towerofanimus | [Massive Infiltration Plot] || [Semi-Open]

[Massive Infiltration Plot] || [Semi-Open]

Characters: All the characters who signed up for this infiltration, too many to write them all here. Characters who stay behind and do not infiltrate can tag into the mingle thread.
Setting: The Cafeteria, then the Elevator's Shaft and finally the Administrative Floors. The 29th of July, in the morning.
Format: Action most likely.

Summary: A month ago Ganondorf planned an infiltration to go and pay a visit to Riki's floor-- Given what has happened these last weeks, the 'Evil Alliance' has accepted to allow Enoch and the people he gathered to use the infiltration in order to do their own thing. Namely, retrieve scientific instruments from Jason's laboratory, so as to study the Collar Fluid. The infiltration will begin on the 1st floor, the Cafeteria.

The first thread is a traditional mingle thread, happening before the infiltration and briefing begin; anyone can tag into it. The second thread is a quick briefing before the infiltration starts, where Enoch and Ganondorf will explain to everyone what to do and what to expect in case they don't already know. Then there are the seven group threads, one for each individual team infiltrating.

The OOC post is here for more information. If you have signed-up but didn't pick a group yet, please do so here. While the infiltration takes place, the villains who stayed behind are unleashing a distraction on the tower and those who don't go.

Warnings: Administrative floors, danger, death, horror. Anyone tagging here is probably going to die, or at the very least meet with a terrible fate.

Mingle || Briefing || Meanwhile, in the Cafeteria...

Group 00 (Ganondorf, Sephiroth [OU], Veigar, Ocelot and Jin)
Group 01 (Enoch, Lancer [AU3], Patrick Dawn, Tohko, Raven and Ryoji)
Group 02 (Xion, Fon Master Ion, Yu Narukami, Asch, Luke, Jonouchi Katsuya, Dark Pit and Sheba)
Group 03 (Nesir Aeser, Zett Takajo, Kain Highwind, Solas and Minato Arisato)
Group 04 (Kyoko Sakura, Amelia, Shepard, Homura Akemi, Terra, Sephiroth [AU2] and Labrys)
Group 05 (John Egbert, Rose Lalonde, Naoya Toudou, Dave Strider, Riki [AU3], Sora and Riku [OU])
Group 06 (Zelda, Ruler [AU1] and Saber [AU5])

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

O-Okay! I'm coming!

[He glances up at his hand, still struggling to maintain a grip, and starts swinging. Already, it's obvious he won't be able to make it. He waited too long, so that everyone else would be safe aside from him. He thought he could handle the wait, but now, with every swing of the cable, his hand slides just a bit lower down the cable.

As soon as Ryoji notices this, he gives a panicked look over at the rest of the group. Here Enoch had helped him out, but all for nothing... Gritting his teeth, he swings forward and makes one last-ditch attempt to make it, but by then he's too low to even grab the ledge.

He plummets down into the darkness of the elevator shaft without another word.]

*Enoch was already on his feet at this point and heading for Lancer and Tohko as asked.

And then Ryoji missed the jump.*

Ryoji!

*He can only stare down into the darkness where the young man disappeared. After the much trickier danger the elevator shaft had provided, after they'd stayed alive through all that, something as simple as a jump was what claimed one of them.*

[Tohko was more than a little shaky when Lancer caught her and when she was about to be transferred over to Enoch, but she was, for the most part, unharmed from the jump. She hadn't looked back to see what Ryoji was doing though..but did when Enoch called out to him.

Quickly, she looked over her shoulder..and saw that her friend wasn't there. After everything they had survived, he had missed the critical jump. She had died in front of Ryoji before..but she didn't want their roles to be reversed. Despite the pain in her mouth, she bit her lip to keep herself from crying. She had to calm down.]

Darn it! We should have jumped together..

[As implausible as that was.]

[Rick regains his senses to a chorus of yells. His heart kicks with a sudden rush of panic and he struggles to prop himself upright, hopefully get some better vantage on the elevator shaft. By this point his companions have definitely returned, but their general confusion about where they were and what kind of horrid mess their host had gotten them into were pushed aside.]

