Scene #4799: Darkness From Beyond

Owner	Pose
Devon-7	In typical Guardian fashion, the meeting point for this outing is not on Phobos itself, but in Phobos' orbit. Devon-7's ship is sitting in the moon's rotational pull, slowly floating around Mars' moon waiting for other's to arrive. It's not a large ship at all, in fact it was clearly designed for the comfort of one person, but with the Hunter in the cockpit, it can probably take one passenger if anyone needs a ride to the planetary follower if need be. Devon is settled in at the controls of his ship, waiting for others to arrive before actually beaming down. But all it takes is a quick Transmat jump, and the space cowboy is on the surface of the martian moon. With Mars somewhat terraformed, it's moon is similarly hospitable. The air is thin but it is still AIR, and thus the giant grey rocky hunk of space stone is hospitable to human life. The Cabal's Fleetbase: Korus is clear in the short distance from the touchdown point.
Genji Shimada	As always, there is little warning. No 'I'm on my way', no request for docking from a separate vehicle, no comm transmission to go "hey, I'm here". When the group begins beaming down, they will find there is a cyborg ninja seated on a large, nearby boulder, his legs crossed, hands held together in a meditative posture. The glowing green visor shifts just slightly as Devon himself appears. "Hello," Genji greets simply.
Alexis Maaka	The Crimson Spectre jumps out of a Warpgate, flying its way towards Devon's coordinates. The ship remains in orbit of Phobos, awaiting the others before she hails Devon's jumpship. "This is Maaka, I'm on-site and awaiting the rest of the team." She messages calmly, already having paid a visit to the armory en-route. She's in the hangar bay, where she'll be beaming down to join the others planet side. Her suit's sealed, so thankfully she doesn't need to worry about silly things such as 'air' even if it wasn't terraformed, and she looks the part of a Titan as she arrives with her EM rifle across her shoulder, a shotgun on her back, and her 10mm pistol on her hip. She throws the cowboy and ninja both a salute, unphased by Genji's sudden appearance after last time. "G'day, boys." She says mildly, before she scans out into the distance, regarding Korus impassively.
Lin	Union drop pod is Lin's vehicle of choice! ... Well, no. The rickety, bumpy ride down from orbit was NERVE WRACKING and had her screaming at multiple points. Which is why when it plows into the moon after deploying retrothrusters. The redhead emerges coughing, flailing, and VERY VERY RATTLED. "N-NEVER DOING THAT A-AGAIN!" She wails into the thin air, stumbling about and... WHUMPF! Tumbling down towards her face. Somehow though she manages to transition into a roll and comes to a halt. "HERE!" She cries, far too enthusiastically and triumphantly. Because in her mind anyone who can make it through THAT deserves an award.
Devon-7	Phobos. Mars. The Martian moon. It's... Not quite right. From the survace of Phobos, Mars is TOO CLOSE. As though the orbit has been shifted to put the moon just within the tolerable ranges where it only barely dangerously skirts the terraformed plantet's atmosphere. It's still a moon, just, a little too close to the planet for comfort. All one has to do is look up and the red dust of Mars is right there on the horizon. But Devon doesn't seem all that perturbed by Genji being RIGHT there on a rock. In fact, the space cowboy is casually tuning what looks to be a heavy duty assault rifle while he waits. Karal drops in, he gives the Solar a nod. There's Maaka. The fireteam is good to go. He looks up. "Right so, howdy ladies and gents. We're gonna try and do this all subtle-like. Donno what's still in there since I left off last time. Try and keep a low profile. If we get in a firefight well... uh..." Uh. "No holds barred." That makes things simple. Stealth mission. If anyone screws up, go loud and don't stop until everything is dead. So he makes his way to the gates to the fleetbase, the blast doors have been left wide open. The inside is in a state of complete disarray but it looks like no one has touched the base in over two or three weeks by now. There are scorch marks from small fires that have long gone out, just about everywhere.
Alexis Maaka	Stealth mission, huh? Maaka can do that. She turns invisible through thermoptic camo the second Devon gives his briefing, and she nods with a little shimmer of blended light. "They're not gonna see us coming." SHe says confidently, her helmet giving her voice a metallic, robotic edge as she heads for the gates. "Jesus...we're not the only visitors here." SHe muses quietly, taking off in full sprint as she passes through the gates, rifle in hands just in case trouble comes their way.
