Logs:Prometheus: TITANFALL - eXtraction

Prometheus: TITANFALL - eXtraction
cn: brief violence
Dramatis Personae Nahida, Sriyani, Nanami, Dusk, Nevaeh, Ion, Alma, Blink, Ash, Echo, Hive, Matt, Gaétan, Spencer, Avi, Naomi, Harm
In Absentia	2023-07-23 "Your God works fast." (Prometheus Lassiter Raid Team-up, extraction side.)
Location <PRO> Library Chapel E 12, Lassiter Research Facility - Ohio
The sign by the door reads "Library", and rumor has it that used to be a loosely accurate way of describing it, but now it contains only a small selection of sacred texts, most of them various iterations of the Christian Bible. Most of the shelves have been removed, and the remaining ones have been pressed into service as ad hoc room dividers, sectioning the space now referred to as the "Chapel" into three areas. The largest one houses the Christian texts, roughly and often inaccurately sorted into sects. A few long benches have been dragged in here to serve as pews, and a low bookshelf turned on its side stands in for a podium. The two smaller ones have been claimed by Jewish and Muslim inmates, but they clearly didn't have much to work with, neither of them blessed with enough scripture to fill even one shelf. The few non-Abrahamic texts that passed muster as "religious" and haven't been destroyed yet are all shoved into one corner without any kind of organization or partitioning, largely ignored except when some Christians think they're making a very original point by moving some other Christians' scriptures there. Dinner time has come and gone. The pre-bed period these days is more subdued than it used to be, the guards far more twitchy about what the inmates do with the trickles of free time they're slowly beginning to be allowed again. It's quiet in here, except for the very soft chanting coming from the corner where Nahida has spread a tatty old mat for prayer time, currently bowed over it as she recites her prayers, low. Sriyani isn't here praying; they're posted at the edge of a pew near the door in maybe some kind of attempt to dissuade random labrats from interrupting Nahida, but the generally amiable expression they tend to wear doesn't help matters much. They are settling instead for a regular shushing of anyone who might dare to talk -- though this effort, too, is somewhat nullified by their own inability to maintain the silence long. "-- just a weird kind of profession, right? Like, if you're a therapist you don't really want to get your clients all the way better or you'll be out a job." It's at least kind of whispered, so that's something. "Lots of jobs like that." Nanami isn't whispering, though her voice is quiet enough. "Like what, cops want to stop crime? Pssh. Everybody scared of crime, their budget go high. Get some music teacher you'd stop paying 'em if you knew more, right? Dog train..." She's trailing off with a small frown, sitting up a little straighter just a second before a familiar klaxon-alarm begins blaring. "Chee," now this is a whisper, leaned in closer to Sriyani, "not even us this time!" For a short time, the alarm clangs. Outside, a rapid stampede of booted feet, the guards scrambling to deal with whatever it was that has them on high alert this time. In here, still just quiet -- until it isn't, a spark of purple light warping and expanding into a strange glowing portal hanging in the air. Beyond it, dark nighttime and a large bus parked, apparently, roadside by some trees. The portal is disgorging a lanky figure, himself in black tac pants, heavy body armor that's been expertly crafted to allow his huge batlike wings free movement, black skull cap -- probably these are plenty identifying enough such that he hasn't bothered pulling up the bandana (it has the Batman logo on it, large) that is tied around his neck. "Yo," Dusk is saying, eyes lighting on the children with a look of relief, "we --" He's been making his way to a wall but around here he's spied Nahida, and dips his head in apology. "Oh! Sorry," is also in a stage whisper -- which is promptly drowned out as he punches a hole in the far wall. Reaches into it, tears it still wider -- and Nanami, at least, can feel the suppression lifting within the room. To Hive, listening in: << We're good. >> Nevaeh has been curled at the foot of a bookshelf near Nahida, her brows knitted tight as she flips through a slender hardback copy of The Book of Mormon that has at least superficially survived vandalization. She looks up at the commotion outside, her eyes very, very wide. They only get wider when Dusk arrives, and wider still when he rips a hole in the wall. She huddles close to Nahida, eyes flicking rapidly between the purple hole in reality and Sriyani. "Does this mean we can go?" Hushed and hopeful, but also faintly suspicious. The portal stretches just a little wider as soon as that okay comes across the mental network. The people who come in after Dusk -- similar armor, similar tactical gear, though they are generally bothering to cover their faces -- are quite clearly, at least, not cut from the same cloth as the mercs guarding the facility. There's a clear line reiterating bright through Ion's mind: keep portal the open. find the kids. get home that almost resolves into a command before he remembers, right, not everyone is Hive today: "Alma, you on guard duty here." The chapel door is opening, now, the guard there preparing to tell the kids to get back to their cages for lockdown -- but there's a bright flash of lightningcrackle, and now Ion is by the door and the guard is -- simply gone. "-- hell yeah, you going home, friend. Quick, yeah? We find the others." Close behind Ion, Alma is swathed in black and bristling with knives sheathed in neat rows along her torso and thighs, though she also carries a handgun at one hip. "Roger," she says, possibly with a straight face, as she parks herself beside the portal. Ion has dispatched the first guard before she's even drawn her first knife, which she now palms in readiness. "Go on," she tells the kids, though it might be hard to tell who she's talking to, "there's folks on the other side to help you." "Hoooooly cow," Sriyani is gasping -- then looking to Nahida at her prayer mat, wide-eyed. "Your God works fast." They leap to their feet, tugging at Nanami as they start -- not for the portal but for the door. "We know this place, we'll find them quicker." "Five times a day for months I've prayed!" Nahida is responding -- the initial alarms didn't, actually, pull her from her prayers but the portal with its team of raiders has. "Alhamdulillah He's listening now but it could have been faster." She's running toward Nevaeh, taking her foster sister by the hand. "We are going," she agrees, breathless -- and looks back to Sriyani and Nanami. "{Stay safe.}" Her head bows as she ushers Nevaeh through, only giving a wordless nod of thanks as she looks at their rescuers. Nanami's eyes are wiiide, and she's sat bolt upright in her seat. Her breath has caught -- though a firm member of team "Of course we're getting rescued", now she's looking in stark disbelief at the portal, at the batman bandana, at the black-clad people who come through. When she blinks it's with bright tears barely held back. She just squeezes Sriyani's hand, jumping to her feet and dashing for the door as well. Blink looks tiny and awkward in her body armor, not being used used to the extra bulk, however well-fitted. << (just like training this is just like training) >> Still, she hops through her portal easily enough, looking around her nervously taking in the bizarre space they've ended up in. "Hey, it's safe," she reassures the children who are bolting for the exit, "it's just a door. A big purple space...door." But they are already gone, and she just heaves a small sigh. "Not the reaction I expected." Ash waits until the two teens make their way out through the portal before slipping through as well, glancing around and making a headcount as he does. He is wearing the same gear as everyone else, but has also managed to accumulate enough soil while he was gathering stones for his buldging cargo pockets that he's taken on a brown hue. the bandana around his face has a storm trooper helmt and claims I'm here to rescue you. "Oh, there's going to be plenty of reactions to come! Maybe one of those will meet them." The grin in his voice is warm, but his eyes narrow on the two running back into the facility before calling out, "Hey! Wait until you have someone with you! Can't lose you now!" When the alarm starts to ring, Echo startles from her twilight level of consciousness, the heavily "annotated" Bible that she has abducted to the rec room falling off her lap as she jerks to alertness. "What's that --" she asks, hushed, towards the others in the room, but she's also on her feet now, darting towards the entrance only to find a pair of guards and their weapons in her face. << Boy, >> quite unsurprising that the voice snapping in Ash's head sounds irritable as hell, << you a fucking hall monitor or -- >> There is someone with the kids, for all that, an unobtrusive psionic presence briefly hitching a ride in their minds as they dart off -- as they race further back into the wing it comes with an expanded awareness for the currently-hived members of the team of where the kids are and how many are still left to corral. It comes, also, with an idle mental image of a cheerful collie gamely attempting to shepherd a dozen unruly cats through a gate. Ion, meanwhile, is heading out -- along with him, the hole in the suppression field is expanding, more deliberate and wider than Naomi's 5G has been, a wide swath of usable powers in the space around him. He's heading to the rec room; there's a small crackle, the guards at the doorway jerking like they've just been kicked, and when it passes their