Logs:In Which Some Guards Receive Some Unwelcome Visitors and Some Prisoners Receive Some Welcome Ones, Some Raiders Are as Subtle as Tanks, and a Few Labrats Are Less Than Grateful for a Rescue

In Which Some Guards Receive Some Unwelcome Visitors and Some Prisoners Receive Some Welcome Ones, Some Raiders Are as Subtle as Tanks, and a Few Labrats Are Less Than Grateful for a Rescue
cn: some violence and descriptions of blood
Dramatis Personae Ion, Peter, Dusk, Taylor, Skye, Joshua, Hive
In Absentia	2021-11-06 << ... holy fucking shit! >> (Concurrent with the wizards' side of raid, Part of Prometheus Plot.)
Location <MA> Dirac Research Laboratory - Western Mass
The blazing amber-gold of Massachusetts' autumn foliage is muted by the blanket of night, with only a sliver of the waxing moon's silver glow to illuminate the way. The familiar sprawling campus -- with its winding hiking trails, its fitness center with huge picture windows (and small pond), tennis court, wide roof deck (with cafeteria attached) -- has not changed much since their last visit. The hole left in the wall previously has been patched; the parking lot is now surrounded by temporary chain-link fencing and a security check-point (as if that would stop anyone). Some construction vehicles (a bull-dozer, a small crane) are parked nearby; work is being done on the facility, apparently. The night obscures most of the sky, but -- every so often -- a shadow will pass by one of the many extremely tall light-posts mounted in the parking lot or around the facility. Spherically-shaped shadows, humming and buzzing in silent watch. What few guards can be seen at their posts seem a little more wary; not expecting trouble, but still reeling in that post-attack daze that implies that raids can, in fact, happen here. Inside, in the basement cellblock, repairs have gone a lot quicker than outside — the lights in the hallway are bright as ever, the cascade of cells doors locked, the guard post in the centre and at either end fully staffed. The ones near the stairs are the mostly alert -- fully awake and not fully engrossed in the episode of Squid Game one has playing on their phone. They don't seem to notice that someone (perhaps small and blue and shark-like) has unlocked the doors into the basement as well as disabled the alarms. << Everybody, >> a voice whispers in soft sussuration through all the inmates in the cell block -- almost imperceptibly insinuating itself into the minds of the labrats they can find << stay quiet -- be ready. A team is coming to get the rest of you out. Please get ready to make a quick and orderly evacuation once we get the doors open. It might be chaotic outside but we'll do our best to keep you safe. >> Ion doesn't look the part of Tank much at all, scrappy and lean, leather jacket over his body armor, gun holstered beside a nightstick and taser at his waist. But here he is, leading the way down into the cellblock once B gets the locks and security systems. His usual grin is absent, today; he just looks determined. "Ey-yo," his greeting comes in time with unholstering his nightstick; it might not be strong enough for safety glass but he's tap-tap-tapping it at the first end guard station anyway. "Got visitors, yo." Peter is -- for whatever it's worth -- very much still operating under 'stealth-mode'. That isn't to say that this is going to interfere with Ion's greeting, or vice-versa -- just that it's probably useful to have at least one person the baddies don't see coming. Which is why, at this moment, he's dressed in complete black, his hood equipped with white-tinted goggles -- crawling along the ceiling, just a bit behind (and over) Ion's head. There is a spike of amusement that surges up through Peter's consciousness at Ion's greeting below. <<Aw man I should have said that.>> 'CRASH.' Ion's nightstick may be no match for the safety glass but Dusk -- well, he isn't really built for stealth anyway. Trailing just behind the electrokinetic, he's balled up one fist and with a whole lot more power than his lanky build looks like it should have, smashes it straight through the front door of the guard station. Pulls it off its hinges. He doesn't bother with the hello. Taylor is bringing up the rear, a solid mass of black on black, his many (many) arms all unbound today and forming a writhing-squirming mass of muscle in the hallway. Though he's a fair bit behind the others, that doesn't stop one of his arms whipping out past Peter, past Ion, past Dusk, through the smashed doorway to coil around one of the guards in an