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redshiftlogs2019-08-02 02:02 am
modblob) wrote in redshiftlogs2019-08-02 02:02 am
Entry tags:
- !mod post: intro mingle,
- dragon age: cole,
- far cry 5: staci pratt,
- good omens: aziraphale,
- homestuck: aradia megido,
- hunger games: finnick odair,
- mass effect: commander rufina shepard,
- mcu: peter parker,
- mortal kombat: kabal,
- original: cameron waltz,
- original: cho takahashi,
- original: jeff calhoun,
- poison: poison,
- red dead redemption: kieran duffy,
- star wars: finn,
- umbrella academy: ben hargreeves,
- umbrella academy: diego hargreeves,
- umbrella academy: eudora patch,
- umbrella academy: klaus hargreeves,
- umbrella academy: vanya hargreeves,
- warm bodies: julie grigio
august 2019. welcome to the void.
Who: Everyone in Anchor.
What: Second Introductory Mingle
When: The Month of August 2019
Where: Around and outside the city.
Warnings: Please add any warnings in the subject lines.
The redout and accompanying power outage has been going on for over a week now - even though someone must have managed to get the generators up and running so things are a little less dismal, that doesn't mean that everything is fun and games. The generators are enough to power the essentials, like lighting, the MedBay, resident sat phones, sanitation facilities...basically just the things that make life livable instead of kicking the whole city back to the dark ages.
Sometime during the second week, though, around the end of July, residents might start to notice bright spots in the darkness, mostly around the Agricultural levels. Little bobbing blobs of bright blue or vibrant green or glowing red that move soundlessly through the night, poignantly noticeable because everything else is so dark. At first, and from a distance, they might look like your typical swamp gas fake ghost, little glowing smudges in the darkness. Could be promising...but it could be dangerous too.
If residents are brave enough to head up to the Agricultural levels in the darkness and investigate the source of the light, a mildly harrowing mission, they will find that the source of the glowing is...animals. Barely differing from the usual animals one might see in a daylight in the Agricultural levels, these animals prove to simply be nocturnal versions of the usual animals that might survive in the wild and who have made their homes in the faux forest and grasslands. And when everything else is dark, these creatures roam the night, letting off a curious and almost radioactive glow.
There are, however, a slightly wider variety of these animals, who are descendants of animals exposed heavily to radiation that mutated but did not kill them. While there are the usual deer and wild horses, foxes and monkeys, rodents and insects, there are also domestic creatures that seem to have thrived in their glow-in-the-dark forms where non-glowing ones were picked off by predators. Anyone investigating may find glowing kittens and puppies, domestic mice and rats, snakes that are open to being touched, and even a few more exotic domesticated pets like ferrets, hedgehogs, turtles and foxes. While these creatures are still wild, they are the descendants of domestic stock, and with a little effort and coddling, they might turn out to be passable pets, once they're scanned in the MedBay and found to not give off dangerous radiation.
It's not all puppies and kittens, though. Some of these seemingly predatorless glow-in-the-dark creatures are mutated, just like their regular counterparts, but to a more extensive degree. Keep a close eye out while you're trying to tame that adorable glowing purple kitten, because you might find yourself as the prey to a huge mutated lizard or spider, or maybe an oversized glowing wild warthog.
Nighttime exploring, after all, is for the brave at heart...and comes with pros and cons!
As if the mutated glow-in-the-dark creatures in the Agricultural levels aren't bad enough, there's something new in Anchor to cause problems. A couple of weeks after the generator room was opened, strange apparitions start showing up in various places around the city. At first they're nebulous clouds that gather in places where there's strong evidence of past violence - in the upper levels of the city where there's serious fire damage, near the security station, hovering outside the armory or wherever there are burns and gouges into the stone walls of the city. But as the month wears on, the clouds start to take shape, and some of those shapes might be very familiar.
Starting at around August 8th, whenever a resident passes by one of these ominous clouds, it will start to coalesce into a solid form, the particles coming together into a concrete shape - the shape of fear. Whether the particles coalesce into the shape of a monster or villain from a character's homeworld or previous game setting, the nebulous representation of their worst fear, a person or thing from their past that evokes a terrible memory of trauma, or even just a generic horrific monster that would particularly frighten that particular person, it's something that is guaranteed to terrify. Essentially, they will turn into the worst thing that your character can imagine.
And these representations of fear? They're not ghosts, they're not digital afterimages, they're not apparitions or holos. They're real, or at least they feel real, they can do real damage, and they're almost impossible to kill. The best way to survive an encounter with the nightmare swarm? Run fast. Because they're generally confined to areas where the echoes of old violence linger, and the quicker you leave those areas the better. Get into whatever light you can, get somewhere safe, and the fear creature will dissipate back into a nebulous cloud, lying in wait for the next victim.
What: Second Introductory Mingle
When: The Month of August 2019
Where: Around and outside the city.
Warnings: Please add any warnings in the subject lines.
