modblob: (Default)
Mods ([personal profile] modblob) wrote in [community profile] redshiftlogs2020-09-03 12:32 am

september 2020. welcome to the void.

Who: Everyone in Anchor.
What: Monthly Mingle
When: The Month of September 2020
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. the shuffling.

It's dark.

No, like, really dark.

Not only have the lights of the suns been extinguished, but the lights of Anchor are fading as well. It seems the skies are shifting again, and taking Anchor's solar power with them, again. The lights don't fade entirely, leaving Anchor basked in a grayish glow with shadows painting unpleasant shapes along the walls. In parts of Anchor, the emergency lights have come on, illuminating the areas around them in red.

You could be forgiven for assuming the first shadow you see moving is your imagination. But the second or third? And what's that soft moaning noise coming from some of the vents? At first, there's no answer to that question. Then they start appearing.

Zombies. It seems that the cemetery outside was occupied after all. Though not brain-eating, fast-moving zombies, they move in packs, and they're smart. The more of them in one place, the more intelligent their hunting and planning seems to be. Get cornered, and you might find yourself in pieces, in need of new limbs or, y'know, a new life...

If they get a bite in, it's not as bad as your typical zombie apocalypse, but you're in for an unpleasant ride - hallucinations of people you hate will drive you to attack anyone and anything that comes near you. Either that, or visions of people you've failed or disappointed will haunt you. These hallucinations are invisible to everyone else, and last no less than a day.


b. somebody to love.

Maybe the worst part of the zombie invasion, though, is that these are people you recognize. Not all of them, many of the faces of the shambling dead will be completely unfamiliar, but a lot of them are people from home. Loved ones, mortal enemies, and everyone in between. If they get close to you, their almost-familiar voices will start calling your name. Are they still in there? Is it worth finding out?

It's not just faces from home, either. The man from the welcome video shows up in zombie form frequently enough that there has to be more than one, and there's even multiple versions of Creepy Joe limping around, body unmarred by tentacles. Every now and again, pink-haired woman with a familiar voice and a long white dress will shamble out of seemingly nowhere. Endless double-faces, a city's worth of doppelgangers. Some of them seem drawn to places that were significant to them. Others wander aimlessly, making low, sad moaning sounds.


c. home sweet home.

One of the zombies has done the residents of Anchor a favor, though. It walked straight into one of the power generators and shorted it out, releasing the locks on the doors to the fancy apartments down at the base of the city, near the park.

These are multi-level condos with windows that face toward the park and gardens. Each suite has a private bathroom including a tub and shower, a miniature kitchen, and two to three bedrooms. Each one is furnished in soothing pale colors with high-quality furniture.

They're all fit to inhabit, too - if you don't mind the occasional laser scoring on the wall, or that streak of perfectly preserved dried blood. It seems even this place wasn't immune to what happened in the rest of the colony. But there's no sign of anyone being locked in, either. No bodies, no rotting smells, not even dried husks. Just colonial luxury splashed with violence. And the occasional lost zombie.


d. the walking robo-dead.

Even the robots aren't immune to what's going on, it seems. Whenever one comes into contact with a zombie, it seems to short out, going offline until the offending monster has left the area. When it slowly comes back to life, it rolls about drunkenly, slamming into walls, people, and guard rails with equal lazy force. Sooner or later most of the bots in Anchor are affected, wandering aimlessly, trying to serve you sluggishly and usually doing it wrong, or - oh dear, that one's rolling to the edge of one of the upper walkways. You should probably stop it.

Unless you're Kabal or Starscream, then you can just watch it roll over the edge and smash into a million pieces at the bottom, you animal.


fishermansweater: (Marilyn Monroe)

[personal profile] fishermansweater 2020-11-16 09:10 am (UTC)(link)
Finnick's expression doesn't change, but he does give the guy a long look.

He's still getting used to talking to people who actually know anything about tactics. There had been a lot of them in Thirteen, but most hadn't been willing to talk about much with him while he'd still been unwell. But he'd learned some tactics for the arena, and a lot of the things he knows carry over to other situations.

Like getting somewhere high to pick off enemies below. Staying out of exposed areas. Making sure you have exits. Not letting your opponents get into cover.

He nods his agreement.

