3868/49°51'S 128°34'W

From Multiverse Crisis MUSH
Jump to: navigation, search
49°51'S 128°34'W
Date of Scene: 01 March 2016
Location: Great Ocean - Southern Loop
Synopsis: You know what's even worse than giant, futuristic battleships? Horrible coral monsters. In this episode: Will gets scarred for life! Mel and Maaka make a friend! AWFUL THINGS ARE UNLEASHED.
Cast of Characters: William Pauwel, 571, Gaonoir, 941, Kotone Yamakawa, Staren, 655, 385


William Pauwel has posed:
    A couple of weeks ago, a mysterious black ship sailed into the pacific from parts unknown. Upon its defeat, an even more mysterious and far more terrifying monster exploded from its hull like some kind of evil giga parasite. It was rendered, finally, unto the sea by the cannonfire of the Abyssal host, but not before transmitting a very short, succinct and ultimately universal parting message.

An S-O-S... And a set of coordinates.

    It just so happens that a certain city state is particularly interested in this stretch of ocean. The Floating City of Meridian has seen several of its shipping vessels disappear in this region, and it's interested in finding out what's what. To that end, it has provided certain... maritime assistance.

    While some may be able to make it to their destination on some futuristic or mystical means of transport, everyone else has had the opportunity to spend some time on one of Meridian's larger ships of the line. It... Actually has sails. Real, honest-to-goodness sails, backed up by the low, rhythmic pulse of what appears at first glance to be a steam engine.

For a ship made mostly of wood, the thing makes some pretty good speed. If asked about what actually powers the thing, the captain and his engineers simply tap their nose and remain mum.

A state secret, apparently.

    But this adventure is not about the boat you're sailing in on. It's about your destination, and what you find when you arrive.

    The first sign that something might be wrong is the way a familiar fog begins to rise from a warm, placid sea. At first it only pools thick enough to reach mid-hull, the eerie, hissing fog seeping in through shut gunports. Within a few miles of sailing, the weather takes a turn for the worse; a battering squall pours down onto the deck, though the fog shows no sign of abating. And yet the captain sails on and on, compass and map and navigational support from friendly elites as his guides, even as the mist swallows up the main mast and casts the world into a dull, grey fog.

Once, twice, something disturbs the fog. Blood red lights flash on the horizon. The captain orders lamps off until they pass. By some seabound blessing, they do, vanishing again into the mists as they pass the vessel by.

    Finally, perhaps as some nautical miracle, or as a testament to the skill of true Men of the Sea, something about the fog's character seems to change. Dim, eerie lights glow through the murk, diffusing into a murky melange of reds and greens and yellows. The ship... abruptly sails /into/ something. The entire vessel jars as its wood splits across the bow, leaving the vessel creaking precariously against the spit of land it moored itself on.

"Well," the captain would have concluded after brief calculation, "I do believe we're about where we were going."

Fortunately, any damage to the vessel itself appears to have been above its waterline. A few repairs, and they'll be ready to set sail again.

And, sure enough, you do seem to be exactly where you want to be.

...Well. Almost. A few minutes off from the final destination-- something that appears to be further inland, towards the haze of lights in the distance.

Alexis Maaka (571) has posed:
    Nautical travel isn't exactly what Alexis was used to, but at the same time, her travels take her to weird places. The cyborg didn't need much convincing to go along with this mission either, if only for curiosity and the promise of payment. Where there were mysterious nasties, there were always people willing to pay for killing them.

    She wasn't unhappy to see colleagues along either, after last time. As she got settled in, the cyborg would either be helping out aboard the vessel during their trek, or going over her arsenal for the mission just in case. Maaka's nice like that, and she'd hate to feel useless aboard this boat.

    Maaka props a foot on the edge of the ship like a pirate on those liquor bottles, and she scans out in the distance as the fog clears out. "What do we know about this place, skipper?" She asks the captain, draping her coilgun over her shoulder.

Gaonoir has posed:
While he had little trouble getting around on his own, Gaonoir had opted for the boat ride. Simply because it meant he could stay in a lesser form and conserve his energy.

Turns out to have been a good choice when the trip delves into more of that creepy fog, and a squall admist it that would of made flying a bit of a pain in the tail. This had better be worth the trouble to get to the bottom of things!

A wood creaking thump, and the boat stops. The digimon grabs onto the edge of the deck and peers out over it at the front of the ship having messily moored itself upon the chunk of land. "Looks like you guys have a bit of work ahead of you before we can head home." Or a convienent excuse to not leave the ship. The digimon is undaunted on the other hand, and climbs up to the front of the ship to get a better look at the landscape, or lack of therefor, before them. And a lot of fod. Lots of fog.

Mel Brock (941) has posed:
    Mel Brock does not actually spend most of the voyage on Meridian's ship. She's got her Chaser here - newly repaired, no less, after the previous excursion - and she's content to keep up at a low hover, relaxing in her comfy environmentally-sealed vehicle. That's /most/ of the voyage, however; by the end, she's curious enough to want to hop down, and so she does; pulling the Chaser up alongside the vessel, waiting until it's risen up some on the waves, and then taking a short hop off. Her own craft, set to autopilot, rises up into the air to stay on standby at high altitude.

    Thankfully, it's right before the fog rolls in. And she's not afraid to exert herself against the storm, at least to some extent. The psychic extends a bubble of force outward, at a fairly wide range, to act as a shield from the pouring rain. She can't raise it up very high, or else she'll start interfering with the blowing wind, but it's enough to keep those on deck from getting soaked at least. "I get the distinct sense this isn't a natural storm," she mutters to no one in particular, hands in her pockets.

    When they run aground, however, she lets the field drop, immediately drawing in her own power in case some sort of defense is needed. She's quick to head aft until she can get into conversational range of the captain, where she says simply, "Get the repairs done quickly. We get done here, I can push the ship back into the water." After that, she goes jogging back to the fore, where she swings herself over the side, and carefully clambers down to the ground.

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone had caught wind of WIlliam on a job a while ago, and now here she was to see what she could do for William. Sides she was hoping it would be a change from the sort of jobs she's been getting lately. She was not the most happy camper about what she had to fight on her last job. Maaka would find Kotone falling in a bit behgind her and she tilts her head looking at the captain with as much intrest as Maaka had.

"Any bits of information you had would be very helpful."

Staren has posed:
    Staren wasn't here for the mysterious black ship, but he does try to keep an eye out for things he might be able to help with. So when he hears an investigatory mission is being launched... he shows up with the others! He's wearing his armor the entire trip, just to be safe. Never know when another black ship or monster might attack... but he does keep his helmet off until the fog rolls in, letting the sea air blow past his face.

    He does ask how the ship works, but he doesn't pry when they refuse to answer. He'll just have to try and figure it out himself...

    When the eerie lights show up, Staren asks, "What are those?" Before anyone can give him a satisfactory answer, it seems, they /run aground/. Staren runs to the bow, watching warily for a long moment before deciding it's safe to investigate the damage... He sighs as he looks at the cracked wood. "Can you repair this? I imagine we'll want to be ready to make a hasty exit if we have to...

Dominic Masoch (655) has posed:
Dominic is here, mostly in the capacity of being a Freelance Syndicate Adventurer than any sort of personal tie to the world. He needs to pick up extra jobs to make ends meet around the apartment and keep him and Kyra from winding up homeless or some other terrible scenario.

The Fencer is wearing a loose-fitting leather jacket with a button-up shirt and some slacks. He has his rapier sheathed and is generally carrying it around by that sheath in one hand. There's a slight curiousity to his walk as he sticks about one of the offered ships rather than anyone else's. This means he's hanging out near-ish to the Captain's cabin.

"Is the fog supposed to be this thick?" He asks the Captain.

William Pauwel has posed:
    "Not much, I'm afraid," the captain answers as rope ladders unfurl from the foredeck. Sailors descend with spare planks and tar in hand, already getting to the slow work of repairing the speared hull. An anchor sloshes into the ocean somewhere nearby. "We've been avoiding this stretch of sea as much as we've been able. Only reason they picked me to captain this flotilla is that I've skirted the outer perimeter before."

    He's a salty, older man, with a fully bearded face and a smoking, puffing pipe. He takes a moment to add a sprinkle more tobacco into the bowl. "Never been this far in. Doubt there's been anyone who has. Frankly, I'm surprised we weren't blown out of the water on the way through, but that's my lucky stars, I suppose."

The Captain shrugs at Dominic's question, "Your guess is as good as mine, lad. It's as soupy as any fog I've seen."

    MEANWHILE, there's somebody else clambering down off the deck. A relatively younger man, with an oversized gun at his hip and a recently re-stitched hat on his head. He lands with a soft 'oof' and then... sort of sways from side to side a little bit. His face seems a bit green around the gills. "Hnk," Will groans, taking a few unsteady steps forward, "...Solid ground. Blessed be, I'm on solid ground."

M-maybe things'll stop swaying a bit, now.

Alexis Maaka (571) has posed:
    Great. Uncharted territory and mysterious nasties to kill, this is definitely a sign of things to come. Maaka wraps an arm around Kotone's shoulders, hugging her close the rest of the way to their destination. Once they get there, the cyborg's faceplate folds back into place and she leaps off the ship.

    She'll begin running scans to get a good grasp on their surroundings as she clambers down the ladder, already alert.

Mel Brock (941) has posed:
    Mel, as it so happens, lands next to Will. She stops to stare at him for a minute, before saying with an arched eyebrow. "You, uh. You maybe want a ride in the chaser on the way back? Lot less swaying and creaking to it." Poor guy. Still, it's hardly the place to stay concerned about that for long. The psychic reaches into her coat, coming out with a sleek, futuristic pistol of some sort, keeping it in her right hand. She's in alert mode already, taking a few steps away from the ship before stopping to wait for the others. She's willing to take the lead, but not without the rest of the group.

Gaonoir has posed:
Gaonoir just jumps down to the ground without bothering with the ropes. "Well we're not going to find any answers standing around asking questions. Let's find who or what sent those coordinates and get to the bottom of this." He doesn't go running off on his own, but Gaonoir has little trouble taking the lead. He's been trained as a scout and tracker, after all. Hopefully his canine senses won't be bothered too much by the fog.

Staren has posed:
    Staren nods. "And you came here anyway? We'll try to make you the first captain to survive doing so. Thanks for bringing us here." Alexis has the right idea -- Staren starts using ultrasonic scans to check the terrain, and scoops up some of the soil in his hand to look at, before remembering he's not a geologist so it won't mean anything to him anyway.

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone Yamakawa gets the inforamtion from the captain and does star to get a bit of a chill. "I see Captain still thank you for the information." She looks over to Alaexis as she feels he friends hug her she doesn't seem to minmd too much, She does follow Maaka of the ship quite quickly howeever pulling off a three point landing as she does so.

"Well here we go, lets's get the tac net online, shall we Alexis?"

William Pauwel has posed:
    Will sways in place just a little bit more. It looks like he's the very definition of a landlubber, having utterly failed at developing anything resembling sea legs. The rain isn't making matters much better, soaking him down to the root. He blinks as Mel offers a mercifully more stable ride home. "Oh, thank you. Yes, that--" he pauses, briefly looking as though he's about to lose his everything, but he manages to hold it in! "That'd... That'd be great, miss. Thanks."

    The Captain tips his hat once he delivers what scarce amount of information he has to give. Unfortunately, this place is as much a mystery to Meridian as it is to the rest of the world; such is the destiny of places like these.

    The island is nearly barren, save for a few patches of miscolored grass and strange, skeletal bushes. The lack of vegetation does nothing to make navigating the surface much easier. The ground below is rough and solid, an irregular mess of pockmarked terrain that seems to dip and rise without warning. With the rain and the fog, it's impossible to tell where solid ground ends and tidepools begin.

There's only one visible landmark on the island: those lights, glowing eerily in the distance.

Yuna Kagurazaka (385) has posed:
Normally, when Yuna is using the Fleet gear that Nagato coordinated for her, she's just in 'Kagurazaka' mode - a destroyer to start with, then promoted (or upgraded, whichever) to a light cruiser. And with a certain operation approaching, the chance - or excuse - to get some extra time in with her Fleet loadout was certainly something she wasn't going to turn her back on.

But given the situation, Yuna wanted to have her options open, and so the little robo-faerie Elner is flying along above Kagurazaka as the quasi-honorary shipgirl 'sails' alongside the main ship; Marina is coasting along next to her, while Jiina and Erina are (at present) staying out of people's way aboard the ship.

It says something about the state of things, meteorologically, that Elner doesn't detect the island in time to warn the captain (who knows his business in any case). Yuna *does* get warned in time, and the blonde coasts to a near-halt before the rocky surface comes up under her feet; she stumbles a little as she 'crosses' from sea to land, flailing a little to retain her balance. "Erf ... maybe we should come back when the weather's going to be sunny?" she calls out to her allies, only partly tongue-in-cheek. Her Fleet uniform is water-resistant, at least, but that doesn't mean her hair isn't getting soaked. She's not sure what this kind of downpour will do to her equipment, either - but it's not like her Light Suit is going to fare much better.

"The ship's crew probably would prefer to make sure their hull is watertight before going anywhere further," Elner points out, now hovering next to Yuna with no sign of minding the weather. "Although that would seem to be up to their captain. And this does seem like the place we should be for the investigation." The robo-faerie pauses briefly. "If you'd like, I can 'store' your weapons for now."

Yuna shakes her head slowly. "I kinda want to stay armed .... I don't like this place."

At least recon of the island shouldn't take long.

Gaonoir has posed:
Gaonoir stomps a foot on the ground a few times. "Watch your footing guys, this ground isn't going to give much. The rain will make things slick."

Actually, Gaonoir takes his own observation to heart, and in a brief surge of energy that might cause a bit of feedback in radios briefly shifts up to his larger quadroped form. Four legs, big claws for traction, more stability. Now let's get this exploration on with!

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone Yamakawa is looking about the island for a moment as she tries to get a lay for the land, she doesn't seem to like what she sees as she moves foward. Given the weather her drones will be usless so she doesn't even bother launching them as she presses forward but seems to be on edge.

Alexis Maaka (571) has posed:
    Maaka remains alert as she keeps her rifle shouldered and aimed. She nods to the captain before she heads off into the distance, motioning for Kotone to keep with her. The island's giving everyone the willies, even Maaka can just tell that much. It might be best to keep in groups.

William Pauwel has posed:
    The fog is like soup, seemingly draining all warmth from the bodies moving through it, the chill of the grave sinking to the bone. The approach is mostly uneventful, patches of loose stone and rain-slicked rock underfoot, but there's no threat of collapse. The mist brings its own menace however. Vision is limited, making progress treacherous. It's hard to tell if something is going to suddenly emerge from it's murky depths.

    But soon, those lights swim into sharper focus. The party has arrived, but the tension hasn't faded in the least. The light offered doesn't make the area seem safer at all. Rather, it seems to only highlight how hard it is to see, the multicolored lights blending together in the fog into an indistinguishiable haze, making the unknown starker, their ignorance of what lies beyond more obvious. The only merciful contrast in the fog are the monolithic shadows that rise out of the murk. Many emerge from the mist, stretching like fingers into the pounding rain, but only one stands out from the rest. The light catches on the hard edges of the geometry, leaving definition only in the slight absence of the glow. A building, perhaps, standing alone. There's nothing to do but to press on, ri-

    krshhkrshhkrshhh

    A noise from within. From nearby. Sound as well as light is muffled by the fog and the rain. Some kind of material scraping against metal. Doesn't sound like more metal, nor wood or plastic. Something else.

Mel Brock (941) has posed:
    As the group travels on, Mel briefly considers trying to push out the fog with her barriers. But there's too much of it. She's not sure she could keep it out even with a bubble. It might just slip through on the air. So she doesn't bother to expend the energy, and instead just pops her collar up around her neck for the little extra defense against cold, and maintains a simpler overhead barrier to protect the group from the rain. "Stick close. Smaller I have to make this, the easier."

    Then there's a noise from nearby. On immediate reflex, the marshal whips her pistol up and squeezes off a single shot. The projectile it fires is a streak of purple, a packet of psychic energy focused into a coherent bolt of kinetic 'push'. It's set to the low end of its 'lethal' output, but it's still nothing to sneeze at.

