Scene #6943: A Game In The Darkness

Owner	Pose
Riku	Passing through the yawning portal douses all light. As far as the eye can see, the void of a starless night beckons. Thin pathways of a paler hue seem to thread through the night, wending in all directions in a tangle. Behind Lory, the hole remains open, the sight of the battlefield they just vacated still visible. A path out, a way back to light and life. Ahead, a bandaged, wounded, drained Riku staggers forward alon the paths, threatening to be lost amidst the shadows. He gave his warnings. The question simply remains: What is Lory going to do?
Lory Thumper	To someone like Riku, who fully understands the dangers of this place, it probably seems like complete foolishness for Lory to have even entered the portal. She comes flying through and dive rolls upon landing, apparently expecting the portal to close quickly. She blinks in surprise when it doesn't and looks back at it before looking around at this strange dimension. It really is a dimension of darkness. The sight gives Lory pause, and she hesitates a few moments before looking toward the staggering Riku. Her teeth clench and she rattles those cuffs. "Come on, now. If you are going to do something like you and your people did, then you should be prepared to accept the consequences!" she calls out, then takes off after him. Stubborn bunny. And she heads straight toward Riku, so if there are any twists or turns in the path then she tries to just cut the corner to get to him faster.
Riku	As she bolts after Riku, the portal closes behind, leaving them both in the pitch blackness. The darkness seems to have eddies and flows. Some of it feels... almost peaceful. Calm. Others feel oppressive and threatening, as if something gathers there. Riku glances over his shoulder as Lory chases after him. "Don't you ever give up, you stupid bunny?" Riku calls back. Lory's much faster than Riku is in his current state. she hops over corners, cutting across to try to catch up to him... But then he leaps straight up through a patch of blackness, flipping upside down and sticking to it as if gravity inverted. "You can chase me some other time. Just leave me alone." It's clear that this is much more Riku's own turf than hers. He knows how it works. He quickly begins to fade into the shadows as he limps away, threatening to leave the bunny in the darkness. Lory, in the meantime, is in a maze of twisty paths all alike. It's very dark here. You may be eaten by a grue.
Lory Thumper	"No, I don't! If I did, I would never have become an officer! And I'm not a stupid bunny!!" Lory exclaims as she leaps across one of the sections...only to blink in surprise as he leaps upward and sticks to some darkness. "Leave you alone? Sure, I'd be happy to...once you are behind bars!" she says before leaping upward, attempting to do what Riku did. "You think you can do what you did and then just be left alone?! And -I'm- the stupid one?!" She is a very stubborn and possibly self-righteous bunny. Of course, she doesn't know how this dimension works, so it is entirely possible that she will just go sailing off into the darkness, or just fall back down onto the path.
Riku	Lory leaps upwards, the darkness flipping topsy-turvy as she leaves the path she is on and attempts to land on the one above. She's successful. Mostly. As soon as she hits the path, she feels her feet slip and threaten to spill upwards into the abyssal dark that surrounds her. There is the suspicious feeling that something is watching her. Even so, her intense speed is keeping her up with Riku, who is still attempting to hurry away, dipping out of sight in one direction and reappearing from an entirely different direction, the laws of physics seeming to have little hold here. "This isn't a /game/, bunny." Riku says as he conintues moving along. "One wrong turn here and you might end up lost in the darkness... And then they'll take your Heart. Just give up and get out."
Lory Thumper	Lory feels herself slipping and falls to all fours to try and get better balance. Her ears twich as she starts to follow Riku's voice, then skids to a stop as Riku appears on another path. "...what are you talking about?" she asks as she continues forward, though not knowing the paths slows her down. "What is going to take my heart? And even if I wanted to get out I don't see any convenient doors!" she calls after Riku as she tries to find the way through. She even tries leaping to another path when Riku appears on one. "I have a name you know, /human/!" she exclaims as she sails through the air, then uses her grapple gun to try and latch onto the path and pull herself that way. Of course, who even knows if a grapple will grip a shadow path?
