ataraxionlogs | EVENT: DUPRR ▒ THE SECONDARY SHUTTLE BAY

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EVENT: DUPRR ▒ THE SECONDARY SHUTTLE BAY

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?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Bloody shit.

Sirius has, in his life, gone up against beasts: small and large, and larger than large. Hell, he used to go up against a certain beloved beast on a regular lunar-based schedule.

--Of course, the beast in that instance was actually one of his best mates, and he'd done it as a dog, and not as a partially injured wizard tired after a few days of mostly sleepless corridor wandering, fighting off other beasts of intermittent size and type. But the point is: he's held his own against all manner of stuff. Tenure on the Tranquility has only given him wider and more varied experience.

But still: the bear was just tearing apart what is, probably, the remains of a person. And but still: the bear is absolutely fucking massive, which is a challenge in of itself. Not insurmountable. But a challenge. And yet Sirius is still a Gryffindor, and also prepared to answer this challenge, like always, so he doesn't waste time with getting all round-eyed and fearful.

Instead he jumps forward and whips up his wand, spurred to action by the crash of tools and crate. The arc of his wand extinguishes its quavery light--and then he whips it down again, cutting through the air. A stinging hex, aimed right for the bear's eyes--and another to follow up, like a white-hot whip against its chest, red welts that tear through fur. Someone else can go after the hider in the crates.

"Oh great," is Kate's reaction. This is not her first giant bear rodeo, but who knows if these are the same ones she remembers or not; there could be laser eyes or poison claws or who knows what. She circles it warily, not concerned about inviting attack but trying to get a better look and--

-- just as she realizes that bear is gnawing on a person, she hears the scrabbling from around behind the crates and her head goes on a swivel tracking the noise. "Have you got it?" she asks Sirius of the massive bear as he magics at it. She lifts her bow but doesn't fire just yet. Staying under their radar has proved useful so far.

"I think I hear a survivor." She points, dragging her finger through the air along the likely path and turning to shoot a look at Natasi before beginning to head in that direction.

Honestly, Octavia should probably have bowed out of this mission hours ago. The mysterious attack she'd underwent earlier had certainly left her with a sense of empty determination that needed directing somewhere, but for all her crude on-the-move first aid attempts, Octavia is no healer and she's definitely starting to slow down.

That isn't enough to stop her though. While her motivations to be out in the thick of things might have shifted from the protection of her friends to the need to assess the risks these new arrivals might pose to her personally, it's still a pretty powerful motivation, and even if her walk has become something more of a limp she still wields the machete with a certain ferocity. She's not done being useful to this party just yet.

"Yeah, it only sounds like one," she comments after Kate, content to let others handle the immediate threat being posed once the possibility of survivors has been rekindled. Her priority has become finding the crew members who had managed to get on the ship and--

...honestly, she's still not sure what is going to come after that, just yet. It's surely telling that she makes no effort to stow away her weapon as she quietly approaches the direction of Kate's gesture from one angle, making a quick movement with her hand to suggest another comes from the other side. After all, monster attacks would make anyone skittish, right? It's like with any trapped animal, of course the survivor would try to run. It makes sense to try and prevent that.

Right?

As the hulking shape of the bear forms in the darkness, Caprica doesn't say anything, or react particularly; her gun remains down, and her head tilts, picking out the gleam of gore.

Aware, by now, as to the talents of the people around her, she remains unmoved when the beast directs its attention to them, a sharp look cut towards the wizard of the group as magic flares, casting strange light across the blood-spattered floor, but just like that-- she isn't twitchy. Her gaze steers towards the sound of scrabble and escape with the same cold smoothness of a snake changing course.

She acknowledges Kate's glance only by moving at prompt, the roars of the bear reverberating off the ceiling, going ignored.

She is sure what comes after.

Game enough to follow the girl's hand gesturing, Natasi moves to cover off ground.

Calm, measured steps, but tense -- muscles coiled and ready to change direction if she needs to, her hand locked at the pistol still tucked at her side. "Hey," she says, her voice beneath the ursine utterances going on not far away, but distinct, audible. "Come out, quickly. We're here to help you."

