficient.]

        The mass of crawlers is, for a brief moment, visible, converging on the passage between the mess hall and the hangar. Their hue the same deep red as the lighting. They swarm like liquid - maneuvering past each other seamlessly, clotting and binding over the next fallen member of their order - half of them breaking off to carry each of the crawlers that actually fall to the hail of gunfire.

        All the sudden, the door separating the group and the swarm slams shut remotely, the Electrocrawlers colliding with the metal in a waterfall of thumps and jolts - leaving them in the vast hangar cavern, its quietness ominous.

        ...for a moment.


<L O L, you were that Sonia chick the whole time? And you brought a whole raid? Sick!~>

        A slightly shrill, strained, but breathy voice cuts over the phone line between Liam and Sonia. <Oh shit, they're actually serious, there's some serious DPS! But it looks like you left your healer un~guar~ded!~ Kehehehe! Kuh. Khhh! Acghgh. Pfuuh...> The viscous laughter breaks way into sputtering and coughing quite quickly over the lines -

        Right before, from the ceiling of the hangar, a trail of sparks heralds the screeching arrival of a much more massive Electrocrawler, spitting out a cable - aimed right at Leina's legs. Twin floodlights spew from its 'face' - atop it...a difficult to make out figure, only identifiable by her messy white hair all bundled into a single, extremely unkempt side-drill, and the wide silver eyes framed with deep eyeshadow underneath. She's masked, heavily body-armored...and pretty deeply embedded in a host of mechanical exo-forms and arms all the same, all lined with slowly color-shifting neon.

        "If Sonia's just gonna be a 1v1 that's so much more lame! It's better than fucking sitting around while the other two have all the ~fun~ playing with OWL's guts! If they're gonna bring me along and have me sit in queue all day, they better not whine when I-"

        Another voice cuts in on Sonia and Liam's comm line- this one, gratefully a lot less . . . Like That, and a little more calm and carefree...though he is very, very fast-talking. <Oh we're already whining about the bad security in here. What an awful mess! It stinks in here for me just as much as it does you. But I'm getting the vibes that if you're too rough, you're gonna cause more problems than before. It's in totally bad taste to merc intruders with connections so hastily, and if these guys are coming in armed it's so bad news, and we're telling the CFO that he needs to get his shit together. Lyceum-1's done the hard stuff, so we should nudge these babies out of here a little more tactfully, so if you could be a dear for me, three-three, treat them like, uhh, loot we've gotta get back to base, got it?>

        ...visibly, the ceiling-mounted Electrocrawler is, fairly quiet throughout all this, defused from her bout of mania and slowly descending to the ground like a spider, countless cables waggling slowly off to either side.

        Outside the offices, a whirring sound gets nearer and nearer to Sonia's position - then halts, and skids, with the sound of...a train, really. An eastern door whirrs open, and another bodysuited woman peeks through with a flashlight - before mercifully poking on a tablet and turning on the actual lights. A shock of orange hair crowns a tired, bespectacled face on this one - still masked and heavily armed, however.

        "...y...you're Sonia, aren't you? Oh thank god Aura didn't - she always goes so far on these operations. ...please cut the comms, you really shouldn't have surprised us when we were in the middle of transferring OWL out of here and back to Isaac City...d-do you need...a lift out of here? We can't easily control the security systems...w-well, Aura can, of course, but-"

<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.


As Roux moves to one side of her, Leina clings to her arm with a single hand, holding on for dear life - as if sensing part of her motive for standing nearby. She's having trouble speaking right now, hyperventilating, as she shifts her gun to her other hand.

'Hey we're okay-!' Leina didn't even see Borr approach her, suddenly she looks down at Borr's smiling face, nodding quickly as she tries to do as she bids, slow the breathing. She knows if she doesn't soon enough her hands will go numb and spasm. She takes in a deeper breath. Then another.

"Okay. Okay. We're-... okay." She repeats. "You can. Get us out. Borr." She says breathlessly, voice slightly clipped, speaking three words at most every time she utters her mouth before needing another.

'Why are you in a goddamned suit.'

