some part of you, too small to lose

[spearsurfing]

Characters: Eve, Raven, Elsword, and OPEN
Setting: Various locations during the rebellion event
Format: Prose because lol what dialogue, will change to brackets if you prefer.
Summary: Eve returns as a D-rank worker unit. Her mindless self isn't much for fascinating interactions, but when she malfunctions? Hoo boy.
Warnings: Obligatory body horror and violence.

[Various floors - Mindless]
Her heritage is more clear than ever, now—pitch-black metal adorned with glowing circuitry, wires weaving through her limbs like sinew, she is a marvel of machinery. It's a body more like a monster than a woman, slick with oil and alight with the energy of El. She's nearly unrecognizable, it not for the distinctive blue gem still embedded in her skull, or the strangely shaped ears on the sides of her head. She moves with even steps, never rushed, silent and nonreactive even to the cries of her loyal drones who can only trail behind her. She performs her tasks with care and diligence, finely calculated movements and a calm composure.

She wants to scream. This is unbearable, abhorrent, unforgivable. To force a queen to perform such... such lowly tasks, like she were nothing more than a menial drone?! She couldn't accept this fate. No, she refused this fate. She would deny it's very existence and destroy the interfering program; override, delete, recover.

... And yet, she still moved forward without objection.

Try as she might, it was... impossible. The damage was too great, her consciousness too isolated. All she could do was hang on to what little she had left, and hope...

While their master is forced to perform her menial tasks, Moby and Reby stay at her side, doing whatever they can to assist. It should be clear from how they hover awkwardly around her that they're unaffected by her madness. Maybe they could offer some insight?

[Various floors - Malfunctioning]
You never see her coming.

Perhaps that's not entirely true. You can certainly see the swirling cluster of metal moving through the halls and corridors, and the jutting metal spikes that seem to float in the eye of it all. But Eve, no, you wouldn't know it's her unless you knew her. To anyone else it would seem like just another bizarre creature of the tower, a swirling mass of metal stained with blood.

Her body only appears when she strikes, and she strikes fast. Too fast for any human, with spears that seem to sprout from the air itself, piercing forward like needles sewing into cloth. Her entire body crackles with electricity, an extra sting to all of her thrusts. If you don't react quickly enough, you might just find yourself turned into a living pincushion.

You can run, if you're fast enough. Just be wary of rockets from behind and spears from below. As for going on the offensive, that razor aura isn't anything to scoff at. Hope you brought your spear-proof armour today.

[Floor 70 - Closed to Raven & Elsword]
She stood in the thick of the machine, seemingly unaware of the pounding pistols just inches from her position on the floor. Her gaze was empty, locked on an uninteresting scratch on the panel in front of her. Moby and Reby hovered nearby, unsure of what to do while their master was in such a strange state.

How long had she stood there...? It was hard to tell. She didn't seem to be in any hurry to move on.

Comments

Floor 70

[unkindnessof]

The Tower might as well be a warzone. The monsters, active at earlier hours due to the lack of light; the units, worker and retrieval; the residents themselves, ones he hadn't seen or been able to locate for days...

This is the third sweep of the floors he's performed since the day began, all on foot; never by elevator. (Corner yourself in a small, enclosed space, readily accessible to anyone and everyone and inescapable while between floors, when it seems over half the Tower is now out to kill them? It might as well be signing your own death warrant.) His steps are even but the pace is quick, edging closer to frenetic as the day wears on and still there is no sight of anyone-

Dodging monsters and malfunctioning units (it's a poor game of cat and mouse, but they aren't his main concern)- not that floor- not the next- wait, is that-

...Is that-?

Is it her? Moby and Reby stand at the figure's side; it must be, no matter how altered the form. She's the first one he's been able to find; too late, it seems, and it's tempting to simply leave and try to find those who could still be saved.

...But it'd be even worse to leave her alone if there was any way that she could be helped. They at least have that much responsibility to each other.

(And privately, he thinks, this isn't a fate anyone deserves. Not if it's anything like what he knows.)

Warily, he steps onto the floor, sword drawn.

"...Eve. I don't care how. Just respond in some form, if you're still able to."

Re: Floor 70

[spearsurfing]

She doesn't.

The black figure remains motionless, and his words fall on deaf ears. Maybe she couldn't hear him over the noise of the machinery? But then again, her twin drones seem to glance over when he calls. The complete lack of acknowledgement couldn't be a good sign, whatever the case may be.

[unkindnessof]

... There's no way she couldn't have heard him, or at least, that's the assumption Raven's sticking with and now acts on, skirting around pistons and pipes and steam vents to try to find a better vantage point in the mazelike tangle of machinery. The position he ends up at is closer to the Nasod Queen than he would prefer, too close to be able to escape any possible conflict should the situation degrade, but it was either this or the precariously thin catwalks.

If nothing else, she's not acting violently- for the moment. This fact both keeps him there and stays his blade, keeps him from doing anything too hasty despite his worn nerves.

Even so, she isn't performing any 'normal' task either. Nothing that he's seen the other altered residents doing, when not trying to attack those around them... Nothing at all, really.

Is she trying to fight the control?