attempt to yank them bodily from the guard station. Squid Game Watcher One looks up at the first tap on the glass, the phone in his hand still playing subtitles. His mouth opens — what’s he going to say? Who knows! He’s not saying it now, anyway, as Dusk’s hand crashes through the glass and rips away the door. He reaches for his gun and just gets his hand around the grip when Taylor 'yoinks' him out of the station. The other guard, who was more Squid Game Indifferent, has gotten her act together a little bit quicker. Her gun is up and pointed at the intruders — three shots ring out in rapid succession. At the ends of the hallways, the other guards are perking up at the noise and sending one each their way. There’s a brief static of radio chatter, distant (the message loud in their minds, <<raiders are back, send them down>>). Ion ducks behind the cover of the door Dusk's just torn off, braced against the other man as the gunshots ring out. He slides back out underneath it right as the last one is fired, rolling into the guard station and aiming a hard crack up toward the shooter's hand as he rises. "Ohshit," now he's finally found his smile, bright as he looks down at phone, broken screen still gamely playing Netflix on the ground, "-- been meaning to catch that it any good?" "--holycrap--" Peter mutters under his breath as Dusk->Taylor->Ion combo rips past him; a massive crash followed by a sleek black arm whipping through the newly formed opening, followed by -- gunshots, and then Ion. Peter's on the move an instant later, flattened to the ceiling and nearly bounding on all fours, upside down -- trusting Ion to handle the shooter as he charges down the passage, a steady thwp-thwp-thwp as strands of silver-grey lurch out to several cell-doors along the way -- just yanking them open with his forward momentum, then dropping the threads. Peter's making his way toward the nearest staircase, intent on cutting off any new guards off at the pass -- he's also removing something from his back; a thick bundle of electronics about the size of a cheap paperback, wrapped in unusually bright geometrically-fractalized wrapping paper. Dusk is bringing this combo full circle, extending a wing once Taylor has extracted the other guard from the station to wrap around the conveniently-packaged man Taylor carries out, pull him close. The quick jab of his fangs don't themselves do a lot of damage but they do carry with them a very potent drug, for most people at once warm and euphoric and disabling in its muscle-relaxant effects. "Man you think these fuckers gonna steer you right?" Taylor relinquishes his captive to Dusk readily. There's a jangling panic in the back of his mind that he's pushing back, following after Peter instead to direct his attention toward the cell blocks, the opening doors, the new guards now heading their way. << Yo, friends, your exit is this way -- >> comes with a mental map to any emerging labrats. He does at least have the benefit of being Extremely Hard To Miss. A cell just past the last door that Peter rips free emits a strange reverberating hum before its frame and locking mechanism shake apart and crash to the floor and the door itself falls inward. Skye pokes her head out and gives a start when she sees Taylor, her eyes going wide as she waves awkwardly at him. The same hum starts up on a different cell door farther down the hall. "Hive?" she's asking the ceiling as if expecting to find her housemate there--then loses her entire train of thought when she sees Peter sticking to it. She points at him, points at herself, points at him again, eyes going even wider. << Uhhhhh right! I can get some of these doors if you tell people to stand back from them. >> << If you're still in your cells, >> Hive's soft whisper comes obligingly to the rest of the labrats, << please stand back from the doors. -- heyy. Glad you're not dead. >> That last, at least, goes just to Skye and his team, as she gets folded into their network. The first labrat out of his cell is the stout military bro who got large and in charge and trigger happy on the last raid, but one look at Taylor and he's beating a hasty retreat, pulling his cellmate back in with him. "Take cover, everyone, Miller's gettin' his tentacles on!" There are a couple of fearful exclamations from the other open doors at this warning. It does not stop a scrawny teenager from the opposite cell ducking out to squint at Taylor. "That's not him dude get your eyes checked, also like, the field's still on?" Then they're making a break for for the exit