#3: "The tiniest flicker at the edge of the sky"

[risingshepard]

Who: Commander Shepard and YOU.
Where: Anywhere, starting from her room at 3-15.
When: February 14th
What: A commander coming back to the helltower. :|
Format: Action spam because I cannot brain prose right now.
Warnings: There's violence if you want to go down the fighting route, but otherwise, we're good here.



[Well, wasn't that the most pleasant experience she's had in her life.

Something so bad even the Reapers are little more than bits and pieces? Hard to believe it even exists.

Being in the husk of her whole galaxy (ha ha, husk...) really changed her assumptions on what the hell was going on. With the knowledge of her world actually being dead more or less proven right, things just got a whole lot more complicated.

That she found Legion waiting for her there wasn't any more comforting.

Shepard sits up gingerly, the sleep paralysis from her return quite evident for whoever's still in the room at the time; she can't help but wonder what the hell's happened while she was stuck in the no man's land that is the Tower of Animus. There's no better way to find out than to get out there, so that's exactly what she does--unless her roommates are more than willing to stop her on the way out.]

[If she's not in the dorms, then Shepard can be found just about anywhere in the tower, new floors and old floors alike. If you encounter her on the monster-ridden floors, you just might come across her dealing with some...very unwanted friends.

What in the hell are these goddamn Husks doing here?]

Comments

FIGHTAN.

[greyerrant]

[ A nightmare figure in gunmetal grey seems to almost edit himself into the scene, his huge, bulky armor at odds with the transhuman speed he demonstrates as he cleaves into the husks without comment. To him, they just look like beasts he has seen on istvaan III, and he tears through them with just his combat knife and a shrieking, toothed sword that rotates and rips through foes. He doesn't bother with his huge cannon-like weapon, slung over his shoulder, content to face them blade to blade, and conserve ammunition. ]

...GARVIEL YOU IDIOT, WHY WOULD YOU GET CLOSE TO THESE HUSKS DX

[risingshepard]

[Well, that was a shock...but then the fact that these Husks seemed different from the ones she'd encountered during the whole Collector incident--rather, they were more like the ones Saren had with him, sprang forth, and then she has to try and dissuade him from continuing his rampage.]

Get back! They'll fry you if you stay too close to them!

[She draws her Revenant and starts firing at the whole lot, thankful that she'd gotten a considerable amount of clips from Legion before he'd vanished.]

[greyerrant]

[ And so they do, arcs of energy going from his blade, to the Husk, to his armor, huge showers of sparks as every servo-motor shorts out simultaneously. Even his helm's eyeslits darken. For a moment, he stands like a petrified titan. And then... He...

FIGHTS ON! His armor is like a deadweight, his chainsword jammed, but Garviel is barely slowed, shoulder-rushing another husk to the ground before jamming the knife into the head, then rising, utterly silent except for the huff of breath, and hurls himself against the rest. ]

Floor 81

[pitiedthefool]

[Shepard hadn't been the only one to visit their universe for any length of time. Ever since he came back, he's been doing his best to make things right and help those he could while exploring the new floors. This time, however, he was just taking a break here after plans with Rise she is his girlfriend and it's Valentine's Day, after all.

But when he feels that familiar tug of the Chariot Arcana, he can't help but pause.]

...Commander? [Another person he hadn't seen for a while... had she gone home, too?]

[risingshepard]

[If anything other than happy fun times happens, she is so talking to you later, Yu. :|

I mean.

Yes, she had--for a much shorter time than expected. She doesn't seem to have changed much either, judging from her expression alone, but it was never a wise decision to base your opinions on what's on the surface, now, was it?]

Narukami. It's been a while, hasn't it?

[pitiedthefool]

[Iiiignoring that. >.>;

No it wasn't good to judge on appearances, which is why he waited to hear more before making his decision. Though the fact she was here... He isn't sure if it is a good or a bad thing.]

It has. [And it's probably not as obvious, but he is worried.]

CONFUSAN.

[echo_of_a_jedi]

Hm...is this place a space elevator, maybe...?

[Meetra was exploring the Tower and wound up at one of the elevator floor lounges - specifically, 81, where she's staring out at the thinning atmosphere with a complete lack of fear of heights. She notices the soldier enter on her way to wherever she was going at this point.]

Oh, hello, Shepard. I see you got pulled here too.