Redshift: Welcome to the v͖͕̺̲̘̱̜͎o̴̦̣̠̦̘̹͞i̯̖d̛̪̬͈̱̦̝͍̕.
Click here to read what characters will experience when arriving in Anchor.
a. bright spots in the darkness.
The redout and accompanying power outage has been going on for over a week now - even though someone must have managed to get the generators up and running so things are a little less dismal, that doesn't mean that everything is fun and games. The generators are enough to power the essentials, like lighting, the MedBay, resident sat phones, sanitation facilities...basically just the things that make life livable instead of kicking the whole city back to the dark ages.Sometime during the second week, though, around the end of July, residents might start to notice bright spots in the darkness, mostly around the Agricultural levels. Little bobbing blobs of bright blue or vibrant green or glowing red that move soundlessly through the night, poignantly noticeable because everything else is so dark. At first, and from a distance, they might look like your typical swamp gas fake ghost, little glowing smudges in the darkness. Could be promising...but it could be dangerous too.
If residents are brave enough to head up to the Agricultural levels in the darkness and investigate the source of the light, a mildly harrowing mission, they will find that the source of the glowing is...animals. Barely differing from the usual animals one might see in a daylight in the Agricultural levels, these animals prove to simply be nocturnal versions of the usual animals that might survive in the wild and who have made their homes in the faux forest and grasslands. And when everything else is dark, these creatures roam the night, letting off a curious and almost radioactive glow.
There are, however, a slightly wider variety of these animals, who are descendants of animals exposed heavily to radiation that mutated but did not kill them. While there are the usual deer and wild horses, foxes and monkeys, rodents and insects, there are also domestic creatures that seem to have thrived in their glow-in-the-dark forms where non-glowing ones were picked off by predators. Anyone investigating may find glowing kittens and puppies, domestic mice and rats, snakes that are open to being touched, and even a few more exotic domesticated pets like ferrets, hedgehogs, turtles and foxes. While these creatures are still wild, they are the descendants of domestic stock, and with a little effort and coddling, they might turn out to be passable pets, once they're scanned in the MedBay and found to not give off dangerous radiation.
It's not all puppies and kittens, though. Some of these seemingly predatorless glow-in-the-dark creatures are mutated, just like their regular counterparts, but to a more extensive degree. Keep a close eye out while you're trying to tame that adorable glowing purple kitten, because you might find yourself as the prey to a huge mutated lizard or spider, or maybe an oversized glowing wild warthog.
Nighttime exploring, after all, is for the brave at heart...and comes with pros and cons!
b. nightmare swarm.
As if the mutated glow-in-the-dark creatures in the Agricultural levels aren't bad enough, there's something new in Anchor to cause problems. A couple of weeks after the generator room was opened, strange apparitions start showing up in various places around the city. At first they're nebulous clouds that gather in places where there's strong evidence of past violence - in the upper levels of the city where there's serious fire damage, near the security station, hovering outside the armory or wherever there are burns and gouges into the stone walls of the city. But as the month wears on, the clouds start to take shape, and some of those shapes might be very familiar.Starting at around August 8th, whenever a resident passes by one of these ominous clouds, it will start to coalesce into a solid form, the particles coming together into a concrete shape - the shape of fear. Whether the particles coalesce into the shape of a monster or villain from a character's homeworld or previous game setting, the nebulous representation of their worst fear, a person or thing from their past that evokes a terrible memory of trauma, or even just a generic horrific monster that would particularly frighten that particular person, it's something that is guaranteed to terrify. Essentially, they will turn into the worst thing that your character can imagine.
And these representations of fear? They're not ghosts, they're not digital afterimages, they're not apparitions or holos. They're real, or at least they feel real, they can do real damage, and they're almost impossible to kill. The best way to survive an encounter with the nightmare swarm? Run fast. Because they're generally confined to areas where the echoes of old violence linger, and the quicker you leave those areas the better. Get into whatever light you can, get somewhere safe, and the fear creature will dissipate back into a nebulous cloud, lying in wait for the next victim.
c. power up.
On August 2nd, the dust storm causing the redout and power outage will subside, and a stiff wind will take its place, washing away about two thirds of the red sand piled up on the dome. This fortuitous change in weather will make it possible to start work on getting the power back up. Residents will be able to exit the city through the usual channels so they can work on clearing the dust out of the various installations outside the city that transform wind and radiation and sunlight into power that keeps the city up and running. After they're cleared off, residents can start to get the power up by making repairs to the dust-damaged computer systems. Thankfully, once the power installations outside the city have been cleared off, an automated computer subroutine will boot up on some of the computer panels in the common areas of the residential quarters, with a user-friendly guide to repairing sand damage to the power system.
Mind you, the user guide assumes that residents have a lot of tools, supplies, and assistant bots that the current population doesn't really have on hand, so user-friendly or not, it's tougher than the system seems to think it is.