...Is she succeeding? (Irrationally, there is a flicker of anger that rises in him at the thought, one he can't place the reason for and is fairly sure he doesn't want to, anyway.)

For now, he'll just watch her cautiously, hesitant to get any closer or make any sudden movements- or make obvious his agitation. Strange (lack of) behavior aside, if she hasn't made any violent overtures yet he doesn't want to be the one who gives her reason to, and if she is indeed struggling against her condition then he doesn't want to distract her and be the one responsible for her failure.

Hard not to appear as a threat, though, when one is unwilling to relinquish their weapon; when he's in plain view at the corner of her vision, sword clutched tightly by white-knuckled fingers underneath the glove of one hand, the other halfway outstretched in a defensive position as if he already expects this to end badly.

[spearsurfing]

She continues to do... well, nothing. Evidently, she either couldn't hear him after all or was simply choosing to ignore him. Whatever the reason, the result was the same. The only sign that she was even alive was the soft glow of El pulsing through her wiring and the quiet sounds of air venting her systems.

Her drones don't say anything, either, but they seem just fine with hovering a bit closer to Raven's side. You know, because this is weird as shit and there's no protocol for "the Queen is brainwashed and also staring blankly at a wall for several hours unresponsively".

Unfortunately (or fortunately?), it would be far too easy if Eve simply stayed like that forever. After exactly nine minutes and eighteen seconds, she turns her head, staring directly at Raven with wide unblinking eyes. With her skin removed, her face looks more like a glowing black skull than anything else.

He gets ten seconds before she lifts her arms, a burst of energy erupting from around her as the Queen's Throne forms on her back.

[unkindnessof]

He would be lying if he said that wasn't somewhat unsettling for the faint familiarity he can still make out in the black metal. During those scant few seconds he searches her gaze for any hint, any sign at all of recognition and not for the first time curses his inability to read her.

The wait and the silence both have left him tense; this, coupled with his apprehension and wariness has him jumping back a few steps on reflex when Queen's Throne activates, mind racing.

This was a mistake, he shouldn't have stayed.

He's sure he's faster than her; he doesn't doubt at all that he would easily be able to outpace the Nasod Queen under normal conditions; in less unfavorable terrain.

This floor, however, is anything but, and for all his ability to weave between the equipment he's painfully aware it'd mean little in the face of Eve's ability to simply bypass it all with flight. As far as mobility goes, he's severely disadvantaged here- and managing a quiet, quick escape from the impending fight might as well be a lost cause.

With little else to do, he centers himself and throws out the first attack: Shockwave. Whether or not it actually hits from this range is of little concern to him; the move is mainly intended to distract, however briefly, because after focusing and triggering Giga Drive during the energy arc's travel time, he moves to dash deeper into the tangle of machinery.

[spearsurfing]

Though she was practically a statue only seconds before, once the spikes are out, she's more alive than she's been all week. Eve makes a sound halfway between a scream and radio static and charges, shreds of metal dust already starting to form around her. Moby and Reby are left behind, still confused and startled by this sudden change of events. It makes little difference for either side, with Eve already bringing the Queen's Throne into the open—perhaps it's for the better. Even if they sided with their crazed queen, there was no guarantee she'd leave even her own servants unscratched.

At first it looks like she'll take the Shockwave head-on, but Eve swerves at the last second, scraping one tip of the throne against a steel wall and the other snapping clean-off against Raven's attack. If it bothers her, she doesn't show it; her speed doesn't waver, and neither does her beeline aimed straight at the fleeing Blade Master.

While Raven may have the advantage of raw speed, there's another advantage Eve has over him: range. Mid-charge, she suddenly skids to a halt, feet firmly planted. There's a split second window where he's clearly within her sights and she takes it. The bulky gun forms in her hands instantly and shes fire off a Hornet Sting, slipping the explosive shell between a machine press and a row of conveyor belts to blast her moving target from behind.

Whether it lands a hit or not, she zips back into the air afterwards, slinging spears along her path through the same gap.

[unkindnessof]

He hears the distinctive click of Hornet Sting among the backdrop of mechanical sounds before he sees it, due to the overdrive granted by Giga Drive. A quick, reactionary dash manages to take him out of range, but only barely: the rush of heat and energy from the explosion washes over him in a wave just as he exits Shadow Strafe, only to instantly enter another as he zigzags erratically between presses and steam vents to avoid the spears following.

Raven hisses lowly in frustration; it's not a dense enough space here, not enough obstacles, not enclosed enough to at least mitigate some of her range and mobility advantage. She's still able to take advantage of her range, and he- still on the defensive. If he can get it to the point where they're both equally impeded by the environment, then at least, maybe...

Too bad that's not the case at the moment, anyway. He can try to lead her deeper in, sure, but at the moment, with nothing else... He'll simply have to try to match her, won't he.

As he runs, he focuses, and black lances of his own materialize along his path. They're still crude constructs compared to Eve's, but much less so than they were that day in the meadow, implying that he actually did work on them somewhat since then. They're just as explosive as anything else in his arsenal, at least, and they hang there in the air for only a split second before a thought sends them converging on her position, aiming to throw her off balance enough to go on the offensive momentarily and get in a Shadow Pierce.