on the map in their mind. Squid Game Enjoyer does not have a chance to answer Ion’s question — by the time it reaches his ears he’s out, drooping blissfully against Dusk’s wing. Do Prometheus guards dream of electric sheep? Who knows. Who cares. The other guard in the first station also does not have an opinion to share on the merits of Squid Game, as she is too busy having the gun knocked from her hand mid shot. The bullet fires off over Ion towards Taylor. She attempts to give Ion some of the same treatment, fist flying towards his nose. At the far end of the currently-being-liberated wing, the guards are leaving their post behind and approaching the cacophony. “Back in your rooms!” One bellows, gun raised as he rattles off what he thinks is a warning shot over the heads of the escaping lab rats towards the ceiling — amid all the chaos, he hasn’t actually noticed Peter, but the bullet flies Peterward anyway. His partner doesn’t seem as trigger happy as the other — this one watches Skye with interest. “They must have taken down the field,” he says, trying to reconcile the feeling of being suppressed with the shaking of the far door. He puts two and two together and makes it equal five. At each staircase, reinforcements can be felt by Hive before they are heard — five or more coming down the staircase Peter is heading to, just two on the other side. The feel of the approaching minds is relayed, wordless, to the team below. More verbal is Hive's communication with the emerging labrats -- does anyone need help? Can you all walk? The rest of the team is upstairs, they can help you to the vehicles. We're here to get you out. If Ion is disappointed about getting No Helpful Review on the show he doesn't show it. Just grits his teeth harder, head turning aside to catch the blow on the side of his jaw rather than his nose, a hiss of breath escaping him. When his other hand comes up it's not for a blow; taser in hand, aimed just below her armpit. "--are you frigging kidding me--" Peter exhales just before the gunshot goes off, his danger sense spiking up with a flash of precognitive pain. Rather than risk the bullet, he lurches off the ceiling and sails right toward the guard, bullet grazing past his shoulder -- arms extended, aiming for a full on hard tackle. The instant he's hitting, he drops the fractal-colored package and unleashes the webshooters -- thwp-thwp-thwp -- to seal the guard's limbs to the floor while rolling into a hand-stand, lunging off his hands to fling back up into the air, feet first -- one foot aimed squarely at the jaw of the guard's partner (the one who's struggling with math). The blow's got enough uumph behind it to send him to the ceiling. <<Got five coming down this staircase, should be able to handle it.>> Dusk's bright flicker of warmth across their shared mental space when Skye arrives will have to suffice for greeting, for thank God you're alive, for sorry you got captured, for a lot of things. He's busy shepherding the other labrats who do emerge, still holding the broken door like a shield en route to the stairs, his huge wings and armored body additional cover as reinforcements start to arrive. Taylor's breath whooshes out as the bullet strikes him in the chest -- that'll leave a bruise. << You got all five? >> There's an anxious note in his voice, but he leaves Peter to it, turning his attention to the other staircase. His longest arms snake up it to find the two guards heading down, swipe around their ankles to unceremoniously try and drag them down the stairs. Maybe present Dusk with one? He's not greedy. Also he doesn't eat people, so there's that. Skye flinches at the gunshots and presses herself flatter against the doorframe -- well, the wall where her doorframe used to be -- but grits her teeth and continues rattling doors down with a vengeance. << It's not really a problem right this moment, but I still can't really run? Or walk fast? >> She glances down at the cast on her leg. << But if we need me to take a whack at someone from here I'm down. >> The trickle of evacuating labrats is gathering into a stream, the scrawny teen still leading the pack but pausing often to urge their fellows along toward the exit. Meanwhile, the military bro who evidently thinks all black tentacles look the same is charging in the opposite direction toward Peter and his two guards, snagging the gun dropped by the guard who is now glued to the floor. One of the doors Skye has just shaken open disgorges a terrified person who promptly collapses as soon as they've let go of the door frame. Their cellmate gamely tries to drag them to their feet while loudly thinking, << Hello? Hello?! Kilroy kinda can't walk. With the suppressing. >> Kilroy, indeed, does not seem to have much control over their limbs even with assistance. Ion’s sparring partner just dodges with a step out of reach of the taser, goes to try and knock the taser out of his hand. Trigger Happy doesn’t see Peter until the webslinger is half a second out, is only starting to register surprise when he finds himself plastered to the floor. The other is raising his hands and does a sort of — shove, at Peter, in the air. His surprise is palpable — <<you didn’t turn the grid off?