Genji Shimada	Genji gives Alexis a lazy wave, and greets her with his usual, "Yo," before sliding himself off the side of the boulder and landing with catlike grace right beside the now-present Lin. His right arm shifts, clacks and clicks, deploying a trio of shuriken to his hand. "I will take a scouting role if need be. Infiltration is a specialty of mine." He follows along quickly, at least until they reach the base; at that point, he actively moves ahead inside, both swift and silent. First order of business: move along the outside of the main room, until he finds something he can easily climb up (and 'easily' for Genji is a much broader category for Genji than it is to most). Once he has himself a perch, he'll do the task of getting an in-depth look at the area.
Lin	'Subtle' and 'Dawn Caste' don't really fit, but Lin nods her affirmation. SHE WILL TRY, darnit. A hand drops to her sheathed weapon, gripping it just under the guard around the scabbard to keep it from clinking and clanking as she heads through the door and slinks up next to walls, looking around in case she needs to hide instead of continue on in... "Whatever might be here didn't close the gates..."
Devon-7	In essence, Genji can get any damn perch he wants. It might be tough in a base that goes underground, but Devon will not stop the ninja, and really not a damn thing else will, either. Genji is a fricking ninja. This is, perhaps, why the Guardian goes right ahead and lets him take the scouting role, as he pleases. Though, Devon takes a close 'second' lead at the point of the main group, behind the Shimada cyborg. The Guardian moves with an almost horrifying predatory silence, his pace so smooth that the spurs on his boots make no sound in the least. All Rei Lin has to do is try, though and Devon will take no qualm with her. The way in is open. The base is in a state of disarray, long since abandoned since the last debacle here. It's as silent as a tomb. Though Devon can cloak, he opts not to, right now, when Maaka does, if anything to keep the Solar from feeling like she sticks out. The base is as silent as a tombe, several Cabal corpses have been left out for way too long. The entrance is a wice space before a hall leading 'down', the smell of 2 ton corpses of creatures genetically far too dimilar to rhinos left out in the open is kind of overwhelming. Devon is thankful he has a full face and environmentally sealed helmet, but the truth of the matter is the base is a ghost town at best.
Genji Shimada	Genji will stay on the 'high road' for as long as he can before he drops back down to rejoin the group. "All I can say thus far, is that it looks like there was a pitched battle here a couple of weeks ago." In other words, said the smartass, nothing to report. When they head down into the hallway, he doesn't just move to the fore; he dashes up ahead somewhat, the lights on his body flickering out. Though he runs at nearly his full speed, his steps are catlike, practically silent. Perfect for scouting ahead, just in case he finds the hostiles. He'd rather they not find him at the same time.
Alexis Maaka	As a seasoned commando, Maaka's steps are also terrifyingly light as well, and she'd be scouting ahead too if Genji weren't already doing so. She slows down only to conserve power, as she tries to filter out the stench of dead Cabal. "...Yeesh, I take it these are the Cabal." She nudges a dead Cabal, before she advances down the hallway, her rifle raised as she covers her corners. "Check your corners, folks." She reminds, though she mostly speaks to Lin in this case. Genji and Devon don't need the reminder. R Assuming the base interior is less than bright, she'll switch to night-vision, scanning for hidden hostiles if she can.
Inga Freyjasdottir	If Inga was just appearing now, it is because she spent a bit of ah...adjusting...to space travel. Which is not something she has really done before. She is so far out of her comfort zone it's like she's on another planet. ...Oh wait. Inga is there now, though, leaning on her staff and looking around herself, trying to keep the wide-eyed wonder from her eyes. She wrinkles her nose slightly at the corpses, but she's smelled worse. The wisewoman sticks near Devon for now, waiting for such a time that her skills might become useful. If they get into a fight, someone with wards and healing at their disposal is usually welcome, no matter how out of place they appear. She wore a dress, of course. She doesn't own any pants. Belted at the waist, talismans hanging--bits of bone, iron and amber carved with runes and staves. Inga can go stealth if needed, herself, but for the time being she is just quiet and waiting.