Thankfully, there is another option. Anyone with a particularly tech-savvy mind who's encountered the nightmare clouds might have picked up on it already, but the clouds are actually swarms of nanites. Released from the room that held the generators, these nanites were originally intended to conduct repairs on the city (there was a reason that room and those generators were so pristine!) that have been corrupted and are malfunctioning due to the ambient radiation in the city that has only increased since their creation. Anyone with even a basic knowledge of computers (and a very strong spine) could collect a sample of the clouds in one of the containment units from the labs or the R&D area, where the semi-functioning computer can be used to work out what's wrong with the nanites...and fix them.
If characters are able to work this out and deploy repairs to the various swarms around the city, those nanites might be super helpful for fixing some of the malfunctioning tech around the city. Food for thought!
Mind you, the user guide assumes that residents have a lot of tools, supplies, and assistant bots that the current population doesn't really have on hand, so user-friendly or not, it's tougher than the system seems to think it is.
Thankfully, there is another option. Anyone with a particularly tech-savvy mind who's encountered the nightmare clouds might have picked up on it already, but the clouds are actually swarms of nanites. Released from the room that held the generators, these nanites were originally intended to conduct repairs on the city (there was a reason that room and those generators were so pristine!) that have been corrupted and are malfunctioning due to the ambient radiation in the city that has only increased since their creation. Anyone with even a basic knowledge of computers (and a very strong spine) could collect a sample of the clouds in one of the containment units from the labs or the R&D area, where the semi-functioning computer can be used to work out what's wrong with the nanites...and fix them.If characters are able to work this out and deploy repairs to the various swarms around the city, those nanites might be super helpful for fixing some of the malfunctioning tech around the city. Food for thought!
d. the wreckage in the wasteland.
Once the emergency situation with the power is sorted out, residents might become a little curious about what caused all the trouble in the first place. The dust storm was, after all, initiated by a loud crash landing outside the city. With the dust storm abated and the windows in the Observation Area cleared off, residents will be able to see the wreckage of a spacecraft crashed into the ground, several miles out from the city. Far enough away to make it impossible to see any identifying marks, but close enough to be a tantalizing mystery for anyone so inclined.
Adventurous souls will be able to suit up and trek their way out to the site of the crash in the battery Jeeps to see what's going on, risking the rough ever-changing terrain and the possibility of a red shift, to see what might be salvageable from the crashed ship, or just in pursuit of knowledge. Once those characters approach, they will find the hulk of a badly-damaged spacecraft, about as big as a medium-sized cruise ship. The hull is badly burned, with tears in the metal, and it will be obvious to anyone who's got any experience with space travel (or even anyone who's watched enough sci-fi movies) to see that the ship didn't do well on its slow fall through the atmosphere. The metal is melted and punctured, anything that might have extended away from the hull has been burned off and lies in tatters, and the sand around the crash site is littered with metal and plastic debris.
But the one thing that's still possible to tell from the wreckage? It probably came from Anchor.
The ship is pieced together from salvaged materials, the tech will be familiar to anyone who's been in the colony for more than a couple days, and there's even a few corpses of very familiar bots lying in the sand. Approaching a large tear in the side of the hull will reveal a way inside the husk of a ship, giving access to the ship's small crew quarters section. If explorers choose to proceed inside, they'll be able to dig through what few personal items remain and find personal tablet computers and sat phones with their hard drives corrupted but possibly salvageable with the right skillset and the right technology repaired back in Anchor. They will also be able to find a way down further into the ship, though it's dark and clouded with sand and...well, quite menacing.
Because it isn't just the darkness and the danger of the red shift coming while you're trapped down there, or the danger of the ship's hull cracking with the weight of the sand piled up on its shell from the dust storm...but looking into the darkness, there's a flickering bluish glow. Digital and glitchy, it flickers from wall to wall, with the faintest impression of a human form. A face. A hand. The movement of hair or clothing. And then there's the echoing sounds - soft laughter, snippets of childrens' rhymes, unintelligible whispers or mumbles.
Well. Enter at your own risk.
Adventurous souls will be able to suit up and trek their way out to the site of the crash in the battery Jeeps to see what's going on, risking the rough ever-changing terrain and the possibility of a red shift, to see what might be salvageable from the crashed ship, or just in pursuit of knowledge. Once those characters approach, they will find the hulk of a badly-damaged spacecraft, about as big as a medium-sized cruise ship. The hull is badly burned, with tears in the metal, and it will be obvious to anyone who's got any experience with space travel (or even anyone who's watched enough sci-fi movies) to see that the ship didn't do well on its slow fall through the atmosphere. The metal is melted and punctured, anything that might have extended away from the hull has been burned off and lies in tatters, and the sand around the crash site is littered with metal and plastic debris.
But the one thing that's still possible to tell from the wreckage? It probably came from Anchor.