The sounds of escape had not gone entirely unnoticed by the bear, either, a flicker of attention twisting backwards before the two strikes of Sirius's magic snap and cut across its face and chest. It roars in outrage, turning back to the wizard, rage fuelling momentum as it drops to all fours again, lumbers towards him faster than would be expected of its size.

Behind, in amongst the clusters of stacked crates, toolboxes and half-finished shuttle parts, there is silence in response to Caprica's coaxing. Stillness, no sign of where the refugee may have tucked themselves away now.

For a moment, at least.

In the spaces between roars and the crack-fizzle of magic behind them, breathing is audible: the choked, laboured breathing of fear and exertion, the desperate need to stay quiet. A hiss of a whisper, irritation and terror. Stray words discernible in two voices, "I can't--" "Just--" "Where am I meant--" "Going to hear you--"

A grin splits Sirius' face--brief, fleeting, mad--because of course, of bloody course the massive bear is quicker than it seems, and he's just antagonised it. This is what he does.

Bri ll ia nt.

But it's bought time enough for most of the others to slip past and go after the furtive little noises, and anyways, it's not as if Sirius is going to die from being torn apart by some massive bear in space. That's preposterous.

He jumps back, agile despite injury, and runs--and over his shoulder, he fires off another stinging jinx--this one aimed for the forepaws, and then another cut, sideways, at the legs--to get a stumble out of that pursuit, if nothing else. The floor is slick under his feet, slick enough in one space that he nearly trips--but he catches himself and turns the stumble into a twist, sideways--another gust of wind, and it slams into the bear, with a force at the end like a slap from some massive hand.

"Oi, Doctor Miss Vines!" Sirius shouts, over the roar of the bear--angry, injured, angry-- "How d'you feel about trussing up a bear? 'Cos I've got one for you--"

Kate glances back almost like she senses that grin from Sirius, the moment of sort of crazed glee. But he seems to have it in hand, potentially reeling Gallo in, and Octavia there with her machete somehow holding her own through everything, unlikely to get downed now by just a bear, even one this big.

So her attention snaps back to the survivor, to the noise of movement and voices and radio. She heads toward it, checking that Caprica is heading the same way. She circles toward it, bow raised, and when she thinks she's close, feels like they're just about to come into view she speaks, raising her voice loud enough to carry over all the noise. There's a note of humor in her tone, but it's too dry to count as friendly and even that's sucked rapidly back out, serious and cool.

"Yeah, your friend was right. We definitely heard you. Now show me your hands, and come out slow."

Edited (what the actual fuck is my brain tonight) 2015-04-19 02:39 (UTC)

Silence, again, for a second. Two. Then a hissed "No, don't--" as the tips of fingers appear over the top edge of a stack of crates to the back, on the right. A man stands slowly, hands raised, fear a pale sheen to his skin as he looks to Kate and Caprica.

At full height he doesn't move, doesn't say anything, tension a fine, terrified tremor through his shoulders, the raised lines of his arms. There's a deep scratch over his right forearm, blood a slow drip from his elbow, the whole left side of his face the red-blue of newly blossoming bruising. His eyes flicker, glancing back down to the floor beside him only briefly, but there's no sign of his companion following him in showing themselves.

A lot of things happen at once, for Caprica. Thought and feeling and doubt and certainty, all within a second, all telegraphed in a blink, a softening of her expression and a resolving once more.

Her gun arm lifts, aims for the pale, bruised face, and fires once.

Beneath the roaring of the bear and the flash and crack of magic, there is the distinct thunder clap of firearm discharged. A clean and efficient headshot before he can even look back towards Kate and Caprica, sending the man crumpling for the ground like his strings are cut, glossy red gore at a fine spray from exit wound, gnats in the air.

She lets out an exhale as if she were holding her breath, but her eyes are already hunting for a second figure. At the same time, she turns her awareness to her companions and their reactions, inclined to get out of the way if the bear isn't a big enough distraction.