Gaonoir has posed:
The blend of fog and rain is terrible. Being more difficult to see in isn't a problem, but the moisture is messing with the sensativity of his nose as well. Dampness washes away the particulate of scent and leave little for it's fragmented follies to cling to. In many ways it's worse for the canid digimon, to Gaonoir the place SMELLS as barren and dismal as it looks.

Not to mention he's going to spend the rest of the night with wet dog odor.

All he really has to rely on is sound, and with the crunch of hard ground and the slopping of puddles from the rain backdropping their trek, even that isn't perfectly clear. Though it's not enough to keep Gaonoir from hearing the sound of something scraping against the grim terrain. Reflexively the bear-dog bares his teeth in a low snarl. "Something else is here, and that's not very reassuring..."

Staren has posed:
    Staren tries to navigate with nonvisual sensors. It's weird, but he can deal. "Hm?" he says to Mel, and then... as she fires, he raises his right arm, where the dual beam cannons are mounted on his armor. He doesn't fire, though, because he can't see a target, or even be sure it's hostile. "What is it? What do you sense?!" but she /is/ a psychic, after all -- so maybe she knows something he doesn't!

Alexis Maaka (571) has posed:
    It's hard to tell if the fog's effecting Maaka underneath her armor, but her skin underneath is crawling with anticipation. THe barrier is appreciated, and she nods to Mel as she begins to sweep the area. "What's up, Gao?" She asks the bear-dog-thing, wary about the answer already.

    Her sensors switch to thermal while she adjusts parabolic trackers, trying to get a fix on whatever might be waiting for them.

    She has a hunch it's something to do with whatever's making scraping noises from inside that structure ahead of them.

Yuna Kagurazaka (385) has posed:
There are worse smells than that of a wet dog; Yuna just copes with it as she's picking her way across the rock with the others. "Elner, are you getting anything on sensors?"

"There's some form of power source underground here," the robo-faerie states. "And it appears to be supplying power to the lights ahead of us ... but something is interfering with my sensors, I can't pick out a great amount of detail."

"Something interfering --" Yuna comes to a dead halt, her emotional state abruptly shifting from 'anxious' to 'intensely worried'. The fact that these coordinates coincide with the location on ANOTHER Earth where something horrible (almost) happened has been lurking in the back of her mind, and now comes roaring back to the forefront of her thoughts - it was, after all, one of the reasons why she volunteered for this investigation. "... Light Suit, please. I want the Matrix sticking close to my position, too."

"Understood," responds the robo-faerie, and Yuna's cruiser load-out disappears in a series of blinks of light before the Light Suit itself manifests, the transformation taking a couple of seconds longer than normal. "You're going to be in just the uniform when you revert," Elner adds. "I can't be certain of materializing your turrets and rigging accurately around your body, but I'll keep them until we get back to Hikari."

"I can work with that," Yuna says, starting to progress along with the others once again. She's already willed the Matrix Divider into her hands, too, and holds it at the ready, in rifle mode (for those who can tell the difference).

William Pauwel has posed:
-Mel-
    A streak of purple light lances out into the fog, sending roiling eddies spiralling out through the mist. A sharp crack of impact echoes back shortly thereafter, the rain only barely muffling the noise. And... Something else. A harsh hiss. A wet, ragged susurrus, like something being dragged rapidly against the stone. Something cold brushes against the nape of the neck, through the collar of your coat.

-Gaonoir-

There's something else in the air. Something other than rain and the persistent, metallic odor of the fog. It smells of the sea- not simply the scent OF the sea, but of the carcass of something that crawled out from it. It leads further on, into the depths and the murk.

-Maaka-

Movement.

    A quick, jagged line of movement near the ground, like an oversized lizard or vermin, but faster than such a thing has any right to be, shooting into the jagged geometry of that monolith. All else is motionless- all else is still.

Gaonoir has posed:
Why does everything that comes from the sea have to smell so terrible? Death from the sea doubly so. It's hard to tell if Gaonoir just snorts a little at Maaka's question, or actually sneezes slightly from the odorious oceanic assault on his nose. "Don't know, that's the part that worries me," is his eventual reply.

Nastiness to the nostrils aside, the shadowy beast keeps plodding in that direction. Because as foreboding as it is, a lead is still a lead. With every hair standing on end, to the point that his huskie tail has actually uncurled slightly. "This place makes the Dark Ocean feel like a vacation destination."

Mel Brock (941) has posed:
    Mel's tone is slightly dry. "I sense a sound. With my ears." She's not taking her eyes off the direction she opened fire. "But now I feel like there's something here. An intelligence. Didn't really notice it until I pulled the trigger, then it spiked. I'm not that strong a telepath. I can't really do 'passive sonar', if that makes any sense-" Something brushes against the marshal's neck, and her instant response is to whip around and produce a small 'burst' of upward force directly where someone would have to be standing to touch her neck like that. It's a trained reflex. When it pushes nothing but air, she'll stay still for a moment, before her eyes narrow slightly. "...alright. Careful people. If you know how to toughen your mind against outside influence, now might be a good time. I don't trust this."

    When she takes to the fore again, she's a little more slow and cautious in her pace.

    It's also worth noting that she's dropped the protective barrier overhead so as not to split her focus, so rain time is now.

Alexis Maaka (571) has posed:
    "You and me both." Maaka grunts, agreeing with Gaonoir's sentiment. She blinks, spotting something moving faster than anything in existence. She aims her gun at the monolith, and for the longest time so is she. "Movement. Saw something heading towards that big rock." She says after a long silence.

William Pauwel has posed:
    If there's anything he's thankful for today, it's Mel and the psychic umbrella she's opened up overhead. Will takes the opportunity to pluck his hat from his head to wring out the rainwater, but the moisture in the air makes it difficult to do much more than keep it from dripping across his face.

And then she shoots into the mist.

Will jumps in his boots when Mel's shot goes off, his own fingers wrapped tight around his handcannon. He raises his weapon, its barrel lights up like a blue-white torch, "Something there?" Then... the rain comes back, and his previous efforts are immediately rendered moot. "Crackers," he says through the rain, "What'd you go and do that for?"

-Staren-

    The world around you is a mess of white noise. Nonvisual sensors reach into the fog, their signals vanishing into the haze like most anything else-- save for one. Somewhere, deep underground, energy is flowing. A rhythmic, beating pulse.

One-two.

One-two.

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone Yamakawa is keeping with Makka, she does not want to get split up in a place like this. Her enhanced sense honsly make things worse here. She on edge now and wondeirng where her sanity was taking this job. Still there's just something rising out of the fog. She seems to be very uneasy at the sound she can't pin point it but doesn't like it she swears she's heard something like it before.

"Count me in as well Ganoir.... and ya we got a contact..."

William Pauwel has posed:
--The Monolith--

It rises from the earth, the only example of regular geometry in this rolling, jagged place. It has four walls and a flat roof, four corners at ninety degrees. The ground around it feels solid, flat, cyclopean. A single slab of stone raised several inches from the earth and the structure that emerges from it.

The only irregularity of its construction is a single open doorway that glows with an eerie light--

One that is rapidly revealed to be a set of dim, orange lamps. The fog clears somewhat as they enter the building, revealing its interior to be a uniform, jet-black material inlaid with sources of light that seem to be flush with the walls. Chalky debris litters the floor in irregular piles, stubbornly solid despite the moistness in the air. There is a staircase, slick with rain that does not seem to stick to its surface, but instead runs of down, down, down into the depths.

Light is visible from down below.

Do you proceed?

Mel Brock (941) has posed:
    "I went and did that, so I have the focus to keep us alive, if it comes to it," Mel replies to William, her tone now slightly tense. "I felt something touch the back of my neck, which I'm pretty sure was impossible. I don't know if we're dealing with a psi or what, but either way I don't want to be maintaining that barrier if we're suddenly in real trouble. Rather be wet and alive."

    When they reach the monolith, Mel does in fact proceed, staying slightly to one side to that people can shoot past her, and keeping her own sidearm up and ready to fire as they go.

Staren has posed:
    "That..." Staren's ears twitch under his helmet. That sound was... the sound of something alive. Or maybe not... undead, weird alien constructs... there are possibilities.

    Then his nose wrinkles, and he switches to internal air supply. He doesn't want distractions right now.

    Staren looks at Mel. "I get ya. So something's here, and it noticed when you took that shot." Staren shrugs at the command to toughen his mind. "Devices to do that are pretty special and expensive. I don't have one..."

    He stops. "...I've lost sensors. I can't see anything..." he cycles through the EM spectrum, but it probably won't help. "Just a power reading down below... I think something's spoofing my sensors. Elner, can you see anything?"

    Oh, Monolith. "...Does everybody see that?" seems they do. Staren hesitates before proceeding. He pokes and prods at the black substance, but he suspects messing with it is a bad idea. So instead, he takes a sample of the chalky debris for later analysis, before following Mel down the steps.

Alexis Maaka (571) has posed:
    Maaka only begins to move when she sees the fog clearing, revealing the Monolith in proper. Narrowing her eyes behind her mask, she begins to jog ahead towards the structure, only pausing to take in its size before she heads for the opening.

    Clearing the entrance with professional speed and grace, she makes her way down the stairway, covering her angles cautiously as she switches to night vision on the way down.

    She's very glad her boots do not slip easily, or this would be very precarious for her.

Gaonoir has posed:
"Is it just me," Gaonoir snorts to no one in particular, "Or does this place feel MORE creepy because of how consistant it's construction is?" Compared to the jagged blandness outside. At least there's some light in here. Not that he minds the dark. Light just means shadows, which means another thing at his disposal if the time comes. But for now it's just the occasional splashing of one of his paws in the water dribbling down the steps as they proceed.

"That's what you get for relying on technology to tell you everything," he snorts flatly at Staren complaining about sensors.

Yuna Kagurazaka (385) has posed:
Lamps. Plain, old-fashioned, electric-powered lamps. That's what had them wondering what was going on? Being able to SEE the lamps does nothing to settle Yuna's unease; she has an increasing desire to simply not be here, and in point of fact, there's only one thing that's stopping her - well, maybe two things.

The first is that she promised to assist with the expedition and investigation, and backing out now would be breaking her promise.
The other is that if she backed out and ran for more comfortable territory *now*, she'd be leaving a bunch of people behind.

Neither of those things would sit well with her. Yuna swallows her unease (almost literally), sucks in a breath (and kind of regrets it), and continues onwards. "Elner, if you're not already recording map data, start doing so, and echo that data to anyone in the group who can use it," she instructs the robo-faerie. "Also map the cords bringing power to those lamps, if there's a maze further down I want that to be our reference point. Jiina, Erina, Marina, you're on rear guard; if something happens, make sure we've got a dependable route back to the surface and to the ship."

The members of the Matrix of Light don't bother responding out loud; they just do as Yuna says, the three armored androids moving to flank the door, and then to follow the group down. Yuna proceeds through the door, and - if the interior of the 'monolith' happens to be unlit, and especially if it's dark up ahead (or down) - she takes a moment to focus her power into the Matrix Divider, making its barrel/blade begin to glow with a soft, green-gold-tinted luminescence.

THEN she starts down the stairs, placing her foot carefully with each step.

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone Yamakawa says "MAaka watch the monolith we don't know of anything on it might be safe to read." MEmories of Ainsley's home and Kingsmouth comes flooding back to the young Cyborg, and just how even things that should be harmless could be more dangerous than a bullet. She's very muych on edge now and she now moves to activate her optic Cameo and makes ready to creep on ahead.

<<Cloaking and moving on head ... I really don't like this.>>

"Heh, well then I'm in trouble my body is entirely made of technology..." With that Kotone seems to fade from view unless you pay /really/ close attention to where she was as she vets moving ahead and has more than this creeping feeling of dread.

William Pauwel has posed:
Y/N

    The black substance comprising the walls is as solid as polished stone, but the chalk is anything but. It crumbles, like half-fossilized bone as Staren gathers it, but enough remains intact for future examination.

    Will tilts his hat back as he enters the monolith, letting the moisture run anew down the backside of its rim. "Well," he sighs, "I can't argue much 'bout living. Better living than dead, eh?" He pauses as he glances about, dull recognition in his eyes, "...Ruin. What's one doing all the way out here?"

    --The Halls--

    The base of the stairs terminates into a narrow hallway. Much like the structure above, electricity flows through this place, illuminating the way forward with sterile, clinical, white light. The entire hall is cast in monochrome tones, the corridor is as black as the monolith above, but the floor glows with the same light that shines from the walls. There's enough illumination that it's actually much easier to /see/ down here.

There are four doors along the hall. It terminates at a fork ahead, splitting into two paths.

One door is slid open half-way, the room inside is pitch black. A noise echoes from inside. Rhythmic hammering, like someone pounding on steel with a club.

Gaonoir has posed:
Oh of course the place couldn't just proceed in one nice neat tunnel. What respectable dungeon would ever have one easy path. Nope, instead you've got forks ahead and doors off to the side.

One door that's not entirely closed. And pounding on the other side.

Gaonoir pauses, leaning a bit closer to the door to listen. Then squats closer to try and peer through what opening there is... Or maybe he's trying to gauge how wide the opening actually is.

Mel Brock (941) has posed:
    The light from Yuna's weapon is a help until they get adjusted, and Mel is quietly grateful for it. But the further in the get, the more worrying things become, until at last they've reached a place with multiple closed doors, one OPEN door, and a fork in the path.

    Mel's forward movement becomes cautious, keeping her pistol trained on the open door, and with a bit of effort, she begins sweeping the nearby area for minds other than the ones she came in with. "Careful," she urges Gaonoir. "Something lunges out at you..." The downside of her psychic sweep is that if she DOES find anything, it'll also feel /her/.

Yuna Kagurazaka (385) has posed:
Or, thinks Yuna, like a blacksmith hammering away on his work; she hasn't seen Lloyd exercising his father's trade that often, but she knows the basic principles of what it takes. The fact that the passageway has its own lighting is something of a relief, though, and she stops trying to use her weapon as a light source. "Elner, what are these walls made of ... ? This isn't native rock somehow, is it? Couldn't tell outside ..."

The robo-faerie pauses briefly before answering, "It appears to be ceramic ... nano-scale refraction, it would soak up and diffuse most forms of directed energy. Definitely not natural, and definitely not from here. The lights in the floor are part of the same power network as the lamps up above, though."

Yuna nods to the robo-faerie, then looks around at the others, and at the other doors. "Can you scan what's on the other side of the rest of these?" she asks Elner quietly, and Elner flies up to one of the closed doors to attempt a sensor scan of the room or passage or other chamber beyond ... it may not work if the doors are made of the same nano-diffusion material.

Alexis Maaka (571) has posed:
    Approaching one of the doorways, Maaka begins to open one up. She keeps her rifle at the ready as she slides it open, trying to see what's on the other end without blowing her cover from here.

William Pauwel has posed:
--Mel--

A telepathic pulse reaches out through the halls and corridors, like a submarine sending up pings in the hopes of finding prey. A shadow darts in her peripheral vision. Something is in the room. A chill worm slithers across her spine. Something is in the room.

A thousand eyes lock upon hers.

Something is in the room.

Something is in the halls.

--Yuna--

The door is almost impenetrable. Almost. There is nothing moving on the other side, there is just emptiness, stillness, and the hallmarks of a cluttered floor. A keypad unfolds from the wall as if it was always there.

Little lights flicker on, requesting a password.

Gaonoir

*Clang*

*Clang*

    The door is open. It's slid wide enough apart that the light from the hallway is able to stream through, illuminating the room within. Red marks streak the black walls and black floors. Trash is strewn haphazardly across the floor. There's someone in the room. Pounding over and over into the table in front of him with a thick, irregular club. Something spindly, lanky, jerks into the air with every rhythmic impact. As the light floods in, you can see: it's a hand.

There's something in the room.

*CLANG*

    Its club rests. The thing turns, jet black carapace covering a vaguely human form, splattered with long-dried viscera. Pale, clammy flesh hangs loosely from its shattered torso. It stares with a single murky eye, the other swallowed up by some kind of bulbous, calcified growth.

