The Edge of the World [IC]

[Brown Dynamite]

Argonaut felt a twinge of pity when she saw the state of the Lor heads.  Cloning, imparting one's mind on a mechanical body, even digitizing one's brain and reuploading it on duplicates were all acceptable forms of prolonging life if one really wanted to in her opinion.  This weird monstrosity on the other hand wasn't living.  It was pure torture.  Both to look at, and no doubt to experience.  "There is only one relief left to bring this damned lot."

 

Raising her arm she aimed her blast blade on the giant cloud of lor features.  She was out of practice and she knew it.  Having to rely on the suit's AI to aim, Argonaut predicted its movement.  Slowly inching her arm and stopping her breathing to let out a blast of entropic energy at just the right time.  No sooner had she locked on before she began blasting a series of bolts in its direction.

 

Her shots however, missed the mark.  The AEGIS field agent was not blinded by sympathy or any such trifling concerns.  Instead it spoke clearly to how fast the blob was moving.  Its body actually contorting to avoid the energy bolt.  Perhaps assuming it to be as dangerous as the introduction Cavalier had seen fit to impart.  In reality her blast blade's entropic output could not compare.  However, there was already enough risk in damaging the walls as it were, and she did want to prevent further issue.

[trollthumper]

The bolt missed the psychic entity, which pinioned with unnatural grace out of the way of the blast, its ectoplasmic bulk drifting like a cloud in front of a giant fan. The disparate mass of eyes locked on Cavalier - and suddenly, he could feel his armor growing hideously hot, as if he was sitting in the middle of a blast furnace. He spat out a swear in an alien language, trying to refocus the energy distribution matrix of his suit before the pyrokinetic burst roasted him alive. Soon, the armor was as cool as it had been before, even if he was sweating mightily on the inside. 

 

"Oh, sure,  try to roast the guy in the tin can," he said, raising his blaster. "You know, it's not like I ever expected the Terminus to play fair, but --" 

 

The burst flew from his pistol mid-sentence, in an attempt to catch the thing off-guard. Instead, it appeared he'd put more effort into fighting off the blaze than he'd thought, as the burst arced somewhat off-topic, around the bulk of the thing.

 

"Really?"

[Brown Dynamite]

The secret to how Omegadrones took down so many super powered beings in multiple dimensions?  Numbers.  If for everyone metahuman there were twenty Omegdones raining down from above.  Chances were that eventually something had to give.  The Omegadrone training programed through the suit's AI began to fight for control of the movements.  Rushing forward as if swarm tactics were in play, Agonaut kept slamming into the psychic entity shoulder first.  Her blast blade prepped to keep the beings inside wary, if they considered such mattered.

 

There wasn't enough force in the impact to damage it.  And that suited her as ultimately she was just trying to distract it enough to open up the opportunity for Cavalier to swoop in.  The AI suggested stabbing through Cavalier to get to the blobbed entity when he moved in.  But she refused, no matter how dangerous the being seemed to be.

[trollthumper]

The blow from Argonaut's blast blade managed to scrape off part of the thing's corpus, causing the ectoplasm to unravel and boil away into mist. The gestalt shrieked as one of the phantom heads caved in, sending up tendrils of gauzy material. The material tried to knit itself together, but in a clumsy, half-capable fashion, creating more of a tangled knot of features than a recognizable head. What was left in its place let out a mangled scream.

"Oh, yeah, because this place wasn't giving me enough nightmares," said Cavalier. He charged his blaster, taking aim into the mass and discharging at full force - but the cloudy form weaved out of the way of the bolts, twisting and contorting from the blow. "How the hell is this thing so fast?"

[Brown Dynamite]

Rather than take a stab at answering the question, Argonaut shot forward with her jet boosts.  Aiming her Blast Blade directly at the creature's face.  It moving out of the way with a quickness Argonaut's charge.  The stench of entropy in the air the only sign of the Omegadrone's failed assault.  Her wayward charge's empty.

 

"Pleasant dreams are overrated."  Argonaut smiled from behind her helmet.  It was a truly gruesome creature that represented an untold period of torture for her.  But, it was nice to be around someone genuinely horrified with their situation when it came to dealing with odd Terminus experimentation.  It helped to keep things grounded in reality. 

 

Even if reality sucks about now.

[trollthumper]

"I'd say you're just a ball of sunshine today, but I can't blame you for being cynical." The psychic monstrosity loomed talk again as the force of its concentration gathered in front of it, charging like a thunderbolt in a cloud. With a roar, the blast let fly - and missed Cavalier entirely, slamming into one of the pipes and denting it hard. He recovered quickly as the thing roared in a combination of pain and fury, as if it was lamenting the denial of the kill. Fortunately, Cavalier knew what to say in the face of many-faced shapeshifting monstrosities.

"Well, screw you, too!" He opened fire, sending bolts of emerald light right into the haat of the creature. It frayed and tore, but still held together on gossamer strands... if just barely.