The ship is pieced together from salvaged materials, the tech will be familiar to anyone who's been in the colony for more than a couple days, and there's even a few corpses of very familiar bots lying in the sand. Approaching a large tear in the side of the hull will reveal a way inside the husk of a ship, giving access to the ship's small crew quarters section. If explorers choose to proceed inside, they'll be able to dig through what few personal items remain and find personal tablet computers and sat phones with their hard drives corrupted but possibly salvageable with the right skillset and the right technology repaired back in Anchor. They will also be able to find a way down further into the ship, though it's dark and clouded with sand and...well, quite menacing.
Because it isn't just the darkness and the danger of the red shift coming while you're trapped down there, or the danger of the ship's hull cracking with the weight of the sand piled up on its shell from the dust storm...but looking into the darkness, there's a flickering bluish glow. Digital and glitchy, it flickers from wall to wall, with the faintest impression of a human form. A face. A hand. The movement of hair or clothing. And then there's the echoing sounds - soft laughter, snippets of childrens' rhymes, unintelligible whispers or mumbles.
Well. Enter at your own risk.
ooc: exploration info.
As you can probably tell, this final prompt is kind of a doozy! While the first level of the ship is available for anyone to explore with the information provided in the prompt, going further into the ship will require mod guidance, via an NPC.
Any questions can be asked in the mod questions thread below, and if your characters have progressed to the point of wanting to explore deeper in the ship, please hit up the NPC request thread with a link to where the NPC should tag in.
Have fun guys!
Any questions can be asked in the mod questions thread below, and if your characters have progressed to the point of wanting to explore deeper in the ship, please hit up the NPC request thread with a link to where the NPC should tag in.
Have fun guys!
no subject
You need to sit down-
[ A quick glance around, and Ben steers Peter over to something that is meant to be a stairwell, but is a perfectly good place to sit for the time being. Once he's got Peter sitting down, Ben laces his hands together and concludes: ]
-and tell me what that was, so I can help.
no subject
Well, the sitting down part is simple. He's following a direction, easy peasy. He still hasn't quite wrapped his brain around the rest of it yet, though. The stretch of silence that follows isn't just Peter avoiding the topic, at least. It's Peter finally getting himself to calm down and get his thoughts in order before he tries to run his mouth again. He takes a deep, shaky breath, not quite managing eye contact at first, but he gets there. Lets try this again.]
I-I don't know what that was. I mean, I don't know why it happened here, I'm not sure what caused it yet, and I... I have no idea how you can help, but uh... So, do you remember how I said there was this thing with aliens back home? I- it's way more complicated than just ooo, alien invasion, that's not what it was really. It was mostly just one guy. I mean, he had an army and stuff, but it was mostly this one dude. Shit, there was... I mean, long story short, I guess? He found a way to destroy half the life in my universe, and that was what happened to us.
[He nods towards the exit of the stairwell, falling silent again for a moment while he tries to push that memory back down. He just stopped freaking out, he didn't need to start getting all emotional on top of it.]
We tried to stop him, but uh. Yeah. Didn't quite manage it.
[Don't even get him started on the guilt complex he's developed over this, we'll be here all day.]
no subject
Peter isn't giving a lot of details, and maybe that is why all of it is sounding a little uncannily familiar to Ben. All the armies of Five's stupid time bosses didn't really matter, when it was one woman - his sister - who had blown a chunk off the moon that was definitely going to wipe out all life on Earth, even if the rest of the universe was still fine.
Ben keeps quiet and still as Peter speaks, right until he says that was what happened to us. Us. Not them. Not 'people I love'. The devil is in the details. ]
That happened to you? [ Ben's voice is level as he asks it. Not disbelieving, not shocked and appalled into silence. There is gravity to it, but also, acceptance. Like if Peter says yes, Ben will be able to handle it. He knows that, for his part, it's always been easy to talk about the hard stuff to someone who isn't going to react in a huge way. ] You died, like that?
[ Ben really, really hopes the answer is no. But he doesn't think it will be. Suddenly, Peter's terror earlier, his pale face and that haunted look in his eyes... it's all starting to make some sense. ]
no subject
But anyway. Peter hesitates to answer, hugging his arms a little tighter after he fails to suppress a shudder. His eyes are fixed on some random point behind Ben when he finally does reply, and even then he only manages a little nod at first. A few seconds pass before he actually says anything.]
He said it would be instant. Painless. I think it was for everyone else? The guys I was with that... that got all. Y'know, dusty. They were just like, poof, gone. Downside of having an accelerated healing power? That whole thing took way longer for me.
[Couldn't have been more than twenty, maybe thirty seconds? Just long enough to give someone nightmares for the rest of their life. Sorry Ben, the answer is "very yes".]
no subject
Ben covers his mouth with his hand, when Peter talks about how his death had taken longer because of his powers. Been drawn out. Ben can picture it, and it's not a pretty sight. Being aware while that was happening to you, seeing it and feeling it? He can't imagine experiencing it, and he's glad he can't.
But apart from this one small gesture, Ben's reaction is deliberately muted. Not unemotional, but contained. ]
I'm sorry you had to go through that.