Lin	The smell. Dear heavens, the smell. Lin's senses have grown sharp and focused since Exaltation, taking in amazing arrays of detail. As the group encounters THE DEAD, she strongly wishes that this was not the case... "Find it hard to believe anyone would be here amongst this horrible smell," She murmurs, utterly disgusted. It's only Devon's reassurances - and Inga's presence - that keep her from outright retreating post-haste until she's got something that can deal with ghosts... Yeah, for now, Lin just stops against a wall and focuses her senses. Listening.
Devon-7	It's not so much a 'high road' as it is that Genji will probably just go completely unseen by anything the base has to offer. Though it's not much. A lot of corpses, though. A lot of OLD corpses. Let it be known now that Devon's ship was oddly uncomforable. It had room for one person, two makes fr an awkward cramped environment, and the 'bed' was just a cubby in one wall with no cushioning and not even a pillow. Fact of the matter is it probably was not much of a comforable ride for Inga if she was tagging along while Devon was in the cockpit. Moving on though, the Cabal... Are quite dead. No sign of ghosts or anything. But this is a moot point as Devon keeps a ware eye on any direction an ambush can come from. It's Genji that hits the depths of the base first. Now there are no corpses. Small rifts in space dominate this place, holes in the walls leading to 'eternity', dark places where looking into to rifts is much like staring into a puddle of water reflecting a starry sky... If Starry skies gave Lovecraftian headaches. Here there is just one SINGLE corpse amid the shot out base. A slender almost bestial figure with a face mask; and it is surrounded by debris; armor plates, weapons left untended and forgotten. "If we're lucky, no one is." Devon replies to Lin, sweeping his gun to every corner. There is a buzzing in the air. Like someo"ne left a computer screen on for far too long, while everything else about the base shut down aside from the lights.
Genji Shimada	Genji takes a few moments just to look into those strange rifts. And then decides that he would rather not do so anymore. They hurt to stare into, even with the protection of his mask. Someone else will investigate that strange corpse; instead, the shinobi decides to go looking for the source of that strange buzzing noise instead.
Inga Freyjasdottir	Yes, a very uncomfortable ride indeed. She cannot imagine how Devon rides around in that thing. Staren's....giant robot...thing was slightly roomier and he didn't live in it. Did he? That would be odd... Inga sighs softly, reaching up to wrap her fingers around the iron hammer pendant she wears as they move further into the eery place. Inga absorbs all that she sees for the time being, wondering if using her Sight would help them at all. She might be able to pick up some threads of the wyrd here, see what it was that did all the killing. Not sure she wants to, however.
Alexis Maaka	Maaka approaches a rift, narrowing her eyes as she looks in. "...yeah, no." She decides within moments, walking toward the corpse instead. Somehow this is a safer bet than looking into an eldritch portal leading to NEGASPACE, to the cyborg-commando. She covers Genji, following him as the shinobi makes his way in the direction of that mysterious growl, silent and swift as she keeps her gun trained down every corner she comes past.
Lin	Lin shakes her head viciously several times, as if trying to clear it. Her steps become jittery and uneasy even as she bravely trods along. All she can do is grip her weapon more tightly and hope for the best! She follows along with the others, until reaching... the sole corpse. Strange, just ONE? Her gaze sweeps around the place, looking for details like what kind of a fight might've happened here. Any apparent wounds on the corpse would definitely help too. She inches closer and closer to it... but eventually brings her free hand down to ready for drawing her weapon if it's needed...
Devon-7	It is probably uncomfortable. Staring into the rifts. But what may be horrifying is how they try to envelope the corpses. There's no effect on dead flesh, but that doesn't stop the tears in space as they try to absorb the dead Cabal there they lay. This deep in the Fleetbase there's... Nothing left alive. But... BUT... Genji will find something, when he looks for the buzz. It's a disc left laying out on the floor, projecting a hologram, an image of an orange behemoth, a space ship perhaps, almost perfectly rectangular in shape. Devon's Ghost flits over the cybernetic Ninja's shoulder. "That's... That's a Hive Dreadnoaught. Ain't never seen one in OUR space though... Heard they usually stuck beyond the solar system... What's an image of it doing here?" Oakley chirps thoughtfully. That corpse though is not like the rest. Where all the other Cabal are massive, and wear heavy plates of armor, this body looks... Spindly. Thin as a rail. It SEEMS to be of the same species but it's so different. And it's clutching something. Poor Inga, though. Poor Inga, if she even so much as glimpses into that Wryd, it's not a pretty sight. Cabal. Cabal all over the moon. Dominating, controlling, ruling. This race was once dominant here. But something... SOMETHING dark, something terrible took them... No. It Took them, It twisted the loyally fanatic and the fanatically loyal. It turned brother against brother, made cousins tear throats out, father kill son and son slay sibling. None were spared. All were twisted to hate one another. All were Taken. But... Devon lingers. "that's a Psion." He explains, peeking over the Solar's shoulders. "Cabal that ain't physically imposing but can use their heads to kill you as easy as a gun or knife. Funny how their 'big' brothers look down on 'em, huh?" Not that it matters much. Something black slithers from a steel corner.