>> He’s starting to say this too before he’s sent flying into the ceiling. When he crashes to the floor, he doesn’t get up The five on the chaos side descend with guns blazing, the two in front sending four-five-six shots out into the moving lab rats. One tries to get a bead on Peter, another on Military Bro. One is glancing over at the guard strapped down, considers cutting him free. One of the stair guards yelps as Taylor yanks him down the stairs, their head comically hitting multiple steps on the way down. The other leaps back just out of range (<<Oh hell no Liv can deal with this>>) and runs back up the stairs. Shoots twice behind him, but he isn’t sticking around to make sure Taylor is hit. There are two regular guards in this side’s hallway still!! They aren’t moving though — they’re sort of hiding behind the guard post, guns trained on Taylor but not yet shooting. The one who ran away is being replaced by someone else — this mind is leaning into a constant aching pain, into phantom limbs and misplaced anger. It's sharp, and violent. There’s a thump of some sort of metal on the top of the stairs, thundering down towards Taylor. Ion is pressing forward as the guard dodges back. His hand is knocked back though he keeps the grip on the taser -- his other hand is snapping forward again, nightstick cracking toward her knees. He jams the taser up again but doesn't wait around; he kicks this guard's fallen gun in Taylor's direction as he dips back out of the guard station, turning his attention to the still-armed guards hiding behind the station. The stick spins around. Slams down toward the arm of the nearest one, actually shoots the taser towards the other. No drones -- Peter almost feels disappointed. He leaves the anti-drone package behind for the moment, letting the upward momentum of that hand-stand carry him through the air, feet-first toward the five emerging guards... right as they start opening fire. << I got -- (huff, holycrap) -- this -- >> THWP-THWP -- two lines of silver threading lock on either side of the staircase. Peter uses the connection points to yank himself forward, becoming a sleek and extremely fast bullet -- soaring like an arrow, feet-first. Those feet are aimed for the guard firing at him -- a bullet thwacks his left flank as he aims to drive the balls of his feet into the guard's chest... while his arms extend out to -- THWP-THWP -- catch the two guards just opening fire on the lab-rats and yoink them back with him, right toward the other two (the one aiming for Military Bro, and the one contemplating the guard Peter's already glued down). Dusk does grab the guard from Taylor once he's dragged down the stairs, sinking fangs into neck deep before casting him aside. A growl rises in his chest when one of the guards starts firing on the labrats; he places himself squarely between the bullets and the fleeing labrats, holding the door between them and just gritting his teeth against the bullets that hit him instead. << Kilroy? I can help if they don't mind being carried -- >> He's offering an arm to Kilroy, offering a wide wing out to Skye for support. << Just have everyone stay with me, I can take the heat. >> Though currently their exit staircase is having a bit of An Issue. << Taylor, we need that exit -- >> Dusk's own comparatively paltry collection of limbs have become a bit full. << Working on it, >> Taylor replies, starting toward the stairs -- and then stopping short. << What the fuck?! >> Skye finally limps from the cover of her doorway and leans into Dusk's support. Her hand that's grabbed one long spar for balance -- her entire body, really -- looks tiny against the massive wing. When they start to move toward the exit, though, she cranes her neck to look back, her eyes focusing sharply on one of the farther cells. << Joshua! (Why hasn't he come out) (Is he hurt) >> She's already pulling away from Dusk, injury