The creature groans and lifts its weapon, taking halting, unsteady steps towards the door.

William Pauwel has posed:
--Maaka--

A similar keypad unfolds from the nearby wall as you try the door. The interface is... similar. You've seen this before somewhere, not long ago.

Alexis Maaka (571) has posed:
    "I see something." Maaka slings her rifle before she begins to access the keypad, fiddling with the interface as she begins using her hack-fu. It's just like before, alright. Nothing to get really worried about.

    What spooks her is the idea of what's behind it.

Gaonoir has posed:
Gaonoir actively, visibly leers back from the gap in the doorway when the 'thing' inside turns around and it's visage is more noticable. "Holy Jesmon that is definately -not- normal!" And it's coming towards the door now. "I think it noticed you!" he yelps at Mel.

Instead of bothering to think about it, Gaonoir throughs his bear-like bulk against the door, trying to shove it all the way shut before that... that.. WHATEVER gets close enough to get out.

Yuna Kagurazaka (385) has posed:
Keypad, small screen, slot for a card that Yuna doesn't have ... and Gaonoir is warning them to be careful. Yuna immediately backs away from the door Elner was investigating, trying to get her back against a solid part of the wall (read: something that IS NOT IN ANY WAY a door) and levelling the Matrix Divider at the partly-open door, just in case anything comes tearing out of it before Mel and Gaonoir can get that door shut. The blonde quasi-paladin, sorta-magical-girl looks incredibly calm for how frightened she is at the moment ...

At least, if you don't pay too much attention to how the business end of her weapon is jittering up and down. At least it's not wavering far enough to point at any of her allies.

Mel Brock (941) has posed:
    Mel reaches out with her mind, and within seconds, withdraws it and shudders. "Yeah, no. No, no, /no/, not opening that can of worms." Something here is interfering with her telepathics. Something hostile. She can't trust anything she just felt. So instead, she draws back into her own mind, and hardens herself against external influences entirely. She won't be able to sense anything telepathically, but the tradeoff is that whatever's going on here will have a very, very tough time influencing her.

    Meanwhile, however, Gaonoir has found something. Something that is friendly neither to the eyes nor to continued living. She moves with swiftness, stepping to the side of Gaonoir so that she can get a good look in the room. Once she's got eyes on the thing? The psychic unloads a simple burst of force, intended to blast whatever-it-is back against the far wall with lethal impact, and then turns to latch her own telekinetic strength onto the door and help Gao haul it shut.

Staren has posed:
    "Is that a keypad? Is that even the right tech level for this world?" Staren asks as they need to put in... a passcode?

    At the something in the room, Staren raises his weapon again. "Halt right there! Who are you, and what are you doing here?" Okay, it's pretty creepy, covered in viscera and all, but... maybe it just lives here, and it messily eats animals? He's not naive enough to be sure of that... but he's also not naive enough to be 100% sure that just because it looks creepy, it's an evil monster.

    So he covers both angles, by keeping a weapon trained on it /and/ talking.

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone Yamakawa moved on ahead with eveyrone else she remained cloak but she was very on edge she does not lik the black substance she does not touch it. Memories of the flith well up in her mind and she does her best to supress said fear as she goes she doesn't make any attempt to strike out but there's a feeling that something is here and she's very much on edge she'll move to see what she can find with Maaka's call out and she'll move to help her.

<<You sure you want to open this?>>

William Pauwel has posed:
    Whatever creature is in that room, it seems to recognize Gaonoir's intent. Its shambling gait transforms into a desperate, ragged sprint. One hand, clad in black carapace, reaches out-- and is immediately thrown to the back of the room with a blast of psychic force. Stale air wheezes from its lungs as it's tossed back, slamming into the far wall. The door slams shut, a series of electric pops sealing the lock once more.

Hopefully that thing, whatever it is, doesn't have a key.

--Maaka--

    The security protocol sealing this room is lighter than the one she dealt with before. It gives way after a few moments' concentration, the door sliding away to reveal a cluttered chamber. What look to be inactive tablet computers are strewn across the floor alongside sheets of aged paper. A desk is ajar at one corner of the room, a toppled chair peeks half-way out from underneath it, as if someone tried to leap out of it very, very quickly.

...On one side of the room, there are two capsules. One has shattered, glass littering the floor around it. The other contains... a humanoid figure, clad in black armor, floating in a thick, viscous fluid. Its body is completely relaxed, as if asleep.

--Staren--

Will glances over and shrugs his shoulders slightly. "Keypads ain't that strange for a ruin," he says, thumbing towards the darkened room, "Neither're monsters. But... This place is weird. Normally the Guardians would've activated to chase us out by now."

Gaonoir has posed:
Gaonoir slouchs against the door once it's slid shut and starts locking. That was horrific to see, and he's seen some pretty nasty things in his time. But even most of the Demon Army don't approach... that... that was Dragomon, Deathmon levels of 'oh fuck no'. "I'm starting to think we should just bomb whatever this foul place is and be done with it."

Yuna Kagurazaka (385) has posed:
One door is closed, and another door is opened in spite of all the evidence that it probably shouldn't be.

Yuna closes her eyes tightly for a second or so, then moves to cover Maaka, ready to shoot past her into the room if necessary. The blonde isn't usually quite THIS jittery, though, is she ... ?

"Elner, do a scan on that tube's occupant, check for vital signs and see if it's alive, in hibernation of some kind, or what," she calls out quietly; the robo-faerie flits past her and Maaka, gliding into the room to scan the currently-closed capsule and the armored figure within it.

Mel Brock (941) has posed:
    Mel is breathing a little hard herself, but with the door closed she can relax a bit. "We should at least take a look further inside, first. Might be something in here we don't want to bomb. Or something that bombing just makes it worse."

    Will mentions something about a tube, however, and so Mel sweeps into the newly-opened room as well to take a look.

Alexis Maaka (571) has posed:
    For one thing, Maaka's actually glad to not have seen that THING in the other room. She does seem wary of the armored figure however, keeping her weapon trained on it while she motions toward the capsule. "Search it." She orders, but it seems Elner and Yuna are way ahead of her on that one.

    So for now, she just keeps a firm eye on the armored sleeper.

Staren has posed:
    "Hm. No response..." mutters Staren, after the creature is sealed away.

    Now there's another room! There are pods... and papers! "Well! /Something/ certainly was going on here... let's see what, shall we?" He starts with looking at the papers. The tablets might trigger some kind of alarm when turned on, for all he knows. But he does take one for later examination.

William Pauwel has posed:
Will is, strangely, looking a little more sure of himself now that he's actually in his element. Ruins are familiar territory, though few have been like this one. He slips into the room after Mel, and begins sifting through the material strewn across the floor, but frowns as he tries and fails to reactivate one of the data slates.

Maybe it's out of power, or something?

    The capsule certainly is not. A small datapad is built into a console adjacent to it. When approached, the terminal activates, producing a holographic display that leads into a menu screen.

A message flashes in bright, red text in one corner of the screen-- an alert:

EMERGENCY REBOOT
CONFIRM/DENY

    The armored figure itself seems to be, superficially, similar to the creature that was in the other room. But this one's armor is intact. It lacks the bulbous growth that had encroached across the monster's face- something that would be entirely too large for the helmet that this figure wears. There's also definite signs of life-- even through the electronic haze surrounding the facility, the light buzzing of a halfway active central nervous system, and the slow, rhythmic beating of a heart. In many ways, this thing resembles a coma victim, but...

Encased in black armor.

With a pair of bright, red zeroes emblazoned across one side of its breastplate.

    The rest of the room is full of all manner of documentation. Mostly scientific jargon, but some sheets appear to describe military operations. At least one refers to an underground drydock that is, by all indications, several more floors down.

Gaonoir has posed:
There's enough people already poking around the room so Gaonoir remains outside, essentially standing guard. His bulk would of just gotten in the way of the people trying to actually search through the mess anyways. Besides, this way he can keep an eye on the fork in the passage and make sure nothing comes up to mess with the people investigating. Guard dog!... If your dog was as big as a cave bear.

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone Yamakawa is very much on edge, ehck Kotone is very much on edge here as sh pushes to follow up Maaka's order. She doe snot like this. She looks about she'll move to grab some of the tablet siwth her matter maniplator almosty against hee better judgment. She looks at the tube and doesn't seem to like this at all. She However is doing her best to search what she can as she moves over to the capsule to check it over. Kotone also turns off her wireless systems while she's thinking about it now.

"I'm not sure this is going to be a good idea to wake whoever or what ever this thing or person is up..."

Staren has posed:
    "Some kinda military experiment... a bioweapon, perhaps? And something about a drydock..." He turns to look at Will. "Does this make sense to you, or is it a surprise? Woah, be careful! We don't know what kind of security might be activated by either of those options!"

Mel Brock (941) has posed:
    Mel takes a look at the console, then says simply, "I'm pretty sure telling this thing 'yes, please reboot' or 'no, don't do that' isn't going to cause some kind of core meltdown, and if there was going to be a security alarm, we'd have set it off by now. I say we reboot it. Best case, it starts purging all the fucked-up mutants that might be around here. Worst case, it comes after us, and then I hit it with a hundred tons of force over and over until it stops moving." Well, at least she's already making contingency plans for the worst-case scenario, right?

William Pauwel has posed:
--Staren--

    Among the many scattered sheets appears to be fragments of what was almost assuredly a scientific publication in the making. There's a sheet of references, pointing to a whole host of unfamiliar scientific studies on various sea creatures and the environmental conditions of deep-sea thermal vents. Curiously, several of the references mention investigation into various species of fungi.

Reading into the draft itself reveals that the authors were researching some variety of undersea life; a form of coral that they discovered in the deep-sea that had a number of similarities to a number of parasitic fungal species.

Yuna Kagurazaka (385) has posed:
Elner reports out loud as well as on the radio: "Some manner of stasis or biosupport pod; its occupant looks to be a cyborg of some kind, a biologically entity integrated with the 'armor' that we can see. I can confirm heartbeat and low-level brain activity, at levels which would corroborate with a 'standby' mode or some manner of suspended animation ... or a comatose state, but I suspect that enabling the emergency reboot would activate it."

Yuna shakes her head slightly. She's not sure if she wants to wake the figure up or not, and that uncertainty is likely all too plain on her face. "The reboot might give us a chance to supersede whatever authorizations are already in place for it," she speculates, "but if we don't get that chance ... Elner, does it have any internal weaponry, or would its offensive options be limited to physically punching and kicking until it gets to an armory?"

Staren has posed:
    "Or," Staren counters, "maybe alarms didn't activate because of this prompt, or whatever situation made it come up... in any case, if you're hoping to exploit the security clearance of the logged-in session, then you /don't/ want to reboot yet. If it reboots, /then/ we'll be asked for a password. Although, in any well-programmed system, we'll be asked after a session's been idle who knows how long anyway..." Staren looks over the papers. "They were studying some kind of coral, or there's some mention of a fungus? It produced and responded to electronic signals... perhaps they found some kind of biocomputer?" Staren looks around. "But where are /they/? How long has this place been like this? Hey, what's the current local date on this world?" Staren compares it to the dates on the papers.

William Pauwel has posed:
"Aw, it's fine," Will grins in Staren's direction. He seems to have whipped out what looks like a hand-crank generator and a pair of jumper wires. "All I need to do is fastboot this thing and--"

He inclines his head a bit, then shrugs, "Don't look at me. But the drydock'd explain what's with all the boats, I think. You can't never tell with the ancients. Thousands of years of sittin' around and we still don't know what most've their buildin's were for."

Indeed, the dates on the papers... Don't even seem to have the same /year-type/ as what Staren might have seen of this world's calendar system.

    Elner's scans penetrate the humanoid's armor easily enough. It possesses a number of internal weapons, but those seem limited to simple laser-based side-arms and what appears to be a pair of plasma blades built into each of its wrists. All of which appear to be, presently, inactive, though that may be tied to its state of hibernation.

    Will stares up at the figure in the tube, his brow furrowing a bit. "If this is what I think it might be," he says, dusting his legs off a bit, "Then... I'm not sure. There are only rumors, but... Even if it is an enemy, y'all've got enough guns to put it down, right? Kinda hope it's a friendly face, myself."

Mel Brock (941) has posed:
    Mel just sort of stares at Staren for a second. "Security systems that can be completely stalled throughout an entire facility by a reboot prompt on a stasis pod of some kind? If they're 'good programmers' that wouldn't be happening to begin with." She shakes her head, then turns to regard Will. "What exactly do you think it is? I'm still in favor of of the reboot, but if you've got some info, we probably oughta hear it first."

Gaonoir has posed:
Gaonoir turns his attention partially to the room after hearing the mention of drydocks. A term he knows very well now, if only for the amount of time he's recently spent with Nagato and her fleet. "Drydock? That... would explain why an SOS would point here, if that... thing with the ship was made here or something." Because drydocks are use to build or repair ships.

Staren has posed:
    Staren gives Will a thumbs-up and a nod when he shows that he knows how to hack the local computers.

    He looks back at the papers. "This was made by people you call 'the ancients' and it's still running? I wonder what they used for power systems..." He looks back to Will. "What're these rumors you've heard?"

Alexis Maaka (571) has posed:
    Maaka doesn't back away from the sleeping figure, but she does train her weapon on it just in case it begins to turn on. "Any ideas why it's just lying here?" She asks Elner, before she looks to William.

    "What are you talking about, mate? What's this about rumors?"

William Pauwel has posed:
    "Well," Will brightens a little, though his expression is still more than a bit pale. "We know the ancients were into makin' new kinds of people. There're the Greavers, which s'far as we can tell, they used for soldier-types. Then there're Tenders, that they used for engineers and things like that. Anyway, back when, a bunch of 'em were active and all of our ancestors basically ended up helpin' each other rebuild after the Calamity. Rumors say that you can still find some of the ones that were sleepin' in really remote ruins, though, so... maybe this is one of them? Don't reckon I know what kind this one is, but if it was made by the Ancients and if it was in a lab instead of a barracks, then s' probably used to bein' around people at least."

He nods to Staren, then. "Yeah. You should've seen the last place. That place had this HUGE Guardian like you wouldn't even believe. We've been tryin' to work out how they made their stuff run, but, well... It's kind of hard t' figure out, you know? Not exactly easy, anyway."

Staren has posed:
    Staren nods, stuffing the papers he's holding in his bag and turning to face the pod. "Well then. Why don't we go ahead and ask?" he waves a hand at the still figure.

Alexis Maaka (571) has posed:
    Maaka frowns beneath her mask, "Like the cyborgs back home. Great." She swiftly grabs Staren's hand and shoots him a glare, though it being behind his helmet is a bit goofy despite her staring at him with daggers. "Don't. Touch. It. We have no idea if it'd be hostile or not, and I'm not keen on taking that chance."

Gaonoir has posed:
"So they... made new entities as tools and weapons."

For some reason even Gaonoir's tone wavers at that. Like someone struck a little too close to home, but he's quick to shrug it off and resume his usual indifference to the matters. This was a scouting mission for the Fleet. Personal... peculiarities don't matter right now."

Mel Brock (941) has posed:
    The longcoat-clad marshal smoothly steps around Alex, with a simple declaration of, "If it turns out this thing's hostile, you have my permission to flee for your lives while I heroically sacrifice myself to buy time or something. Or maybe just help me kill it, I'm not picky." Without further ceremony, she reaches out and hits 'reboot'.

William Pauwel has posed:
    "Well, sure," Will says to Gaonoir, "But these days, Tenders and Greavers and Humans're all doin' what they want to do." He grins, moving towards the capsule. "We'd all be dead if'n we weren't there to help each other out. I won't say we're all friends all the time, but still!" Will glances over towards the others and shrugs, "So I'm of the mind to give this feller a chance, at least."

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone Yamakawa sys "Hey what can we do we should wake them up, we do have enough firepower to deal with them if they are hostile. Otherwise I can't relaly leave someone in a pit like this. Who knows how long they hve been left to rot here, right? I'm uneasy but ... I can't leave someone behind."

She watche as Mel Hits reboot and she now waits to see what happens.