Great question!

Liam however answers what they are, 'Julia Ampere' 'BioNet.' And all of a sudden just, it's like a slight weight of the oppressive horror of this place is off of her shoulders, as her mind starts to work on connecting them. "Julia Ampere..." Leina repeats. She takes off after Liam as he tells her to go, feeling the sudden rhythm of crawlers thumping and growing quiet as she runs into the hangar. She gets a warning, and Leina suddenly whirls around, firing off one-two with muzzle flash.

Her legs get caught by a cable, dragging her off her feet as she shrieks in alarm as she shields her eyes from the twin floodlights upon her. "BORR BORR BORR!"

As she looks to the side of the palm darkened by the light though, and... her mind locks up, seeing a sliver of the figure, hearing them. "Wait... OWL?"

Please hold, Leina's brain is working.

"... By OWL you wouldn't mean someone who talks... you know kinda... smugly, about a world without a need for heroes? 'Big Sis' Atrytone?'"

Her eyes follow the ceiling mounted one as it lowers down, but Leina just, lays there, her nerves, need a minute after that scare, even if she's calmer.

<Pose Tracker> Roux Louka has posed.


Her rounds empty into it. Into THAT. Into Julia Ampere's work. Roux counts them off in her head. She already shot ten. Twelve. Fifteen... a pause... and that's twenty. Two out of four. Roux dumps the barrel, clicks on a new one and hefts it upwards as she fires six more shots --

Be iron, Roux thinks. Be the stone. Why can I be the stone? Where am I? Who am 'I' anyway?

This is crazed, but --

-- is it that different from --

A thought passes through Roux's mindset. What would have happened if Zeon had landed with everyone and they'd only had armor and aircraft, too? No Mobile Suits? The ships were something else. Could they have done it? Would there have been Newtypes in trenches and battlefields?

Never mind that. Roux stays with the others. "Shit! So is this her base? Is she killing peope who get through the perimeter or what?!" she answers Liam as she lets herself move past Liam, glancing at him with some nervousness.

Something suddenly shines bright light on her. Roux screams. It's a sharp, stark surprise. Her hand comes up, away from Leina, and it's a mistake because Leina is getting grasped --

Leina's whipped out of her grasp. She's already failed the main reason she came!

Gotta keep moving, Roux thinks. Hup hup. She sinks down to one knee, swinging the pistol upwards as she squints against the glare, the filter plastic of the helmet faceplate trying to polarize enough to get through something brighter than its rating. The aim-assist guidepoints flicker and strive, just like she did. They're in this one together!

But she can point the gun and she can hold it tight. "Sorry you're BORED" she says to the strange and neon-luminous figure, "But put her the hell down RIGHT now or I'm gonna vent you, dammit! I'm not gonna ask twice! You got til three!" Please, Borr, Roux thinks (and it may say something about Borr's mouth-feel of a character that despite yelling at them, like, thirty seconds ago, Roux is now putting her hopes in them -- that, or it says something about Roux's judgment -- even so): Cut her loose before.

"One!" Roux begins.

<Pose Tracker> Neon Genesis Junior High Students has posed.

"I was born like this!" Borr shouts back, every bit as flustered, surely only making the mystery weirder. "AND IT LOOKS GOOD!"

Electrocrawler? "What kind of lame-ass name..." The Hyper Agent mutters, until...

A mass of crawlers becomes visible. Borr takes in a deep breath, crouching down, ready to rocket forward to hopefully, at least, head them off, give the others time to run--

The door slams shut. Borr straightens up, blinking. Once, then twice.

"Uhh... Did one of you do that, or..." Borr squints at Liam. "Are you on the phone? Now?"

Borr starts turning to face Leina the moment the sound of the cable being spit toward the young woman. Their face twisting into a snarl, Borr vanishes from sight. When they appear again, a few cables have certainly been severed clean through, and Leina is in their arms -- perhaps before they were let down, perhaps after. It depends on the strength of that Electrothing.

Roux will not be disappointed. Despite their size, Borr is a Hyper Agent, every bit as capable as their comrades.

