Logs:Fake Out (Prometheus Raid, Support-Side)

Fake Out (Prometheus Raid, Support-Side)
Dramatis Personae Daiki, Hive, Joshua, Lily
In Absentia	2021-10-16 "On good days, we're the banter. On bad days, we're the cavalry." (Prometheus raid chaos, concurrent with team 1 and team 2, Part of Prometheus plot.)
Location <MA> Dirac Research Laboratory - Western Mass
Massachusetts is gorgeous in the fall, the leaves blazing in full autumn splendor, the sun bright overhead. It's gorgeous out here, too, a wide and lovely campus to come to work, no doubt choice assignment for those who are lucky enough to receive it -- long winding walking trails through the picturesque woods, a fitness center set with huge picture windows looking out on the small pond, a tennis court, a wide roof deck atop the sprawling main building with an excellent cafeteria attached. If some of the windows are suspiciously heavily barred, well! It's not the windows in the top-floor offices with their lovely views of the grounds. If the drones circle the grounds continuously, well! Extra security for the many high priced automobiles in the parking lot, and really they're high enough up not to be obtrusive. The guards outside seem relaxed as befits the splendid mild autumn day -- a pair of them in the driveway outpost outfront, one filling out crosswords while the other scrolls Facebook, another pair who should be on patrol but are leaned up against a tree engaged in intense discussion of the season finale of You. If they have noticed the buses that have parked themselves a distance away under the trees they certainly make no sign as yet. A short distance behind, the facility itself looks almost serene. Joshua seems relaxed, too. Leaning up against the side of the van he's been driving, keys idly clattering into his palm and back out again as he swings them, lazily. "Good luck," is all that he offers, mild, as the teams head off. He hoists himself up to the roof, folding one knee up to his chest and letting the other dangle over the side of the vehicle, squinting off into the distance with more or less the same droopy-somber expression he wears daily. Lily does not seem relaxed. Now that her bus is empty, she waits on the hood of the vehicle, watching the facility in the distance with a worried expression. She picks at a one of her nailbeds until it bleeds, then knits the skin back together, over and over again, pausing only when the building ahead of them begins to shake and crumble. "And the wall came tumbling down," she sings under her breath. Tears at her nails again, waiting. Daiki seemed, at least to anyone who knows him well, very reluctant to part with Jax and Shane, but he's collected himself now and settled in leisurely fashion by his own vehicle. His eyes closed, his mind open, he sits back and brushes his thumb gently over the first bead of the polished bone mala dangling loosely from his left hand. Then the next. The the next. There's a soft hum overhead, quiet at first but then slowly louder. A single drone is descending toward the buses, swooping high above them on a first pass but on a second arcing much lower. The blank face in its basketball-sized body stops for a moment to stare implacably at Lily before moving on toward Daiki. The spider-like legs look deceptively spindly in midair, like the drone has descended an invisible web towards them. Joshua's expression does not change, when the drone approaches them. His leg swings slowly. Thumps a heel against the side of his bus. "You know," he's blipping briefly out of place, reappearing for a moment in midair behind the drone -- with a touch it vanishes, and he's returned, casual, to his seat, "those would make great Halloween decor." Lily’s eyes widen when she catches sight of the drone, freezing in place until Joshua has made it disappear. She lets out a shaky exhale when it’s gone. “Oh, is that what we do here? Banter until the calvary returns?” She looks up now, scanning the sky for more drones. << Sometimes we play Uno, >> surfaces a thought that at once is and isn't Lily's -- Hive is a little too busy, at this exact moment, to bother maintaining particularly clear boundaries. << Guards are doing their rounds, by the way. >> There are not any more drones incoming, so far as is immediately evident. The guards who were discussing You earlier have probably gotten an earful from their teammates -- at any rate, they're sweeping the treeline now, working their way toward the buses, clearly looking for the backup team. The ones who had been in the driveway station have evacuated it, though they currently aren't anywhere to be seen -- not to Hive's senses, either. Daiki only opens his eyes when the hum becomes audible, but does not seem particularly concerned even before Joshua dispatches it. He does not laugh, but the faint lift of his eyebrows might be amused. "If you're really gunning to get on Luci's bad side, you can send one home with Matt." He glances at the empty air above him. "Unless you've delivered it to their door already." He does rustle up a smile for Lily, small and warm. "That's how we prefer it. Nice and boring." Joshua huffs softly through his nose at Hive's warning, but he does sit up a bit straighter. "On good days, we're the banter. On bad days, we're the cavalry. -- Weren't there four guards?" "Not complaining. I'm a fan of boring. Not so good at banter." Lily lowers her head, squinting over at the horizon. "I only see two." She slips off the hood of her bus, right hand hovering over the knife at her belt. The two perimeter guards are clearly visible -- as they draw nearer they've obviously spied the buses; one draws a gun, the