[The situation isn't difficult to deduce.]

...I-Is...Is he...? [Ryoji. That was his name...oh god, he didn't even know who the kid was and now--]

[It takes a considerable amount of self-control to keep himself from vomiting on the spot. He'd heard of people dying in the Tower, even saw others posting recently along the network of their own failed endeavors, and he felt for them and was duly apprehensive, but...this is the first he's borne witness to, and it's hitting him hard. The weight of the matter falls on the corners of his eyes, which stare blankly ahead and begin to shine with tears.]

...I'm so sorry.

Edited (what is html) 2013-08-01 07:09 (UTC)

No-!

[ Like Lancer before him, Raven puts on a burst of speed as soon as he sees Ryoji begin to fall. His form flickers as he does so, patterns in the dust forgotten. Reckless, fool move it is to think that he could catch him, but as it is all he can do is watch the teen get swallowed up by the darkness. ]

... better one than two or more. [ He mutters softly after some length of time, most likely in response to Tohko.

He dispells the void. ] Still better to have been none at all, though...

[ It was supposed to have been just a simple jump... ]

Damn!

[When he sees Ryoji fall, Lancer drops Tohko and reaches for the boy. But he's too late, and his hand catches only air.]

[A growl rises in his throat. Unless someone grabs him, he seems ready to consider jumping after Ryoji. After all, he had promised to Diarmuid that he would protect the boy.]

*At Lancer's appearance at his side, Enoch turns and sees Tohko is unattended. He hurries to her side, to steady her if she is, understandably, unsteady on her feet. His eye is drawn to her bloody arm stump and the makeshift tourniquet. He's noticed nothing he cuts with the Arch bleeds...*

Tohko...would you let me burn that wound closed?

*It was probably safer than relying on that tourniquet to stay on as tightly as it was...he wasn't going to lose anyone else here.*

[While Tohko didn't mind being let go, she was a little shaky on her feet..but she managed to keep standing upright. Trying to calm down, she sighed and nodded at Enoch.]

If you could..I would really appreciate it.

[She then spoke to Lancer as she prepared herself for the burn and lifted what little was left of her arm towards Enoch.]

Lancer..come back. It's terrible that he missed..but we can't lose you..either.

[ Raven moves again, this time positioning himself in a manner that puts him partially between Lancer and the edge. His—distinctly inhuman—gold eyes seem to gleam a little in the darkness. ]

Don't you dare jump. Don't waste what he allowed us. Not yet, at least.

[ Without moving from his position, he tilts his head back to look past the others and further into the hallway, in search of any details he might have missed earlier due to the then-more-urgent need to get everyone off of the cable. ]

This way doesn't seem to have been used for a long time now. Think there's a functional way for us to get to where we need to go?

[Lancer is positively shaking with rage, but after glaring back into Raven's eyes for a minute or two, he turns and stares down the hallway.]

Hell if I know. But we might as well as go find out.

[The notion of the group fighting because of Ryoji's death is almost as distressing as the death itself. Rick tenses, watching Lancer and Raven stare each other down with palpable apprehension; he's doubts he can step in to help if this escalates later, but it's worth keeping an eye on them, just in case. In the meanwhile, he marks the encounter as "more or less resolved" and tries to think of ways he can help.]

[...Of course, with how Tohko's arm is looking--which, once Rick realizes that it's actually missing, makes him have to fight back yet another wave of nausea--he puts those ideas aside for the time being.]

W-Wait... [The statement is a gentle request rather than a command; Rick is in no position to be bossing the others around.] I...W-We're all v-very, ah...b-beat-up f-f-from the, um... [Yes yes yes, fill in the blanks, too many words to worry about right now.] ...I think...W-We should r-rest f-for a minute.

No...retrieval units will come for Ryoji's body, we'll be caught. *And then to the other two:*

Can one of you come help her stay in place? *She may be willing but reflex is reflex and he doesn't want to make the problem any worse.*

[At Rick's call, Lancer does come back. In fact, he walks straight toward the wall next to the elevator shaft and pounds his fist into it. Ryoji was his brother's son. He had promised to protect the boy, but he had failed. And what's more, he knows he has to continue living and moving and even wait until the rest of the group is ready to go. It rankles him worse than anything else, but he had nothing but the wall that he can release his anger on right now.]