Riku	The path is thin, but Lory's able to stabilize herself well enough. The footing is stable, but strange, as if it doesn't quite exist the same way a real path would. o "The Heartless." Riku says, now above and behind Lory again. "This is their world. Look, just... Just follow that path you're on, and I can help get you out of here." Lory and Riku promptly duck back and forth throughout the tangle of paths. It would be almost comical if it wasn't set in such a horrible place. o "I don't know your name, do I look-" But then Lory decides it's a wise move to try to jump directly onto Riku's path when he appears again. Riku throws out a hand at that. "No, don't-" o As she grapples across the path, she whips through the darkness... And slams right into something. Before she knows it, she's falling down, down, o o o o down... o o Until she lands on a small patch of... something in the middle of nothing. Lory is alone. No sign of Riku, just herself, a patch of ground... And endless darkness. It takes a minute or two, but something finally cuts the emptiness... blinking yellow eyes that open up, stepping closer. The body is small and bulbous, yet faded, seamlessly merging by sight with the blackness around Lory. It has small hands and feet, the entity carefully moving closer, seemingly shaking with trepidation...
Lory Thumper	Falling. Falling into complete darkness. The bunny can't quite contain a startled cry as she bounces off that something and starts to fall. She tries to grapple again but there's nothing to grip. Finally, the natural instinct of falling a great distance takes over, and Lory lets out a long scream as she falls. When she finally lands, the first thing she realizes is that she -didn't- splatter like a tomato. Thank goodness for different kinds of gravity! She winces as she gets up, then...her ears lay back as she looks around. "H-hello..?" she says quietly, then slowly turns in place. "Hello?" she calls out more loudly, until...she spots those eyes. She blinks back at them, then gets a bit of a cautious and confused look at the small creature that moves toward her. Even smaller than herself, which is surprising. "Um...hi?" she says, offering a small wave. "Are you...okay?" She notices the shaking, and assumes it is scared. "I won't hurt you. Can you tell me where we are now? Or where that kid went?"
Riku	The dark creature shudders and shakes, tilting its head back and forth as it looks Lory over. As she speaks, it flinches back for a moment. Fear? Is that fear? Or something else. It steps closer as she waves. Clumsily, it holds up a hand and waves back. Or does it? It's hard to tell. But it doesn't speak. Just continues staring with those eyes. o o And then another appears to her side, stepping in, looking at her in the same way. It looks just like the first, a little fragment of darkness with bright eyes. And then a third. o o o o And then a fourth...
Lory Thumper	Lory blinks as it seems to wave back, like a small child or something. The cuteness of it is disarming, and she actually laughs just a bit. "So, you don't know how to talk, huh?" she asks, then takes a few cautious steps forward. "Well, maybe you can still understand a bit. I'm Officer Lory Thumper, MPD. And I need a way out of this..." Her ears twitch and she looks to her side as another of the creatures appears. "...place..?" she says uncertainly. Another appears, and a sense of foreboding starts to fill the bunny cop. When the fourth appears, she gets the distinct feeling of prey slowly being surrounded by a pack. She steps back again, trying to keep them all about the same distance from her as she pulls her pistols. "Okay, take it easy now. No one needs to get hurt here." she says. She looks around for a way to simply outrun them, but there doesn't seem to be -anything- beyond them. Just darkness. And running into complete darkness without any sort of guide or markers is foolhardy even for her. There is no telling how many of these things there are...or if there are even worse things out there, just beyond what her senses can track. "...okay...that kid might have been right..." she murmurs to herself.
Riku	The feeling Lory is getting is on point. Her Cop Instincts are serving her well, at least in this point. More foolish people might have tried to give it a hug! The four Shadows begin moving forward. As Lory gets spooked, pulling her pistols. She speaks, trying to calm them down, but they simply keep moving forward. The cute repetition of movements abandoned in favor of a stalking movement, the Shadows lurking around her just at the edge of that invisible line of tension that would herald a gunfight. Lory looks for a path out. There might be paths out, but she'd need to be able to move to check, and she's being hemmed in like a bunch of wolves sighting a tasty bunny. She looks into the abyss.... o o o o o o oooo @ @ o o O o O O o O o * * O o O O @ @ o O oo o O O O oo O O O o O o # # O * O O C C o o o WE SEE YOU 0 0 O o C C o o * * o O oO @ @ C C e e O O C C * * O o o O o o O O o o @ @ o o C C o o O O * * O o Oo O O The abyss stares back, quite literally, as hundreds of eyes begin to open. The Shadows begin to leap towards her all at once... And then two of them vanish as a black line cleaves through them, leaving Lory to handle the others. Landing next to her, Riku hits the ground, staring at the horde. "We have to go! Follow me!" He staggers forward, heading towards a seemingly arbitrary area of the blackness.