Skull kicked back from the force of the bullet, the man drops, the dead weight of his body a heavy thunk on the floor behind the crates. There's a scream, immediately, then the scrabbling sounds of boots against metal. The next stack of crates further back teeters from impact, tools spilling from the top to clatter and clang to the floor. The woman's head is briefly visible as she pulls herself up, but dips low again as she ducks, moving quickly, fleeing.

The fight against the bear blocks a great deal of the noise of pursuit. Sirius is peripherally aware of voices, but so much is lost in the angry roar of the bear, sliced at with magic, and--now--caught in vines, thanks to Mila, who moves with her same grim efficiency, catching neat hold of the bear like she's catching a rabbit in a snare. A loop at its neck, a loop at its paws--which are swelling, puffy from the curse--

And there's Octavia, too--clever enough to keep back, but the bear throws itself forward with a low and angry huff of sound--hot breath, spit, anguish--it strains against the bonds of the vines, and Octavia is just a little too close, but she dances back in time, her machete raised high, defensively--

Sirius cracks off another hex at the bear's eyes as punishment. The beast roars again, trying to rear onto its back legs, as if height will give it new strength--but the effort is useless. Mila's vines keep it down, an inexorable grip. Blind, the bear snaps at the air, snaps at nothing--and the vine constricts at its throat, brutally hoarsing its roar. Thorns bite in to fur and flesh, tight, like a dog collar with the spikes turned inward--the sound of the vine's tight grip sounds like the creak of leather, one more pull--the bear's mouth opens, useless, trying to catch breath--

And the crack of the gun breaks through all of that, a loud and clear sound that splits even the moment of combat. Sirius--who had been staring at the bear with grim attentiveness, watching Mila's vine strangle it, or at least get a grip tight enough to take its great head clean off its body--his wand held aloft, lest the bear suddenly find some new strength--but Sirius looks around at the gunshot, jerked out of the moment.

Kate should flinch-- or more than that, recoil-- as Natasi pulls the trigger and in a split second the man goes from having his hands in the air to his brains. Really, really, what she ought to do is spring into action, dive at the blonde to try to redirect her gun, or at least tackle her and try to wrestle the weapon away before she can take another shot. Something heroic and selfless and probably dangerous.

Instead she barely reacts at all: no horror, no surprise, her face is set in a grim sort of approval. She says nothing and steps forward after the fleeing woman, bow still raised. She's been using it on monsters all the way here, and the beam's projectile is like a laser, a little wider than a quarter and burning easily through flesh. The pink seems a little lame at first but by now they've all seen by now what it can do.

Kate's fast in pursuit, a graceful leap up onto the stack of crates to get a better vantage point, the benefit of added height taking away any cover provided by having stayed low. This time she doesn't bother demanding a stop, asking for hands up. She's quick to aim, shot tracking with the woman as she moves, the neon 'string' drawn back to fire.

"What the hell're you doing?" Sirius shouts over at the other half of their team. The half that's gone mental, apparently--while they had never really sat down to lay out a plan for what it was they were going to do, if and when they'd found any survivors, they had never really laid out a plan that included shooting them, either--but that's what's going on, and there's Kate on top of a stack of crates, agile as you please, her bow up and trained with terrifying focus toward the retreating figure--and the bear is still struggling, but Sirius' wand is trained elsewhere now, cautious, confused--had something gone wrong?

No, he decides, a second later. No, they're mental, they can't kill these people, not like this, and it's just then that Mila's vine grows tight enough on the bear's throat to kill it, at last--a final tattoo of its paws against the floor of the shuttle bay as it expires, claws scraping, desperately, at nothing--like wire through butter, the vine bites in, the bear dies, and Sirius takes off running toward Kate.

"Don't shoot her, what the hell are you doing-- Stay here, don't--" That's to Octavia, still clutching her machete, the last thing they need is a damn machete in anyone's head-- "KATE! Bloody-- stop! Both of you! Don't kill her, you-- ah, fuck," and he gives in, whips his wand up toward Kate, to get her weapon away from her before she can act, "Accio bow--"

Caprica is in motion at first sign of chase, in tandem with Kate; instinct has her recognise an ally for what it is as the other woman springs onto the crates, and she herself is in pursuit, the sound of Black's shouts echoing in the background.

