001 || so we didn't screw up as badly as we could've

[reddeadvirtuoso]

Characters: Jade Strider and all of the people
Setting: Room 2-01, Floor 30, Cafeteria
Format: Starting action, but I'll do whatever!
Summary: Jade wakes up in the tower, and has quite the day before she finally makes it to the network terminals.
Warnings: Probably foul language and violence against generic Tower monsters, will update if needed

[Room 2-01]
[Her waking up is rather uneventful. One minute she'd dragging some needles across a giant disc while talking on and off to Eridan, the next minute she's... well, asleep apparently. It's admittedly a bit blurry and blinding since she doesn't have her sunglasses on, so those are the first thing she reaches for.

She simply skims the letters without much of a care (yeah yeah the world is over she's got it whatever), and she makes her way towards the trunk at the end of her bend. She quickly wrestles the white suit off to put on her pants and red atom shirt (she didn't really feel up to Godliness at the moment), and starts shuffling through the trunk for the rest of her belongings.]

[Floor 30-- Perpetual Nighttime]
[In a dramatic stroke of Jade Strider Luck, Jade ended up falling plop down on the floor when the staircase fell, letting out an unceremonious yelp. She recovered quick enough, standing up and... it was a toss up between looking at everything tinted dark and looking at everything blurry, so she hazarded a chance her eyesight might've improved with the whole god tier thing, and propper the sunglasses up on her forehead.

Not that it... helped much, so she just opted to keep walking until she found the staircase. And that was when she noticed she stepped on something and holy shit ow her foot ow ow ow-]

What the--!! [She'd been smart enough at least to bring her gun with her, and immediatelly whipped it out while she tied to clumsily jump away from whatever was at her feet, and started shooting blindly at where she thought the black blob of evil might be.]

[Floor One-- Cafeteria]
[It was quite the trial to actually get down to the cafeteria, and she had dutifully eaten the oatmeal she had been handed because son of a bitch she was hungry. The oatmeal wasn't quite enough to satiate her appetite for the moment though, and now she had an...interesting looking egg in front of her. And it was black and shiney and she was pretty sure it wasn't supposed to be.

Right now she was just kind of poking it and looking at it distastefully.]

Comments

[geometry]

[FLASHLIGHTS, AWW YEAAA.]

[See, being Crazy Prepared has its uses! Equius is mentally triumphing this small victory over Nepeta in his mind, except not really because that would be rude; in the meantime, he slowly makes his way down the staircase to where the other person is, who he still hasn't seen. For a moment there he thought he saw a gun (and you know that threw him for a loop), but there were no horns... oh.]

[And now that he's closer he recognizes the human, marginally. Somewhat. He had basically reacted the same way as Kanaya when curiosity had gotten the better of her and she decided to assess these, er, humans. They were strange. He kind of stopped communicating with them after that, except for the one time with the John human which... was also confusing, since it was short and awkward and entirely one-sided on his part, and also he got blocked. He's not sure what this Jade human is like either, but he does know he/she/it is an acquaintance of Eridan's. Meaning on the subject of his/her/its disposition, he perpetually understands jack shit.]

[So clearly the best way to remark upo this long-winded thought process is the old classic,] ...Oh.

[reddeadvirtuoso]

[Sadly Jade was indeed not a mind reader and had no idea Equius was having a long-winded thought process or what he was gawking at. She kind of caught the glint of the guy's glasses and the candy corn horns on his head, so she basically just figured it was a friend of Eridan's and left it at that.]

Wanna stare at the red child wonder or you wanna go somewhere where the boogie man won't jump out from the mysterious black shadows of ominous darkness?

[Whether he's coming or not, she's walking down the stairs and getting to the other side of the threshold to the floor below before anything else comes 'cause yeah there's no way she's sticking around.]

[geometry]

...Oh. Um, yes. Sorry.

[But she had already started moving by that point, so he treads carefully after her, keeping the light out just in case. Once they touch base on Floor 29, though, Equius clicks off the flashlight and returns it to his toolbox. This floor seems relatively safe compared to the one above; it was a garden, which of course makes Equius a little uneasy, but it was better than the... thing living above their heads.]

You... have you arrived recently?

[reddeadvirtuoso]

Sure did. [She responds a bit distractedly, now preoccupied with whatever the heck this floor was. It kind of looked like a hedge maze? How the hell did they fit a hedge maze in here. She will never stopped being amazed.]

Name's Strider. [And she finally turned to actually give him his attention.] Jade Strider. You're one of Eri's freaky alien friends, right?

[geometry]

[]

Eri? Um... yes. My name is Equius Zahhak. I... sort of know you. [That is to say, he's been creeping on you and the other three for a couple of perigees. That counts as knowing someone, right???]

[reddeadvirtuoso]

[]

The annoying green guy that carries a shovel everywhere and would probably make out with his gun if his psycho tree-hugging girlfriend wouldn't get jealous.

[BEST FRANDS.]

Were you being a creepy alt-universe vouyer like that ornery blue guy?

[geometry]

Oh, um... I know who he is. [And he doesn't look entirely comfortable with that description, for a lot of reasons.]

[And his expression only gets better at the second observation. Wow, she caught him in one, and put it in the worst possible terms too. If he weren't so busy flipping out, he'd be impressed.] ...S-sorry.