"I've got you." Borr says, holding Leina in a princess carry. They have to hold their arms up fairly high to keep Leina's feet off the ground, but this doesn't seem to bother them. "They won't touch you again."

Looking up to the figure sitting atop the previously-attack Electrocrawler, Borr's face twists in a scowl. "Hey! Shut the fuck up, you creep! You want to see what it feels like to get yanked around?"

Borr and Leina stay a good distance away from the calming Electrocrawler. A promise is a promise -- Borr isn't going to let anything menace Leina.

<Pose Tracker> Sonia Sophia-Grace has posed.


<"You can't put something this strange in front of us and not expect me at least to respond. I get bored."> Sonia replies to Liam.

"I would also like it noted," She says, off-comms, "That I wasn't aware they were here. So aside from Liam, I have -no- idea who or what is going on out there. I can only imagine they also saw a really weird building with comments about people *not returning*-" Those two words are sharply inflected- "And figured there was some bad shit going on."

"Also, you say Sonia chick like you know me." The petite white-haired woman is narrowing her eyes dangerously as she hears a door opening. The person approaching her finds that she's got her gun settled on her between the eyes, and her mouth is set thin and narrow as her eyes.

"You'll forgive me if I ask some questions and trust is not on the table at the moment. OWL? Did I miss something? This isn't just some random building, is it?" A beat, then soft, "I would explain. Quickly."

<Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.


        There's too many of them.

        Liam doesn't know how they ended up here, much less in such numbers, but he knows one thing: if they can't escape, they're all dead. Maybe Borr would make it out, but that's a maybe. As he backpedals into the hangar, Liam pulls the empty mag free, drops it, slams a fresh one home. He has three left. Need to make them count.

        And he hasn't seen hide or hair of Sonia, despite her sounding nonchalant as ever on comm--

        The hangar door slams. There's a moment of ominous silence. "Someone from NERV, here," Liam says, toggling off his transmitter with the touch of his hand to his collar. "She's--"

        His gaze whips up, as does his gun. He turns on the laser-sight, and parks that dead-center on the laughing figure's chest. He's silent, and beneath the powered armor, his muscles coil and tighten.

        But he's still listening.

<Pose Tracker> Asciel Colette has posed.

        The laid-back, slightly sassy voice that butted in over Sonia and Liam's communications has cut out from that, but he can still be heard - directly talking to the Electrocrawler-riding girl - 'Lyceum-3' on and on and on and on. There's tension in her expression, but she's seemingly left startlingly placid the longer he speaks. She's shut up alright - nor does she take any particular action at Borr coming at her cables trying to ensnare Leina, seeming distanced and distracted to an extreme. Even Liam and Roux pointing a gun at her only earns a slow, baleful blink.

        It's easier to get a closer look at her - and what are clearly extremely extensive cybernetics. She's plugged rather deeply into something like a wheelchair, to the point of lacking legs entirely, her upper body sort of...sprouting from the device, and her arms are a jury-rigged mass of manipulators.

        The orange-haired woman in front of Sonia agonizes and sweats a bit having a gun pointed to her head, flailing her hands this way and that, whispering under her breath, "T-this - OWL told me you're one of the people she let aboard this ship! Back up in Tsutsujidai! Oh I knew this was a bad idea. It's so obvious, and she never tells anyone about these things. Always making these decisions and barging over everyone, I just, I just-! How are any of us supposed to HANDLE it!?" Her hand slams against the door rather fiercely, stiff and tense. She's crying rather intensely for. . . certainly unclear causes, before she wipes her face clear, sniffling lightly. "...a...ah, my name's. Palady Timpal. I work for Chrome, and we're here to...retrieve OWL - er. Asciel? Atrytone? I don't even know anymore. D-do you want to talk with her..."

        Palady shuffles backwards through the door, towards - that's genuinely some sort of subway liner, carrying a large room-sized orb of polished chrome, its front lined with myriad flower-like petals. Plugging her tablet into the orb's front, Palady clears her throat exactly once, before-

        "You CANNOT be serious that I'm in this situation with an entire attack team inside me and Lyceum-3's going bananas and I'm completely blind and everything hurts and now Sonia's here when she could've been killed-" That's Asciel alright! The 'core' inside the train car is blinking very, very rapidly, and the tablet quickly shifts to a display of her more personable avatar, her eye burning fiercely, teeth gritted needily at Sonia.