[ He'd been naive the first time he met Peter, assuming he was from some brighter universe. That a cheerful, bright guy like him had probably had all the good parts from being a masked hero but no accompanying awfulness. But here he is, talking about how he'd died painfully because of his powers. How this psycho alien had talked about killing billions of creatures painlessly and then just gone ahead and done it. And it sounds like Peter's companions had died, too. So grief for them and for himself, and the failure to stop this alien guy... well it's a lot. ]
I- died, too. Not like that. But it... wasn't painless, or instant for me, either. So- so- I get how seeing that just now... I mean, that's fucked up.
[ Honestly if Ben had seen something that reminded him of his death even half as directly as that scene in there must have reminded Peter? He would be losing his shit way, way more than Peter is. And because he can see the way Peter seems to be tamping down on all that, he offers, quietly: ]
It's okay to not be okay about it. I'm not gonna judge.
[ A brief pause and then, with complete earnestness: ]
I'm here for you.
no subject
I'm sorry.
[Sorry that Ben has to know what it's like to be die in some horrible, painful way. Sorry that he totally lost his cool and made Ben sit through it. Not that he'd made Ben do it, but Peter's logic is being weird right now. Now that Peter's at least mostly regained his composure he's mentally kicking himself for dragging someone else into his problems. He'd managed to keep his shit together the whole time he was in Hadriel, and then he gets here and completely loses his shit and fuck was that A TEAR escaping from HIS EYEBALL???
Unacceptable, he wipes that shit away and pretends that nothing happened. Even though Ben just said he wouldn't judge. That is very cool of Ben, but Peter is going to judge himself harshly enough for the both of them. He needs to keep his shit together because uh... something something Spider-Man. He's tired, he's not thinking too great right now.
Honestly though Ben being here and just affirming that it's okay to not be okay isn't really helping Peter not have an emotional sad boy moment, but maybe he just needs to let himself have that right now. He's still going to try not to have one in front of someone else, but there might be a few more tears. Just a few.]
Thanks. That-- that means a lot.
...We really need to find something less depressing to bond over in the future, just sayin'.
[The jokes mean he's feeling better. Or at least it means that he's calmed down. Either way it's a win.]
no subject
He gives a small, crooked smile at Peter's joke, nodding his agreement. ]
We really do.
[ Ben thinks that, perhaps, a distraction of some kind is in order, to cheer Peter up. But not just yet. Not until he has a little more clarity on how such a shitty thing had happened to his new friend. Not the first time, but just now - the reminder of it. ]
I promise I'm not just asking this to be a dick, but - those people you saw over there, were they people you knew, or just - random strangers?
[ Whatever had caused this illusion must have done it deliberately to hurt Peter. There is no other explanation that isn't impossibly convoluted. What Ben doesn't know is whether it had been working with knowledge outside Peter - if that had happened to half the life forms in the universe, a lot of other people would have seen just what it looked like for someone to dissolve like that - or whether it had been reading his mind, for the faces of loved ones, and that was how it had also found out about the disintegrating. It seems relevant, to know which is the truth. ]
no subject
[Peter wants to get to the bottom of this thing too, and now that he's had a chance to calm down and focus, things are starting to... make even less sense. But in a way that's starting to make more sense? It's complicated.]
I knew 'em. All of them. Which is actually super weird for a couple reasons. One, I wasn't even on Earth when it happened, so I literally have no idea who all actually died aside from the people I was with. If I don't know, there's no way that anyone or anything else here would know. Two, some of the people I just saw aren't even from my universe. I met them in Hadriel, the last place I was stuck? So it isn't even possible for them to have gone through that.
[A moment ago he'd been kind of hunched over, hugging himself and looking way more like a scared kid than a superhero. Now that he's laying out all this bullshit in an attempt to make sense of it, he's starting to straighten up a little, resting his elbows on his knees and rubbing at his chin absently. He's not positive if he's on the right track or not, but trying to figure it out beats sitting here feeling bad for himself by a long shot.]
Whatever that was, it was designed specifically to screw with me. Like, not gonna lie, I've had nightmares of that like exact thing, and I think that cloudy junk is doing it. Whatever it is, it's like... I dunno, getting into our heads? Reading our minds? I don't know. I don't know, but I think I can find out. I just need to get a sample.
[Which he maybe shouldn't be trying to do right now, but he sure is hopping up like he's planning on marching right back out there and... wrangling a cloud somehow. Peter stop.]
no subject
And they were all people you cared about?
[ It seems he and Peter are thinking along the same lines, here. Having people from Hadriel included was a choice that showed whoever or whatever was responsible wasn't going for accuracy - trying to convince Peter it was all real. The intent was just... hurt. ]
So, psychological warfare. What cloudy junk?
[ He'd arrived too late to see any cloudy junk, hadn't looked back over his shoulder the way Peter had when they were retreating, because he'd still been looking for a concealed attacker. Ben doesn't have time to wonder more though because Peter is getting up right now and Ben sets a hand against his arm. ]
Whoa whoa whoa, let's slow down, okay? First of all, what're you even gonna put a sample in? And did you get close enough to it before you know it isn't gonna - I don't know, poison you or burn you? Maybe that was the idea, you know, hope you would reach out to touch those disintegrating people and then BAM! Acid city.