[Brown Dynamite]

Argonaut kicked back pushing some distance between her and the creature.  Taking up a firing stance she would put the blast blade's name to use.  Fired yet another green bolt of entropic energy at the creature.  The energy dissipated on contact with the wall.  Nowhere near hitting the odd mish mash of patchwork horrors that made up the creature.

 

It was staying perfectly still  distracted by the sensation of pain.  There was no two buts about it she simply missed.  And missed badly.  There was a seething bit of annoyance as she began to settle with the fact, her decades away from the armor meant she might have to hit up the AEGIS firing range more often.  "And here I thought I was the optimist."

[trollthumper]

The ectoplasmic mist rose up again as the thing twitched in place, its many faces swirling and screaming. Somehow, it still didn't get any less horrible, especially as if seemed to bounce around both inside Cavalier's helmet and inside his head. He wished he could throw up the sound blockers, but that might put him off his footing. He raised his pistol to fire when a new face emerged from the center of the thing's mass - long and insectoid, with a carapace slick with phantom blood. It chittered at Cavalier, a sound he heard in his worst dreams.

He opened fire at full force, but when he opened his eyes, he found the blasts had gone wild. He stomped the floor. "Why don't you ****ing die?"

[Brown Dynamite]

Argonaut didn't utter a peep while Cavalier was firing.  Instead she was watching the ectoplasmic personification of horror writhe around.  Its body and many faces gleefully dancing about.  Scuttling along in a disgusting display.  Through Cavalier's frustration she confirmed that it still stood. No sooner had he screamed out before she dutifully fired her own entropic blast of energy.

 

It was mentally exhausting to not let her mind wander.  The pressure and stress starting to get to her.  But the horrible screams gurgling out of the creature's many mouths proved that their efforts weren't for naught.  The pair had been harming it.  Slowly but steadily, the victims would receive their peace.  "It's time for your last check up."

[trollthumper]

The blow seemed to cleave through the ectoplasm, leaving it more of a loose conglomeration than any one whole. The screaming faces seemed to be less of a screaming mass and more individuals, lost and confused in a terrible web of thoughts. For a second, Cavalier thought he could see something other than madness and fury - regret, maybe, or sorrow. Maybe, on one or two faces, a sense of acceptance.

 

It was probably the best he could do.

 

He didn't say anything. There was no barbed comment, no witty line. The time for anger was done. He raised his blaster, and fired into the heart of the psychic construct, right where it seemed the ectoplasmic strands were weakest. The bolts cut through the webbing, causing the entity to fall apart entirely. As it did, waves of telekinetic force ripped through the heart of the ship, ricocheting through the confines. The first volley was enough to dent the metal, and it only seemed to be picking up. 

 

"I think this is pretty damn neutralized," he said. "Time to go. Fast." 

[Brown Dynamite]

Argonaut didn't need convincing.  Wasting little time in going into full thrust with her jet boots. There were very few times in which one found themselves grateful for being inside of an Omegadrone armor.  Least of all one with a direct neural interface.  Facing a telekinetic force powerful enough to dent steel.  Well that was one of those times.

 

"This was never going to end without a massive explosion was it?"  Argonaut was glad that the Mentats suffering had come to an untimely end.  There was nothing more that could be done for them at this point.  But it still rang far too close to home.  If not for AEGIS she would still be a mindless vegetable foot soldier for the lord of entropy.  I wanted to help people, and here I am reminded of what it's like to be the monster.

 

All Yves knew in that moment was that if they made it out alive.  She would not be taking any more jobs for that week.

[trollthumper]

Cavalier rushed through the collapsing hallways of the converted Lor vessel, the psychic scream still echoing through the corridors and through his head. By the time they reached the airlock, they didn't need to worry about waiting for it to punch open - something had already blown a hole right through it. As he jumped towards the gap, he turned back to look. He could swear that, near the end, the walls were not exploding outwards, but rather, collapsing inwards. As if the ship was trying to swallow itself. 

 

He kicked off as fast as he could, blazing off with Argonaut, not daring to look back. By the time the sound of groaning metal had stopped, there was nothing left of the ship. Not even a scrap of debris. Perhaps it had tried to punch back through to wherever it had once come from... or perhaps it would be consigned to somewhere else, a twisted hulk for some other luckless explorer to find. 

 

He turned to Argonaut. "Right now, I feel like getting massively drunk. Thoughts?"

[Brown Dynamite]

Looking around to find absolutely no trace of the ship, Argonaut had to agree.  The respectful thing would have been to make some sort of statement of never forgetting.  But, Agonaut had enough to remember about the Terminus and Physician Friendly's "helpful treatments."  Right now, a whole lot of forgetting sounded like the healthier if not more pleasing option.

 

"I think...that I won't even need a glass tonight that's what I think .  Requesting the bottle straight through.  Will even write it off as a business expense."  One good thing about her choice of careers.  Late nights, were already expected at home.