Lory Thumper	Lory lets out a gasp of fear as she not only sees but feels the abyss looking back at her. The little Shadows leap, and she starts leaping and dashing about while firing nonstop, only to nearly shoot Riku in reflex as he cuts through some and lands beside her. Her eyes widen as she realizes he's apparently here to help, and without questioning him this time she quickly follows after him. She takes up a position as the rear guard, her head constantly swivelling to follow Riku, watch their flanks, and keep as many of the Shadows at bay as she can. "Y-you weren't kidding! What is this place?!" she asks as they go. "And how do you even know which way to go?! It's just darkness everywhere!"
Riku	Riku is thankfully not shot. Who knows how much more he can take at this point, after the rampant beatings he's received. Still, he has enough strength to use Soul Eater, and he hustles forward, slashing only enough to push back the encroaching Heartless that are swarming in after them. Like a dam that has burst, Shadows come, attempting to overwhelm the pair. They're also faster than Riku at the moment, which would be an issue... But Lory's bullets do the job in trying to keep them off their back. "This is the darkness between worlds." Riku says amidst the cacaphonic chaos. "This is where the Heartless come from. I know where to go because the darkness is part of me." Somehow, he manages to deliver that line with a straight face. Either way, the pair are assaulted constantly as they weave their way through unseen passages, taking corridors blindly through the darkness and working to clamber their way back up to the pathways that stretch far above them like gossamer strands. "Keep them off us! If we mess up here, we're /both/ gone." As he moves, one hand is clutched at his side.
Lory Thumper	Lory does her best, but single shots can only do so much against a horde. Whenever she feels like they are getting a bit too numerous she pulls some grenades from her belt and tosses them, sending explosions of shrapnel and riot foam through the incoming Shadows. She yelps as a few of those dark claws manage to scrape against her kevlar armor, her full speed still a bit hampered by what Guzma's Golisopod did earlier. "What do you mean it is a part of you? Are you just some kind of evolved Heartless?!" she asks in her frantic fighting. Then she gets an idea. She pulls a few flashbang grenades and holds them a moment. "Cover your ears!" she shouts before dropping them behind her as they run. A blinding flash and disorienting shockwave are released every couple of seconds. She is hoping that creatures of darkness do not like bright lights.
Riku	It's not a lot, but it's enough to keep them back. Barely. Lory is pushed to be precise and quick with her shots, making every one count, figuring out which target is the best to buy a couple more seconds. The grenades are highly effective against the swarm, catching them up and blasting them into oblivion or binding them up in the foam respectively, turning them into a barrier the others have to crawl over. "No, it's not like that! I-" There is a slash, and another Shadow vanishes as Riku shoulders himself forward, desperately trying to move as quickly as he can. Lory breaks out the flashbangs, however. "Bunny cop! No!" He yells, before he claps his hands over his ears. The flashbang explodes, the sudden flare of intense light causing the Shadows to be repulsed, sending many of them scurrying or falling away. "Why did you do that? Do you have any idea what it's like to use a big flash like that /here/?" Riku says.... And then there is a pause as something shakes, the darkness heaving and emitting a low, terrible rumble. "Oh, crap." Riku says. "RUN! WE'RE ALMOST OUT, RUN!" Just as Riku turns to run, the blackness splits behind them, revealing a winged, nigh-demonic figure that seems to be chiselled out of blackness that fades into a violet beneath. A spiked tail lashes behind them and a curled set of horns form a stylized, crossed heart-like design on its head. A large, notched blade is produced from the darkness, held in a clawed hand. Riku weaves and bobs, trying to use seemingly invisble walls to break contact with the thing wherever possible as it begins gliding forward with an implacable demeanor.
Lory Thumper	Luckily, Lory is a masterful marksman. Shots against low power targets like these pretty much always hit their mark, and she is pretty good at analyzing a situation to get the optimal outcome. She has already dropped a couple of flashbangs though as Riku suddenly shouts. "What? Why?" she asks as they keep moving, only to stumble as the world shakes. "I...I was just trying to keep them off our backs!" she exclaims when Riku asks why she did that. She doesn't know what kind of horrors this world holds, after all. Her eyes widen and her ears lay back at the rumble. "Wh...what...was that..?" she stammers. When the dark thing actually breaks through, the poor bunny ends up coming to a stop and staring with fearfully wide eyes. "...sweet peas and carrots..." she murmurs, in a flash of movement takes off. She actually runs past Riku for a few moments before her fear response is tempered by the other fear of getting stuck here. "You deal with these kinds of things?!" she exclaims, obviously barely hanging on this side of full panic. She keeps firing at those Shadows and stays right behind or beside Riku now. "Can't you move any faster?!" she shouts at Riku, feeling like they are basically walking compared to how fast she usually moves or how fast she would like to be moving right now.