Yuna Kagurazaka (385) has posed:
"Wait, so that thing was bio-engineered? And the monster in the other room, and the guardians you've seen in other ruins ... ?"

Yuna looks and sounds even MORE uneasy now. "Elner, did you get enough data on the thing in the hammering room to do a biosignature comparison with the cyborg here?" she asks the robo-faerie, hoping an answer can be elicited before anyone gets around to initiating that emergency reboot -

Wait, Mel just did that.

Yuna tries not to whimper in dismay, but the conscious effort in not continuing to point the Matrix Divider at the pod takes up too much of a mental effort to stay silent. She looks and sounds distinctly unhappy, though, and may be making sure she's got a clear lane to the door ...

Alexis Maaka (571) has posed:
    "Tch." Alexis seems more insulted at the idea of her being so scared she'd run than anything else, but she does remain alert as Mel hits the button.

    "Don't get angry if I say it, just asking beforehand." She asides dryly, before the reboot is begun.

William Pauwel has posed:
EMERGENCY REBOOT
CONFIRM/DENY

Mel pushes the big red button. A low whine begins building in the room as long-dormant machines spool steadily back to life. The capsule seems to light up as a set of panels at its base activate, sending a series of electric pulses up through the viscous fluid.

The holographic screen's readout shifts abruptly, the alert falling away in favor of a small, glowing textbox.

                           --SECURITY UNIT 0012--                          
                           --TYPE - HOMONCULUS--                            
                          --DESIGNATION - CHIEF--                          
                                --STANDBY--                                

    The figure inside the capsule seems to jolt, tension returning to its limbs and neck. A pair of solid, white lights flash to life in the hollows of its eyes. Slowly, the fluid drains from the capsule, allowing the so-called 'security unit's' armored heels to touch the ground. Drop by drop, the fluid flows away, until at last, it drains away completely.

                                 **ACTIVE**                                

    With a hiss, the capsule sinks into the floor. 'Chief' remains motionless until the glass pulls away entirely, at which point its head inclines down toward the group assembled in front of it. It turns to stare at the scattered documentation and the broken tube next to it, and then it says, "My internal clock is malfunctioning. I was only supposed to be in maintenance for a month. It has been..."

A pause.

It looks again towards the group, white eyes seeming to tighten slightly, "Thousands of years. What has happened here?"

Mel Brock (941) has posed:
    Mel takes a step or so back once she's hit the button, and lifts up one hand; despite her bravado, she's taking precautions, which is to say she's dividing the room in half with a full-strength barrier, putting enough power into it that people can visually see some very faint, occasional purple shimmers, like the reflection of light off water except lasting just fractions of a second. It's the same color as the 'energy' shot she fired earlier.

    But there's no need for that, it turns out. So she lets the barrier fade, her shoulders visibly relaxing. "Uh... to be honest, not really sure. This guy here," she nods to Will, "Is from your world. All the rest of us are basically from another dimension entirely. Long story. I had to guess, though? Some kind of complete collapse of civilization, and this place was forgotten. Don't think anyone's been here in a long, long time."

Yuna Kagurazaka (385) has posed:
Yuna relaxes slowly once it becomes clear that 'Chief' isn't going to go on the attack; apparently Chief is just as curious as the explorers are.

Hopefully this is the start of a fruitful friendship.

Staren has posed:
    Staren quirks an eyebrow at Alexis. He just gestured at it, other people are doing the touching.

    He watches the procedure curiously. "Interesting how their ancient language isn't lost to the translation effect... is it what most people still speak, here?" he comments as he waits.

    And then... a living being! From the time of the ancients!

    And it doesn't know what's going on either. "Aww, nuts. We were hoping you could tell us. Well, that tells us something... Whatever happened here, they didn't see it coming for more than a month, and it happened suddenly enough that they left people behind. And it was thousands of years ago..."

Alexis Maaka (571) has posed:
    'Chief' revives, and Maaka remains with a rifle pointed at his head. It's not the best first-impression, but in her defense it was a mysterious sleeping super-soldier intended for warfare. There's always a chance it could flip the hell out and kill everyone for ANY reason.

    But then Chief does not attack. There is no screaming rage in the cyborg, just questions. Maaka is almost confused before she lowers the rifle and begins to speak. "Uhhh...hi. Sorry about the gun, thought this was gonna get really bloody really fast is all."

    She slings the weapon, then pops her mask to reveal gold eyes, an attractive if boyish and sculpted face, and blood-red hair and brows. "We're still working on figuring that out, by the by. You're the only thing alive beyond some sort of monster thing on the other end of another door." She says, then cants her head to the capsule. "Any chance you can explain what that thing is, while we're here?"

Gaonoir has posed:
Gaonoir only untenses slightly when the figure from the tube doesn't turn immeadiately hostile. That doesn't make him any less edgy about the -rest- of this place. But maybe this one will have some answers if it's not going to just try and kill them all.

William Pauwel has posed:
LAST TIME ON CODE CHASER

The party arrived at their destination, only to find that it was shrouded in the very same fog that had surrounded the mysterious Black Ship. As their investigation continued, they discovered a way into the facility, and discovered it was exactly as sinister as one might expect from the outside, including the presence of some manner of horrifying /thing/ lurking within.

They also found something else entirely. A living relic of a long-lost age, sealed within a stasis capsule to sleep away the centuries.

And then they woke it up.

    After a few minutes spent catching their collective breaths, and giving the cybernetic soldier named 'Chief' a short rundown of his situation, we rejoin the group in the abandoned laboratory workspace. Will, their local native guide, seems to have run out of answers to give the cyborg, who is even now busily trying to reactivate one of the many data slates.

The question is now: What actually HAPPENED here, and what is there to be done about it?

Alexis Maaka (571) has posed:
    Maaka is currently a bit antsy sitting around here, covering the door with her rifle at the ready. "I hate to interrupt the meet-and-greet, but we /do/ need to get going before that /thing/ the others mentioned before finds us. That is if it busts the door down, or something else doesn't find us first." She says, motioning for Chief to join her in securing the exit way. If he's a soldier, then he ought to be able to keep up with her just fine in squad-tactics.

    She opens the door, being the first person to go outside when she begins sweeping through the hallway towards another door...

Gaonoir has posed:
There's not much for him to do with the tech junk lying around the room now that they're certain 'Chief' isn't going to flip out on them for the time being, so Gaonoir follows Alexis back out into the hallway. "It's been quiet out here.... Too quiet. Quiet is -not- a good thing in places like this." When the giant bear-wolf is wigged out by the creep factor, you know it's not something you want to take lightly.

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone Yamakawa looked Chief over and seemed to be relaxe tht he didn't have what was in here. Kotone meanwhile is now going over the dataslates she had she's got a jack able pulled out of her net and if is trying to make use of a uniteral adaptor even if it lets her physical connect there's nothing certain about her being able to work with the OS here.

"I'm still working on the data here Chief's got the right idea we need to find out what happened here."

Staren has posed:
    "So what /was/ this place doing, when you went in for maintenance? That might give us /some/ clue..." Staren asks, watching over Chief's shoulder to learn about the local technology.

Mel Brock (941) has posed:
    "Personally, I prefer the quiet," Mel says idly, taking a step out the door herself. "Means we can hear the nasties coming." From the hallway, she can at least keep an eye open for hostiles. And as long as she stays near the door, she can also hear whatever the Chief has to say. "I'd also like to put a vote in favor of not rushing. We came here to figure out what's making all those ships disappear. We figure out what's going on, we might be able to stop it."

Yuna Kagurazaka (385) has posed:
Now that she's less panicky (overall), Yuna doesn't mind being at or near the party's vanguard. "So, two doors left we haven't investigated ... Chief, how well do you remember the layout of the facility?" Mel mentions their main purpose in investigating the island (and its ruins), and Yuna nods to her before looking inquisitively at Chief.

A name that you can pronounce does a lot to make something (or somebody) less inherently frightening.

William Pauwel has posed:
    Unfortunately, years of disuse and disconnection from anything resembling an actual power supply has rendered the dataslates in the room inactive. Chief attempts to boot one by force with a cable of his own, but the result is a cascade of operating system failures and other system errors. There might be data on these slates, but it'll take more than just booting them back up to view their contents.

    "I agree," the cyborg answers, a handheld weapon unfolding from a compartment on his hip. "The sooner we determine the cause of this anomaly, the sooner this facility can return to full operational status." He nods towards Maaka and takes a position in the corridor, his sidearm leveled at the distant fork in the path. "The central control room is further in," he says, nodding towards the fork in the road, "These facilities are all laboratories and maintenance chambers. If any of my siblings are still in stasis, it may be worth waking them as well."

    With two rooms down, the remaining doors appear to have the same type of locking mechanism as the others. Alexis is old hat at dealing with these electronic locks. The security protocols fall quickly to her probes.

    The first room is much like the last, full of scattered research journals and... Another set of tubes. These contain what look to be preserved bodies of sea-creatures; a squid, a crab of some sort. Many have been smashed open. Hunched over the desk is the dessicated remains of a skeleton, its bones slowly disintigrating under the weight of the centuries. It's still wearing what's left of a labcoat. A book is tucked under one skeletal hand.

The other room seems to have been laboratory storage. Will immediately lights up when he sees it, and, once he's sure nothing is going to jump out and kill him, rushes inside to start picking through lockers and cabinets.

Alexis Maaka (571) has posed:
    Maaka and Chief sweep the area professionally enough, and the cyborgs continue towards the remaining door. She begins to hack the panel like before and before, letting Chief and others watch her back before getting it open. "And open sesame. Everyone in." She says, heading on inside once she fells the security.

    She cocks an eyebrow at the jars, her face still exposed as she inspects the testing subjects kept in storage. "What in the hell were they doing here...?" She asks Chief, visibly disturbed. Labs always have gotten her on edge, for some reason.

    She'll follow Will into the storage room, swapping to her Kama and going for watching his back now, trailing the pistol around in case there's some loose specimen running amok in here.

Staren has posed:
    Staren grumbles when reactivating the data slates goes from a simple problem to a complex one. Guess they'll have to do that later...

    "Were these here before?" Staren asks of the sea creatures... and then the man studying them. "Oh. Well, I guess that means whatever it was killed him right then and there...."

Mel Brock (941) has posed:
    "I don't know if that's gonna be an option," Mel says to Chief, falling in behind him with her own sidearm ready. "Whoever was running this place, they're all long dead. Your entire civilization's gone, man. Even if you somehow got this place working again, there's no one to run the experiments, give you orders." She grimaces a little at the first room, then reaches out telekinetically to retrieve the skeleton's book from the hallway. Then, she quietly moves on. "I don't know if you have anything like empathy, but if you do, I'd really like to invite you to worry about the people that /are/ alive today."

Yuna Kagurazaka (385) has posed:
Yuna hesitantly makes her way closer to the skeleton. "Elner, take a look ... any damage to the bones that might indicate what killed this guy?"

The robo-faerie, who apparently doesn't share Yuna's skittishness around dead things, flits over for a closer look (and a detailed scan of the remains). It's not like Elner can do a full-on autopsy or anything, but if there are holes or breaks in any of the remaining bones or body mass - you know, *really obvious* evidence of major physical trauma - then it might be possible to get an idea of what happened to the probably-researcher. For bonus points, Elner also scans the marine-biology specimens, just to see if ANY of them are still viable, no matter what state their capsule is in.

Gaonoir has posed:
Gaonoir holds one gloved paw over his nose for a moment as the door is opened and the smell of decay assaults it. Sometimes it sucks having such strong olfactory senses! He does quickly get over it though, hunching down to take a closer room inside the room. Once he's gotten over the smell he takes a look at the dead body and something catchs his eyes. He reachs over with his animate tendril-like scarves to move the corpse arm with disrupting the crumbling body as little as possible... but then Mel plucks the actual book away after he's uncovered it. "Maybe one of you should take a look at that. It is one of those things you humans used to store data before computers, right?"

William Pauwel has posed:
    "We were security. It wasn't our place to know about the masters' work," Chief answers Maaka, though he seems visibly hesitant to enter the laboratory. It grimaces slightly as his new companions rob a corpse, but... "It is our purpose to protect this facility. Unlike the masters, we were born with purpose. I must still try to fulfill it," he continues, glancing over towards the storage room.

    The creatures in the stasis pods appear to still be alive in some capacity. But they also seem to be... contaminated by something. There is other biomatter within the bodies of the suspended animals, but its activity seems to be suspended as well.

    It's difficult to say exactly what killed the man at the table. His bones are old- centuries old. There's no tissue left to say exactly how he died, but... There appears to be some kind of growth on various parts of his body; subtle, stoney ridges on his long bones... and on the inside of his skull.

William Pauwel has posed:
    The tome comes away from the body well enough. There appears to have been a lock on it at some point, but it's long since fallen into ruin. The book's pages are yellowed and the text is faded in parts, it will take a bit of page-flipping to actually reach a passage readable in its entirety.

    Meanwhile, Will appears to have found something! He's practically giddy as he hauls a box out of a locker and squats on the floor to pick through its contents: A thing that looks like the handle of a screwdriver attached itself to a portable stereo speaker. A handheld, cestus-like device with a slot for inserting some manner of power cell, and a whole bunch of other technology.

And then... Movement.

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone Yamakawa says "Here we go again then?"

Kotne comments and she looks to her fellow cyborg and humms for a moment.

"Hopefully but what was it making given what happened to your comerad I'm coenred but we do need to head in. Right so long as they haven't been tainted by whatever it was that got your other sibling. Also if they are locked down we might be abloe to help them."

With that Kotone heads out and she's earching and she pauses at the monsters and other things. She paues to get a look at the boopk if no one will stop her.

"Getting it back online should reboot contaiment systems if there are any of them right? Born with purpose? That's something most of us don't have ... Chief."

But if she can't get a look at the book she'll look around otherwise.

Staren has posed:
    "So what does your purpose mean now, anyway?" Staren eagerly looks at the book -- while they search for a legible section, his visual feed of the illegible pages is sent to his support AI for trying various image enhancement algorithms to see if more details can be teased out of them.

Gaonoir has posed:
Gaonoir has little interest in the dead body once the book is free and plods back out into the hallway. His purpose here was much like the Chief's once was, protect. What the other people do with what they find, not his issue to worry about.

Movement on the other hand...

The Digimon lifts his head, ears perking up to the point they're not half-flopped any more. "Chief, I think it might be a good idea to show us were the command center is and get things powered back up before we get ourselves into worse trouble exploring."

Alexis Maaka (571) has posed:
    Maaka frowns. This is exactly the kind of detail she did before doing field ops, just handling security for countless lab coats while they did R&D for cyborgs made just like she was. IT gives her the willies, as she thinks back to unfeeling scientists constantly tinkering with the heads of countless cyborgs made like her, or even just personnel who exhibited 'atypical behavior unacceptable to the company's interests', as they would put it.

    Fuck that. Fuck all of this shit with a nuke.

    She whirls around when she hears something moving very fast, pistol raised. "Will. Possible contact." She whispers, icy as she lets the young man handle the gear.

William Pauwel has posed:
    "My purpose means finding out what happened to the facility," Chief answers without hesitation. His weapon clicks once, then twice as he checks, and then replaces its power cell. "If the staff is still alive in stasis, I wake them up. That one was awake and... deceased is... Disconcerting--"

In the storage room!

    "Huh?" Will blinks, "Contact, where--" A stack of boxes tumbles down as /something/ surges out from the dark corners at the back of the room. Will looks up too late as it leaps at his face, sending him sprawling back, his arms suddenly occupied with wrestling what appears to look like the unholy fusion of a horseshoe crab and sea slug. "Augh!" He goes down with a shout as the thing writhes in his hands, tendrils bursting from its chitinous shell to lash at his arms with fire-red fronds.

It has a tail tipped with barbs, snapping from side to side like a coiled serpent.