other simply walks just that much closer to his partner. "You know you're trespassing," says the one with drawn gun, without, admittedly a lot of hope in his mind that this will work. << Maybe distract them, >> he's thinking, while he says it. The other is peering at Daiki with a strong curiosity. "... do I know you?" The unfurling of Daiki's power is a subtle thing, just a sudden strengthening of whatever feelings the others already had about him, milder to Lily than to Joshua, and milder still to the guards. Straightening up, Daiki affects a very brief pensive look before his expression brightens with apparent recognition. "Oh, we must have been at orientation together, but I only just got assigned." His smile is a little embarassed and a lot disarming. "Red tape, you know. So great to see a familiar face, but...we couldn't figure out the right entrance." "Shit you all got a terrible first week," says Guard #2, brows furrowing. "You know you always hear about these attacks but I didn't think it'd happen here. Places like Hofstadter, Blackburn, sure, but this assignment was supposed to be quiet? And suddenly it's terrorist attacks on a Saturday! I'm thinking it's about time for lunch break, you know?" Joshua's face is reeeeally not built for this. He gives a noncommittal grunt. Lily blinks. Looks at Daiki. Looks back at the guards. Nods along with Guard #2,, glancing over at the one with the gun. "On Saturday," she repeats. "The nerve of them." Daiki's eyes widen at the news. "Oh shit! Shouldn't we be locking down or -- well, we haven't even reported in, so we got no stations. My kind of luck they'll dock me for being late." He lets his powers out, just a touch more. "We can help you set up a perimeter here and pick off any of those shitfuckers who make it out. Look proactive, right?" "Hey you need backup I'll say you were with us the whole time," Guard #2 assures the trio, "this day's been hectic enough --" The interruption comes here not from any chaos at the building but from the wholesale disappearance of Joshua's bus right out from under him. One minute there, the next entirely gone. The second team of guards -- who had been at the driveway station -- have appeared in its place; one of them has gun drawn as well, the other only armed with a very skeptically raised eyebrow, looking from Joshua to Guard #2 to Joshua and back. "Do you know who that is? Do you pay any attention to our briefings?" Guard #2 looks resigned. << ... nobody pays attention to those, >> Guard #1 is grumbling internally. "Yeah, kind of a frequent flyer here." Joshua hasn't fallen to the ground when the bus vanishes, a long practiced-reflex carrying him back up when he starts to drop before he sets himself back on his feet. "-- sorry." This is probably to his teammates and not the guards, because he vanishes in the very next moment. "Wha --" Daiki whirls on Joshua as he vanishes. "What do you mean, who is he?" He spares a pleading glance at Guard #2. "What that he part of the attack I thought he was one of us!" His the fear behind his panicking new recruit act is not all affected now, nor is the loosing of his power. Lily's eyes going wide-wide might help to sell Daiki's bit for a moment longer. Maybe it won't. She backs up against the side of her bus, slipping the keys into her palm. Watches the guards, waiting for them to move. One foot rests on the step into the bus, ready to vault herself into the driver's seat. Joshua reappears not-too-long after he left, this time with a none too happy Skye in tow, setting her in the back of Lily's bus. His senses are already stretching out to survey the damage, mouth compressed into a thin line as he tries to ignore whatever mishegas may still be ongoing just outside. Joshua is yanked away from his assessment of Skye a moment later. Blink. Gone. -- and then reappears only a moment later, a short distance from the bus, this time with Polaris (pale, bleeding) and an unfamiliar young person (evidently unharmed, though in some state of distress). He doesn't put either on the bus, stopping under the trees to give the bus and the guards by it a wary look before his healing flexes out -- quick and dirty -- to stanch the worst of Polaris's internal bleeding. "Uh huh," the new set of guards seems far less convinced by this act than the first ones, looking annoyed and rapidly growing moreso by Daiki's panicking. The unarmed guard taps the bus -- like the first one, it vanishes. He's almost casual about his order to his partner, after this, "Shoot them." To the other pair of guards: "You're definitely getting written up for this." When the bus next to Lily vanishes, Daiki throws himself behind the cover of his own vehicle and in the same moment lets his power loose on the guards. << Run! >> this thought is pushed directly at Lily as he hurls himself into the driver's seat and screeches around the corner toward the extraction point. Lily pushes up with one foot onto the bus -- and stumbles when the step disappears from under her. << Shit. >> She spins around and dashes for the trees, stretching her healing ahead of her to reach Polaris a second before she gets to her side. <<I'll take over go they need you more Skye's gone >> This flurry of thought is shoved at Joshua, coated in panic. << Take over, >> Joshua agrees with relief, << but there, we're not fucking leaving anyone else behind -- >> he's shoving Lily and Polaris onto the screeching bus with a sudden flick of touch, probably more than a little jarring since the thing is in motion when they land. Still. At least they will be on it when it goes. And then -- there are more people to collect. There always are.