Riku	"It's bad news! I've never seen that kind of Heartless!" Riku yells. There's no more yelling, however, as the path behind them simply starts cracking and crumbling behind them, threatening to spill the pair into an even deeper darkness. This time, there would be no escape. "It's my job!" He yells back as they turn a corner, and clenches his teeth. "I'm moving as fast as I c..." There is a sudden ringing as that terrible blade of the Heartless cleaves over their heads, shearing through the black like it was butter. "Ggggh!" He gasps. "BUNNY COP!" He yells, turning and suddenly grabbing her as they leap across one more gap. He spins in the air and hucks Lory forward, the darkness parting and swirling as another portal opens up to reveal a pleasant-looking town plaza. Lory's sent flying right for it, popping out to land in a world of comparative brightness once more. Riku emerges a moment later, landing on his feet. A claw comes reaching out of the hole, and Riku turns, stabbing the hand (and Lory probably shooting it a couple times for good measure, bun is quick on the draw). It pulls back with a deep bellow, the portal closing and leaving them both finally... in peace. They're standing in a town plaza, flagstones making up the ground as shops and restaurants are lit brightly in the twilight of evening. People laugh and enjoy each other's company. It's cheery and warm. Inviting, a place to rest and relax. Just as that begins to sink in, there is a grunt from Riku, a crimson color spreading rapidly across the bandages that have been wound scross his body, and he falls forward on his face.
Lory Thumper	Lory's ears flutter in the slicing wind of that huge blade going overhead and she staggers forward a few moments before yelping as she is grabbed. "Hey! What are you-" And thrown! She lets out a long cry of surprise as she goes tumbling through the air and lands in a roll before bouncing back to her feet in...a pleasant-looking town? She immediately turns with the intention of helping Riku, but he gets through just fine it seems. "Look out!" She unleashes several shots, as expected, then... Then just collapses onto her knees, panting heavily from fear and exhaustion, and staring at the spot where the dark portal had been. "Holy guacamole!" she exclaims. "That was insane! I didn't even know worlds like that existed!" she adds, high on adrenaline and so sounding just a bit too excited despite having almost lost her life in there. "It's ashame you're with those trigger happy freedom fighters, otherwise we-" She blinks as Riku collapses, and rushes over. "Hey! Are you alright?!" She looks him over, and worry is obvious in her expression. "Oh geeze...hold on, okay?! I'll get some help!" She applies pressure to the wound while she gets on the radio. "To anyone nearby! I have an injured elite! We need immediate medical assistance!"
Riku	Riku isn't really responsive to Lory's panicked poking. He's alive, but he's bleeding. It's clear he had existing wounds even before going to fight Guzma, and those wound closures had finally failed in the burst of stressful movement to get out of the Darkness. He's definitely going to need medical care. She calls out, but while she's doing it, Riku also sends word over his own radio. This is why the medical team that shows up to pick up Riku might seem a little /too/ professional for paramedics. Still, they pick him up and haul him off quickly, presumably getting him to medical care. And as he is rolled off, Riku's eyes focus on Lory, a complicated, perhaps confused expression on his face as he is loaded up and taken out of Lory's sight... And eventually, to Outer Heaven medical.
Lory Thumper	Lory is a bit suspicious about the paramedics, but given what just happened she isn't about to chase him down and demand he be sent to a Paladin medical facility. When he looks toward her, she gives him a look somewhere between gratitude, confusion, and apology. She's too proud to thank him outright given the situation, but the lowered head while looking toward him explains it well enough, she hopes. The bunny cop is certainly not in as bad a shape as Riku, and so just makes her way back to...wait, where should she go now? The Ad Coleum is down, and as far as she knows no new rally point has been given. Back to Mammalopolis, she supposes. "...get better soon." she says quietly, probably unheard by Riku. She'd be embarrassed if he heard it, anyway.