Mel Brock (941) has posed:
    Mel gives Gaonoir a faint nod. "I'll see what I can find." She's very gentle about turning the pages; using her actual hands rather than her decidedly less-gentle telekinesis. However, aside from a brief side-eye at Staren for reading over her shoulder, she does have words for Chief still. "I can respect your dedication to duty, Chief. But I've got mine too. You're obligated to this facility, I'm obligated to innocent life. If we help you secure the place, are you willing to let us switch off whatever's causing ships to disappear? We can get in touch with modern authority and have them mark this place as no-sail waters." 'People are dying out there' is probably not going to have an effect on the artificial soldier at this point, but 'you help us and we'll help you' stands a better chance.

    Especially with FREAKISH CREATURES LEAPING AT THEM HOLY SHIT. Mel's sidearm is up immediately, but she's still out in the hall and doesn't have anything close to a clean shot at the thing in Will's hands. "Shit-!"

Alexis Maaka (571) has posed:
    "Hold still!" Maaka struggles with WIll, as well as the Hellish Horseshoe Crab. She draws her Prog-Knife from the last mission in this world, the blade humming with a high-pitched whine. Trying to slice at the creature, Maaka is careful not to accidentally slice Will in the process, but that means she can't exactly do this as easily as she'd like.

William Pauwel has posed:
--Staren--
    The journal. Bound in simple leather with lined paper, damp and exposure has claimed several pages. However, several entries remain legible.

Fal. 24

The live subjects are showing notable changes in physiology and behaviour. The fish now swim in their tanks in perfect synchrony, even between different species. There are points where the coral has sprouted from within, piercing scales and even emerging from eyes, and yet they show no signs of distress. Remarkable.

Mer. 2

Up until now, live subjects of lesser intellect seemed to go into some kind of hibernation upon being treated with the coral. They did not move in the slightest, and showed little response to external stimuli. In addition, their vitals dropped to the point that our equipment mistook them for dead. I took a slug from the water to examine closely, and it suddenly sprang to life. Utilizing the barbs typically used for reproduction, it attempted to jab me through my protective gloves.

It failed. I'm sure of it.

Mer. 25

My hand is now almost totally purple as the coral spreads. Like on other species, it seems to be sprouting from my bones and marrow, causing heavy internal bleeding. And yet, I feel little pain. Does it secrete numbing agents as part of its spread, or has it already reached my skull to halt any pain transmissions?

Arn. 14

I have noticed a skin protrusion on my head from within. There is now doubt now that my skull is compromised. My entire arm now shows symptoms of infection, and at times when I am not actively minding it, it moves with a life of its own. Still no pain, in spite of the blackness of my fingers.

Mag 2

My skin tore today, allowing a spiral of coral to emerge. No pain. Also no obvious increase in heart rate. The coral's doing? I hear whispers occasionally, but station microphones pick up nothing. It's in my head.

Mag 14

I can't permit this to continue any longer. I awoke last night in the security room. I was moments away from releasing the containment locks on the primary quarantine chamber. I've directed the computer to synthesize a tablet of stabilized hydrogen cyanide. It'll be ready tomorrow. I hope only that I don't do something I'll regret before then.

Mag 15

If not today, never. Should someone ever read this, run. Seal this place. Destroy it in a fell swoop if it is in your power. Even better, boil the surrounding sea. This... filth cannot be allowed to spread. I'm so sorry. Goodbye.

Gaonoir has posed:
Gaonoir turns back to the doorway at the shout from Will inside... Well, now we know what got out of one of those tubes?

A lot of people are already rushing to Will's aid so Gaonoir keeps back by the doorway. Instead he extends those scarfs into the room so he can grab the thing if need be, while using his size to obstruct the doorway so it can't get out. Or more can't get in. At this juncture, he's not taking any chances either way.

William Pauwel has posed:
    "Kind of... Tough!" Will growls as the thing in his (mercifully, gloved) hands snaps and strikes at him. As soon as Maaka starts attacking it, the creature diverts its attention-- but too late to do much of anything as the progressive blade begins cutting into back, spraying the nearby floor with a jet of vibrant, violet blood.

Will throws the thing aside and immediately starts scooting backwards out of the room, "W-what the crackers was that--" He has little time to ask as more and more of the creatures begin skittering out from underneath the pile of toppled boxes, emerging from... a torn ventilation duct. "Augh!" Will yells, his gun suddenly in his hand. Bolts of hot plasma streak into the room, but only vaporize one or two at a time, and there are so many. "Situation! We've got a situation!"

    Chief steps over the prone youth, his own weapon burning with hateful, red light. A lance of crimson heat blazes out from the sidearm's aperture, not so much /shooting/ as /cutting/ into the floor, and the swarm. But there are still more. "My purpose," he growls, "Is to verify whether the other members of staff are still alive. Or, barring that, to evacuate remaining security forces."

    "This place is not just a lab," he says, melting through another crab, "It was a naval facility. The control program for the automated drones is still centered at this facility. If the main computer goes offline, then they switch to autonomous action. They will then default to standard wartime operations."

"I do not think," he grunts, "That you necessarily want that to happen."

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone Yamakawa is about to say more but well there's the chaos coming from the storage room. She drops what' she's going as she moves to try and go see what's going on but this is only making it worse for her. She sees Alexis is already working on it, ahd she's got her weapons out bot buyt she's not going to move onwards. However it seem to be settled, she pauses for a moment at Staren.

"So eva anyone not tainted and burn the rest of this...God it's like the damn Flith...If we can get to central control I should be able to get the computer back online, I might be able to issue them new orders or evne use them to aid us against these things. Cheif? What's your thought son this, I preusme you'd want command of the hardware in the end?"

Alexis Maaka (571) has posed:
    Maaka goes from knife to gun again, and her Kama fires off several shots as the cyborg tries to nail more of the crab monster things. She's smart enough to avoid the blood, but otherwise she keeps her distance while covering WIll. "Get outta here!" She yells, before ushering Will out of the room personally before they both get overrun by these things.

    "We really do not wanna find that out." She concurs with Chief, before going back to trying to pop these creatures with accurate, fast shooting.

Gaonoir has posed:
Gaonoir moves a bit so people can get out the doorway. "Then I suggest we find out, quickly, and get the null out of this place." His scarves snap back to his sides as his eyes turn eerierly dark. The shadows around the room seem to ripple of their own accord again...

Which isn't entirely inaccurate as multiple dark tendrils whip out of the darkness, under the manipulation of his Shadowplay ability, to grab onto monstrousities and drag them away from others. Also hold them down for others to shoot. Gaonoir is playing it safe and using his powers over something nonbiological to keep the infectionous things down. "Get out of the room and shut the door. My manipulation won't break until I don't have visual access to the shadows."

Staren has posed:
    Staren reads over Mel's shoulder.

    "Hmmmm."

    "Hmmmmmmmmmmmm."

    "Ugh." Staren rolls his eyes at one of the entries.

    Staren nods slightly to himself. "Good man... writing this down for us... sorry we couldn't save you."

    Then he sighs when the guy goes for slow suicide, potentially giving the thing time. "Seriously, dude?" He steps away, and claps his hands to get attention. "The coral takes everything it infects over, it's some kind of hivemind." Staren looks to the cyborg. "They're your people. Is there anything of value we can retrieve from this place -- /with extreme caution/ -- before we destroy it?"

    Uh oh, will's in trouble! Staren runs towards him. "Alexis, get outta there! Everyone stay out!" Once they're clear, he launches a pair of missiles from his armor's shoulder racks, which should be more than enough to incinerate everything inside!

Mel Brock (941) has posed:
    "Back! Out! Everyone out!" She might be overlapping with Staren at this point, but Mel doesn't care. She's dipping into the authority voice to make sure people are clear, marshal instincts spurring her. She drops to one knee as Will goes by and holds out both hands, creating yet another barrier - this one meant to box in the creatures so that they can't chase after. It won't interfere with Staren's missiles; it's effectively a solid wall of 'push', so coming from the same direction will, if anything, give them a little bit of a speed-up. But it should protect anyone still in harm's way, and it will /definitely/ keep the critters from coming closer.

    While she's on her knee, however, she turns her head slightly, regarding the chief. "My primary concern here is securing the shipping lanes. /Can you help me with that?/ Whatever your purpose here is, I'm willing to help with it as long as it doesn't contradict mine."

Alexis Maaka (571) has posed:
    When Staren launches MISSILES INDOORS, Maaka actually looks befuddled at Staren. "YOU FUCKING IDIOT!!" She roars, sprinting her way clear of the room before she's cooked along with the other creatures in there.

    She is /fuming/ with anger right now, and she's a hair's breadth from clocking Staren in the face. Missiles in close quarters are KIND OF a dangerous thing, and even Maaka knows that. "Are you out of your goddamn mind? MISSILES? We're underwater and indoors, dumbshit! It's a fucking miracle we're not making holes left and right to let the ocean in to drown us!" She tightens her grip on her pistol, someone may need to get between her and Staren.

William Pauwel has posed:
    Bolts of explosive plasma and arcs of high intensity laser-fire tear into the swarm of crab-creatures... And do a fine job of igniting piles of flammables littering the inside of the room. Cinders leap and dance as the creatures continue their advance, sheer numbers letting them press through the waves of heat and light, even as many cook and char in their own hardened carapaces.

    10 mm slugs scream through the air, smashing into shells and splintering on impact, supersonic shrapnel tearing through crab upon crab upon crab. Several leap through the spreading fires, but are ensnared by tendrils of raw, supernatural shadow or smash head-first into a wall of telekinetic force, allowing the more precise members of the party to spear them through with bullet, beam or bolt.

And then Staren fires a pair of missiles into the room.

Will's voice goes up in a strangled, mournful shout as clouds of incinerating plasma blossom through the swarm, cooking dozens of creatures instantaneously, even as so much of Will's precious treasure is... cooked.

...He dearly hopes that stuff is fire resistant.

    "...They're in the ventilation system," Chief concludes after a moment. He glances anxiously down the hallway, "We should go. If we reach the main control room, I can determine the status of the stasis chambers, and direct the armade to take appropriate action." There's a beat as he glances back toward Mel. "I'm not certain what the fleet is doing now. But I can order a cease-fire if necessary, but only from the control room. The central control unit... should not be attacking civilians without due cause. This behavior is worrisome."

A beat.

"...Besides the central control room also has an emergency armory. I would prefer to be armed with more than my side-arms."

Yuna Kagurazaka (385) has posed:
It's probably just as well that Yuna misses the crab-baking session - although in point of fact, when the commotion started up, it's equally possible that she decided to stay in the research lab until things settled down.

"What's in the ventilation system?" Yuna wonders, rejoining the group in the corridor with a confused/worried look on her face. "Should we be breathing this air straight? I don't think most of us have breathing apparati ..." She trails off, looking at those who are STILL shooting into the room.

"Anyway, Elner couldn't pin down the cause of death for the researcher in there, except that there are some weird mineral growths along some of his larger bones and inside his skull. And the suspension capsules in there - the intact ones ... their specimens seem to have been infected."

Yes, it's entirely possible the rest of the group did their own scans and shared that info among themselves. Yuna wasn't paying enough attention.

Mel Brock (941) has posed:
    "Then we're going to the central armory," Mel says with a nod to the Chief. When the incineration has died down enough to be safe, Mel rises to her feet again and lowers her hands, letting the barrier of force dissipate. "Those freakish crabs," she adds in reply to Yuna, before raising her pistol and moving to one side of the corridor so that she can advance down it without impeding the aim of the Chief or anyone else. "For tactical reference, Chief, I'm a telekinetic with a hundred metric ton rating as baseline, and line-of-sight range as far as this facility's concerned. TK's good for attack, defense and utility, and I've got small arms training besides. You have any brilliant plans you need me for, just say the word." She'll let their ally-for-the-moment lead the way, but she won't be far behind.

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone Yamakawa is making ready to go she's not pleased with STaren's actions She'll be moving in though to deal with Maak sh emoves to set a hand on her shoulder. "Look worry about this later, we got a horror we need to keep bottled up before it gets the hell out of here, Alexis. We need to focus we need to /get/ this done."

She hopes it's enough to get Maaka to calm down they have to keep moving and they have to move fast. The armory would be a good idea but she's focused on trying to calm her friend.

Staren has posed:
    Staren sighs, but Maaka's right, she couldn't know. "They're plasma warheads. Release all their energy as heat -- much less shockwave. Designed for indoor use." Staren turns to Chief. "Let's go. Quickly. Is there any way to close off the ventilation system? And it may well be that some of your people -- or the computer -- are infected themselves, so be ready for that." Staren lets the cyborg lead the way.

Alexis Maaka (571) has posed:
    Few things can calm down Maaka's fury, one of them is Kotone. She sighs, grasping Kotone's hand gently as she gives the younger blue-haired cyborg a nod. "...you're right." She grunts, before looking to Chief. "Where we headed, then?"

Yuna Kagurazaka (385) has posed:
"Containment, huh ..." Yuna looks *more* anxious after hearing some of her companions' words, but glances at Elner, and Elner passes the query back to Jiina, Marina, and Erina. Shortly thereafter, the three androids are all headed back to the main staircase; their orders are now to make sure nothing leaves the complex that isn't a member of the exploration party, or immediately accompanied by one or more of same and acknowledged as an evacuee.

Yuna gives Maaka's shoulder a quick, gentle squeeze as the group is regrouping to continue onwards in search of the facility's control center. Then something seems to cross her mind. "Hey, Chief ... was it your people - or your progenitors - who built this facility to start with? Or did somebody else build it and your people were investigating it?"

Gaonoir has posed:
Missiles fix all sorts of problems. Gaonoir is unflustered by their use, it seemed like they learned everything they could from that room, so sacrificing it in explosions to get rid of those... things for the time being is acceptable as far as he cares. Though when Maaka has a fit over it, he decides best to not say anything.

She's definately not someone he wants to make mad at him. He has enough people out there that hate him for whatever reason.

Instead he just sort of asides to Staren. "Sounded like the control room is needed to shut them and anything else off. Best we just keep moving then."

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone Yamakawa says "TI's okay Maaka lets get moving, we got to get this nightmare locked down. Sounds like the control room, ya I should be the most use there too once I can jack in if Chief's codes have problems. I'm not trying to hijack things, I just want to stop this nightmare and resuce anyone else who might be in stasis that's savable." With that she's moving out and heading for the control room if no one's going to stop her.

William Pauwel has posed:
Chief gives the group- and their brief spat of infighting- a long look before he turns back towards the hallway. "Unknown. The air purification system is also handled by the central computer. It's possible that it's been... compromised." He moves a hand through the thinned, but still very present fog, "I'm uncertain why the disruption fog has infiltrated the facility. Maybe there is a reason for it."

    Will slowly picks himself off the ground. "There... Was all kinds of stuff in there," he says mournfully, peeking into the the room. He lingers there for a long moment before sighing, tugging the lip of his hat down over his eyes. "I guess... It'll still be here once we deal with this, right? So let's just keep on for now."

    Chief answers questions as he makes his way through the halls, stopping briefly only to open sealed bulkheads and security doors that lead deeper into the facility. "This place was developed as a naval outpost, initially," Chief says as another door slides open with a soft hiss. "My security unit was deployed from the mainland to escort a reasearch team after the conflict began to escalate. The laboratory was constructed shortly thereafter, but as I said, I don't know precisely what was being done here."

"That was never my role," he says, coming up to a larger set of bulkhead doors. He pauses as he enters a series of codes into a nearby console. Only for it to... beep at him.

"Hn." Chief grunts, tapping at the console again, leading to the same result. "...That's... Odd."

"My clearance is being denied," Chief says, hesitantly, "My permissions can only be superseded by the overseer, or the central computer."

Alexis Maaka (571) has posed:
    Grunting, Maaka just lets it slide for now, but she does give Staren one last sour glare before helping Will to his feet. Then she follows Chief towards the next destination on their way, frowning when he finds his codes are being denied. "I can try slicing it, but I don't know if we have time for brute forcing our way through code." She says, holstering her sidearm.

    Sigh. "HEre goes nothing." She gently moves Chief out of the way before she begins to access the panel, trying to get it open while she sifts through line after line of code.

Gaonoir has posed:
So many things goin on, so many projects, yet the 'guardians' were kept in the know of only the minimal they needed to do their job... Honestly, the place is creepy, but the way it resembles how Yggdrassil only tells the Royal Knights and him as little as they need to know is making it even more creepy.