Inga Freyjasdottir	Inga does the inadvisable. She lets go of the hold she keeps on her Sight, losens her grip and lets it come... There it is. A thread grabs her. She gasps audibly, her body going rigid as her pupils expand so far they swallow the whites of her eyes. "Oh, gods," she breathes, pulled along the thread, riding it like an extremely unpleasant roller coaster. "The darkness came, and it took them all. The world drowned in blood. Families tore themselves apart, hate twisted everyone until all were gone. All...Taken," she says, clinging to her staff, her knees weak. Inga's visions are not like watching a movie clip. It is a full sensory experience. Her whole body trembles with it.
Genji Shimada	"It's difficult to guess," Genji says. "If they needed an image, then either they needed to know what they were looking for, or they needed someone /else/ to know what they were looking for. Unfortunately, that doesn't narrow things down much at all." He takes up the disc, meaning to bring it back to Devon. He's about halfway there when he hears something off to one side. In the next instant, the hologram drops to the ground, its holder moving with uncanny swiftness into cover. Into hiding.
Lin	Lin whirls about, watching over Inga worriedly as she is clearly lost in some sort of... experience. Oddly enough, Lin seems perfectly at ease with the idea of someone speaking about visions and the like. Just... not the content. A shiver runs down her back. "This is a bad place to consult spirits... everything feels wrong. It's like jagged metal slicing down my back with every breath..." As a being who naturally respires the world's energy, Lin's attuned to it in a way few can fathom. And this place gives her the HEEBIEJEEBIES. But again turning her attention to the dead... Psion... Lin gives Devon a ponderous look... then slides her scabbard from its place at her belt. she draws her weapon, but uses the scabbard's but to try poking at the dead Psion's hands and dislodge whatever it clutches... She's apparently VERY NOT COMFORTABLE with the idea of touching or desecrating a corpse. Period.
Alexis Maaka	Maaka approaches the hologram, regarding Oakley curiously as she looks over at the robofairy. "Hive?" She asks, eyebrow cocked behind her helmet. "What's the Hive, exactly? Space bees aren't exactly something I'm keen on running into." She might be half-joking, even if her tone isn't all that mirthful. She shivers at the feeling of the surrounding area, her nerves chilled even if she doesn't have the powers of Lin or Inga. "Yuuugh...sooner we get out of here, the better." She mutters. She raises her gun when Genji reacts, aiming it towards where she hears something move.
Devon-7	Beyond any fact of any matter there is one solid and unquestionable fact. This place is Bad. Fleetbase Korus has become a place of the dead and lost. A fact that makes even Devon tense his hands on the grip of his rifle. Though Lin may not want to desecrate the corpse, a good poke with her scabbard dislodges something from that hand. "Lemme see that." Oakley pipes, flitting over. The blocky construct stares, her cycloptic eye lingering on it. "It's a data cluster. I'll decrypt it and..." "Oh my stars..." That does not sound promising, as the Ghost unravels the data. "Dust Giants, fifty percent losses. Sand Eaters eighty one percent gone. Siege Dancers, seventy seven percent losses. Bone Crushers, eighty percent destroyed... Sky Burners, ninety percent wiped out... The Cabal legions are... They're being mauled and there ain't nothin' they can do about it." The little construct almost sounds sorry for them. And Inga is not given any relief. Visions and sights of armored behemoths fighting identical tanking beasts made seemingly of shadow itself... The issue comes in that moving shadow that makes Genji take cover and Maaka keep onto her toes. It erupts outward. Thin, slender, and spindly, much like the dead psion, except MADE from shadows. A creature of literal walking darkness; as though it were a fire on two legs, and that fire was pure black, roiling waves of null light wafting off of it like mist off dry ice. The Taken Cabal Psion screeches. An act that calls another of its like-- and the two suddenly split. Like mitating single celled organisms except as tall as a man and bearing arms. Arms that they unload when the FOUR mitate into eight.