be damned -- though the injury doesn't really agree with her, pain flaring sharp where she's stepped too hastily. She bites back a cry, but the loose debris on the floor around them rattle ominously like the beginning of an earthquake. In reluctant answer to DJ's question, Hive reaches out ahead, sweeping the hostile Prometheus labrats up into the network, for a brief moment. In the shared mindspace info-dumping is a much quicker task, not telling but sharing, not showing but being -- for a moment, the labrats are experiencing his perspective as he explains who they are and what they're here to do, that they can come with them, have a life on the outside, that the team will do their best to meet their needs (blood included, if that's your jam!), that they're not going to force anyone to leave but the offer is always open, that he was, once, where they are, working for Prometheus as well, that he genuinely wants to help them build community, build a life, on the other side. Just for a moment, and then he's gone again. At the very farthest end of the hall, there's a slow stirring of movement. Joshua looks -- well. Kind of the same droopy hangdog expression he usually has, though now a bit paler, a small scruff of stubble, a slow drag to his step as he starts to emerge. Stops, stares first at the flying bullets. Next at the rattling debris on the floor. He just leans against the doorway, brows pinching into a frown as he watches the rubble shake. "You're very bad at being rescued." He is offering this critically to Skye as he waits for an opportune moment to duck behind Dusk's makeshift shield. Military Bro does not seem to recognize how close he came to being perforated. He's aiming to do some perforating of his own, switching his stolen assault rife to three-shot burst and opening fire on the knot of guards entangled by Peter's webs. "How do you like that?" he roars triumphantly. Kilroy looks dubious about Dusk's offer, but their cellmate surrenders them gratefully. "Can't you just fry the grid or something?" He's scrambling on ahead of Dusk and his injured charges, though, only to stop short behind Taylor when he sees what's blocking their path out. "Oh shit! Oh shit oh shit it's that fucking traitor bitch!" Hive is reaching back out -- with a lot more care, this time. A careful partitioning, that doesn't fully share the labrat's thoughts with all his network -- only a selective melding, this time. There's him, there's the blood-hungry redhead, and now there's Dusk, folded in with them as well to share the mind of the labrat upstairs. Ion’s sparring partner gasps as the nightstick hits home, then the taser. She falls, finally, over onto the broken glass of the booth. The taser finds its second mark easily as well, that guard falling quickly to the electric current. The other moves their arm just in time, backing up with two quick shots at Ion. Operation “Fuck Up The Guards” goes well — the guard Peter dives towards flinches almost out of the way and takes most of the force on one half of his ribs with a sick crack. The guards caught on the web fly back, bowling over the inquisitive guard on route to collapsing against the wall. The last one’s hair whistles in the wind of the guards flying past — his attention on Military Bro is lost as he fires at Peter again. Huge mistake, probably, as Military Bro’s open fire catches him in the stomach and his fallen co-workers in the everywhere. Dusk’s latest meal slumps against the wall and is promptly trampled by escapees. No drones? No such luck, Peter — it’s bad luck that they sweep down from behind the guards now, after he’s dropped the anti-drone thingamajig. They skitter out of the staircase, firing off darts at every non-guard in sight — Peter, Military Bro, Dusk’s wings, the lab rats — as they skitter down the hall. Skye's rattling of the floor hides, for a moment, the 'clang' of metal on the stairs. “Language, Nathaniel,” comes a sing-song soprano as one wide articulated metal leg slams into view, then the other. Then a third, then a fourth, as the first two rotate back up and over the shoulders of a young woman with sickly green skin and wild frizzy brown hair. She’s definitely the “traitor bitch” — A flare of disgust passes over her face when she’s pulled into Hive, the brief moment she’s there enough to communicate to the raid team that she’s not leaving. She gives Taylor a curious once over. “Hi, I’m Liv,” she says, almost cheerfully, extending a metal tentacle out towards him. “You’re like me! You should stay.” She’s almost at the base of the stairs — the two tentacles that aren’t holding her up open their claw-like ends, one forming a point and darting out to stab at Taylor while the other begins to spin like a saw blade. Ion jerks backward with a hiss of breath, taser falling from an arm now heavily bloodied. His expression is drawn, a flare of pain lancing through their network, but he's stomping forward towards the guard, nightstick cracking down toward them with two heavy blows. << -- {holy fucking shit}, >> is his thought, not at getting shot or at the guard in front of him but the woman currently confronting Taylor. << {Bro you good?