weapons are -- gone. Ion doesn't explain, but Hive does -- not in words but in a psionic map that requires no vision to immeditely see and comprehend: these people are here to get you out. The way out is just over there. Get there and get home. Trailing the others, Matt looks quite at home in his black tactical gear, and there's an intensity to his vigilance that's almost palpable. His power, deeply twined in Blink's, is actually palpable this time, its entire focus for the moment dedicated to propping her portal open with a minimal of effort on her part, though there are wisps of it maintain the lightest contact with the other raiders in the room. "Good hunting," he calls to his teammates on shepherding detail. "Good luck," is quieter, only audible to Blink and their guards remaining in the chapel. Launching themselves off of Matt's shoulders, a pair of small metal beetles. They are disappearing out the door, too. Largely ignoring the kids, though, or the chaos; they have their own mission. The guards at the stations at the end of each hallway are evacuating their posts, several starting to converge on the chapel's hallway together with a skittering horde of Sentinels. There's -- oddly, not much urgency to this. Shouldn't there be? They seem strangely casual about this jailbreak attempt, and in at least a couple of their minds Hive can glean, vaguely, a reason behind it: whatever backup is coming, they are all fairly smug and certain this will be over with soon. Into the oncoming swarm of robots there is one -- very much not casual vampire. Dusk -- does not have time to be very suspicious of the guards' lackadaisical attitudes, though he's giving them some degree of side-eye as he sees to the bots (who are, as robots do, taking their job Very Seriously.) One of his wings is bristling, pincushion-like, with a stippling of suppression darts just before he smashes several of the bots against a wall. The large sweep of his wings is like a signal flag, gesturing the oncoming labrats -- kids and miscellaneous Lassiterians alike -- towards their exit. Gaétan abandoned his card game at the first sound of alarms, but hasn't moved since -- somewhat preoccupied in the very hushed discussion he's been having with his tablemates. The sight of Ion at the door pulls his breath all out in a rush, and he's on his feet in a second. His mind is bright with a new worry, picturing Matt -- not in his tac gear by the portal as he currently is, but tired and bruised slumped into his armchair after some previous raid. "C'mon," his voice is urgent as he hustles his friends towards the door and its freshly-disarmed guards, "we gotta get --" He's stopping by Echo, a hand touching against her elbow in a light and silent offer of some visual guidance through the chaos. "-- you good?" Spence doesn't need hustling, his long strides carrying him out the door ahead of the others. His chaotic yet accurate and highly annotated mental map of the facility lights up with where he thinks the other kids are, or should be. Once out the door he skids to a stop against the opposite wall to keep watch and keep out of the way as he gestures and occasionally pushes those trailing him in the correct direction. "Go, go, go!" When Gaétan brings up the rear with Echo he hesitates for just an instant, eyes wide. "I gotta get the others," he says breathlessly, and then, in a rapid tumble of vulgar French, "{get the fuck out of here and tell Luci everything!}" The understanding that bloomed in Echo's mind has also choked her chest with gratitude-disbelief-fear, which crescendoes into a hot welling of tears when she feels Gaé's hand on her elbow. "Yeah -- thanks -- I'll follow you guys -- holy shit," she whispers, blinking them back forcefully as they start to move. "You guys were right -- they actually came for us." Over in the other Rec Room, Avi is jumping to his feet with a wide-eyed excitement the moment Nanami's breathless news hits his ears. << this is it this is IT they're HERE >>, in his mind the Raid Team is... mostly just Jackson, in a Superman outfit. The inaccuracy of this notwithstanding he's hustling rapidly out into the hall with an excited WHOOP as he races by the W(rec)k Room. The boots of the disarmed mercs by that door get a quick-solid coating of ice to freeze them to the floor as he zips past Ion's suppression-void. "We out, yo," he's telling the mercs with a raised middle finger. Through the minds of the team, a blaring klaxon-warning of its own from Hive: (get out?) (get out) -- his presence dips into and out of them each with an imprint of the knowledge that something is coming, and soon. Pushing past this warning, though, is Ion, keeping a grim count of the children as they get to the portal. << Keep it open >>, is all he says, though the others can feel the fatalism beneath. << Oh Wow! Sorry! I didn't mean to forget about you! >> The mental pictures Ash had of the