"Hopefully we can get out of here without them noticing."

He's not sure how good they are at noticing, but he's going to assume they have the same sort of very keen senses some mutts do. So, very.
bakudan_bambino: (It's like a scumbag yard sale)

[personal profile] bakudan_bambino 2020-11-16 01:53 pm (UTC)(link)
Gokudera blinks at him and that long look, not understanding. He doesn't get out much or talk to many people, but he's trying to. In these circumstances, he doesn't have much in mind as far as a plan goes, but he has been attacked many times in his life. Not by zombies... but by plenty of dangerous monsters and people.

"Well, I've got shields to cover us so if they do notice, they can't get too close without us noticing."

It's a wonder why he hadn't used it on the zombie version of his sister, though. It's just a shield. It wouldn't have hurt her, so it couldn't have been from guilt.
fishermansweater: (Default)

[personal profile] fishermansweater 2020-11-17 12:07 pm (UTC)(link)
"Ok. Good."

He doesn't know how any shield the guy has might work. But he also doesn't understand how Katniss' explosive arrows worked, or his own trident that returns to him on demand. So he'll take his word on that for now.

At least the guy does seem to be a little recovered from whatever had shaken him so much. (Not that Finnick would judge; he's sure he looked hopeless and helpless when the jabberjays attacked in the Quell, and the guy's bounced back quicker than he did.)

"Let's get higher, see if we can pick them off that way."
treadswater: (reefs call for cool thinking)

[personal profile] treadswater 2020-11-22 08:28 am (UTC)(link)
Annie smiles at him, quickly, and leans up to kiss his jaw. "Course you got me."

She'll never doubt it. Not ever.

So they move out into red-lit Anchor, weapons at the ready and steps careful. Moving slow makes her uneasy, but that's something they practised at the Career Academy. Move slow when you have to. Don't give into the pressure to move fast, to run. It's a hard lesson, and she's done her share of panicked flight, but they are just moving. Just on their way to the new area. Nothing's chasing them.

Yet.

About half way there, Annie moves out from beyond a corner, pauses, and walks backward until she's back behind the wall. Careful steps. Quiet steps. No freezing out in the open.

"Hear anything?" she asks, voice pitched low.
fishermansweater: (Nothing but wielding tridents)

[personal profile] fishermansweater 2020-11-22 10:34 am (UTC)(link)
He follows after her, a few steps behind where he can watch her and her surroundings, and he lets Annie take the lead. She moves carefully, with the caution they'd been taught as children but haven't always stuck with.

When she pauses then backs up to the wall, he stays in the open for a few moments, scanning the area, then steps back towards his wife.

"I think I can hear something," he says, head tilted low towards her.

"Can't see anything though. Could be far enough away they don't notice if we're careful."
writtendestiny: (026)

[personal profile] writtendestiny 2020-11-22 09:02 pm (UTC)(link)
I've never really been interested in sports.

[Poison purses her lips as she answers. She steps back to look at the robot and sighs, frowning. Though she'd never be able to make something so complex, she can't help but compare it to the cybertronians she used to know. She has to wonder what they would think of this.

She wonders what Rewind would think of it, and a slightly sad smile quirks at the corner of her mouth.
]

But it could be fun.
writtendestiny: (101)

o shit

[personal profile] writtendestiny 2020-11-22 09:02 pm (UTC)(link)
[Suddenly, the most concerning thing in the room is not the zombies, or the zombie robot which still hasn't stopped trying to move. She watches in unconcealed horror as the things turn on each other, feeling the pressure in the room as something almost tangible against the corners of her mind.

She's felt it before and more than once, and the way the hairs on her arms and the back of her neck rise is only half because of the chill suddenly pervading the room.

Poison drops out of the vent and grabs a wrench from one of the lab tables, holding it white-knuckled and close to her chest.
]

Carlisle! [He can't hear her, she quickly realises. He can't hear her, and he-- he can't stop. He can't stop, can he? She calls out his name again, stammering over the oppressive sensation crawling over her body.

How can she make him stop? She looks down at the wrench in her hand, wondering if she could swing it with enough force, but... She doesn't want to hurt him, and if she doesn't hit him hard enough he could turn on her to.