} >> << Holy moley can someone please take that labrat's gun away -- >> Peter begins, as the guard who's opening fire at him (just barely missing scoring a headshot on Peter as he sails by and lands in a roll at the foot of the stairs) is suddenly cut down. Enter the drones, one of whom is confronting Peter head-on -- thnk-thnk-thnk -- several darts slam into his chest as he skitters back. Fortunately for Peter, his suit is armored -- but it still hurts like hell. THWP! The adverserial patch is snagged off the floor with a webline and sling-shotted right in front of Peter, slapping into the front of the drone. THWP-THWP-THWP! It's glued into place with three more web-shots, the last one smashing into the on-panel. Suddenly, the whole thing heats up -- producing an array of signals (visual, kinetic, audio, and thermal) designed to act as an adverserial patch -- fooling the drones' neural nets into thinking that this drone isn't a drone at all... It's Mutant ultra-terrorist, JACKSON HOLLAND! Peter's head jerks back just in time as he recovers, stumbling toward the other stairway, catching a glimpse of -- << ... holy fucking shit! >> Mirroring Ion, just in English. With an injured labrat in one arm and another on his wing Dusk is already a bit distracted even before his mind is rerouted. As it is, he doesn't freak out when the tentacle-woman comes at Taylor -- maybe he doesn't even notice. He's focused somewhere else entirely, his mind clawing its way up above them. Red and hungry and still with the taste of blood fresh on his mind, there's an unmistakeable ferocity to his thoughts that -- nevertheless don't, quite, tip the scale into feral. A hunger kept in check by something -- a something which is prompting him now, with a certain quiet care, to press through their shared mind with one clawed mental wing to touch the newest mind they've just enveloped. << you with us? >> The response to Dusk's inquiry comes back, echoing in his head in a muted, almost muffled response -- something almost child-like in the voice, though beneath it lies an ocean of churning blood: << ...the fuck are you? >> Taylor is definitely not Okay; he's backing away from the woman, which doesn't stop her claw-limb from stabbing right through one of his smaller arms, leaving a piece of it severed on the floor. He's eying the spinning blade with wider eyes, his head shaking. "The fuck?" he says again, "Like hell I'm staying in this fucking madhouse, you crazy, woman? Yeah, I was like you and that's why I got the fuck out." << Yyyeah, sorry, >> the manyvoiced sussuration that is Hive is returning, and so is his control. It insinuates itself back into Liv's mind but this time clamps down like a vice, far more unyielding than the soft whisper-voices would suggest, arresting any further initiative she might have toward moving, << that offer to choose didn't mean you get free rein to dice our friends. Do what you want with your life after we're out of here. >> "Hey, the bus thing was not my fault!" Skye is so relieved at the sight of Joshua this hardly even sounds like a complaint. She sags back against Dusk's wing, then straightens again when she hears Peter's request and turns her attention to Military Bro. "Oh my God Allan what the fuck are you --" The assault rifle shakes itself out of his hands. "Get over here!" She's distracted from her attempts to collect her labmate when the tentacled collaborator starts slicing into Taylor. Her << -- {holy fucking shit!