Not me.

[He all but snarls once he hears Enoch's question. In his rage, he doesn't trust himself to touch anybody right now.]

[So much for resolved. Rick jumps at Lancer's outburst and visibly recoils; his face flushes deep red, but that's hopefully not as noticeable in the darkness. Great, he chides himself, you've gone and made it worse. He supposes he deserves that, for trying to brush away the problem and being assertive--but deserving or not, the snap stings, and a knot ties up his throat so that he can't apologize, save slightly shaking his head and, dejected, averting his gaze as far into the dust-covered floor as possible.]

[It's almost welcome to know that Enoch is eager to move forward. Rick desperately searches for a way to get away from the now extremely hostile environment.]

...I c-can't... [No surprises there--he's struggling just to hold down his breakfast, let alone a squirming Tohko. Rick takes a deep breath and, with some difficulty, rolls onto his side to stare down the dark corridor.] B-But...I c-can s-s-scout ahead. F-For a way f-f-forward, I--I--I-I m-mean.

[Rusty doesn't trust Rick to lead him into any good situations after plummeting down the elevator shaft, so the only quadruped form that offers decent pain tolerance is Mittens (who is not happy about the arrangement, but is obediently willing to be of assistance). Without waiting for an answer, Rick shifts into the aforementioned form--a fairly large Bengal tiger--and, after a few growls after testing his weight, begins limping away to get a better look at what the hallway holds for them. At least he can see in the dark, now.]

Edited (oh for goodness sake html) 2013-08-02 04:10 (UTC)

[ At Enoch's question, Raven tears his gaze away from Lancer and the hallway to instead focus on the pair. ]

I can do it. [ Murmured again as he heads toward them, the words carrying only because of how deep his voice is and how quiet it is around them.

Arm torn off, how familiar. For her sake he'll try to be as gentle as possible with his left hand, anyway, though if it's a matter of comfort versus safety the latter will win through in the end.

Plus it's better to make himself at least somewhat useful, considering.

He reaches out to steady and support Tohko, bracing them both. ]

Edited (mauyn aren't you forgetting something important) 2013-08-02 04:27 (UTC)

All right... *Enoch grips the Arch in the middle of its body, on the "wrong" side of the hand guards, and inverts it so he can hold it above Tohko's arm stump. He carefully positions it, trying to make it so that he has to harm as little extra as possible.*

Stay as still as you can, Tohko.

*He knows that to be careful, he'd have to cut through slowly. But he's not going to do that, it would be too painful for her - and thus for him. So he steps back to keep his own body away from the blade and with a deep breath, brings the Arch down to cut through just barely behind the wound, cauterizing as it goes in one swipe.*

[Normally, Tohko would have told Lancer to stop punching the wall so that he wouldn't break his hand..but since he actually was a Heroic Spirit in here, it would probably take more than that to actually harm him, so she kept her mouth shut and just tried to prepare herself mentally.

When Raven stepped in to try and steady her, she let him, doing her best to smile a little at him.]

Thanks..

[Then then spoke to Enoch as he got ready and nodded a little, gripping her fist since biting her lip to steel herself would just hurt herself even more.]

I'll do my best.

[As Enoch brought the Arch down, Tohko took a deep breath and, in physical reflex, bit her lip, only making the pain in her mouth that much worse. It closed the wound and would stop the bleeding, but it just hurt terribly, which wasn't good when it was piled up on top of everything else.

One foot moved backward, but Tohko forced herself to stay put, even if she did wobble a little, and even if even more tears popped out of her eyes in response. She quickly wiped them with her remaining arm and nodded as best she could at Enoch.]

..Thank you. I'll have to eat..and rest when we get out of here. But do we have any ways..to get down to where we..need to be?

[The dust dances about them, looking almost as if it's grabbing at them, trying to pull them deeper into the hallway. It's only a trick of the light, probably.

