towerofanimus | Back in the Saddle, For Better or Worse

Entry tags:

Back in the Saddle, For Better or Worse

Characters: Samus and you!
Setting: Dorms, Floor 100, Floor 90
Format: Prose.
Summary: Samus is back and has a lot of change to learn about.
Warnings: Homesickness, violence against horrible crab monsters.

Dormitories

Time was all Samus had for a very, very long period. However, she didn't bother tracking it after a while. All she knew was that she'd been gone for a long time, wandering a dead universe on her own. And while she generally liked the solitude, it started to get to her after a while. No jobs to do, no old friends to have call at inopportune times, not even any space pirates causing trouble.

Old Bird and Grey Voice had charged her with bringing peace to the galaxy, but this? This wasn't what they had in mind.

Once Samus woke up in the tower, it was disorienting at first, but once she sat up and noted the room, and the things lying around - it all came rushing back to her. How terrible this place was - but on the upshot, there were people here. People in trouble. For the first time in months, Samus actually feels vigor. She dons her power suit in a flash, and heads out.

--

Floor 100

It's not soon that Samus realizes things have changed - she's moderately certain that there are more dorm floors than before, and that broken-off floor is definitely new. Passing it by, however, she comes to the floor below, and stops cold. Chozo architecture, as far as the eye can see. Samus' helmet flickers out of existence so she can view this with her own eyes. Those passing by will definitely be able to tell she's fell for the illusion.

--

Floor 90

After managing to realize what she saw wasn't real, and getting rather mad about it, Samus ventured on, opting to ignore some of the stranger floors - seriously, was that a ball pit floor - and instead explore the ones that looked a bit more normal. In this case, the lagoon looks rather interesting, so Samus disembarks from the stairs, and moves along the paths - though at one point, the path loops around a wide body of water. There are what looks like rocks poking out of the water, and so Samus decides to use them as stepping stones, hopping from rock to rock. The first one gives way a bit, which is worrisome, but Samus keeps going. The others have a similar feel, and after landing on solid ground, she turns to look.

What she thought were rocks were actually carapaces of mirelurks, that are now rather irritated and heading her way. Not too much of a problem she figures, but there are a fair amount of them.

Samus raises her blaster arm, and begins to open fire as she steps backwards...

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Zelda doesn't normally frequent this area of the Tower - it's far more dangerous than it's worth - but some days waiting for the elevator takes longer than it would to cross the distance on foot. She tends to keep her eyes down on such days, not paying much attention to the strange and ridiculous floors that she passes through, but the sound of something similar to a cannon catches her attention as she draws near to the lagoon.

Someone's in trouble.

Without a second thought, Zelda bounds off the stairwell, hands aglow with magic. It's difficult to see the person the mirelurks are attacking from behind their large, mutated carapaces, but that hardly matters at the moment. For now she focuses on throwing as many bolts of light and fire as she can, at the very least taking some of the heat off of their target if she doesn't incinerate them outright.

Were this their (somewhat) natural habitat, the mirelurks Zelda blasted would likely be ripe for eating after that assault. Those that don't go down by her hand are felled by Samus' applications of ice beams and missiles.

~~Nintendo ladies get shit done.~~

As the smoke clears, Samus strides forward, going to poke at the charred crabs with her foot to make sure they're not getting back up. Afterwards, her helmeted head turns to her benefactor, and her body language falters into surprise.

"...Zelda?"

As the mirelurks still, Zelda breathes heavily, somewhat winded by the energy expended in that display of magic. Unfortunately, her endurance using her real powers is still not quite as strong as the one she built up over two years of using the glamour. But there's little time to lament about that fact, because the battle ending also means she finally gets a good look at the one she was blindly helping, and oh, does it feel like her gut has dropped right to her feet.

She knows that armor. It's been so long it feels like a dream, but she knows it. And the woman inside just said her name.

That simple word freezes her in place, and she stares at Samus with no small amount of both awe and fear. This cannot possibly be real--

"... You... remember me?"

--Can it?

Edited (too much smoke in this thread) 2014-04-07 06:02 (UTC)

That reaction is a bit unsettling, and enough to make one's stomach turn a bit in uneasiness. Samus phases her helmet away, so that her face is visible - there's an awkward half-smile on her face, one that looks almost as uneasy as Zelda is, albeit for different reasons.

"Well, yeah. It's not like I've had much else to dwell on in an empty world. Hellhole like this is hard to forget, y'know?"

She remembers her.

She remembers her.

Zelda takes a step forward, then another, the urge to rush out into the lagoon towards her old friend so very strong. But she manages to restrain herself, if only just, crossing her arms over herself in a discreet self-hug.