} >> is in Mandarin. Joshua flinches when the metal tentacle bites into the flesh one. He looks from the woman to Taylor -- back to the woman. His lips press together, his head shaking once. "Man." He is availing himself of Dusk's other wing as a support, "-- it's going to be nice to get home." Ion’s first swing misses as the guard dives for the released taser, but the second cracks across their skull and lays them out on the floor, not to get up again. The drone slides back, sagging under the weight of the patch for a moment while it adjusts. The other drones shoot off a last barrage of darts at Dusk and the lab rats before turning, as one, to destroy JACKSON HOLLAND. The ensuing darting of the patched drone is comical — they strike over and over and over until something pierces the shell and it falls, defeated. Liv opens her claw back up, picking up the severed tentacle with it and dropping it in her Human Arms to inspect while the saw blade swings closer at Taylor’s other tentacles. If everyone else's comments bother her, she doesn't show it. “Oo, this is different — do yours grow back?” She’s one part fascinated, one part deeply, enviously furious at this possibility. The saw blade swings closer to Taylor again, dangerously close — — And stops. Liv looks up from the body part in her hands, shock plastered on her face as her metal appendages don’t move. “No no no!” She screeches. “Why are you leaving there is nothing out there for us!” Is she pleading? Her mind screams against Hive’s grip, trying feverishly to move her limbs <<my limbs, my new limbs, they took them away but I made them new and shiny and better they’re almost perfect let me 'use' them>> to no avail. There is space between her limbs, under her dangling human legs, to duck under and escape. "You turning on your own?" Allan the Military Bro is turning his fury on Skye, now. "Or maybe we're not your own! I knew we couldn't trust you fucking illegals --" The disgusted flip of his hand encompasses -- Dusk and everyone leaning on him, although his eyes are mostly flicking between Skye and Joshua. He's derailed from this tirade by Liv's gruesome attack, blood draining from his face as he bends scavenge frantically for yet another gun. Nathaniel is screaming as though his limbs were getting cut off, flinging himself behind Dusk again just in time to be shot full of darts. Kilroy also seems fairly alarmed, but is not having much success at either getting away from the horrifying spectacle or communicating their dismay about it -- only flops one arm ineffectually before subsiding, head falling back to rest on Dusk's shoulder. "Crazy-ass fucking bitch," Ion's saying as he steps over the fallen guards, waves the others onward past the pleading-screeching labrat. "You know the outside world we got robot limbs too, yeah? Don't even have to torture your comrades for 'em. -- Jesusmaryanjoseph save us. Come on, yo." He's ducking under the metal limbs and up the stairs, leaving a dripped-red trail of blood behind him. << {Fuck if that shitbag don't shut up can we make him walk back to New York?} >> He is picturing Military Bro clear in his mind. Even after the drone drops, the patch continues emitting its signals -- until the patch itself is destroyed, the drones will be convinced it is still very alive (and still MEGA-ULTRA terrorist, JACKSON HOLLAND). Peter's hoping that fact (along with its heavy-duty casing) will buy them enough time, while he... ...turns to help Taylor against an already-disabled Liv! Well, in that case -- he runs up the rear, webbing down any guns (and guards) he sees, trailing behind Ion and Dusk to help with stragglers. The echoing telepathic screeches of Liv give him pause; when he reaches Ion, he stops -- mind briefly tightening into knot. Dusk is still providing a strong physical bolster to those who need it, though he's moving a little bit slower than he had been as he makes his way toward the stairs. He's careful with his charges, his hold gentle -- though the labrats can't see the exchange currently within his mind it's a marked contrast to the ferocity of his thoughts as he reaches for the other bloody presence within him. There's very contrasting self-images that come up, here, when Dusk is thinking about the answer to this. the fuck are you summons up dissonance -- curled up warm and cosy on a couch with his ferret and his roommates tucked warm under his wings -- his teeth tearing into a throat, the hot taste of blood, someone's cry cut short by the press of his hand -- Flicker's easy smile across their dining table, a game of Smallworld laid out on its surface, a needle in his friend's vein and blood willingly flowing from his arm -- his girlfriend grappling with him savage and rough, his teeth sinking into her skin, but her cry entirely unafraid. << -- just another mutant. >> There's a faint pause, an addition, << -- Like you. You could come with us, you know. Away from here. >> Another wave of nausea passes through Taylor. He recoils from Liv's sawblade, flinching back even