What she does decide on is probably the most unwise course of action. She drops the wrench and runs to the revenant and collides with the side of his body, digging her fingers tightly into his robe.
]

Carlisle, stop!
abheirrant: (♛ felt nothing but bitterness)

Things that are going well: not this

[personal profile] abheirrant 2020-11-22 11:01 pm (UTC)(link)
[Unfortunately, Carlisle is so lost in the cacophony in his own head that he cannot possibly hear Poison calling his name. His magic had been riled enough on the way there, his worry agitating his energies to the point of volatility. He hadn't any real way to combat an entire room of the undead other than luring them into a glyph that could dispatch them all at once, and even then, how would he deal with the construct? What could he possibly do to help her?

He didn't know. What he did know was that he had to do something. He couldn't let her die; he couldn't lose anyone else, couldn't bear to see her torn apart and reanimated as an undead herself, couldn't let Poison brought back like the people of Bear Den, a mere shade of who she once was. He couldn't let Anchor reanimate her the way it had Genji, either. He couldn't let her die.

Thus, he lashed out at the undeads on sight, Poison's desperate cries from the vent igniting his energies with a fervor he's been trying to avoid. It's one reason he's been hiding at the barn, why he was so insistent upon distancing himself from the rest of Anchor's populace until he could get his magic under control: he knew that should he lose his grasp over it, he may completely lose his grasp over himself, as well.

And that seems to be what has happened. Poison calls Carlisle's name again, and he doesn't react; the oppressive hostility remains in the air, forcing the undeads to turn on one another, to fight and claw and tear until there is nothing left of themselves. How dare they raise a hand against his friends? They're monsters, nothing more than horrible, vile abominations -- just like him. He let this happen to Bear Den; he cannot let it happen to her.

What humanity he has is suffocated by his Revenant nature. The noise in his head is thunderous, equal parts deafening and blinding; for a moment, he cannot recall why he came here, and all he knows is the bitterness and the rage he's impressing upon everyone and everything in the room--

Poison jars him, and there's a ripple in the icy chill of the air; Carlisle remains upright, his head canting in her direction, his eyes still ablaze, unfocused as they land on her. The two undeads in his thrall finish ripping into their latest victim, and rather than turning to the two shamblers that make their way across the shredded corpses in the doorway, they turn toward Poison, their mouths agape, dripping, hungering.]
Edited 2020-11-22 23:03 (UTC)
tsuyoi_ame: (opps it was me)

[personal profile] tsuyoi_ame 2020-11-24 05:37 am (UTC)(link)
Sports and swords are about all I'm good at.

[He grins as he says it, he knows his strengths, and in truth, at least they come in handy as a skill set that can protect his friends. Which is always most important to him.

He sees the smile but Yamamoto is never one to push.]


It's a lot of fun, baseball is my favorite.
writtendestiny: (073)

marvellous

[personal profile] writtendestiny 2020-11-24 11:33 pm (UTC)(link)
[Poison doesn't cuss often, but when he looks at her like that and he clearly doesn't know her at all, and those things start coming at her in the same way they'd been moving towards each other, she lets out a sharp 'fuck' and looks quickly around the room.

She could get the wrench. That would probably do it for these two. But-- Who knows how many of them he's affecting like this. For all she knows he could be pulling every one of them in the whole of Anchor into this room.

Her fingers tighten in the revenant's clothes and she gives him a little shake.
]

Carlisle, snap out of of it, this isn't you.

[But--

It is, isn't it. This is what he's been worried about. This is what he tried to warn her about. This is what he can do when he lets go, loses control, and maybe she should have listened better. Taken him more seriously? Feeding into his paranoia about how he could hurt everyone here isn't something that she'd wanted to play a part in.

Those things are still closing in. She cringes, her skin crawling. No, she can't hit him with the wrench, but she can--

Poison clenches her fist and swings up with all her might, aiming for the side of Carlisle's head as she yells out.
]

Stop it!
abheirrant: (❧ an unnatural glow)

[personal profile] abheirrant 2020-11-26 01:29 am (UTC)(link)
[Poison's fist collides with Carlisle's temple, and everything in the room just stops: the chill hangs in the air, no longer growing colder by the second; the undeads, their gazes filled with a ravenous fury, are frozen in place, twitching. They mirror their master as the light in his eyes -- still bright, still blinding -- comes to focus on the world around him. Trembling, he sucks in a breath, his lungs straining as though he's never had one before. It's all he can do to stand there as his eyes dart left and right, their glow softer, familiar; he's trying to piece together just what happened.