        "...Alright. ...I'm gonna owe you for this one, Sonia. This is a very very bad time for me to deal with intruders and you seem to have a phone line to them - talk them down to getting out of here quietly for me, if you'd be so kind. ...I'm not connected to this Macross right now so I can't really control those crawlers. They automatically react to pathogens to keep this thing repaired and...you know, people should expect things to go south. Imagine, if you would, Sonia, a bunch of fleas kept trying to burrow into your blood vessels - you wouldn't blame your blood cells for getting terribly cross with them. ...Plug me into the actual footage, Lyceum-1, I can't SEE ANYTHING right now-"

        Hurriedly, Palady nearly drops the tablet in the process of fussing with added controls, connecting Asciel to Lyceum-3's footage, and immediately, Asciel pushes forward like she'd jump out of the screen at Sonia. "Hhhhhhhhh it's always them!!! They were cute at first but they're kind of a huge pain in the ass by now! I am going to have WORDS with the CFO about just how many people keep wandering in here, if it's even..."

        ...The computer equivalent of squinting reviews, specifically, the footage of a tiny squirt like Borr leaping around slashing at cables like a ninja. "I'm going to need an explanation on the strange sassy child they brought with them some day. Lyceum-2, tell Lyceum-3 to escort them out of here right now."

        ---Back to the hangar bay, the long, silent lull in the room as the previously amped up Lyceum-3 goes absolutely blank finally breaks, and in her breathy tones, she slowly, monotonously rasps out syllable by syllable, "I have received orders to escort you off of the premises so that you do not get eviscerated. Boring. Stifling. Follow me. Are any of you good at Dozoo Degwa? I am ranked #17 in Kanpeito Kampello. Online ping time in here is subpar. I can play while we move. The lobby is already open. I'm AuraVeo#1138. If there's any other lobbies open, it means other intruders are also playing Dozoo Degwa. How amusing a thought." The massive Electrocrawler slowly leads the way towards the transit exit from the hangar bay outward - though at some point, Lyceum-3 - Aura - has to dismount to actually get anywhere, her mecha-wheelchair drifting through the service tunnels, periodically checking on her entourage.

<Pose Tracker> Leina Ashta has posed.


Leina's still low key freaked, but calmer since at least they're not, following up on trying to kill her? That's a plus.

Especially as Roux has her covered, and then Borr cuts the cables to carry her. There is a small sense of absurdity to being Princess carried by someone smaller than her, but her head comes to rest upon their shoulder, "Thank you... I... thank you."

A look is given to the extensive cybernetics of Lyceum-3. There's just this longgggg awkward lull, and Leina clears her throat, then looks to Roux, then back to Borr, "Soooo mind, explaining, anything about why you attacked me then shut up? Because I'm- that's really not a good look? You really shouldn't just do that! Wanna, wanna talk about that 'OWL's guts part?"

Long pause, a sigh, "I take it that's a no..." Then Lyceum-3 lurches and Leina starts as if she were some UC Gundam Scooby Doo in Shaggy's arms. "We'd... appreciate that. Thanks, I guess for attacking me then evacuating us?" Pause, "Still super rude by the way!"

As they're led out, Leina just listens to Lyceum-3, and there is the biggest longest sigh, "No I don't want to play Dozoo Degwa, I'm out of practice." Leina does at least note the online handle as something to look into later. Maybbeeee there's a chance of a hint through investigation?

Longshot, but, maybe.

<Pose Tracker> Neon Genesis Junior High Students has posed.

Thankful for Roux and Liam's backup, Borr breathes a little easier. They don't need to be ready to throw a knife as long as those two have guns on the... Crawler-Rider. Whatever the fuck. She seems bizarrely calm now... Talk about whiplash.