[ Ben lets go of Peter's arm, saying: ]
We can do this, we should just do it smart.
no subject
Yeah, I- I knew 'em all. All friends and family. Well, I mean, mostly friends. My only family's my aunt, but like, she was there too. But yeah, there was this... this cloudy junk that I walked past right before all that crap happened. I've seen other spots like that around.
[And other people could be getting attacked by CLOUD MONSTERS while he stands here pissing around and not FIXING IT. But, Ben's right, he really does need to slow down so they can do this all smart-like. He needs to maybe come up with an actual plan before he runs back out there to try to fist fight a cloud.]
Okay. Um. Right, I found a few containment units in R&D, I think they'd be able to hold this stuff so I could run a few scans on it. If it's poisonous or acidic at all, I didn't notice. Some of those... those things managed to grab me, and they felt really solid, but nothing else really happened.
[He takes a moment to inspect his arms and his shirt, just in case maybe he had been injured and he just hadn't noticed in his panic, but nope. He's perfectly fine, but he still looks pretty concerned.]
no subject
Almost as worrying as the fact that they'd been tangible, to Peter. Even without poison or acid, and even if they hadn't been contagious and made Peter crumble into ash, too... illusions should not be tangible. They just shouldn't. It is breaking some kind of rule.
Ben is thinking on his feet too, here. He looks back to where they'd come from, but they're far enough away that he can't see that cloudy junk Peter is talking about. Is it gone? Merely waiting to take another shape? ]
Okay - okay, why don't you go get those, and I'll wait here and stand guard to- make sure no one else goes near it.
[ It's natural to him, to divide tasks like this, to work as a team. Even after so many years, it is embedded in the way he thinks. ]
no subject
He is hesitant to leave Ben behind for any amount of time after the shit he just watched, but also having someone here to keep other people from wandering into the nightmare cloud is a really good idea. Because the nightmare clouds suck, and who knows how much worse it could be for someone else? What if someone's greatest fear is fucking Godzilla or something? I mean that would be cool but also they might have to fight it and Peter's tired, okay.
After a couple seconds of debating with himself over what to do, he nods and gives Ben a pat on the shoulder.]
Okay. I'll be back as soon as I can, call me if anything goes wrong.
[While he's pretty used to superheroing alone, he's good at adapting to teamwork-type situations when he has to. They've totally got this. BEN YOU GOT THIS. Peter creeps out of the stairwell and busts ass for R&D. You can bet your ass he webslings like the whole way there, elevators are for losers.]
no subject
Will do.
[ But nothing does, in fact, go wrong. Ben moves close enough to the cloud to see it, but keeps a healthy distance, sticking out of the shadows by instinct more than anything else. He is just pacing there, hands in his pockets, when Peter returns, much quicker than Ben would have thought possible. Maybe R&D is closer than he'd thought. Or maybe - well, spiders are fast aren't they? ]
Got what you need?
[ Then, a moment later: ]
Do you think there is a way to collect a sample from a distance? Or are you gonna have to... get up in it?
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Peter only returns with one containment unit in tow. The weight wasn't an issue for him, but juggling more than one metal container that's almost as big as he is would have made swinging back here pretty awkward. He'd webbed the thing to his back so he could like, use his hands, and once he's back with Ben he pries himself free of the webbing and starts checking the container over. He maybe should have done that when he was still in R&D but shut up he got excited ok.]
Yeah, I think this oughta do it. And yeaaaah, I'm gonna have to get all up in that mess again. It's fine though, this time I know what to expect.
...Or I could just close my eyes, that might work too.
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He folds his arms across his chest. Just because Peter knows what's coming won't necessarily make it all better, Ben thinks. With something as traumatic as being disintegrated into ash slowly must have been... ]
Yeah, as if I would let you go in there again alone.
[ He is not asking. Ben can be stubborn and he's not willing to negotiate on this. ]
You just - keep your eyes on this containment thingy and be ready to flip whatever switches you gotta flip, and I'll lure it close. What's the range on this, does it have to actually get a piece inside or can it capture stuff from a foot or two away?
[ Ben glances up at the cloudy substance, steeling himself to see those people disintegrating once more. It even crosses his mind that some of his own loved ones might enter the roster - but never that something else entirely might manifest... ]
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O-okay. I got the containment thingy, I'm on containment thingy duty. We're gonna have to like, physically put that in here, so the closer we can get it, the better.
[He turns his attention back to the container, popping it open and just double checking for like, Ghostbusters-style ghost sucking apparatuses, but nope. This sucker's just got a door. He turns back to Ben to tell him as much, but is instead distracted by the cloud starting to shift all weird again. Rather than sating anything intelligent, he points all alarmed-like.]
Oh! Ooooh something's happening!