The corpses in the doorway grab his attention first, the rank odor of rotted guts and putrid organs strong enough that even he can detect it. Next to catch his eye is Poison's construct, its frame now missing a few pieces, its mechanical parts coated in blood and bile. Right, he came here to help her.

His head tilts toward Poison again, affixing on her face as he brings a hand to the side of his head. He came here to help her, and this is what happened instead. He tenses, staving off his immediate shame and guilt in favor of worry.]


Poison, are- are you all right?
writtendestiny: (026)

[personal profile] writtendestiny 2020-11-26 01:49 am (UTC)(link)
[She almost can't believe that worked. Having to knock him unconscious with something heavier had entered her mind as a possibility, but not something that she wanted to do. But it works, she sees him coming back into his eyes and when he looks down at her and speaks she lets out a choked noise and throws her arms around him again, pressing her forehead against the centre of his chest.]

I'm all right.

[Poison can assure him of that at least. She's fine thanks to him, despite the... rest of it. She sniffs, curling her fingers into the back of his robe. The fear dropping out at her leaves her knees feeling hollow.]

I am. Are you?
abheirrant: (❧ he felt that (how unusual))

[personal profile] abheirrant 2020-11-26 02:09 am (UTC)(link)
I-

[He doesn't know. He doesn't want to know. He came to help her, and look what he did. Though her arms are wrapped tightly around him, he keeps his own hands up, away from her.]

You shouldn't- you shouldn't touch me.
writtendestiny: (064)

[personal profile] writtendestiny 2020-11-26 02:15 am (UTC)(link)
I think it's a little late for that, don't you?

[Seeing that she could probably snap him if she held on any tighter. The room smells terrible - half rotten flesh with a sharp tinge of oil and electricity - but the safest thing within the four walls is still Carlisle.

She needs another half a minute before she feels steady enough on her feet to actually let go. The small young woman eases back, looks up, smiles wanly.
]

I'm fine, see?
abheirrant: (❧ but what have you there?)

[personal profile] abheirrant 2020-11-26 02:35 am (UTC)(link)
[She smiles, as unharmed as she promises, but Carlisle cannot manage to wipe the growing apprehension from his face.]

For now, but- but I--

[His hands shake, his entire frame quaking as he looks to the two undeads in his thrall; though they're passive now, their expressions are twisted in agony, despair.]

I don't- I want them gone. I wanted you safe, and you're not- not while they're here, and--

[He tries to pull away from her, his distress manifesting all across him as he tries to get to the undeads to dispatch them magically.]
writtendestiny: (026)

[personal profile] writtendestiny 2020-11-28 10:36 pm (UTC)(link)
Not all you're good at, surely.

[She's grateful that he doesn't pry. It's one of those good memories that stings to talk about, and maybe she'll tell him all about them some day.]

We didn't really have sports in Gull. There was fishing, but that could be dangerous.
writtendestiny: (021)

[personal profile] writtendestiny 2020-11-29 09:03 pm (UTC)(link)
[She looks over, following the line of his attention to the two undeads that he's still holding in thrall despite his dismay at what he almost did to her. Poison lets him draw away but doesn't move too far, chewing her lip while she watches him.

This could have gone terribly wrong. She could be dead right now, but it isn't the first time she's been close to death and scraped by without injury.

Not that she expects that to be any comfort to him.
]

I'm safe. You can get rid of them. I'll deal with... this.

[And she... she will just carefully shut down the robot she made in the meantime. It's far easier than dispatching something that was ever living.]
tsuyoi_ame: (well that's that)

[personal profile] tsuyoi_ame 2020-11-29 11:09 pm (UTC)(link)
Pretty much.

[It isn't really, Yamamoto is in fact while not the center of his friend group at home, the one who uses his calm, happy nature to help keep those bonds strong all the same. But to him, that is not a skill, that is just his love for his friends and family.]

You've never played a sport, I'd be really sad. I've been fishing but not a lot, I wonder if we could find somewhere here to fish.