Inga Freyjasdottir	Close it down. She has to cut off the flow. With a tremendous amount of mental discipline, Inga forces the visions away. She locks her Sight up tight in some corner of her mind because if she doesn't, she'll be completely useless. Inga clings to her staff, sense of foreboding increased considerably. The shadows erupt, horrifyingly multiply. "Odin's bones," she curses, reaching for the knife at her belt. The knife is not to stab shadows with. That would be silly. The knife is for stabbing herself. She uses the blade to slice open a vein on her opposite arm, blood rising in a mist that she swiftly directs toward those closest to her, Devon and Lin. Both will be shrouded in a protective bubble that shimmers gold and crimson, invigorating them while also protecting them from incoming damage. She has the sinking feeling that she's going to have her work cut out for her, keeping them alive.
Alexis Maaka	Genji says sharply what Maaka's thinking, and when she spies the shadowy figure in the middle of Oakley's spiel, the cyborg swears in her father tongue before she opens fire. "Mother/fuck/, kill that thing!" Kill THOSE things, you mean. Maaka fires off a few bursts of automatic fire when the Psion forms duplicates, trying to cut them down before they can add more to their ranks. Her EM rifle can put holes through concrete blocks, so she's certain a few shots per Psion will take them out. "Didn't tell me these things can possess the dead!" She calls to Devon loudly, blazing away with rapid-fire slugs.
Genji Shimada	Genji very quickly becomes glad of his instinct to hide. It ensures that he's hidden when the Taken emerges... or rather, when the Taken /emerge/. A lesser man might be thankful because it means they're not attacking him. Genji is glad because it lets him hit them with surprise. The ninja rolls out of his cover into a one-kneed crouch, flinging six shuriken in two rapid-fire fans. Before he's even finished the second throw, he's pushing up to his feet, suddenly blurring forward in streamers of green light to close distance /FAST/ with the nearest Psion. He means to slash it in-passing, and then once they all realize he's there? "Show me what you can do!" That shortblade of his begins dancing and flitting back and forth, not just deflecting bullets sent his way, but /re/flecting them, back at the creatures firing them.
Lin	Lin scowls at the depictions of violence, but something... SOMETHING gets the hairs on her neck standing on end rather suddenly. With an alarmed squawk she ducks down, tucking her 'real' weapon seemingly into nowhere with a flash of golden light. Power burns forth from her, the Solar's anima stoked into a billowing bonfire that seems the exact OPPOSITE of the Shadowy creature that invades the area and splits rapidly into EIGHT. Shining divine light of the sun, a purifying and reassuring presence against the terrible, hungry dark. Although Lin's battered back under the initial assault of flailing arms, she recovers from being bowled backward with a midair backflip and skidding across the battlefield. When she rises... With eyes shining like the sun she raises a weapon formed of pure, brilliant light. "Disgusting creatures! Sneaking up on us?!" Without further ado, she lunges in at the nearest! "One strike is all you'll get in!"
Devon-7	"They ain't dead, they were here 'fore we came, why do you think I wanted ninjas an' shit?" That is Devon-7's reply to Maaka when the Taken Psion emerges. Thankfully the warning gave him time. It gave everyone time. Several shots of pure roiling darkness lance out, spanging harmlessly off the warding barrier Inga provides. Though it does make him pause long enough to look at the Wise Woman, expression unreadable behind the visor of his helmet. "Ma'am that is about the creepiest, and most useful Warlock skill I have ever seen." Muttered as her BLOOD is used as the very source of their protection. Moot point though as he fires into the rapidly splitting horde. But for every one he and Maaka kills, more pop up. Enter the ninja, though, Genji's blade cuts them down as easily as bullets, but hey may be disappointed. The Taken are numerous, but these are little better than rank and file, they are cut down EASILY, in spite of the rapidly increasing number, every swipe of the brightest of the Shimada clan's scion's blade sending that darkness back to wence it came and making another Psion evaporate like dry ice, Karal Rei Lin leaping to cut others down and striking Taken from Phobos with equal ease.. "Back to the ships!" Devon decides discretion is the better part of valor, for now, now that the group has picked up some damning data.