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Except that when they both get to the cloud, Peter can't seem to take his eyes off it, and neither can Ben. It swirls, begins to resolve into a human-shaped figure. There is only one person, this time. A person whose outline Ben does not immediately recognize; he hadn't shown up in any mirrors or reflective surfaces as a ghost, and he hasn't spent a whole lot of time looking at himself since he arrived here. So he can't tell at first that it is him - same height, same build, same posture, same clothes even. All the details are there, even though the figure itself is dark, vague, indefinite. Ben keeps waiting for it to take on the form of someone Peter loves, or someone he loves, and start to scream as it crumbles.
Instead it turns, takes a step (menacing? pleading?) towards them. ]
What the-
[ Then the figure is clenching its fists, arms out slightly, bending back just a little in a posture that makes Ben's stomach turn with fear in the second before he gets it. Because that's the way he looks when he is opening the portal. When he is bracing to attack - ]
Fuck!
[ That's all the warning (from Ben anyway) that Peter is going to get before giant tentacles come shooting out of the figure's stomach, unfurling in the air, thick and horrible, even if they are only shadowed outlines. Ben can't breathe. Can't move. He knows how much danger they are in, but his body has frozen in shock at what he is seeing. ]
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He's a lot more concerned about Ben and the way he's literally just standing there. Before he even things about trying to wrangle this hentai nightmare into the containment unit, he needs to get to Ben and snap him out of this.]
Ben! [Peter hops off the ceiling and makes his way back over to Ben, dodging tentacles on his way. Once he reaches Ben, Peter grabs him by the shoulder and tries to pull him away, but doesn't make it too far before one of those tentacles wraps itself around his ankle. He rolls his eyes in a "sure, this might as well happen too" sort of way before he's hoisted into the air. This isn't ideal.]
Ben, gonna need you to snap out of it!
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He feels cold all over his brain is just - empty. No plans, no logical connection back to the cloud. Just thick, icy, paralyzing fear. Peter's voice barely breaks through, like he's shouting from a huge distance. Ben is numb and floating, even as he sees Peter leave the ceiling and make his way over, so fast and agile, but he doesn't know how deadly this enemy is...
It isn't until one of those tentacles actually grabs Peter that enough adrenaline surges into Ben to dislodge him from his shock. In a few more seconds, if no one intervenes, it's going to be game over for Peter. Peter, who is nice. Peter, who is kind of starting to be his friend, maybe, he hopes. Ben's brain is still a mess, but the concepts of danger and friend about to die are simple and impactful enough that he doesn't need to think.
Ben does snap out of it. He snaps out of it, and yells, long and awful, like his insides are being torn out. Which is, essentially, what it feels like, as he opens the portal in his stomach and unleashes his powers on this other version of himself. He doesn't try to grab Peter and haul him to safety, himself. Rescuing isn't something the creatures are interested in. Instead, Ben merely focuses their malice on the other tentacles, with the hopes that distracting them will free Peter and keep him safe. Safer.
Except he's never had a fight like this. Against, well. Himself. Tentacle grapples with tentacle, twisting at each other, trying to find leverage to tear, and it is - really, just the most intensely gross thing to witness. Later, when he's not screaming his lungs out in agony and doing everything he can not to accidentally murder Peter himself, Ben is going to be way nauseated by all this. ]
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He has no idea how strong this thing is compared to Ben. So far they seem to be pretty evenly matched, but who knows how long that's going to last? Fake Ben obviously isn't human, might not even be organic, so trying to wear it out isn't a viable strategy. Trying to approach from the ground is probably also a bad idea. There's not much wiggle room with all those tentacles flopping around, so Peter's better off sticking to the walls and ceiling and getting around with his webs. He can work with this.
After mapping out a route to fakey-fake Ben, Peter slings some webs at the containment unit and yanks it over to himself, and he's off. Bouncing to the ceiling, webbing over to the far wall, using the tentacles themselves as leverage to swing himself over to the ceiling just above the freaky not!Ben, dope spider stunts. He pops the latch on the containment unit's door and lets himself drop from the ceiling right on top of not!Ben, and that's it, that's the whole plan. Not too complicated.
Except it is complicated, because Peter isn't quite able to get the door closed before another tentacle breaks away from the tentacle slap fight it's having with Ben in order to take care of this fun new problem. Unfortunately, Peter's being a stubborn ass about wrangling this thing into the containment unit, so rather than trying to dodge the tentacle, he decides to try to out muscle it BECAUSE THAT'S SMART. SO, with one foot smooshing down on the containment unit and the other sticky'd firmly to the floor, Peter now has a tentacle wrapped around his waist trying to dislodge him. Just ignore that popping sound, it was probably just a rib. It's FINE, he has more.
Its getting kind of weird over here, but hey! They've almost trapped the bad guy thing?]
wiggly throw down... incredible...
No!
