ENDGAME - STOP THE RIG

[goneawaymod]

Who: Anyone that wants in.
What: Busting the rig open
Where: Multiple Places
When: After Saturday exploded the situation
Warnings/Notes: Probably violence.

The end is near.

The signal for the nanochains is temporarily blocked but it won't last forever. Several things need to be done in a very short amount of time to end this thing in a way that isn't disastrous.

Aren't you all tired of being nice? Don't you just want to go apeshit?

[Note: All threads will be treated like a "splash page" where people just do the occasional tag to throw an action into the fray. There will be no tag order, please just tag the most recent tag on the thread.]

Comments

[wheyoftheadept]

"Jesus goddamn - did I call a goddmned retreat, I said disenfuckinggage - " Saturday chokes back a line of rapid-fire abuse that would make a drill sergeant blush. Better to save her breath - later they can talk about why an orderly regroup beats a last stand any day.

The way they're tossing each other around is impressive; it'd be more so if she didn't need to make them stop. Options, options, what are the options - pneumatic door - revise that, nonlethal options - usefully heavy objects conveniently suspended above their heads - maybe a fire suppression system, one of the ones with foam - no joy. And nothing big enough to even really slow them down.

For a moment, she stands stock-still, looking paralyzed.

And then she makes up her mind. When you can't do the smart thing, do the dangerous one. Guts and Loken break apart, panting, and ready for another clash. That's when she makes her move, racing towards the momentary lull as they raise their swords. The blades reach the apex of their arc and begin to cut.

Then she's between them, glaring at Guts, eyes wide and dark and furious. Her back is to Loken - she trusts him to stop - arms outspread as if to protect a space marine five times her size. Guts looms in front of her, shrouded in darkness, blade not even twitching as he begins his downstroke.

"This stops now!" she roars. Her gaze finds his and holds it, fearless.

[greyerrant]

Loken lowers his blade. He is silent for a long moment.

His eyeslits locked with the wolf helm, and he says, very gently.

"It took friends to bring me back too, when I was lost in anger. Come on Guts, we have work yet to do. And people to return to."

[garmr]

The massive sword comes down, metal humming, as it hurtles forward with no restraint. It is only at the very last moment that the edge diverts, like some terribly burdensome oar, narrowly missing Saturday and slamming full force into the ground next to her.

The ground splits wide open, cracking with a loud thunk, trembling with the force of it. The sword had landed a mere few inches away from her, enough to dust Saturday with the shockwave of debris that had violently kicked up in response.

A wicked, clawed hand reaches up to grip at his helmet, leaving little scratch marks on inky surface. It was his iron hand, moving as a living one would.

He stays frozen in place, hunched forward, staggered. Whatever murderous rage had possessed him appears to be paused as he struggles against it. Inside him, the black beast roars with the force of the ocean depths, and the helmet’s jaws gnash together. Something had glimpsed through the armor’s red fog.

War. Peace. Enemy. Friend. Kill. Protect.

Surr… render..

[wheyoftheadept]

Saturday holds her ground, though her legs shake with the cement as it shatters. Guts is crouching down, head in one hand, groaning like the clash of armies. She lowers her arm slowly, watching.

"Guts? Come back to us, chummer. It's okay. No harm done. The beast in your armor isn't all you are. Remember - " she seizes on something, anything. " - remember you got people. If you went away I'd be pissed, and sad. So would Loken, an' Dan, an' all your friends back home. Gettin' mad can keep us safe but not this time. Not when there's no enemy in the room. Real enemy is upstairs, on the roof. Save the fight for them!"

And, slowly, she reaches towards his helmet. He keeps trying to claw it off; she can't help thinking that's important.

"Lemme help. You're not in this alone."

[garmr]

He manages to retain himself enough for her hand to touch the steel jaws unharmed, but the armor would draw her in as soon as fingers touched metal. The physical quickly dissolves into an ethereal blackness. A sense of floating, of a noiseless astral nothingness with no direction. An empty void.

And then beneath (or above) appears the outer tendrils of a massive vortex of hellfire, burning and raging wildly in all directions. With light comes heat, and sparks. It's a consciousness twisted so far out of itself that all that's left is an enraged and soulful howling into the ethereal nothingness all around.

At the center of it roars the hound, a shimmering figure in the flames.

[wheyoftheadept]

Saturday yells when the helmet takes her. She can't help it. It's cold, the kind of cold that burns right down to the bone. When she catches her breath, the void is around her, above her, below her. Everywhere. She feels - nothing, none of the ripples of the worldweb and the creatures moving through it. Dead -

For a moment she thinks she might be, and has to choke back a scream. Then she orients herself, and sees the inferno, the hound in the inferno.

Aw, shit

"Guts!" she cries out, into the black. "Guts! I'm here! Where are you! Guts!"