"Hey, anytime, girlie. I've got you." Borr says, gently. Leina can stay in their arms as long as she needs to. Hell, they'll carry Leina all the way out of here if she wants. Not a problem.

Leina was kind to Gridman, once, right when he needed it. Borr never forgets.

Lyceum-3 drones out a series of instructions, and... game invitations? "I've been thinking about getting Shozo online games. He could use some friends his own age." Borr glares up at the gamer girl. "But you don't exactly seem like a good role model. You got a way to prove your heart's goodness before we get out of here?"

"Leina's right. You're rude as fuck." Borr says, with a nod to the girl in their arms. "Shozo's a sweet kid, I don't want him suddenly slapping people or something."
Roux Louka tosses a coin: Tails 

<Pose Tracker> Roux Louka has posed.


The full sight of Lyceum-3's cybernetics makes Roux feel her stomach churn AGAIN. She is going to throw up when they're outside. That's probably the most normal thing happening here. She's in a -- chair? A rider? What -- why --

When there's silence, Roux doesn't count down further. She's watching. The electronics keep fidgeting around. Roux tries not to. Be iron, be stone, be a rock. Be a planet, moving in its orbit. You don't seem to be doing anything, but you're unstoppable. People have to go around YOU!

And then the woman - the heavily augmented woman, she's not a hotel novelty receptionist, Roux tells herself, even if she isn't there below the... hips? - speaks to them. Like a robot. Not helping.

But...

As they walk, there's an invitation.

Roux shifts her hips and reaches into one of the pouches on the tactical suit to take out... oh my god, it's a smartphone. She's going to do it. Roux's headplate turns towards 'Spade-7' for a moment, and she says, "I'm a newbie, so don't make fun. A black-ops guy I worked with got me into it." She means Rena Lancaster. She is referring to Rena Lancaster, specifically, as 'a black-ops guy.' Rena Lancaster is associated with black-bag operations for Eight York and her secret superior officer, Bright Noa, the Shadow Ruler. Rena Lancaster.

Roux sucks ass at the game. She periodically glances over her shoulder to check on Liam, or glances at Leina. She doesn't worry much about Borr, somehow.

<Pose Tracker> Sonia Sophia-Grace has posed.


l me

<Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.


        Liam keeps the little red dot in the center of Lyceum-3's chest. The more he looks at her, the more he notices: first that the 'exoskeleton' isn't actually that, then the way her organic body seems to terminate in places. He's seen people with invasive cybernetics--he is someone with invasive cybernetics, even if BioNet didn't replace anything--but cybernetics that are so different from the human body plan...

        Who did this to her? he wonders, even as fear tries to break his focus.

        Borr cuts Leina down. Liam doesn't relax. "Acknowledged," he says, simply, and he finally lowers the gun, flicking the safety back into place. He follows the group, checking behind himself regularly, just in case. As they approach the exit, he chances a tightbeam to Roux. "<What the hell,>" he says, "<is going on here?>"

<Pose Tracker> Roux Louka has posed.


Liam hears Roux's mic open. She takes a deep breath - lets it out a little - inhales again, and answers him:

"<Just roll with it. I have a story for you later. The ancient statue story. Remember it.>"

<Pose Tracker> Sonia Sophia-Grace has posed.


"This shi... OWL ... Oh--" Sonia really does make sure her comms are muted, and she shoves a chunk of her short-sleeve bolero into her mouth so no one can hear her annoyed screech..

It's not that type of horror, today.

"Yes, please. I would love to talk to her." Uh-oh, emphasis. To ease Paladay's fears, Sonia slides the safety back on her gun, holsters it, and then pushes her knives back down into their normal spots as well. She's still a walking armory, but less so of one than she was just moments ago.

Before she follows, though, she does tightbeam Liam. <"If they're giving you an escort out, I'd take it. I'm taking one.>"

When she walks into the room and gives, er, Asciel a once over, her brow furrows, before she slowly sighs. Everyone's done it at least once - elbows on a desk, thumbs just under the ears, pointer and middle fingers rubbing along the side of your eyes, while wondering what went wrong with your life? She's doing that, just, you know, standing up.