"Gee, that's reassuring." Gaonoir snarks a bit at the blocked access, then looks to Maaka. But she's already moving to do so. "Welp, if that doesn't work," he sits up on his haunchs to smack his forepaws together, "we'll just have to open it the old fashioned way."

Mel Brock (941) has posed:
    William gets a brief pat on the shoulder. "If we're not running for our lives on the way out of here, I'm sure it's all yours. Just remember it's not worth your life, alright?" However, Chief posits a problem in the form of clearance, and Mel frowns. "Some kind of quarantine protocol, maybe?" The marshal looks up at the thick doors. "Comes down to it, I can try to brute force the door, but will that start any alarms?"

Staren has posed:
    "The conflict? Who were you fighting?" Staren asks.

    They come to a stop. "Okay. So either the computer's corrupted, somehow, or the overseer has been turned into another coral-thing. How else can we get in there?"

William Pauwel has posed:
    Will looks... Just a bit cheered by that, though as the full weight of the situation finally sinks into his mind, he has a hard time getting particularly excited about it. "Let's hope whatever we run into past here ain't that unfriendly, then," Will says with a soft grunt. He keeps his handcannon at the ready, just in case.

    Unlike the doors closer to the surface, the protection on this terminal is significantly more complex. Whoever wrote this security system developed it into a labyrinth of code and evolving algorithms. When one attempt at penetrating it fails, the system automatically evolves, running its password through one of an unknown number of encryption ciphers. It feels more like trying to invade a living immune system than attempting to peel through layers of a firewall.

But eventually, Maaka turns just the right dials in just the right way. The console beeps once, twice, and the bulkhead begins to yawn open.

A wave of acrid, salty air wafts out from within.

    "I'm afraid we may not have time," the cyborg whispers as the path ahead is opened... Revealing a corridor much like the one they had left earlier, but... twisted. Changed. The walls seem twisted for some reason, as if something had slithered beneath them. Lights flicker and spark irregularly. The smell of the sea is everywhere.

"This," Chief murmurs, lifting not one, but two of those beam weapons as he takes tentative steps into the flickering, stinking murk. "This is not how I remember. Stay alert, follow me."

Yuna Kagurazaka (385) has posed:
Yuna lifts the Matrix Divider as well, the blade/barrel starting to flicker, then to glow as she begins focusing her power into the weapon.Just the fact that the corridor LOOKS so twisted and distorted up ahead is worrying her. "If the computers got infected by whatever it was," she asks, her voice somewhere between a whisper and a squeak, "then how much damage could the infection - if it's sentient - do to us just through control of those systems?"

Alexis Maaka (571) has posed:
    Maaka seems like she's at least a decent code-junkie, but this is definitely more Kotone or Kaz's type of thing than her own. She grunts with frustration, gritting her teeth as she breathes in deep and keeps at the hacking before the door suddenly opens.

    "Oh. Huh." She makes a face when the stench hits her, and she folds her helmet back into place as she draws her rifle once again. Following Chief through the chamber, she switches to thermal-optics once more while she makes a patrol of the room for hostiles...

Mel Brock (941) has posed:
    "...well, looks like we know what happened," Mel mutters. "The damn coral got in. And here I left behind my rebreather. Not making that damn mistake again." She'll just have to pay very close attention to herself, and if she notices any changes in her condition, turn around and get the hell out. "Lead on. I'll keep a solid barrier two meters in front of you, waist height. You see something coming, drop down and open fire." She does just that, keeping her left hand out while her right continues to hold her sidearm.

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone Yamakawa Gets the idea tht 6the computer may have been taited at this point she's worried but she's moving at this point. She listens for a moment she's not sure what else to say Chief is giving them all they can for a moment.

"Then we got to assume both are infected."

Kotone is going to get to work here she's got a plan now she's got a plan, she pauyses at Maaka.

"Alexis I'm better suited for that..."

IT's too late now she's just going to have to make ready she's making ready to move ahead but then comes the water. She's very much not happy with this she looks at the twisted nature of the place.

"We don't have enough fire to purge this place..."

Staren has posed:
Staren watches curiously as Alexis hacks the ancient system that may be corrupted by who knows what. He's impressed! But when he sees what lies beyond...

    "Wait." Staren extends a hand to Chief's shoulder. His other hand waves to indicate the hallway. "Look how far this corruption has spread. If it's gotten to this point... is there really any possibility that any staff that /were/ here haven't been corrupted anyway? Stop and think, for just a second. Is there really any way they could still be uncorrupted? If not, we should leave now and come back to plant the nukes. It's what your bosses wanted, last thing that guy wrote in his book."

Mel Brock (941) has posed:
    "We can't do that," Mel replies to Staren as she moves. "You heard the Chief. The autonomous ships would go into wartime mode without orders from home base. That'll make things worse out there."

Gaonoir has posed:
Gaonoir lets out an almost gagging sound as he gets assaulted yet again by the stench of 'sea death' as the only way he can really describe it. "Okay, dammit, enough of this." He takes a few steps back as the others start down the corridor. Not in retreat, but to give himself room without disrupting the rest of the group. Briefly his form is engulfed in his own black and purple 'darkness' as code is stripped down and rearranged, and then it fades away into his higher bipedal evolution.

"Much better." His nose isn't nearly as strong in this form, turning that hideous odor to a minor annoyance now as he follows the others. On the bright side, he also takes up less room in the corridors. "Really, at this point, I'm all for just nukin' the place... but I understand the need to make certain. So things don't get -worse-."

William Pauwel has posed:
    "The Central Computer is actually a network of three supercomputers," Chief explains, his knowledge of the facility's security system coming into play. "One is a research unit with a direct line to the O-Unit. The second is tuned to interface with the V-Unit and coordinates local military action. The third is charged with managing the facility's life support systems and caring for its crew. Ostensibly, the first is relatively harmless. The second controls the automated security systems--"

There's a sound like hissing steam and thundering metal feet. Chief drops immediately as the heat signatures appear on Maaka's sensors before anyone even sees their sources coming. Will ducks near the cyborg and fishes what looks like a stick of dynamite out of his pack. He lights one end with the blazing tip of his handcannon, and lobs it into the dark.

It doesn't explode, it just starts giving off lots and lots of light.

    There are two shapes, jagged, deformed, like bloated tumors in the form of eight-foot-tall bulldogs. If bulldogs had teeth like sharks and flesh like the muscle of clamshells holding together plates of solid metal, and sets of glowing, red eyes. "Contact," Chief roars, beams lancing out from his twinned sidearms. Will opens fire pre-emptively as well, bolts of white-blue plasma streaking down the corridor. The beasts at the other end scream.

And begin charging.

...As their carapace unfolds to reveal a trio of crackling turrets.

Alexis Maaka (571) has posed:
    Maaka shrugs at Kotone. "I dunno, I'm getting pretty good at it myself." She says, before she begins to advance down the hallway. Once she hears and spots thermal signatures coming up, she drops behind cover with the barriers. With her coil gun giving a sharp whine, she takes aim at the creatures approaching them-

    Oh /god/ are they ugly. She has a hard time looking at them, but she does fire away at one of the beasts with pinpoint accuracy. "We need to take these things out, now!"

Yuna Kagurazaka (385) has posed:
The sound of the approaching creatures is enough to get Yuna down into a firing crouch, the Matrix Divider's business end flaring brighter, crackling with arcs of stray energy.

It's a credit to her self control that she doesn't open fire until she SEES the turrets - and those turrets are Yuna's primary target. The blasts from her weapon are heavily focused, packing almost the power of a rocket-propelled grenade into each blast - at the cost that it takes her a significant handful of seconds to build up another charge between shots. That's most of why she considers the beasts' guns the most significant target; take out their ranged weapons, and they can't attack until they get into melee range if then. Only once the guns have been eliminated does she start going for the monsters' eyes ..

Assuming, of course, that she has *time*. How much does the group's firepower slow the monsters down?

Mel Brock (941) has posed:
    Mel doesn't have to think twice. She thumbs the selector on her weapon to maximum output; even at that strength, it's a fraction of her total output, but it's still enough to give her weapon the stopping power of a high-power rifle. She can maintain the barrier and still take shots, keeping everyone else safe and still adding in some firepower. So she shifts her aim just slightly, and squeezes off a few packets of purple energy in quick succession; the marshal's shots are going to be aimed right at the eyes.

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone Yamakawa is already going over the set up of the local network as Chief explains things.

"I think I got an idea of where we're going with this this could be a mess but if I do hve to force my way in? I'll need cover and I apologise Alexis, I'm just ... on ... Oh my god."

Kotone sees they can infect the mecnaical ads well and gets even more scared. She does keep her h3ead however she lines up her SMG and opens up at the exposed turrets trying to ddo as much damage to those things even as they close in.

"They can fully taint machinery this is getting about as bad as that time on Rory's earth!"

Gaonoir has posed:
It's a good thing Gaonoir has a visor in his form, because it keeps the wide-eyed look out of view. "Do I even have to point out how -sick and wrong- that is?" Probably not, but he does anyways.

The things charge. They're warming up weapons(?). Everyone else is shooting. Probably smart, considering what this things are capable of doing to contaminate things. Even he would rather not take a chance, despite how much he loves punching things.

Instead he stands up so he's heads above the group as they're all firing, and does the best thing he can do to slow down the monsters' advance so the others can blow the shit out of them.

"MACH. DARK. VORTEX!" Much like the Big Bad Wolf of folklore Gaonoir exhales a howling spiral of wind and dark energy to push the hideous attackers back from the group again, and maybe even help rip them up a bit with the force of the vortex.

Staren has posed:
    "There /is/ no home computer anymore! It's been changed into part of this coral hivemind thing!" Staren shouts back. "And if it's smart, it's infected them too, so it doesn't even /need/ this place anymore to control them! This facility has no purpose anymore -- except as a /nest/!"

    Staren can multitask. As some bulldog-things come to interrupt their conversation, Staren activates his wings, flies backwards down the corridor, and fires his beamcannons and a single micro-missile -- On impact, the plasma lance anti-tank round tries to shoot a small hole through the monster with a short-range but focused burst of plasma. Staren's not sure how effective it will be, which is why he just fires one as a test.

William Pauwel has posed:
    Bolts of plasma and beams of light flash against the jet black plates covering the charging beasts. Flesh burns and boils under their assault, but the armor-- the armor is something very similar to what these walls were built from. Capable of absorbing enormous amounts of thermal energy without showing signs of wear or damage.

Which is great, except that it does relatively little to stop kinetic force.

    Electromagnetically launched slugs, telekinetic blasts and machinegun fire smashes into the hardened targets. Jet black shrapnel explodes from corrupted bodies in great gouts of twisted metal. Yuna's blast rips the turrets straight off of one of the machine-lifeforms, sending it sprawling to the ground as plasma and lasers rake across its exposed flesh, turning it into a smoldering, ashen wreck.

The remaining machine roars as it approaches, the turrets on its hull suddenly *FLASH* with power. A wave of raw, kinetic force slams into the telekinetic barrier, blasting Chief back several inches. "Impact Bolts," he growls, steadying his ground. "Watch your--"

A horizontal tornado rips into the last of the creatures even as it goes to leap across the barricade. It screeches as it's blown back, gunfire tearing its armor away, allowing energy bolts and a certain micro-missile to turn its body to slag, too.

...With that, the corridor is quiet again, save for the occasional twitching of helpless, dying limbs.

Will's lips twist into a frown, before he... double-taps.

"That answers that," Chief grunts, stepping beyond the barrier with renewed haste, "Control over the drones can only be maintained by Unit-02. We need to move, they know where we are, now."

It pauses only to glare at Staren, "In the worst case, I can still try to input a self-destruct command into the Armada. There are failsafes in case the facility was compromised. The Masters were not fools."

Mel Brock (941) has posed:
    The dust settles before Mel can respond to Staren, and when she does, she doesn't even turn to look back at the man in power armor. She's keeping her focus on the corridor ahead. It's probably just as well, because her voice is decidedly... tense.

    "If there is any chance whatsoever that we can shut these things down, if there is any opportunity for us to get this central unit to have the ships stand down or blow them up, so that we don't have to spend months hunting down more of those stupidly powerful warships, innocent people dying the /entire time/, then we have to take it. I'm not turning around to leave and come back with a weapon of mass destruction until I'm sure that's the /only option/. Now if you don't want to be here, then you're welcome to turn around and head back to the ship. If you DO want to be here, then /PLEASE/ stop complaining about it, because the only thing you're serving to do right now is distract everyone in the middle of a dangerous situation!"

    Aside from that, she is silent, her focus on maintaining the waist-height barrier as they move forward.

Yuna Kagurazaka (385) has posed:
Yuna is still in her firing crouch ... and the Matrix Divider isn't aimed terribly steadily right now, but she gets back to her feet, the Divider's barrel starting to glow again as she keeps her weapon readied. "If we can put a stop to the threat here and now, I say we do it ... I hate this place, I'm terrified of it, but we've got a job to do and no telling how many innocent lives are depending on us to wrap this up. Mel is right, taking the time to pull out and try to get heavier weaponry would give this coral-mind at least a few more days - to kill more people, to fortify this place against our return visit .."

She looks to Chief, thne to each of the others - frightened, but determined. "We have to do this. But with the power we have together, I'm sure we can pull it off."

Alexis Maaka (571) has posed:
    "We don't have time for that, Staren." Maaka snaps, reloading ammo magazines into her coilgun. "Either we do this, or there's a chance this coral will end up spreading further and further until the world starts suffering a pandemic. There's nobody else out there that has a chance of getting this done but us, because /we're/ still here, goddammit." She nods to Yuna and the Chief, remaining behind the barrier just in case as the group advances.

Staren has posed:
    Crazy good armor, huh? Okay, Staren can deal with that... He nods to Chief. "Sounds good to me. Let's go." He ignores the glare, and is about to follow, when Mel is... yelling at him! "Woah! Calm down! You read the same log I did. The /ancient scientist/ said to /destroy/ this place. I figured maybe he knew what he was talking about. But this self-destruct plan /does/ sound better." Piece said, he pulls another weapon out of his bag -- Maaka would recognize it as a missile launcher like he gave her, and the tacnet says the magazine he loads into it contains HEAT rounds. <<Yes, they'll disarm if they miss their target. I'm not stupid, but those monsters had some /serious/ armor.>> Staren transmits a text message to reassure her.

Gaonoir has posed:
"Then lets get going before more of those show up." Especially if they know there's an opposition moving in. Gaonoir doesn't really like that. "We can argue about whatevers after we're sure there's an end to this place and no more of those -things- get out of it." With that the Digimon takes a purposeful stride to continue on.

Though in his mind he can't help but wonder if this is just because more of those ship-monsters would be a threat to the Fleet, or because there's something else about this that really REALLY edges him the wrong way....

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone Yamakawa is still firing at this point she's trying to to make sure the things re down. She's also trying to watch her fire as she moves about for a moment.

"So we can assume unit 02 has been taken over as well at this point. No they are not, given the fact things have been kept bottled up. Even with there being a breach, for so long proves they are not."

She's now moving ahead and is very much on edge for now she wants to put things to an end. She was terrifed this was like the sort of thing she'd run into Kingsmouth, XCOM or on Rory's Earth. this was the stuff of nightmars things that should be fiction on her world are very real here.

"We either purge now or eveything gets lose and you sw what one infection alone /did/. Wait what about the chemical mentioned in the note, could that be used to kill these things?"

William Pauwel has posed:
    The journey ahead reveals that Staren's concerns may not be entirely unfounded. Lights flicker on and off as Chief moves, doggedly, down the corrupted halls. He turns a corner into a wider passageway.

    The final corridor leading into the Control Room demands careful footwork. Tendrils of ridged coral have breached the doors reach out in sprawling patterns along the ground, walls and ceiling. Bloated polyps droop pitifully, harangued by the force of gravity outside of the water. Barnacles that are several inches thick encrust every surface, occasionally spewing a foul cloud of stinking gas.

    As the party approaches, tiny slumping tentacles of brilliantly colored anemones spring to life, flailing wildly. As they get closer and closer, those tentacles become longer and thicker, now an actual threat. Chief produces a sound that can only be described as righteous fury, great arcs of energy erupting from one wrist to shred the anemones to pieces like an adventurer hacking a trail through a jungle.