teens getting into five different types of trouble dissolve quickly as he moves to the door in the hallway, leaning out to beckon people in as well as shoot supercharged pebbles at any Sentinels that head their way. Waving his arms, he spots the first few people and shouts, "This way! Run this way! In, in, in, goooo." << Let me know if you need a ramp up or down somewhere. >> Rushing past Avi's ice, tugging along another missing teen with one hand, Naomi is booking it to the portal. No flicker of glowing green in her eyes now as she runs, burying the instinct to look behind and check for her brother with focus on the purple portal and the bus (bringing up a twinge of memory of jailbreak Somewhere Else she is also trying to not give air) beyond it. "-- Spence and Lael on their way don't leave without 'em they'll be right quick --" Naomi says, breathless, to the raiders guarding the portal when she lets go of Harm's hand to hop into the woods. Turns, bright-eyed, to her joyfriend on the other side. "It's real. Come on, we're going home --" The hallway guards -- who despite their usual airs of bravado when it comes to what they Totally Would Do if confronted with the raid team, have largely seemed not at all keen to tangle with whatever stray lightning or sharp-taloned wings might cross their paths -- are almost expectant, now. Whatever has just crackled through the headsets barely has time to register in Hive's mind before there is a sudden -- can it be earsplitting in psionic space? Regardless, the screech of static-interference that comes eclipses all coherent thoughts that have been bouncing around his network. Something in the mental space is grabbing, is rupturing, a malicious glee behind the jagged shards of pain that spike all through the hivemind. Throughout the facility, there's -- a slightly disgruntled telepath trying to nudge at the kids who have Heroically Dashed Off to find their friends. << -- your friends are out, get back to -- >> But the voice withdraws mid-sentence. For just a split instant, there's a stark feeling of panic that floods through the hived raiders both inside and out -- and then this is eclipsed by a blinding pain, disabling in its intensity. Hive's fading consciousness drags his network along with him -- possibly, on some level, into blissful relief. Throughout the room there's a crackling of electricity -- jumping from walls to Matt to almost-not-quite resolve by the portal itself in increasingly frantic rush. Kelawini seems to half materialize on the other side with the jumbled group of rescuees, shoved there by -- well, not her electrokinetic. There's only a second Ion is even half-visible, half-tangible, through the lingering portal before starting to dissolve again. Matt gasps when the latest knot of X-kids come tumbling in. "Gaétan! Mon loulou--" Then he goes still, just an instant before Blink cries out and starts to collapse. The portal shivers and starts to close until his power clamps down hard and takes over entirely when the teleporter's consciousness fades. "--vite en tabarnak!" comes out uncharacteristically panicked as he seizes his brother by the arm and propels him and him anyone currently hanging onto him through the portal just as it slips his control and snaps rapidly shut. It's remarkably undramatic, really, when the guards' smug assurance is rewarded. The members of the raid team still visible in the chapel -- simply vanish. "Your what --" Gaétan is snapping with an incredulity that belies the relief in his expression as he's ushered through the portal. "{Seriously, you are so --}" So what? Maybe his words cut off or maybe just the access to them does; in the chapel, his pale-horrified face is the last thing in view before the portal snaps closed. At the head, now, of the stream of labrats still flooding towards the promised exit is Nanami, breathless and flushed. She races in just in time to watch the portal snapping closed, and skids to a halt, color draining from her face. Her mouth opens, and clicks shut again -- for once, apparently, just wordless. Somewhere in the chaotic rush into the chapel, Harm lost their grip on Naomi and is left standing when portal winks out and their rescuers...also wink out. They turn to Nanami, also blanching though not panicking. Yet. When Ion reappears he's -- less of an encouraging sight than he might have been before, a good deal of blood dripping from one arm that he is trying to hold more or less against his stomach. "{Shit,}" is whispered just beneath his breath -- he's trying to reach out to a mental information-net that is no longer there. "-- fuck -- ain't one of you..." One of them what? He doesn't say what he is looking for. There's a crackle of electricity, a sharp jolt that courses through both Nanami and Harm, and then they, too, are gone, leaving the team members outside the chapel in the no-doubt loving hands of the remaining guards.