WHOOPS~

[risingshepard]

[She would've gone straight on to the 82nd floor if not for someone calling out to her. ...Funny enough, there's more of a raised brow than there should be on this Shepard--it's as if she doesn't recognize her at all!

Oops. Meetra? Your Chariot is pinging, but it's not the same one you recognize.]

I see someone's been spreading my name around to strangers.

You a new face to this blasted tower?

[echo_of_a_jedi]

Uh...yes, I came here from Hinoto-ri, like...

[Wait a second. Meetra's KEEN JEDI SENSES finally kick in and notice Shepard is wearing a collar, like that other version of HK-47.]

...like you did not.

Sorry, we've met in a different universe.

floor 74

[fuhgeddaboudit]

[Labrys' axe was detached and unfolded in an instant upon seeing Shepherd fighting; a little unhappily, she noted she'd been doing a lot of that lately. But fighting to protect people wasn't so bad. And that seemed a couple too many monsters for one person to handle alone. She sprinted forward, swinging her double-headed axe and calling over to Shepherd.]

Hey, you ok--k-k-kzzzsht SYSTEM ERROR SYSTEM ERROR

[Unfortunately, as soon as her axe blade connected, Labrys was hit with a nasty electrical pulse that didn't seem to agree with an entirely metal body. She fell with a heavy metallic thud, red eyes wide and blank.]

[Abort/Retry/Fail?]

WELP...

[risingshepard]

[Dammit, of all the places to run into more Husks...

Shepard had her attention focused squarely on the beasts in front of her, so it took her more than a split second to realize what 'System Error' meant. Her gynoid friend must have gone and tried to smash one of them!]

Labrys--!?

[...And there were still enough to cause some insane harm. Well, isn't this a terrible situation. The commander breaks out her ever trusty LMG and pulls the trigger, Warp Ammo chewing straight through them--or, at least, she hoped that was what it was doing. Damned things were much stronger than she'd remembered them to be.]

Re: WELP...

[fuhgeddaboudit]

[Emergency shutdown detected. Running diagnostic.exe]

[Electronic overload. Reinitializing...]

[Hardware compromised, operating at 30% with a recovery rate of .5% per 60 seconds. Software: operational. Plume of Dusk: intact. No further problems detected. Rebooting in five seconds.]

Kh... [Labrys's arms twitched as the last traces of electricity arched over metallic limbs; she managed to turn over and start to support herself on both arms with awkward, jerking motions. When she spoke, there was a strange quality of static that faded in and out of her words.]

What...happened? Wh-what's wrong with my voice, why can't I move right--?!

3-15

[terreifying]

Ooh, heeee~ey!

[Rei pokes her head into the room.]

Haven't seen you around for a long time.

3-15

[risingshepard]

[Oh, joyous day. Well, time to break out the sarcasm.]

I went on a vacation.

Re: 3-15

[terreifying]

Ooh, vacation? They let you do that? Where to?

[Here's Rei, not quite catching the sarcasm.]

30?

[pellegri]

[Hoping to test her newly healed arm before her shift on the forty-third floor, Pellegri purposely stepped off the stairs on floor thirty, sending a fire ether at the husks closest to her. And it was by the light of the massive flames that seemed to burst out of nowhere, that she saw there was another person on the floor. And that, luckily, she had not extended her attack so far as to harm her as well.]

I hope I am not intruding on your training.

30 sounds good. /creepcommander

[risingshepard]

[...Wow, what the hell, incinerated just like that. Shepard backpedals towards Pellegri, while putting down a nasty little spray of bullets for all left standing.] I wouldn't call this training...it's more like a happy little 'reunion', inclusive of attempted violent beatings.

idk which floor you pick one

[egotrigger]

[Well, there's someone else out fighting - because a shot rings out, one of the Husks falling over as a blast rips through its head, and another right after.]

[Allelujah switches from his pistol to his semi-auto, since it has a faster fire rate, and cuts down a few more.]

29th because this is so the best place to run into husks :|

[risingshepard]

[Funny, she could've sworn she'd gotten someone else out of a sticky situation in this maze before--was that same someone repaying her?

It took one look at where the shot came from to find out that it wasn't, but there certainly was someone else who looked capable of fending them off. Shepard scrambles towards Allelujah after putting some lead through the Husks near her.]