[Just musing, the more activities for him the better, he gets bored easily.]
writtendestiny: (011)

[personal profile] writtendestiny 2020-12-06 04:08 pm (UTC)(link)
You can fish in the lake. The one in the park.

[Well... it isn't much of a lake, but it's big enough that calling it a 'pond' doesn't seem right. And fishing in it is a good bit safer than fishing off the docks and walkways in her home village.]

Where I grew up... it's mostly marshland. There isn't much space for sports.

[Poison sets her tools down and brushes her hands together.]

Do you want to go now?
tsuyoi_ame: (looks like fun)

[personal profile] tsuyoi_ame 2020-12-13 10:34 pm (UTC)(link)
Really?

[He wonders if he could get fish and make sushi? That would be a nice treat for everyone and a taste of close to home for him if he can make it happen.]

You guys didn't go to school?

[He perks up.]

Yeah! Can we eat them? Maybe I could make sushi.
treadswater: (reefs call for cool thinking)

[personal profile] treadswater 2020-12-20 09:31 am (UTC)(link)
"Sure," Annie replies, softly. She'd say 'okay', normally, but she wants to be as soft as possible. No harsh consonants. Maybe she's over-thinking it, but that's what she does. Over-thinks.

"I'll. Try."

A deep breath, trying to steady herself and keep her joints loose and moveable. Then she moves. Carefully, smoothly. Trying not to make herself a jerky, noticeable shadow. Or a target.

There are footsteps and she can't help it.

Annie freezes.
fishermansweater: (Jacket side-eye)

[personal profile] fishermansweater 2021-01-01 07:00 am (UTC)(link)
He knows how to work with an ally. Finnick stays a few steps behind her, his senses alert -- as alert as they can be after what he'd been through in the last couple of days -- because he needs to watch out for her, and for where she can't see too. He's scanning around them, up past Annie, out to the sides, a glance over the shoulder.

Until he hears it. Unsteady, irregular footsteps.

He looks back around, expecting to see Annie raising the trident. But he doesn't. She's stopped on the spot, and with a lurch in his chest he realizes she's frozen.

"Annie."

He says it in a small, urgent voice, but he also steps closer until he's just behind her, looking past her to see if she's seen something.

"Annie."
treadswater: (storms and their aftermaths)

[personal profile] treadswater 2021-01-09 10:12 am (UTC)(link)
She's trying to move. She really is. But she can't. There are footsteps, multiple. Two attackers approaching? Yes. Two. Different sounds in the footsteps. She can still think, she can.

But she can't move.

She has a weapon. She does. It's a good one. She would just have to throw it, not even stab, though that would be useful. To stab. Lunge, hit a body, pull it back. She could throw and recall.

If she moved.

Finnick's there but she still can't move. Can't she? What if he's too focused on her? And then-

"Four o'clock. Two."
fishermansweater: ([|] Focused)

[personal profile] fishermansweater 2021-01-11 03:23 pm (UTC)(link)
In any other circumstance, he'd reach for her in reassurance, a hand on hers, brushing fingers against her arm, any touch just to ground her and remind her he's here.

But touching a victor when they're wound up like that is a bad idea, and Annie is just as prone to that as Finnick or any of the others.

Instead, he takes a few quick, almost skipping steps until he's between her and the sound of the footsteps. His instincts want to throw something, but Annie has the trident, and she needs it to potentially defend herself.

(He doesn't want to ignore the fact that she's frozen, needs to be brought back to the moment. But he's here to protect her.)

"Mutts?"

He can see them, but the question might help keep her grounded.

And he wants her opinion, too.
treadswater: (nights spent at sea)

[personal profile] treadswater 2021-01-19 05:28 am (UTC)(link)
He moves and she can see him now. Between her and the danger and it's stupid, so stupid, how that lessens the grip terror has on her joints, but it does. It helps.

Annie takes a deep breath. Too loud. She's quieter on the exhale, but it's something more than the shallow breathes she'd been doing until he moved.

"Yes. I thin- Um. It's the stumble."

Her thoughts can move and maybe, maybe she can, too.

Cautiously, she tries it. Moving. Tries to shift her weight to lift a foot off the ground, place it somewhere different. Her joints don't crack. The roof doesn't fall. She moves another foot.

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