[ The sound is torn out of him, involuntary and terrified and awful. If he doesn't act quickly, Peter is going to die, and it will be bloody, and it will be all Ben's fault. Five of the grappling tentacles let go, redirecting to shoot out and attack the tentacle that has gotten hold of Peter. Their combined force twisting around its base is enough to sever it, with a truly horrible and rather squelchy sound. In the process, two of those tentacles get torn and mangled rather badly. But none of the attacks, Peter may notice, are going for the real Ben himself.
Hopefully he acted quickly enough to spare Peter too many internal injuries, and gave him long enough to force that containment unit closed with at least some chunk of their attacker inside it. Ben isn't looking too steady on his feet, other there. Part of that is exertion from the fight, part of it terror over Peter, part shock at this whole situation. He used to have more stamina than this. Then again, he'd never fought himself. Or this awful reflection of himself.
And this other version of him isn't just hollow. It is, awfully, it appears, enjoying itself. Ben hears his own laugh coming from it, thinks he catches a shifting expression of delight on that strange dark face. That's the cherry on top of all the other awfulness. This glimpse of a version of himself that likes it. That doesn't control the creatures, but lets them control him. That shares their bloodlust. Ben chokes on a sob, knees starting to shake visibly from emotion and exhaustion, but hanging on a little longer. ]
sometimes i just say things
He glances over at Ben, just for a second, but it's long enough to tell that they need to wrap this shit up quick. Ben's not looking super great, he probably won't be able to hold out much longer. No pressure!
Except there's a ton of pressure, but it's fine.
He'd already had a pretty good sized chunk of fake Ben caught up in the containment unit a minute ago, and though it was able to shove the container partly off itself with one of it's tentacles, Peter was now free and also pissed off. Peter shoots some webbing at the back of it's head, yanking it backwards and throwing it off balance, and then he just leaps at the damn thing with the containment unit and straight up tackles it to the ground. Naturally the tentacles are not happy with this and do a little more angry wigglin', but Peter's countering with some angry webbin' so now there's just fucking tentacles webbed to the floor and the walls. Closing the containment unit with all these tentacles waggling in the way is another ridiculous friggen mess, but after practically cocooning the whole thing in webs and tearing some of those tentacles off with his bare goddamn hands, he finally manages to get the door closed.
MISSION COMPLETE.]
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Ben makes it two steps towards Peter, asking in a voice that's raw from screaming: ]
Oh my god, Peter, are you okay-?
[ Then Ben staggers, takes a big lurching step towards the wall. He's just going to lean his shoulder against it for a minute... or sit down on the floor. Sitting down sounds great actually. It's floor time, baby. His nerves are still on fire, the tingling remembrance of pain spreading all through him, but centralized around his stomach. He sets a hand over it, fingers splayed, but his eyes stay on Peter. ]
Are you hurt?
[ Ben doesn't just sound concerned. He sounds a little bit like he's trying not to cry and only mostly succeeding. Because none of it is fair. He hadn't wanted Peter to see his powers, and even less get hurt by them. Now both things have happened, and sure, they won the fight, but what's the cost? The actual figure might be gone, but Ben can't stop hearing the way it had laughed when it grabbed Peter. His own laugh, but so delighted at the prospect of dismemberment.
Shaky and fervent, he says: ]
I'm sorry.
[ No matter which way you look at it, that near scrape of theirs, however hurt Peter is, it's all 100% his fault. ]
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Too late now. Peter gathers up some of the webs he's sealed the containment unit up with and drags it over, doing his absolute best to hide whatever pain he's in on his way over.]
I'm fine, I'm not hurt.
[He said. Y'know, like a liar. It's fine, though. Peter's broken ribs should be healed in a day or two.
Peter drops the webs and kneels down next to Ben, giving his shoulder a squeeze while he looks him over. He didn't seem injured, despite all the wacky bullshit that just happened, but it was obvious that Ben wasn't doing super great just. In general. He's getting some serious "my deepest fear is myseeeeeelf" vibes from this whole thing.]
You didn't do anything wrong. Okay? That wasn't you. It was just somethin' trying to get a rise out of you like it did to me earlier.
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[ Peter could be the best actor in the world and Ben wouldn't be buying what he's selling. He hangs his head, hands coming up to grab fistfuls of his hair as he insists: ]
I know what it looks like when I'm - when a guy's about to get ripped in half, okay, so no way are you fine.
[ He remembers the accelerated healing but that doesn't mean Peter hadn't been injured. It doesn't make that close call any less of a close call. A few more seconds, and would he have been too late? Would Peter be dead now? That thought freezes Ben from the inside, and he can't stop the images rushing in his head, of what it would have looked like, if that had happened. He doesn't need to use much of his imagination at all.
Ben can tell that Peter's trying to calm him down, the way he'd comforted Peter earlier. But how different the situations are. Peter's just a kid who had gotten killed in this awful, horrific event. Ben is someone who knows deep down that all the people who called him a monster all those years were right after all. Not comparable. He doesn't deserve comforting. Not when all this is on him. He could have done better. Should have. ]
You could've died. Again.
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