This is real.

"It has... been so long," she speaks the obvious with that same undercurrent of disbelief, slightly haunted in a way that suggests this place has not become any less of a wretched hellhole in Samus' absence. "... I did not think I would ever see you again."

The situation is different, but that body language is all too familiar to Samus after her initial reunion with Ridley. She shifts her weight from one foot to the other awkwardly, then lets her gaze turn to somewhere on the ground. "I know. Wasn't exactly my choice to leave, or take this long coming back, though, if that's any consolation..."

"I know, I know, I do not blame you." Samus is simply one of many that have left her behind, and she's grown beyond feeling bitter towards the ones that have done so unintentionally. She's quiet for a moment, her mind a whirlwind of thoughts and questions leaving her at a loss for what to say.

Eventually, she settles on something simple, "... How are you? Are you all right?"

People never come back from the wastelands that were once their homeworlds quite the same, and it has been so very long...

For a few moments, Samus debates how to answer - because really, how do you answer that in this situation? She scrunches her mouth up for a moment, then rubs at the back of her head before finally shrugging. "I think my old CO would likely think me some kind of impersonator for suggesting this, but I think I've had more than my fair share of lone-wolfing it after all that," she finally answers with an awkward attempt to try and lighten the conversation.

Her attempt gets a wan smile, at least, sad and sympathetic all at once.

"Well, that will not be necessary, now," she goes along with it, not prying further. No need to bring back the pain of loneliness now. "We should... talk, about what has happened, what is happening, but..."

The scattered corpses of the mirelurks get an uncertain stare, and she's pretty sure she's heard the occasional splash from deeper in the lagoon as this reunion's progressed.

"... This is not the place for it."

It's not the best smile, but given what she can only imagine has gone on in her absence, it's one Samus will be very glad to have caused. If one can still smile after being in this place, then there's some hope of a good outcome - hope she intends to keep alive.

"Yeah..." Samus starts, kicking at the charred remains of one of the oversized crabs again. "Somewhere a little less messy and safer would be better - are the dormitories still the go-to place for that?"

"Actually, we have somewhere better now," she says with a slight hint of slyness. Her brand of hope is fairly hard to kill, and she has been quite busy in the time Samus has been gone. She takes a step back towards the stairs, beckoning the other to follow. "It is not too far from here; I was heading there myself when I heard the sounds of fighting."

~~Zelda, hauling Samus off to the closet for makeouts does not constitute catching up.~~

"That so? Well, it's reassuring to see there's at least some good changes that have happened," Samus answers, dispersing the rest of her suit in a flash of light, then following after Zelda.

~~Aww, man...~~

Nodding, Zelda leads her back up the staircase, once again not paying any mind to the strange and impossible floors that have appeared in Samus' absence.

"Yes, we have learned a great deal about how this Tower and its administrators operate since you were here last." Her voice quiets, and Samus probably won't be able to see how worry weighs heavily on her brow as she continues. "Not all of it has been pleasant, of course, but with any luck we have a better chance against them now than we did then."

They only have so many chances left.

"I imagine not," Samus answers while following - though she can't help a second glance at a few of those floors. Not even the Chozo could have dreamed of some of the ludicrous things here...

"I'm more surprised that there's anything pleasant, to tell the truth," she adds. "Though I'm certainly not complaining, either."

As long as there's one chance...

"Our progress came at a high price," she begins. While she will refuse to elaborate on certain things until they reach the safety of the hidden floor, there are others which are obvious enough to speak plainly about regardless of who might or might not be listening.

"The administrator that showed us the most empathy, Dax, was killed while rebelling against Ruana a little over a year ago."

As martyrs tend to be, however, his death was the beginning of something greater.

"One of them rebelled...?" Is Samus' first question, and followed up shortly. "Wait, who's Ruana? Someone above those four?" At least, that's what Zelda's commentary had insinuated.

She stops, head snapping up to stare at some indistinct point in the middle distance. Ruana has been such an ever-present threat that not knowing who she is just seems absurd, but... that's right, they didn't know of her existence until after Samus' disappearance.

"... Yes. She is the most powerful among them, and also the most terrifying," she answers, recovering and continuing upwards. Her next statement comes with some difficulty - she hasn't had to think about this for quite a long time. "If... you remember the month with the 'teddy bears,' as I believe they were called, that was her doing."

"Ah..."

That's all Zelda gets for a moment, as Samus' memories come back from being buried. "The bears, and the...candy..." There's an extended awkward silence before Samus finally clenches a fist at her side.

"So we've got a person to pin the blame for that on, then."

"Why bother with weapons? A good blade is more than enough to slay those things."