Geez, shoot one down and at least two more show up from behind it!

Fighting and possibly saving the day, like a boss.

[idkworldruler]

[Mitch was currently wandering around to find out any mysteries that the tower might present, when he stumbled across across some of the husks, plus Sheppard but he wasn't really worried about her.

Anyway, he's going to start flinging boiling blood at them and see what they do. He's never been able to fight Borg-like zombies after all.]

Or getting Shepard to gawk for just a sec, whichever happens first. :|

[risingshepard]

[Shoot that, shoot this, headshot over here...damn, does she ever regret not going into Heavy Slam training--

What the--?

For a second there, Shepard had to stop and blink. Was he using his own blood to fight them off? She's not sure, with the way things looked. With a shake of her head, mentally reminding herself to focus on the task at hand, she takes out her plasma shotgun, charges it with Warp Ammo and proceeds to fire away at the hapless Husks.

Mitch may find his gun being charged with it as well, if he's brought it.]

Fighting because that's what he does

[unteachableapprentice]

[Well well well, what do we have here. Warmage was just on one of his daily monster-killing routines when he came across someone fighting these... uh, zombie like things?

Well, who cares. They're dangerous, that's all he needs to know.

A fireball over there to burn that one, an arrow through the head on that one, probably not going to throw a bolt of electricity at that one though. Oh hey, hello, one that snuck up behind me, have a swordstaff through the chest- Ow hey that electrocution wasn't nice.

Forced to let go off his melee weapon and still disoriented by the husks, he stumbles back and draws his crossbow. He isn't going to last long without help, though.]

Hey, ow, that stings.

Badasses gonna be badass, huh :|

[risingshepard]

[Bang, goes some of their heads, and poof goes the Revenant's current thermal clip in place of a fresh one. Have Shepard scrambling over to you, too, once she has an idea of what's going on.]

Thanks for reminding me that I should put up a warning for these blasted things. [In that indirect, and ever-'pleasant' sense.] You alright?

Floor 74 OK?

[neverbeamemory]

[Though one of the more common of monsters in the Tower, there was never one Husk on it's own and the group of monsters could sometimes turn into too many to handle. Swarming Husks combined with the threat of the electric attacks that could sweep across a whole floor (if there were enough of them!) usually meant that Sephiroth didn't usually bother with them. He'd had enough of run-ins with attacks of an electrical nature during his stay in the Tower so far to not warrant going hunting after this particular nature of monster.

He had occasionally succumbed when the mood to see several bodies fall all at once before his blade had taken him. Generally speaking a shock upon contact with Masamune didn't have much time to get even to the handle of the great sword before the offending Husk was dead, but when such a weapon is swung and you connect with four to five at the same time - it's enough to make anyone's grip numb along with the phantom blue lightning that dances across your vision. Sephiroth often fancied though, that enduring such monsters was going some way to improving his resistance against such attacks though, training his cells how to deal with voltage. Eliminating a weakness that has already been exploited before.

He hadn't expected to step out onto Floor 74 to see Husks though. For one, it made little sense given the pretty filtered-blue cavern this floor was made up as, but then he should know by now not to take anything as a given in this place. About as surprising as the red head at the centre where they were all migrating towards in their zombie-like fashion, picking them off with headshots (probably?) like it was a hobby. They all just kept walking to their target and Sephiroth would just stand and watch for now - curious as ever to the capabilities of other residents.]

A-okay. :|

[risingshepard]

[What, were you expecting husks to come around by their lonesome, much less like this? Silly Sephiroth, good luck is for people who aren't the protagonist or antagonist.

But yes--the woman in a suit of armor, armed just about to the teeth, made fighting these monstrosities seem more like a day job than anything else. Perhaps she's had considerable experience fighting them off before? Maybe she's just that well-prepared for the situation, judging by how she seems to slip past them with ninja-like skill? And if not that, then was she superhuman?

The answers: Yes, no, and half-yes, half-no. Nothing quite like heavy augmentations, and such, to really bolster someone's combat prowess.

Shepard, after a while, takes notice of Sephiroth herself, though not before shooting down a handful of offending Husks with what looks like telekinetically charged bullets from her pistol.]

You gawk at people fighting off monsters often?

[...Ah, yes, she's a sarcastic one, too. Have fun with that.]