Alexis Maaka	"Whatever they are, they're fucking annoying!" Maaka says angrily, swapping to her shogun for the last few Psions, blasting them away with a hail of 12 gauge magnum buck. The Benelli locks empty by the time the last Psion falls, and Maaka dismisses it into her inventory instead of wasting time reloading. She growls angrily, before she glances to Inga. "Yeah, she's something else. Blood magic ain't nothing to fuck with." She agrees with Devon, before she takes the Exo's advice, now they have what they came for and all. "Lin, let's move!" She barks, before she takes off when the others do.
Inga Freyjasdottir	Inga doesn't have very much time to comment on Devon's words, so she simply shrugs and gives him a somewhat sheepish smile. While the shadows are cut down, more seem to appear with every moment. It is quickly apparent that the best course of action is to run. Which Inga is terrible at. If she just turns and runs, she'll be mauled. Inga looks to the group, and hopes they'll trust her on this. "Go! I'll try to slow them," she says, taking a quick look around the area. There's a lot of them. She's not sure if she can circle them all in...or how long it will hold. But she's going to have to try. Blood still streaming, Inga cuts deeper, crimson floating upward into the air, pooling, waiting for direction. Inga moves her knife in a sweeping circle and the blood shoots outward, flowing around the Taken, forming a circle. She floods the circle with her anima, hopefully binding the creatures there so that she and the others have a bit more time to flee. Inga doesn't do running. She'll limp away as quickly as she's able however.
Genji Shimada	"Tch." Genji almost seems... disappointed, at the order to fall back. There's still more he could do here to take them all out, possibly fast enough to undercut their regeneration. But if his team is retreating, he'll go too. With another of those sudden, incredibly swift movements, Genji darts around to where he'd dropped the hologram, snagging it; having grabbed it, the shinobi falls back to Inga's side, where he can shield her from incoming fire with his shortblade if need be.
Lin	DOWN go the shades. Lin twirls her sunfire blade with gusto, just DARING any other ambushers show themselves.... even though her heartbeat's through the roof, and instincts say RETREAT. Some part of her is just that confident? Sure seems that way. But she's saken out of it by Maaka and Devon's calls... and agrees with a wordless, uneasy grunt. She starts hopping away, by way of Inga. And once reaching Inga she changes to a brisk walk. She'll stick with Inga the whole way. "We have to get out of here..." After all, Inga just helped her!
Devon-7	Individually, Taken Psions are a nuisance at best. En masse as they are, they will become much more than that. Discretion greater than valor and whatnot, Devon does, in fact, order that retreat. And it is a staggered retreat by degrees; as the Guardian rotates positions with Genji and Maaka multiple times along the way. The fact of the mattr is, like this, there is no means for the Taken to sneak up from THAT means of venue. Of course as a gentleman, Devon doesn't leave Inga's side nor stray too far behind her as she makes her way along. The Psion has split off a LOT by now, and it keeps going. Though Genji can cut them down with ease, along with Maaka, the patch back up eventually leads out of the burned out and 'abandoned' base up to Phobos' rocky surface where the ships await now that the fireteam has discovered some choice information. That the Hive has something to do with these Taken. Even if everyone is pumping them full of lead right now on the way out. There is still space on Devon's uncomfortable-as-hell skyride back if someone else wants to trade with Inga. Otherwise it's time to bail.
Genji Shimada	Much as before, when they reach their exit point, Genji just seems to be... gone. Much the same way he was just there when they arrived.
Inga Freyjasdottir	This is always the part Inga hates. The parts that involve moving quickly. Luckily, she is relatively petite and there's usually no shortage of abnormally strong people around willing to carry her like a sack of potatoes out of danger. Inga will let whomever is closest, likely Maaka, grab her and get the hell out of there...for once she's no longer nearby to pump the circle of blood full of anima, it collapses, and the shadows are free to pour out once more. Hopefully, they're long gone by then.
Alexis Maaka	Maaka doesn't seem to take note if anything that isn't a Psion, and by the time everyone gets aboard, she heads straight for the bridge, where Kaz holds the conn. "Get us outta here." "Right-o." The ship will head on out, and if Lin requires a ride, she'll get it too. Fin.