The hallway turns once and opens to a large abandoned indoor park. There are no trees or flowers or plants, but there are places where they might have once stood. There's a large fountain in the center, though no water has run from it in a very long time. There are many paths outlined in smooth stone going all about the area.

The large room is quite eerie, dark and abandoned as it is. It's too dark to see to the other side of the room.]

Come, let's follow Rick.

*Time is of the essence. He doesn't want to come all this way just to get caught by retrieval units. Attempting to guide Tohko with an arm around her shoulders, just in case, he follows the shapeshifter.

And, whether he got there with Tohko or not, stares at the remains of the garden.*

This place must have been beautiful once...

[Tohko, in her current condition, didn't mind the arm around her shoulders, but nodded as they followed the shapeshifter. Normally, she would have spoken her confirmation, but the open air just made her teeth hurt even more, since it was just fresh air on multiple, tiny, stinging wounds.

However, when they got to the gardens, she couldn't help but smile weakly and quickly speak, pausing every now and then to close her mouth as a break from the air.]

It would have been. I've read of..similar places, though..I've never seen them in person.

[She could see that there were quite a few pathways, and since Tohko had never been to the basement and didn't quite have a good idea of where they should be heading, she spoke up again.]

Which..path should..we take?

[It takes a little while of silently stewing before Lancer realizes everyone is leaving. He too hurries over down the hallway to see the garden.]

[It's a beautiful place. Or at least it would be if it was properly cared for. But right now, he's not in the mood to take in beauty.]

[He looks toward Enoch. He knows the most about the administrator levels. He might as well as be their leader.]

Your call, Enoch.

[There's a large, sprawling tree just beyond the fountain. Its leaves spread out over much of the ceiling, pushing against their confinement.

It wasn't there before.]

[It shouldn't take too long for the group to catch up with the tiger--he's cautious to begin with, and now with having to trip over the very swollen back leg twisted underneath him, his gait is reduced to an arduous, painful-looking stagger. The way he stiffly carries himself forward says that Mittens is willing to continue in this state for some time yet, but it is inevitable that he'll have to stop and rest if they wander too far.]

[Until then, Rick makes use of his new-found mobility to investigate various parts of this park they've found themselves in. It's almost eery, how similar this place is to the nature area in his home town. The memories flood back quickly; he remembers sitting at a fountain much like the one here, watching a colony of ants march along its base to the bleached cobblestone picnic area across the plaza, while the Epps twins took turns seeing how many stairs they could jump down the grand entry. He and Codi spent many evenings together on the benches under the old oak on the corner, watching the sun set after a long walk, and they would quietly rest in the others' arms...]

[...Actually, was that tree even there before? Distracted by his own reminiscing (and possibly also blood loss), the tiger staggers past the fountain with his tail held low and twitching, whiskers extended far ahead to catch scents and movement while he approaches the anomalous vegetation. It could very well just be a trick of the dim light that he simply didn't notice it, but...best to check the center anyways before they decide on a branching path, right?]

[ Raven startles at the sight of the tree, having quietly shadowed the group as they made their way in deeper. Darkness or no, he'd been able to see that far, at least, and he's sure that hadn't been there before...

He's not chalking this up to a trick of the light, considering everything they'd already seen. A defensive illusion of some sort? Had they triggered something with their presence? The dust they'd probably inhaled more than a little of earlier?

Frowning slightly, he releases a controlled burst of fire from his hand. It's not much, just a small flare, but it should briefly illuminate the area. Whatever the results of that may be, it's obvious enough in his posture that he, too, is looking to Enoch for their next course of action. ]

Ah... *Oh, he's the leader. Well, he did get this mess rolling. At least it keeps him from puzzling over the tree that just appeared. Someone messing with the glamour for them? Is Ruana playing with them? Nope, there's something else to think about.*

...We should find out where we are, first. Which numbered area this is, if we can. To do that...let's explore this place and see how many doors there are leading out.

*Which means, first, seeing if Raven's flare makes any obvious.*

Edited (how did I forget to have him react to the damn tree) 2013-08-03 05:28 (UTC)

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject