EVENT: DUPRR ▒ THE SECONDARY SHUTTLE BAY

[ataraxites]

CHARACTERS: Ensemble production!
LOCATION: The secondary shuttle bay
WARNINGS: Violence, injury, graphic imagery, death etc.
SUMMARY: Discovery of the secondary shuttle bay and rescue or not of the DUPRR NPCs inside.
NOTES: March 30 onwards.

The doors are torn open as you arrive, metal ripped back like the skin of a fruit. Improvised barricades of tools and carts, shuttle pieces stand as obstacles to be carefully climbed through before you can stand in the shuttle bay itself. The space is vast, flashlight beams penetrating only a certain distance into the dark, but enough to sweep the floor, find the scattered, gored remains of at least three human bodies. The ship stands as the only complete vessel in sight - or, at least, it was. Windows smashed, the hull torn at, access doors ripped open. The inside empty. The shuttle bay is silent. But is that the silence of a catastrophe already passed, or of someone hiding, holding their breath?

Comments

[tranquiliorem]

You don't want to hear that answer.

[He draws back a single step, slow, gun still raised as if he's expecting the movement to spook them. Or some kind of retaliation.]

[50000volts]

Wouldn't have asked if I didn't want to know.

[ For a moment, it looks like Darcy's just going to watch him back away. But there's a great hatred that's been making a fist in her sternum, and his non-answers are positively infuriating. It feels hard to breathe. Doesn't he know if he'd just answer her, she wouldn't get so angry? She turns to look at Isaac. ]

Maybe you were right. There's no point in trying to work with him.

[ The movement is swift, and the sound is deafening in the hallway when Darcy lifts her weapon just enough to fire one shot into Ward's leg. She barely looks back to do it. ]

Prick.

[ She definitely does not look back as she takes off running, hopefully before Ward can think to fire back. ]

[iceboxed]

[he's mostly silent throughout the exchange, his eyes (blue now. the gold is gone, though he doesn't know yet) tracking briefly across towards darcy when she makes her move towards her network device. it's her question though that refocuses him. the fact that she's asking about him, despite knowing that she should already trust him by now. they wouldn't be out there if they didn't.

(it's why he's there. smiley has done nothing but help him. this is a fraction of the favor being repayed. he trusts him implicitly. she should too.)

it's when the weapon is raised that isaac finally moves. the explosion of the gun is enough of a prompt for him to get going. but it's the scent of blood that has him heading in a different direction to darcy. ward is injured. he's prey. it puts him on the lowest rung of the ladder, and it's up to isaac to get rid of the weak. it's what he would want, isn't it?]

[tranquiliorem]

[Ward doesn't look shocked at Darcy's response, at the gun firing or even the impact to his leg. He'd been expecting an attack the second they'd run into each other - the fact they'd gone so long without only seemed like luck. And that maybe Darcy wasn't as full of conviction as she might appear.

Isaac, on the other hand, is another beast entirely. One Ward is definitely not excited to have lunging towards him. There are a very limited number of options, all of them with longer term consequences than he wants to deal with. In the split second he has to make the decision, he chooses the easiest.

Momentum already tipping back, downwards from the bullet tearing through his thigh, Ward falls backwards. Falls in, a schism of deep black and heat splintering like a fissure out from his middle, cracks breaking outward through him, through the air as if the very surface of reality was being smashed into pieces.

It's over in a second. Ward stumbles back into the dark and the rend closes around him, leaves nothing but the bloody bullet that had struck through his leg, the quickly fading scent of burning and ozone.]

[50000volts]

[ With no gunfire in immediate response, and Isaac seeming to be bent on finishing what Darcy didn't mean to start, she skids to a stop and turns around.

Just in time to watch that was. Darcy's eyes get wide with panic and she looks around frantically, half expecting Ward to reappear behind her and plug her in the back of the head. ]

Where is he? What the fuck just happened?!

[iceboxed]

[ward's disappearance leaves isaac crouched over empty space. leaves him with nothing more than the smell of ward's blood. of gunpowder residue. of-- fire. lightning. of something he can't quite identify.

his fingers curl in to fists, claws digging in to his palms for a moment, before he hits the floor with enough force to jolt himself back to alertness again. to focus on darcy's return, and on keeping his wolf at bay despite the smell of panic in the air. it takes a while, but eventually he manages to look back at her without feeling the need to attack.]

He's gone. [completely. there's no trace of him left now, and he doesn't know what to think about that.]

We need to get out of here.

[50000volts]

[ Darcy's heart feels like it stops in her chest for a moment when she sees that look from Isaac. Like she might make just as convenient a target as Ward had made. Her mind is frantically trying to formulate an argument that he'll listen to, but it ultimately proves unnecessary. Which is fortunate, considering that in her head, her attempts to persuade him came out sounding like the woman from the DUPRR crew just minutes earlier. She's sure she's not very convincing when she's drowning in her own blood.

She relaxes, but remains reminded of the creature she's in the company of. Swallowing the lump in her throat, she marches over to the place where Ward had stood, half expecting to step through some invisible portal, but instead finding herself precisely where she should be. She stoops down to retrieve the bullet that passed through the man's thigh. She doesn't need anyone finding this later. ]

Right. Let's go.