after her limbs have been arrested. It's only when Ion steps past her that his own limbs (one truncated and dripping bluish blood onto the floor) find any kind of motion again. "Yeah. They grow back. And outside there I've helped build other people their own tentacle prostheses, too. Better than your janky-ass murder-bot shit cuz Flicker used his to get people out this hellhole." His remaining arms are winding tightly around his torso as he -- hesitantly -- follows Ion beneath and past Liv. The response to Dusk's words is almost instant; instinctive. A reflexive snarl: <<I'm not a mutant, I fucking EAT mutants>> -- and then the images, taping down the response. Muzzling it. The teeth in a throat? The other mind gets that. Hot, fierce hunger bubbles up in response. But everything else? It shouldn't, can't be there. Those images, those memories -- they don't belong together. Dusk can almost feel the other mind pushing them away, as if they were pure poison. << What the fuck are you, you -- >> The other mind offers images of his own. There is no warmth, no companionship in these; just blood. Fountains of it -- pouring from throats and veins, painting the walls. Sobbing, screaming, gurgling. Hands clawing at glass, smearing them with crimson. Whimpering. Begging. Pleading. And not all of it was theirs. Not at first. But over time... it became only theirs. Wound after wound cut into him, bleeding; the blood turned into scabs -- and the scabs hardened into something far more terrifying than the scalpels that did the cutting. Monsters don't feel guilt; they don't feel remorse. Monsters aren't afraid. << You eat people. What the fuck are... >> The mind reels. << Out there I fucking STARVE how the fuck are you ALIVE-- >> The mind lashes out with anger, as if Dusk's very existence infuriated it. Dusk takes all this in quietly, his mind licking out instinctively at the rivers of blood that pour through his thoughts, then drawing back from his own reflexive hunger. In the end his answer is quiet and simple, almost startled; it comes with the feel of a hand pressed into his, a wrist offered willingly up to him, a neck bared trustingly as his wing curls around a friend: << -- I -- ask. >> The mind linked to Dusk responds with -- it's almost unintelligible. Rage? Confusion? Loathing? A maelstrom of emotions, spiraling and spinning. << fuck you >> << what the fuck >> << fucking kill you every last one of you >> << FUCK YOU FUCKING HELL >> << --ohfuck I'm going to be sick >> Something flares in Dusk, sharp-clawed and sharp-toothed and angry -- but mingled there is pity, underneath it; he doesn't lash out but pulls back, mind folding inward like soft wings wrapping back around himself. << It can be hard, >> he admits softly, << People don't stop being scared of you, not always. But friends? Community? Not living in a cage? It's a better way to live. I'm sorry if that -- is a lot. It is a lot, and I'm dumping it on you pretty quick, but these people want to kill us, and we have to get out of here, like, now. So if you want to come with us, if you want to get out of these cages, that has to be now, too. >> His head has bowed, and he's just taking his charges up the stairs, a good deal quieter than he was when he arrived. Skye's concerned gaze darts between Taylor and Dusk, then to the unmoving Liv, then back to her subdued teammates. << I so do not want to be in the same van as that -- >> Even mid-thought she's vibrating another gun out of Allan's hands. << -- fucking wingnut, but if that's what it takes to get out of here I'll fall on that sword. >> For all that bravado she's tucking herself closer to Dusk, shaking now from too much adrenaline and not her powers. << Please. Just pop some painkillers and sleep the whole way back, that is definitely my plan. >> It is definitely not Joshua's plan. He is already thinking ahead to switching out his power once he's out of the suppression field, patching up their injured comrades -- but that will be then. For now he's just making his slow way up the stairs without thinking too much about who or what they're leaving behind. What are they leaving behind? Broken bodies, mostly, a few drones that slam into anther drone over and over again. Empty cells, disassembled guns. Bullets. A literal piece of Taylor in Liv’s hands. Liv herself, oddly still as she screams and rails against Hive’s hold on her. Her yelling echos in the still hallways, ragged, alone. The bloody tableau disappears behind a door — the team and the escapees climb out towards the bright lights, towards freedom.