[reddeadvirtuoso]

[His unease goes riiiiiiight over her head.]

Eh, s'cool. I'd go back in time and spray paint your glasses so you can't see me, but Eri'd get pissy at me for being irresponsible and I'd have to clean up more dead bodies. [Nonchalant as fuq.

And secretly hoping he wasn't watching her at one of her er less fine moments Eri would've told her if someone else was watching right--]

[geometry]

[Blink. Blink.]

[Also don't worry, he really didn't watch you guys all that much. And if there were any embarrassing moments in that mix? He probably didn't understand what was going on.]

...Um, anyway. Where were you going? Or were you just looking around?

[reddeadvirtuoso]

Just checking things out. Woke up here this morning after the Scratch, so I figured I'd check out the terrain and shit.

[By the way yes, she was about to go and figure out how to get through this hedge maze. Ready or not!!] Started at the top, been working my way down. Good times.

[geometry]

The-- [He was about to ask what she was talking about, before a previously repressed (or very close to repressed) memory kicked itself back into his mind. Yeah... that sure was the Scratch they did there... r-right. Still, Jade looked unsettlingly invested in that maze.]

Well... be careful. A lot of floors are... well, you saw already. But there is a lot of them. Keep to the stairs if you can, if you only want to look around.

[reddeadvirtuoso]

[Him cutting himself got a curious look from her as she turned back to look at him to give half of that curious look, since y'know, it was mostly covered by her shades.] Yeah, the Scratch. You know that plan? [Because seriously the only one she talked to really was Eri so she had no idea.]

Good to know. Do the floor tiles and ceiling lights spontaneously grow tongues and teeth so they can scoop me up and eat me?

[geometry]

...Eridan told me about it. [His voice was weak, even by the standards set for this conversation. He knew a bit about the Scratch from assorted sources -- that is, there had been a particularly treacherous section of the code designated as 'scr' -- but Eridan had been the first to tell him that it was actually executed in their universe.]

Not that I know of, but for what the tower is capable of, you're in a good range.

[reddeadvirtuoso]

It was a big party. Flashy sparks, snow confetti, though the music kept skipping every two seconds. Should'a been there, I had a bro that totally passed out from too much partyin' and almost shit himself.

[Disclaimer: This is not an accurate representation of what the Scratch was like at all.]

Seriously though? That bites. [Badumpssssh.]

[geometry]

...Oh. [That wasn't what he expected it to end up like, but to the surprise of no one, he actually believes her. But he can, on some level, imagine that one of their group would basically flip out from the numerous threads of reality snapping and warping as one; the difficulty stemmed from the fact that, by the way Jade said it, it wasn't him.]

Well... that's just the way it is.

[reddeadvirtuoso]

[....Wait did he seriously believe her.

...

Crap now she kind of felt bad uh]

Dude. I'm kidding.

[geometry]

...Y-you were?

[Oh god. Oh GOD.]

I-- I'm sorry! I... I didn't... I thought you were... um, never mind.

[...That was kind of mind-bendingly pathetic. And now he looks way more concerned about this than he really should be.]

[reddeadvirtuoso]

[She nodded, and snickered a bit under her breath.] If the end of the world really involved a party we'd all've spent Sburb getting stone cold wasted and aiming for the toilet as a victory condition.

Don't sweat it, man. You apologize too much.

[geometry]

Sor-- [FUCK.]

...Um, anyway. You were going to... traverse this maze? [It would be a first time for both of them. He had a bow and some arrows in his sylladex, so he wasn't completely unarmed, but that big old gun she carried around was a lot more comforting.]

[reddeadvirtuoso]

[ROLLING OF THE EYES seriously man if you were gonna hang out with her, you were gonna have to shove a sock in that sorry socket of yours.]

Yeah. You comin'?

[Which apparently wasn't really a question, because the way she's going off now and waving for him she's kind of expecting him to just follow.]

[geometry]

[Hahahaha... ha ha... ha. Yeah, good luck with that, Jade.]

[But as for her question, um... he figured that he ought to, just because Jade was new and there might be something in there that she wasn't familiar with. Of course, he would probably be unfamiliar with it too, but oh well.]

...I suppose.

[And when Jade began to move, he followed behind her obediently, pulling out his bow.]

[reddeadvirtuoso]

[At the least, it was the only way they were getting the heck out of this floor without any flighty powers!]

C'mon bro, no sense of adventure? Gotta get out from behind the computer some time.

[Hypocrisyyyyyy]

[geometry]

I...

[But he doesn't want to--]

[Oh god. Actually, that last sentence delivered a significant pang of guilt, though for what he wasn't quite sure. Mostly because he's Equius, and Equius understanding his emotions is a sin that cannot be committed in any universe, lest the very fabric of time and space fall apart.]

[So he continued to follow Jade, lapsing into silence.]

[reddeadvirtuoso]

[TOO BAD I mean

The cutting himself off and the silence is noticeable, considering the fact that Jade usually hung around with a bunch of idiots that talked to much.

...Not that she was any exception, buuuuut]

What's your problem?

[She looked back a bit curiously, but kept walking, keeping one hand on the maze wall.]

[geometry]

Um, nothing.

[Blatant lies. He has a lot of problems. But again, even attempting to explain them is probably too many big steps at once.]