"I still don't know who is over there, so I can't give you any information." Sonia notes, before sighing. "But you, you supposed brilliant, interesting you, didn't figure out a way to, you know, -better block the entryways into this space?-" She asks, flatly. "There's supposed to be a limit to dumbassery, and we both know it. Get yourself fixed, get yourself going, and turn the crawlers OFF, because this whole thing is likely to bring more hell down on your head!"

"And don't kill anyone!" Sonia adds on, an annoyed, disapproving snipe. You're better than this, Asciel.

<Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.


        "<Ancient statue story?>" Liam asks.

<Pose Tracker> Asciel Colette has posed.

        "Heart's goodness?" Aura shoots Borr a bewildered little leer - the corners of her eyes crinkling, that little spark of manic energy slowly filtering back into her. "To play games? You could say you're a scrub and leave it at that. Don't try to rope me into babysitting, I block people if they can't keep up."

        Her own...not really a phone, more of an arm-integrated mobile device, flickers with four different windows of space at once - Dozoo Degwa in the top right, the bottom two indecipherable high speed code readouts, the top left periodically switching from thermal camera footage of the nearby area and a MOBA of some sort. Aura's fingers fly across the screen, and even this heavily distracted, she is of course dancing circles around Roux. Each win accompanied with a "Are you totally chumping?" or "You don't get any less salty if you just give up.". She doesn't really 'settle' either - the more she tackles Roux in this game, the more intense she plays...but only up to a point. Eventually, Aura makes good on what she told Borr - and closes the game entirely with a long yawn.

        ...Unfortunately, Leina's interest is taken the complete wrong way, and Aura turns to her with a bit more rapt excitement. "Oh! Oh you get it, do you? There's an art to defragging! Everything's made up of interesting bits and pieces, and it feels so good to rearrange them to get what you want! Especially when they're on the other team. Keheh. That thing I was riding was gross and disgusting and trying to kill me until I made it MINE. Just a few debuffs and you can totally drone so many things. ...Are you jealous? Be jealous, cry more about it, maybe if you work real hard you can get on my level, then you can enjoy everyone's systems tangling up your hands. Keh. Kah! Kghghgh..."

        ...Another coughing fit, right before the group finally emerges into daylight again - and Aura pivots around to face Liam. "You're eyeing me up because you're jealous too, huh!? HUH?!! ...kf. ...it's fine! Ooh. You're actually made of quality stuff. Can I take it apart some day? What if I started right now-"

        ...that distant voice in Aura's ear starts chattering away, and she pauses the instant it begins - whatever she wanted to say fading out slowly, until she's back to that rather blank, low-responsive state. There's nothing between the group and freedom from this ridicuous mess now - Aura's just sitting there staring blankly at the ocean by now. No send-off or farewells.

        - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

        The train car carrying Asciel's core, taking up 80% of the available space, slowly meanders through the Macross, away from its core torso block and towards the dedicated train access system. And boy, is Asciel grimacing and intense the whole time through that little window of hers, glaring daggers at Sonia. Oh, she does not like a single word of what she's hearing - the train is getting very hot from fuming over-processing.

        "Ugh. Ugh!! My associates cheaped out on me, that's what. They demanded I stop attending to this very important asset and get back home for stupid reasons, and now I have to keep it secured, after all this garbage just happened, from half the world away. ...Hoooh. Hoooooggghh!" It takes all of Asciel's strength to hold back her fuming and judging - she has so litle to tangibly come-back on this, is the main problem...

        "...no. No, I'm not going to fall for what you're trying to do. You're trying to tease out compromising things for me to say while I'm in a vulnerable state. Hmph. Think about the level of short-sighted people I have to work with on a daily basis, and try me again once you do. ...As soon as my procurements for this body are complete, none of that will be a problem anymore, so don't tell me things I am already vividly aware of."

        With great strain, that usual cheery smile finally goes back onto Asciel's face (why does it strain when she can just . . . is_smiling=1). "...there's actually a few things we can discuss about how to get that done, come to think of it...~" And so she's back to scheming and cavorting even in a position like this...

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