The sound of an arrow's release. Disappeared into the darkness beyond.

And the quarry is still running. Something in Caprica longs to get close and personal and sink her nails in, probably because it's just, you know, been a while besides the monsters they've so far encountered, but she isn't here for herself. She's here for the greater good.

A wild shot clips the woman's shoulder, sending her crashing to the hard floor, and Caprica skids to a halt herself. Two more shots in quick succession, aimed carefully, bite into her quarry's back, and then she's turning.

And aiming, for the wizard who is looking to stop them, but she isn't afforded the chance to pull the trigger.

Mila doesn't bother telegraphing her intentions with shouted arguments or pleas that are only going to succeed in achieving absolutely fucking nothing. Sirius has mercifully shut up and focused on Kate, which leaves Caprica; Mila is in motion behind her, but she doesn't try to catch up, dropping the corpse from her grip and flinging the freed vines forward to loop around Caprica's wrists, grip as inexorable when applied to cylon as to bear. She jerks her up as if she's nothing, hands bound in living flesh above her head and her feet dangling high above the floor, impossible to maintain a grip on the gun, much less fire it at anyone.

She slides underneath, catfooted, to catch it in one expert motion before she straightens, turning with it held ready to see how Sirius has fared with Kate and Octavia.

"I will be extremely unimpressed if I have to shoot any of you."

"We have to-- what the--?" The bow is already jerking up and out of Kate's hands by the time she bothers to respond to Sirius in any fashion. It's just in time for her shot to go wild, bolt zinging off between the dark husks of shuttles to bite into metal somewhere instead of woman.

Her grip on it was firm enough that the magical pull knocks Kate off balance and the weapon's effort to obey the spell and get to Sirius has it twisting and whacking her in the chin. She grits her teeth and hangs on, boots skidding as she's dragged very briefly before it fights free of Kate's hands altogether. That leaves her to make a far less graceful descent from her perch, teetering for a second before jump/stumbling to a crouch on the ground. Her balance is excellent, but she seems a little bit dazed, attention wandered.

Natasi's gun fires and three bullets thump dully into flesh, slowed too much to be heard when they hit the metal flooring on the way out, and this time Kate startles, a visible twitch of head and shoulders toward the sound. And then there are vines and dangling blondes and Kate looks around the creates, looks at the bodies, and presses a knuckle between her eyes, hard. It's Sirius she looks back to over her shoulder, dark brows in a deep frown.

"We have to," she says, but she doesn't sound as sure as she did earlier, and the certainty is gone from her posture, shoulders flexed and curled like she's been carrying a weight on them and it's starting to chafe. She's looking at the bow, now in his hands, a glance flickered over at the gun Mila acquires. "They're a threat, we can't let them be here. We have to take care of them first, it's--" She shakes her head and there's enough of a twitch in the gesture to make it seem not just emphasis but an attempt at clearing, and it's followed by a little curl of her lip, a hint of a grimace tugging it up. "It's the only way to keep all of us safe."

Sirius catches Kate's bow, easily, one-handed, and luckily doesn't have to deal with catching Kate as well. The whip of the vines overhead securing the other mental here is nearly comforting, if still a little eerie, like being in some very combative Herbology exam. Quick mental note to thank Ms Dr Vines for all her help when all of this is over, and Kate stops looking at him like--

Well, like someone that's suffered from a badly-worked memory charm, or at least someone that's come out of a cave into a very bright light. Blank, but with a dark conviction somewhere in her that is, blessedly, fading. No time to overthink it, Sirius tells himself, firmly--he spares half a glance back toward Octavia, and then, right, rather than have to worry about talking her down as well, he flips a spell over his shoulder. A chair snaps out of thin air--or so it might seem, and anyone with an eye for it might recognise a chair from the SEC offices, or at least one so like it as to be its twin. It bumps forcefully into the backs of Octavia's knees, sweeping her off her feet.

Fully confident in his success, Sirius hadn't even waited to watch the chair versus Octavia. He's turned back to Kate already--her bow held somewhat clumsily in his hand, his wand in the other. "We can take care of them without them being dead. We can-- I dunno, question them. See how they found us. What the hell is she going to do, build a comm device out of her shoe? Come on." And, quieter--for Kate alone, he adds: "You're better than this, Kate. I know you are."

Shining moment of Gryffindor belief. He still doesn't quite like the look in Kate's eye, but likes less the idea of having to truss her up and carry her back under duress. Or something. Have her vined as well.

Merlin.

"I'll tie her up," he says, steadily, raising his wand a little--not a challenge, a demonstration. "We'll take her back. Everyone all right with that? Everyone not tied up in vines. We know your vote."

More shooting, probably. But not from Kate, and not just because she's not got her bow. Sirius turns a glance on her once more--steady, expectant, a little earnest. You're better than this, Kate, without actually saying it.

Hoisting Natasi up and up by her wrists gets the predictable cry of outrage; oddly primal, for all that at least some people know of what she actually professes to be, Kate among them. There's not much she can do, her wrists squeezed and her feet with only air beneath them and the gun fallen away.

Below her, there's a conversation happening.

She doesn't seem to be listening.

Curling like an intensely muscular worm on a hook, Caprica pulls herself almost upside down, ankles wrapping around living vine in an attempt to kick and push herself free with her heels. Meaningful stares are occurring to the dulcet sounds of Caprica's inarticulate frustration. It's not working out for her.

She seems to recognise this before anyone can point it out, abruptly dropping back down to dangle, even as tension and strength coil up along her arms, along her spine, refusing to hang limp.

"You don't know what you're doing," she finally hisses.

Edited 2015-04-20 09:11 (UTC)

"I know that I absolutely will not miss," Mila says, without missing beat or bothering to look around and dignify that with any more of her attention when she's still got her eyes on those blood-thirsty members of the group that aren't currently being held aloft. She's aware of Caprica's struggling (and its cessation) in the same way that people are aware of it when something small brushes against their skin, but it isn't achieving anything (and then stops) which means it isn't going to be a problem and can safely be left in the assurance of her grip.

"These creatures came here to kill these people. You can either be a person who wants to know why, or you can be one of the things that we dealt with getting here so that Sirius and I might find out why."

She would regret being forced to act accordingly; she would not regret acting, and the cool certainty of her holds more compelling weight than a blustering threat would have. She doesn't expect it to weigh with Caprica, whose conviction is equal to hers and who, of the three, she'd least like to shoot.

Edited 2015-04-21 09:50 (UTC)

"She's dead," is the first thing Kate says in reply to Sirius. She'd flinched at his words, at the faith in his tone and that earnest look, jaw working on nothing, brow furrowed so deep someone ought to warn her it could get stuck that way. She's looking at the pair of DUPRR employees on the ground, one headless, both bloody, neither moving. It's less obvious for the woman, just two neat little wounds in her back, but Kate knows where you can hit someone and still give them a chance of living and those are not the places.

She looks and looks, and then stops looking even though eyes don't close, everything turning inward like she's trying to pull herself inside out by the brain and just for a second she sways on her feet, a fist clenching in the air beside her hip like it's holding her up on an invisible railing.

When she turns back she's paler, speaking through grit teeth. (It's effort and control but it's swallowing down nausea, too.) She bends to her boot and pulls out a knife, careful to move her hand to the blade before Mila can shoot her, holding it out hilt-first to Sirius. "It's in my head," she says, and it's quiet and thick and just for a second she stares at him and can't keep the fear out of her eyes. "I think I beat it, but--. Just in case."

And then she swallows hard and straightens up, ponytail tossed as she forces her shoulders back and screws her face into something serious and determined and turns to the others, up to Caprica. "It's in our heads. It wants us to kill them. Which means we need to do the opposite. Dr. Gallo, are there any others? Natasi and I aren't going to be the only ones controlled, we need to save whoever is left before someone gets them."

Whatever tiny prickle of gratefulness Sirius had felt for Mila being so firm and caustic, whatever traction he'd felt at his own convictions and beliefs--all of it is swiftly undercut by Kate: It's in my head. It's in our heads. Her confession comes startlingly close to Mila's statement, creatures, like something had dispatched them, or at least pulled the pins on their cage doors and set them loose. Sirius, ever sensitive to his friends being cast as creatures, however coincidental the implication that isn't really an implication at all, just a thought that occurs to him, in passing--Sirius feels a chill run up his back.

But he doesn't say anything to that end. There's no point in wetting themselves. Instead, he just nods, once, as much a signal of understanding as it is an assurance. He's got Kate's knife--he takes it from her, shifting his grip on his wand to accommodate both in one hand--and should anything happen--

Well, they've got Mila and her vines, and trussing Kate up and dragging her home to undergo-- therapy. Or something. Nothing that Sirius really trusts. (Therapy, that is. Mila is all right.) So it's worth it to note that Kate has got him as well, keeping an eye on her.

"I'll check her," he says. The woman, with the two little wounds. His knowledge of killing blows is more extensive when it comes to the magical sort. "Even if she's on her way out, she might have something to say."

He moves past Kate toward the woman's prone figure, shoving her knife into his belt to free up his wand hand. As he passes Kate, he bumps his hand against hers--the one that had clutches on nothing. Not such a girl that he's going to stop and hug her, or anything, but a small gesture of bracing reassurance. It's all right, even if there's more to do.

Edited (srry briefly clarifying) 2015-04-22 00:01 (UTC)

The woman is dead, the sprawl of her limp limbs on the floor telegraphing the desperation she'd been fleeing with, her face, if it's turned, open-eyed and twisted in fear and pain. There's blood red in her mouth and speckled on the floor next to her face - she'd drowned in it, only one or two gasping breaths as her lungs filled. The rest is clear in the pool of blood under her. There had been no chance of survival, once the last two shots had been made.

Her death is something Mila was aware of before Sirius moved to check on her - she doesn't stop him, though, just refocuses on Kate, appreciative of the way she pulls herself together and prioritizes. It raises her slightly in Mila's sometimes unfairly difficult to earn esteem, and tables any further discussion of who is going to get shot if they sass her again.

"I count one still alive," she says, taking the preemptive precaution of catching Caprica's ankles with a second vine without so much as glancing around to see if she's reacting to the news that they aren't all dead. She moves forward in the direction she'd identified the survivor, keeping her current quarry high and several metres back, cautious even as she's confident in her own demonstrated strength.

Kate takes the brush of Sirius's fingers as it's meant, and looks after him as he goes to check on the woman. She doesn't need the confirmation but she looks anyway, watching Sirius crouch to check, watching the blood inch across the floor as the pool expands.

She turns back when Milagros speaks, shakes off the moment in the determined setting of her shoulders yet again, and nods, setting off to follow. "Good." She's not about to just stay where she is and wait, but she keeps behind Milagros and not just because she's letting the doctor lead the way. She keeps her arms crossed, too, tightly across her chest with fists tucked under biceps.

No sooner has Milagros finished saying alive that there's movement, at the far back of the nest of stacked crates. Close enough to have heard everything, perhaps even seen some. And not waiting around to be found and treated to the same, now attention has apparently turned to him. He'd think it impossible, that any of them would even know he's here, but a lot of what he's experienced over the past few days has been impossible. He isn't stopping to prove credibility.

On the same line of thinking, he isn't making his way further into the shuttle bay, for all the hiding spots it provides. Hiding hasn't really worked out, and he's sure these people could just keep tracking him, pushing him further, eventually cornering him. He's only got one way to go, as far as he can tell - the doors.

Staying low but moving fast, Basher works his way along the wall and then bolts for the cover of the DUPRR ship, hoping to make it around the far side and then aim for the doors.

EVENT: DUPRR ▒ THE SECONDARY SHUTTLE BAY

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