Garviel rumbles, closing on the Mirelurks and converting one to paste with a piston-like punch that splatters it a bit like a massive crab.

"Because I rather like keeping the things that intend to hurt me at range," Samus answers, raising her hand to shield her visor from the splatter. "Though that's certainly effective," she adds, opening fire on a closer mirelurk.

"Weapons run out of energy or charged munitions after time. Our muscles work until we're exhausted." He turns on another mirelurk, briefly gunning his chainsword before bisecting it.

"It's been a damn long time Samus. I'm sorry to see you've returned here."

"I suppose." There's the difference between the average weapon and her Power Suit, but she's not about to start spilling stats to a stranger. Though his comment did ring true about a few of her weapons, at least.

While charging a blast, she catches that last comment, then turns her head to him. "I don't recall meeting you when I was here before. I'm pretty sure I'd remember someone else in power armor."

There's a momentary pause, and one of the mirelurks almost manages to scratch his armor before being diposed of with a seemingly desultory backhand.

"Hmmh. Of course. This isn't the first time someone I remember doesn't remember me." He says, his vox filtering out any kind of emotion from the tone.

"Let's see to these then, shall we?"

"I'm a bit used to my reputation preceding me," Samus adds, blasting down a crab with the prior charged shot. "But this? This is pretty new."

While stepping around some of the felled beasts, Samus' arm cannon reconfigures a bit. "I generally prefer working alone, but I think I've had more than my fair share of alone time, so yes, let's."

"I am a Legion of One, so I understand, but I was made for warring in a group, I'll fill in the gaps. Set the tempo and I'll play along with you."

He revs his chainsword.

"By your lead, then."

Garviel gets a curious glance for a moment before Samus settles back into the action. "Heh. Suits me," she answers, then thrusts her cannon forward - a crackling blue beam grasps hold of a mirelurk, and she jerks it hard to the side, pulling the creature over and into its comrades in the process.

"Thank you for that!" He roars, his form blurring as he moves from his earlier almost casual fighting to going back into the rhythm of working with the Samus he once knew. Occasionally, a green-armored form flickers in and out of existence as he cuts into the mass, loosing a ghostly bolt-round that explodes one of the Lurks from inside out. He seems inclined to let Samus call the play, but once she does, he acts with all the merciless transhuman destructiveness that a veteran Astartes, particularly one with a ghostly counterpart, can manage.

Between the two of them, cleaning up the remaining lurks doesn't take very long - such is the way things go when one of them has a lot of experience shooting alien crabs, and the other is an Actual Space Marine™.

Once the chaos fades, Samus lets out a sigh, and turns toward Garviel. "So among all this different-worlds stuff, there's other worlds I exist in, then?"

Loken removes his helm, revealing... a tremendously large and craggy man's head, well shaped but battleworn, with grey eyes that suggest exhaustion.

"Yes. It was in one such that we became comrades, and friends, I daresay."

*Enoch saw, as always, the home he'd stayed in in Meridian. It was the only home he could remember, after all. The only other was Heaven, and it was over three centuries behind him.

But he knew it for what it was. These days, he spent time here because he had learned he wouldn't be staying in that home even if they did set everything right. This time, however...this time, there was someone else there. Someone Enoch hadn't seen before. He can't tell if the person is male or female behind the armor's obscuring shape, the hair not really being a clue to him and not being able to get a good look at the facial structure from behind.

Regardless, this person is clearly new, and he couldn't let them fall for the illusion.*

It's an illusion. I think our architect may have been trying to comfort us. Or...he wanted to see what he could do with a single room. It's not pleasant in either case, I know...

Samus turned toward Enoch, still a bit... shaken, to say the least. She shakes her head a bit, trying to get free of the haze that came with this.

"That...makes sense," she says, voice a bit distorted by her suit. "What I see hasn't existed for a long, long time."

What the person said...the place they treasured most was gone before the tower... He stepped off the stairs, approaching Samus as if hoping the mere presence of another person could be comfort enough.

"Then this is crueler than most. I'm sorry."

There's a melancholy dip of Samus' helmet, followed by her lightly resting her hand upon it. A sigh follows, and she turns toward Enoch. "You've nothing to apologize for, unless this is your work," she answers, her voice a bit more steeled than before.

"There's no need to worry about that. We're from entirely different worlds." His fists lightly clench in tension as he looks about the room. "I don't see what you do, in the first place. The illusion is tailored to each viewer. All I know is we both see a place our hearts long for."

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Back in the Saddle, For Better or Worse

Floor 90

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Floor 100

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Ack, sorry for the format derp there. Shouldn't tag at half til five in the morning....

No worries!

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