Even still, a palpable sense of dread seems to try and push them back.

    The doors have been totally ripped from the frame by the encroaching mass from the sea, pinned to the walls and overgrown. The room within flickers with irregular pulses of light. Chief steps inside, the blade on his arm burning like a torch.

    Finally, the control room, the central computer.

It's...

It's all WRONG

    Not a single inch of metal or plastic can be seen of it, of the walls, of anything save for a handful of consoles still sticking out from the floor. The room has been completely encased in this infectious growth. Tentacles have grappled the surrounding walls to help support a massive, top-heavy structure. Engorged sphincters pulsate, dripping unnameable fluids into thick puddles upon the ground. Fronds and plates like table-corals sweep through the air, exuding flickering motes of brightly colored /something/ as great brain-like growths pulse with electricity along the corners of the room.

    Its tendrils ensnare a trio of pillars at the back of the chamber, creeping around three domes of glass. One has shattered, allowing the tendrils entry, the other two have begun to crack.

    Suddenly, it's as if a thousand, thousand minds were staring at you all at once. A /presence/ weighs down upon the room as the entire living mass goes from a passive violet to a series of brilliant, dangerous, prismatic hues.

It has seen you.

                        --FATHOMLESS INTELLIGENCE--                        
                              --MANAKEL LEVI--                              

It retaliates.

    Bolts of lightning begin jumping from the brillaint fronds, blasting down through the group in twisting arcs. /Things/ begin emerging from the walls, like bloody eyeballs surrounding singular, glowing orbs of light that launch lances of searing heat at the intruders.

"Go!" Chief roars as an arc of lightning smashes into his plasma blade. "Cleanse this place!"

Staren has posed:
    Staren looks at the tentacles with concern, but... Oh look, Chief's got it. Okay. And then...

    They're in the belly of the beast.

    "...Why are there only puddles?" Staren wonders, at the rate that whatever that ooze is is pouring in...

    And then Chief shouts, and he has a BAD FEELING, something in the lizard brain that says A PREDATOR IS WATCHING YOU, and... he may be shaking, but Staren doesn't cower in fear, he /fights/. At Chief's command to cleanse, he fires the other four plasma minimissiles into the room, trying to hit parts of the... THING that are far away from the party.

Mel Brock (941) has posed:
    "I'm not even concerned with the coral, whatever the hell it is," Mel admits. "Right now it's localized. I want to crawl out of my skin with every step I take, I've fought telepaths who couldn't manage imagery this freaky, but all this stuff's just in here for now. We can get back here and sterilize the place if we have to, I know the Union's got ways to handle that."

    She makes a brief gesture with her sidearm, a circular motion generally 'towards the ceiling'. "My concern is those automated ships. I don't want them out there in wartime mode, hunting down cargo vessels and anything else they think is the enemy. It'll take months to track them all down if it comes to that, maybe years. Eliminating them will put our people at risk. And all that time, civvies will be dying that didn't earn any of it. I want to put a stop to that here and now. Protect and serve."

    Mutter. "The hell have I gotten myself into. I'm a marshal, I'm supposed to be arresting criminals."

    And then they reach the control room. And see the freakish... hideous... /thing/ that she'd sensed when they arrived, that has taken over the facility. Repulsive to the eyes, repulsive to common sense. Between that and the presence, there is a second where Mel very nearly loses the meal she'd eaten earlier.

    But the attack spurs her to action, and almost on instinct, she fortifies her mental defenses and hurls herself to one side. "COVER! I can't block light or lightning and I need all my concentration!" She avoids being tagged by a lightning bolt, but a laser clips her across her left hip, drawing a hiss of pain from the Marshal. "Alright, if it's gonna be like that..."

    As if she were a conductor, Mel lifts her hands. A ripple of force carries across the room. Tables, chairs, desks, small objects, whatever she can hold aloft. With a sweeping gesture, she hurls it all at the central mass. Impossibly fast. A hundred tons of force for a scattering of objects that can't way even one percent that at most. And that's only her first attack; she means to start unleashing simple blasts of pure, ridiculous kinetic energy at the thing, full power. Interestingly, the blasts are shaped loosely like fists.

Yuna Kagurazaka (385) has posed:
The thickening of the marine miasma reaches a point where Yuna's Light Suit begins generating a visible aura, like a film of radiance wrapped around her whole body. More accurately, it's the same protective field that's always there when she's clothed in her battlesuit; the difference is that the field has been intensified to keep the coral vapors *out* and keep her breathing clean air. The luminescence is just what happens when that aura is repelling something dangerous to her.

But she keeps going, advancing with the rest of the group, no matter how much she desperately wishes she were elsewhere. That desire only intensifies with the increasing growth of the alien coral, or whatever this is ...

And then the group reaches the control room. A whimper of dread escapes her throat -

A whimper which is likely lost as the biomass opens fire, but on the other hand, Yuna actually lets out a shriek as she's diving away from the first bolt. She lands on her back, aims at one of the clusters of fronds, and pulls the trigger; the resulting blast isn't so much a bolt as a beam, crackling and flaring with holy power. The blonde doesn't stay down any longer than it takes to fire that first attack, though; she scrambles back to her feet, calling out, "Shugoseiheki!!" - and as soon as the kite shield materializes, she drives its lower point into the floor as hard as she can, trying to brace it deep enough to stand upright without her holding it.

She's going to need both hands for the Matrix Divider, after all, and she does NOT want to be without some kind of solid protection between shots. As soon as she's got her shield set up, she's charging for the next blast - but at this point, it's an ongoing balance of 'charge' vs. 'attack now'. Anyone with a better firing speed than she's got is likely to get the better targets; she's mostly concerned with reducing the immediate points of threat. Eventually, if the battle continues long enough, she may start trying to blast away at the biomass which has wrapped around the computer towers - not to damage the computers themselves, if she can help it, but to cut the infiltrating biomatter away from the rest of its mass, to ;'sever the network' of the coral, as it were.

Alexis Maaka (571) has posed:
    Maaka stares at them, before she decides to herself, "I'm gonna need bigger guns."

    She forms up the rocket launcher Staren HAD gifted her, slinging her coilgun as she loads up similar payloads to Staren's own weapons.

    Then she begins to make a break towards the beast itself. Her suit's thrusters propel her into the air, and she uses the added mobility of her thrusters to get to plotting out a firing solution.

    Plasma mini-missiles, the kind that won't end up blowing the bulkheads open, are loaded up and Maaka fires off a barrage at the creature, trying to avoid the electric attacks from this massive abomination.

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone Yamakawa wished deeply that overclock ws a awake right now but the self aware compoent of her body was still in a deep slumber still. She would have to go on without it's help this time. She looked at the horor before them she also feels she did not bring enough firepower. She attempts to raise the ship above and to her horror they can't get out for all their taking chance they didn't warn the ship. There's nothing she cna do abotu that now as she stops at any presense of her being made of flesh she starts to move with everything her body can muster. She knows that they have to fight as the the attacks come in force, something evil and old is watching them now. One computer has fallen the otehr two are nearly there and she gets how bad this could be. If it gets full ocntrol of everything?.

"Understood and stay alive CHIEF!"

Kotone honestly means is s she goes into the fight she'll she watch her shots as she bounces about now she opens fire. Kotones movements blurr as she goes she's attackign the larger sections of mass with her SMG and just unloading as she goes.

"AVOID THE INTACT DOMES! They are likely the other super computers! If they get infected thist hing will have the whole damn complex."

Chief's makers were smart the system of dividing up control had saved who knows how many lives beyond the doomed lab. They now need to make sure this thing /dies/ here. She's going to be putting her plasma grenades to use shortly but not just yet. She's also going to fully network up with any of her allies who are comotable with such things.

Gaonoir has posed:
"I take back what I said," Gaonoir drawls sarcastically, "THIS is sick and wrong." It's corrupted computers and technology. Not the same as Digimon entirely, but at this point, he is not putting the possibility past this infectionous monstrousity. This is the sort of horrible thing he is here to fight. To ensure it never gets anywhere near the Digital World. Or any world for this matter.

"Some of us don't need guns," Gao retorts finally as his engine-pods thrum softly to life, lifting him into a hover above the group. Forms coming out of the corrupt walls on all sides of them. Filthy, disgusting horrors against nature.

With a snarl he clenches his metal gauntlets shut tightly, the black miasma drawn from the Dark Digitron within him starting to ripple in an aura of black and purple kirby krackle around them. Despite the shadows of terror in the room there is still just enough light to glint across his visor, briefly showing the determined glare in his eyes behind it. Bomber scarf gives a dramatic flicker behind him.

"TENEBRAE HURRICANE!"

In a flurry of motion Gaonoir spins around midair, throwing punchs hundreds by the seconds. Giving an entirely new meaning to 'shadowboxing' as every movement throws out shadowy afterimages of his fists. Save the shadow images are just as powerful as the real things thanks to his shadow manipulation powers, allowing him to throw punch after punch after blinding speed punch at the various eye-stalks and weapons without having to risk touching them directly.

Avoiding the remaining computers though. That's why he didn't use one of his disruptive attacks.

William Pauwel has posed:
Battle is joined.

    Mel unleashes the full fury of her telekinetic prowess. Bolts of raw kinetic energy smash into the hard coral masses, shattering them into splinters of chalk-like matter and sprays of thick, purple blood. The entire mass of the beast seems to shriek as loose objects connect with its body with far more mass than they should be able. Entire sections of the beast bleed with fresh wounds, but there is just so /much/ of it.

    Streaking rockets and smart-missiles arc through the air. Bolts of lightning tear through their formations, blasting several into clouds of shrapnel and usless vapor. Others smash into its grotesque form, cauterizing leaking ducts and frying fronds of electronic anemones.

    Bullets pound into sections of the creature's flesh. Will joins in, having taken cover behind one of the few remaining terminals, bolts of plasma joining Kotone's gunfire. The young Chaser, dragged into this mess by an eager heart and a curious mind, is plainly terrified. His skin is white with fear even around the layers and layers of cloth wrapped around his nose and mouth, his are eyes wide as saucers- but he fights on regardless. It helps that all he has to do is pull a trigger, and the Solano answers his call. Bullet and bolt blast holes into the hulk, but even so.

    There is just so MUCH of it. Thousands of years of growth. Thousands of years of evolution. It has had so long to prepare. You can feel it in your thoughts, so close to the core. You can hear its anger as a whispering drumbeat at the back of your mind.

    And then a lance of raw, holy power SLAMS into the thing. A spear of righteous light twists into the thing's shell, blasting away hardened, gnarled carapace as Yuna displays her full might. The brilliant light blends with shapes of twisting, crackling darkness as Gaonoir leaps in, his fist smashing the bizarre laser-beam 'eyes' into sprays of organic matter and corrupted ceramic and steel.

But

There is just so /much/ to kill.

    The surface of the thing strobes suddenly with light. Mel feels it first; a wave of pure THOUGHT washes out from the thing as its intelligence directs itself wholly to the here and now. Despite its injuries, the thing's presence only intensifies, its awareness focusing, sharpening. Electricity pulses across its every surface.

/Things/ emerge from the sphincters, sliding down in globules of unspeakable fluids. Arcs of plasma light up within.

Chief hesitates as he sees what emerges, "Brothers--" He whispers, as twisted versions of his own form crawl out from their ichorous cocoons. But only for a moment. The Homonculus bellows an anguished, enraged cry as both of his own blades light up. He stands, alone, against a full half-dozen of his former comrades.

No. Not alone.

Will turns as he sees what's happening, firing a quick series of shots into one of the corrupted cyborgs. "Don't lose your head," he yells through his mask, "You ain't alone! None of us are alo--!"

    The chamber thrums with power as the coral strobes once more. Not bolts of lightning, but /pillars/ begin raining down from the ceiling or blasting out of the walls or rising out of the floors. Geysers of bioelectricity erupt from under and near each of its challengers. Chief roars, leaping narrowly away from one such blast.

Will is not so lucky.

The Chaser screams as his voice is suddenly cut off, and immediately goes flying as the shock blasts him back towards the squadron of corrupted warriors.

And still the storm continues.

Alexis Maaka (571) has posed:
    There's something about this thing that makes one wonder if this thing could even die from conventional weaponry, no matter how advanced they could be. However, Maaka is not so easily swayed by fear. She does however have a vulnerability to electricity, as she's smashed head-on by a torrent of lightning. She screams wordlessly, hitting the ground hard, and her systems glitch out as power is re-routed in a frantic attempt to keep her alive despite her life-support systems being hammered with overloaded circuits.

    It /hurts/ to say the least, and she feels everything go dark before suddenly her optics reboot.

    They switch back on just in time to see Will get hit by electricity, and slam into the wall. Maaka screams again, not just in pain but in total horror seeing a friend get a hit like that. Maaka can take the abuse, WIll not so much.

    "NO!" She cries out, and her systems get a brief boost in performance way above normal standards as rage fuels her every joint and muscle. She draws her coil gun, and she fires away at the rogue cyborgs in retribution, using her grapple to retrieve her launcher.

    Loading it once her rifle goes dry, Maaka takes aim with another payload of plasma artillery, firing upon the cyborgs this time with auto seekers on. "I'M GONNA KILL YOU ALL, I SWEAR IT! YOU DON'T TOUCH HIM LIKE THAT, NOT A FUCKING FINGER!"

Staren has posed:
    Staren's forcefield becomes visible, the outermost layer flashing an opaque white and collapsing into sparks as it's fried by lightning. Shoot, Staren saw the electricity but he didn't realize the thing could /shoot/ it!

    There's just so /much/ to kill. Staren's current weapons aren't really equipped to deal with that. He runs for cover, but before he can go through his stuff, now Will's in trouble! <<Brock, can you pull him away from there?>> Staren waits, sighting his rocket launcher on the corrupted cyborgs. As soon as Will is pulled clear, Staren starts firing the HEAT rounds.

    HEAT rounds are really neat, they <insert long technical rant here>.

    Copper plasma is a hell of a thing, kids.

Gaonoir has posed:
Gaonoir pauses in his shadow-pummeling and turns his gaze for a moment when he hears Chief's roar and Will's remark cut off by the scream of lightning slamming down. Narrows his gaze at the twisted forms emerging from the slimy depths of the unholy conglomeration of coral parasites and twisted metal. After seeing Digimon taken and corrupted by the Demon Army to turn them into more viral soldiers, he can sympathize with the Chief's anguish.

He's also familiar enough with the feeling to know not to let it get to you in the middle of a raging battle for your life.

Spiraling away from the lightning storm wrath raining down into the chamber Gaonoir swoops down, zigzagging best he can as arcs of electricity snap at his passing form like hissing snakes. Until he comes to hover near Chief. "Don't think of what they've become," he remarks to the cyborg. "Think of what will become of more if they aren't stopped." And with that he takes off again.

By launching straight up. Dark energy starts to build up around one fist again as Gaonoir aims for the top of the chamber, a ceiling almost invisible in the overgrowths of corruption. There is no elaborate shouting of attack technique names this time, just a howling roar of sheer rage as Gaonoir thrusts the energized fist above him and released the dark energy like a bomb detonation at the upper reachs of the chamber, hoping the shockwave will disable some of whatever is causing those lightning blasts and give the people below more roome to work without having to constantly dodge massive lightning strikes.

Mel Brock (941) has posed:
    Mel only feels the vaguest hint of it; by all rights she shouldn't feel it at /all/, but the sheer force of the mind is enough to be noticed through her mental defenses, and that's concerning in and of itself. But on top of that, it's ramping up the power. Unloading flat-out columns of electricity. The marshal's just able to roll out of the way before one discharge, hissing with the continued pain of her previous wound, but Will isn't so lucky, and the psi grimaces. Her hand whips out, wrapping him in psychic power, holding him; she means to lift and yank him back. It's rough, but it's all she can do. Grabbing people is impossible; even grabbing their /clothes/ is tricky, and if he struggled at all, she might lose her grip. So she's going to get him out of danger fast.

    Then she's going to give the coral beast a harsh glare, flexing her fingers. "I have had just about /ENOUGH/ of you." Up come the hands, palms forward, in what looks to be a simple shoving gesture. But the lower half of her longcoat billows out, as the psi pours absolutely everything she has out. A torrent of psychic force, an ongoing eruption of telekinesis that would be enough to blast a small cargo jet end over end. The small device adhering to her jaw blinks with a small yellow light, and still she pushes, still she grits her teeth, hitting the growth's center of mass as hard as she can. "HrrrrrrrrrraaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-!"

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone Yamakawa is making sue to keep away from the computers that have not been taken but she's certianlu ripping into the thing. She knows it hungers fof them all. The horror of it taking her is not something she wants to think about. Given her mechanical nature she'll live through it and prehaps be forever and fully tainted once it gets to her brain. She focused ont he fight, this thing has had thousands of years to grow, infest and grow. Worse to adapt and learn. She shoulders her SMG now, and she pulls a grenade of alien design and throws it. It beeps and then will explode in a burst of plasma and she follows that up with several more, she tries to spread it out but keep it away from the other super computers. She knows Will is in trouble as is the Chief.. She tosses her third grenade and gets her rifle back out and will start opening fire.

"This ends here...I know things like you! I have fought things like you before!"

She hopes they can do something for the Chief but she also knows the man needs it, he needs to be a part in stopping this and ending his siblings torment.

Yuna Kagurazaka (385) has posed:
This thing can spawn its own cyborgs?!

The twisted, corrupted appearance of the deposited cyborgs make Yuna wince just to look at them, but she can't get a clear shot on more than one of them - and then she looks up at the ceiling, prompted by an instinct, or maybe by a silent warning from Elner.

She flings herself away just a fraction of a second too late, and the pillar of organically-generated 'lightning' catches her lower legs; the flare of her Light Suit trying to repel the damage is drowned out by the semi-artificial illumination, and Yuna screams in agony - even if she's not *injured*, she still feels the pain from attacks her Light Suit has to struggle against, and when she hits the ground, she's favoring both legs too badly to get up. She's also too far away from where she placed her shield to benefit from its protection.

On the plus side, she has more openings to aim now.

She'd rather be less-injured, honestly.

Sucking in a breath against the pain suffusing her legs, Yuna charges up her next attack, her aim tracking between the cyborgs; without charging up to full power, she can at least try to take the arm off of one, and blow through the knee of another; their twisted appearance helps confirm who she's aiming at - or rather, who she's NOT aiming at; Chief has to stay safe, and she interprets that as 'intact'. But all the while, she's looking for one OTHER target.

If the coral has a 'mind,' a central nervous system of some kind, then to watch and protect this chamber, to interface with the computers most efficiently, that 'brain' must be HERE somewhere. Even if it's only a local sub-processor cortex instead of the central intelligence of the coral mass ...

Her gaze shifts to a 'hump' right near the mainframes. Her aim follows, the Matrix Divider whining almost audibly as she rapidly charges up as powerful a blast as she can ...

And she pulls the trigger, just as the next pillar of biolightning erupts practically on top of her.

Whether her shot did anything useful or not, she's basically out of the battle after that. Her Light Suit is still intact, but only JUST barely - and if nobody else can retrieve her, it may be Elner who teleports Yuna out of the control room, back to the comparative safety of the corridor.

William Pauwel has posed:
    Rage is a powerful thing. Fury and fear at losing a friend or compatriot has pushed many from being simple men and women into becoming true heroes. Today is not different.

    Will is mercifully- or perhaps worryingly- motionless as Mel drags him away. His body tumbles messily through the air, away from the corrupted cyborgs. One glances up and leaps as he passes nearby, an arc of plasma winking to life along the thing's arm--

Just as another blade entirely passes through its midsection.

    "...I know," Chief says to the Digimon as he lands. Two halves of ruined cyborg land at either side, bleeding purple ichor and writhing, anemone-like tendrils. "These things," he growls as the rest begin closing in, "They're just wearing their corpses like masks. This thing is using my comrades' bodies as MARIONETTES."

    Explosions blossom all around the cybernetic security chief. Two more of the cyborgs disintegrate immediately, shattering into a spray of steel and viscera as Staren's rockets swarm in. Two more are caught up in Maaka's gunfire, shortly before Yuna's shots sever one's leg and another's arm. Alex's hail of missiles pour down all around them shortly thereafter, consuming the area in a cataclysm of plasma. Chief readies a blade as the clouds of smoke and flame billow around him.

    One of the fallen soldiers staggers out from a cloud into his flank. There's a flash of light, heat and ionized gas as it, too, falls prone and lifeless. "I will see it burn," Chief says, holding his blades at the ready. The one corrupted warrior that remains faces its former commander... and a hail of covering fire from an artificial lifeform from an entirely different world.

    Will hits the ground not far from Mel, guided by her telekinetic tug. He tumbles across the living carpet, body twitching every other moment from the residual electricity coursing through his nervous system.

Whether he's alive or dead, he's probably not getting up right now.

    Far overhead, Gaonoir's fist smashes into the ceiling. A shockwave of raw, tenebrous power races out from the point of impact like an inverted supernova. The beast-chamber-mind shrieks in pain as an entire plane of its being is rendered lifeless, the critical coral formations being pulverised into a fine, chalk-like dust by the digimon's strike.

    Down below, Mel proves that her telekinetic fury outstrips even this creature's might. A cascade of pure force rips up into the grotesque mass at the thing's very heart. Chunks of coral the size of small boulders are torn away as the light of her soul rips into the thickest parts of the beast. A color strobes fresh across the monster's surface; a wash of pale, sickly greens and reds. She feels its consciousness briefly flicker.

    A blast of holy light lances through the ruined coral cluster, blasting past walls of biomatter that would otherwise have obstructed its journey, into an unassuming lump at the very far end of the room. It, and all the coral surrounding it, vanishes instantaneously into motes of dwindling, burning biomatter. Suddenly the entire room seems to flicker. Power fades, then comes back online, but the atmosphere seems to have shifted. Fans and vents begin circulating fresh, clean air as the coral roots choking the computer cores seem to die away.

The thing produces a sound- a low, gurgling noise as it struggles to build another charge of power.

But...

    Before the assembled elites, it's almost certain that it won't get the chance to release its power-- but still it must TRY. It did not spend thousands of years on this only to have its efforts rendered fruitless!

Alexis Maaka (571) has posed:
    In spite of her rage, Maaka's endurance in the end does have limits. She staggers, trying to reload before she grouchily slides a tube of HEAT rounds into her rocket launcher. She doesn't need to even calculate the sighting for this firing solutions, as Maaka just shoulders the weapon and breathes in deep.

    "This one's for Will, you ugly fuck." hisses the cyborg, before she fires off one last barrage of rockets to finish the job. THis and other attacks from the rest of the group will no doubt handle this, and once that becomes the case, she'll just slump to her knees and crumple into a heap on the floor. /Everything/ in her body hurts right now, which means someone may need to help her back to her ship when this is over.

Mel Brock (941) has posed:
    Even at the height of her power as she is now, Mel's telekinesis only produces the barest, faintest visual artifacts. Faint, flickering purple shimmers, like a half-second reflection of purple sunlight off water. If she took her limiter off, there might be more consistent visible effects, but as it is, it's probably only just barely visible. Still, the fact that she's putting out that much force probably says something.

    And yet still, the thing is trying to charge up and hit them. "No. No, no no. No you cut that out right now."

    Mel's hands shift towards the fallen soldiers. It's a little disrespectful. It's probably completely tactless, But right now, she needs something big and heavy and solid, because if 'torrent of raw force' isn't going to work for finishing it off, she's got one more way to go.

    The fallen, corrupted security personnel float up into the air. And then, one after another, they begin slamming themselves into the growth with Mel's full strength. Over, and over, and over. Again and again and again. "CUT. THAT. SHIT. OUT. RIGHT. THE HELL. NOW."

Staren has posed:
    Staren's focused on the cyborgs when someone does /something/ that seems to weaken this thing, and restore control of normal systems... at least, some of them!

    Staren looks back at the room. Yuna's down, Will's still down too. Staren stuffs the now-empty rocket launcher in his bag, grabs Will and Yuna, and runs, forcefield around him coming up and shifting color to an electric yellow. Yes, we know electricity isn't actually yellow. Magitech doesn't care.

Gaonoir has posed:
The tactic wasn't without it's risks, evident when Gaonoir as much falls back to the ground as anything else, due to the knockback of his own shockwave. The digimon hits the floor with enough of an impact that it does momentarily knocked the wind out of him. A slow grunt comes out of him. "... Now I remember why I don't do that often..."

By the time he gets his bearings back together and gets up from the floor, the lightning has stopped. Yay! Except the thing is now devouring it's own growth to try and charge itself up. That's very much not yay. But they can't just leave that.

Then Mel starts slamming the dead bodies up against the remaining construct. Gaonoir steps over, and grabs for one of the corpses. "Mind if I borrow one." It's less a question and more so she can drop her hold on one, which he picks up in one large metal gauntlet by what would roughly be the neck region. "This is the part that makes my job -fun-."

His boosters flare up, though this time Gaonoir uses them as a dash boost rather to take flight. The cyborg corpse leaves sparks as he drags it along the ground for a bit as he darts towards the remaining form powering up.

Drags it up to the point where he hops off the ground, whips his arm around to heave it briefly up over his head and with a barking cry
"Sombra Bomber!"
Chokebomb slams the corpse into the remaining coral growth.

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone Yamakawa Says "Will?!"

Kotone is terrifed angry and just wants to stop running into things like this but there's nothing else she can do. Kotone has prehaps hit her limit. She's opening gire now with every last round she's got and once the weapon's dry? That's when the blaster pistols come out and she just holds down the fire sending bolts of energy into th thing, she's also not stopping moving.

"YOU TIME IS OVER! DO YOU HEAR ME! YOU ARE FINISHED! YOU ARE DONE!"

William Pauwel has posed:
Thousands of years of life, thousands of years of evolution, all undone in a single, orgiastic instant of violence.

    Missiles smash into what's left of the beast's central biomass. Its body strobes weakly, brilliant colors draining away as two, thre, four blasts rock its core structure. Bolts of energy fire streak up into what's left, sending cracks spiderwebbing through its body. The room seems to release a low, keening cry as more and more of the coral falls away.

    Chief bellows one last cry as his blade sweeps through the center of the final cyborg. The machine-man's corrupted corpse has barely a second to cool before Gaonoir grabs hold of it. The rest of the fallen legion is torn from the ground a moment later, sweeping up into the air like puppets with their strings cut. As if to add indignity to defeat, the elites wield the bodies of the fallen soldiers, -its- soldiers as weapons against its failing form.

The result is catastrophic.

    Raw kinetic force and supernatural strength smash into the dwindling coral mass. Cracks spread across the ancient creature as its colors drain completely, larger and larger sections of its body going chalk white as the impact of a half-dozen bodies slam into it over and over and over again.

Chief looks mildly... pleased. In a way, his fellows are being given the chance to perform their duty.

Even if it's... In a very unconventional manner.

    In a matter of moments, the vibrant color that had once filled the room drains away entirely. Organic matter falls away from the walls and ceilings in great, chalky clumps that dissolve into harmless dust as they tumble into the ground. The venerable central control room is slowly revealed, damaged but intact, behind the sundered corpse of the Fathomless Intelligence.

It seems, at last, what that lost Black Ship had sought has finally come to pass.

Chief watches for a moment longer before his plasma blades fade into harmless heat-hazes. He turns his head downward, toward the remaining console, and slowly drags his fingers across it.

"...Thank you," he says after a moment. "It seems I owe you foreigners a debt."

Gaonoir has posed:
Gaonoir backs away as the mass crumbles down, still not trusting any of that coral crud until it's well and truely dissolved into useless dust. "Make sure nothing like that gets out of this place again and we'll call it even," he remarks to Chief. Or at least, that's good enough for him. "Still say blowing the place -just to make sure- wouldn't be a bad idea, but that ain't my call."

For a moment, his form almost seems to... ripple a bit. Not quite static, but it's close. Then it solidifies again as Gaonoir pushes his remaining energy into holding the evolution. He's not stepping back stages until he's -sure- this is done and everyone is out safely.

"Let's just do whatever and get out of this dump."

Mel Brock (941) has posed:
    By the end, Mel is breathing hard. When she finally lowers her hands, her shoulders are heaving, slow and steady. Sweat beads on her brow, both from the exertion and the wound. But it's over, and done with. Will is taken care of, Chief is alive and well, and the creature has been ended. So she stands up straight - only to stagger a little when her leg throbs with pain. But she shrugs that off for the moment, and gives the towering artificial being a faint nod. "Don't worry about it. I'm an officer of the peace. 'Protect and serve', even if this is a really..." She looks at the dust piling on the ground. "...really, /really/ unconventional case of protecting and serving."

    She shakes her head, and walks (with a slight limp) over to stand beside Chief. "I'm with wolf over here, it's about time we get out of here. My only real question is, what'll you do now? Stay here and secure the place? Head out and see what's become of the world?"

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone Yamakawa watches as the fight ends Kotone only now notices the barrels of her blaster are glowing, with the rate her cyborg body could pull the trigger she might have. he just stops feeling almost numbe now as she looks over the carnage. She shudders for a moment. She looks to Chief and looks haunted as she does so.

"...I should get to work on making sure we get these systems locked down so we don't have the ships go out. There may be some prepped for infection."

She grimaces wanting to be sure but they done a hell of a job on things.

"Can someone tend to Will. Chief? I think your creators would be proud of you, you carried out their final order and helped to stop this. I'm just a nobody in the end who keeps falling into things beyond her."

Staren has posed:
    Staren lets the others finish the thing off -- the weapons he had ready weren't what was called for, so he took the opportunity to grab Yuna and Will in case it turned out to be a load-bearing boss.

    Seems it wasn't, though...

    "Wow. That worked better than I hoped! But we gotta be careful... there might be seperate infected people or creatures, like the animals we saw in stasis. Still, if taking this thing down got the computers working again, maybe there's hope for this facility after all!"

William Pauwel has posed:
    Chief listens, but he doesn't turn to acknowledge it. Instead he brushes a hand across the surface of the terminal, sweeping away the dust and the debris. With a few taps of his fingertips, a holographic window appears and data begins streaming across it. It seems that he's... Thinking. His situation is an odd one; a foreigner to his own world. What's left of the facility's crew would almost certainly be in a similar situation, if any even still remain.

    "...I will stay here for the time being," he answers after a moment. Several more windows appear, he presses one key, then another. "As your compatriot says, there is still the potential for remnants of that creature to be lurking somewhere within this facility. I must ensure that this place is safe before I can do anything else."

    "I've disabled the electromagnetic fog," he says, turning his glowing eyes towards Mel and the others. "And the vessels that were on patrol have been ordered to stand down. If it would not trouble you, please return in a few days."

The cyborg seems to sigh, "I have work to do, and... much to think about. I may need assistance. And possibly advice."

Staren has posed:
    Staren extends a hand to shake Chief's. "Sure thing. In fact, if you need to call us sooner, feel free." Staren pulls a tablet from his bag and hands it over. "This is connected to the Multiversal radio." Then he picks up Will and Yuna, one over each shoulder, and turns to leave.

Gaonoir has posed:
Okay, so there really is no more treat at this point. Good. He can use the break... Gaonoir has enough on his mind from what he's seen as it is.

Once he lets go the evolution seems to almost dissolve away, disappearing in a brief cascade of digital motes, until only his original base form is left. And looking winded. He drained a lot of his energy reserves on this operation.

Though he does manage a brief acknowledgement to Chief. "Yeah, sure someone can come check up on you. Make sure all the such and such is squared away." Okay, lets go see if they got the boat fixed. Otherwise it's going to be a long trip home.

Mel Brock (941) has posed:
    Mel finds herself faintly surprised to be asked to return. But she responds by nodding. "Sure. I'll be here." Staren's got the radio handled, so she'll turn to head back up to the surface.

    And true to her word, when she gets back to the ship, she'll telekinetically push it back into the water so that they can set sail again. Probably even help get it turned around.