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open log » ❝ The VR Program ❞

Date & Time: August 5th, mid morning.
Location: Anywhere characters happen to be/the VR.
Characters: Everyone.
Summary: From August 5th to August 8th, characters are plunged involuntarily into the VR Program.
Warnings: Potential violence within the threads.

When the chance arises, she's quick to take it. The programming is incomplete, she knows; the simulation isn't ready — but she's not likely to get another shot at it. And so she moves, slipping through security codes to input the command. The machines hum to life with nothing but a flicker of a green light in a dark room, and it takes only seconds to establish connections. The signal is sent out; the weapons respond.

In a single pulse, reality drops away.

There will be darkness at first as the mind realigns itself to the signals being sent it. Slowly, the darkness fades, forms take shape. People take shape. The setting is terribly familiar, plucked from the user's own mind. It might feel like a dream at first, with events playing out as if predestined, the would-be dreamer moving through a familiar and unalterable route in them. But as things begin to feel more and more realistic, as more senses more fully connect to the simulation, awareness will change. This is not a dream. This is more than a memory.

Welcome to the VR.

Only 20 minutes later, in some underground quarters, Doctor Sponde is roused from an undignified sprawl. He's hastily briefed and shuttled toward the command center, looking grim. He knows the problem demands an immediate fix, but… well, this is some complex machinery. It could take some time. It could take days. He gets to work.

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Kaidan's shooting at her. Kaidan, of all people. Maybe it's time to lay off the alcohol. Her back presses tight against the piece of wall she's found refuge behind. There's a loud, guffawing laugh as Wrex opens fire in her direction.

And then she hears her name. It's definitely not Kaidan or Wrex, and Shepard looks up in time to see both of her crew turn to look at Bariyan. She growls and stands up. "Are you insane?"

The krogan shifts his feet and lowers his head. "I AM KROGAN!" He rushes forward, and Shepard knows that if she doesn't move fast, the man is about to become paste.

Her hand glows blue as she initiates her biotics, and suddenly Wrex is in the air before being slammed back down hard. "Get over here, Bariyan!" In the time it takes for this to happen, Kaidan opens fire on her again, the charge from his gun hitting her hard in the shoulder.

Bariyan's attention had been entirely on Kaidan due to his attack. He'd completely failed to notice Wrex's presence. So when Wrex starts to rush towards Bariyan, he simply turns and stares at the Krogan in confusion. Where had that come from--?

Shepard's ensuing attack, Wrex's fallback, Kaidan's second round of shots, all of the aftermath hits him at once and rolls right on over Bariyan's head. The only thing that actually gets through to him is Shepard's call. That he responds to immediately, dodging past the fallen Wrex to join Shepard at her side. Too late to put himself between the gunfire and Shepard. His gaze flickers briefly over her shoulder and Bariyan swears under his breath, his version of an apology.

"Now what?" he asks, deferring to Shepard. There's a whole slew of other questions cropping up as well -- where is this? who are they? what is that? -- but Bariyan realizes that they can't exactly afford to make small talk, right now.

Shepard hisses at the shot, dropping back behind her cover and motioning for Bariyan to join her before his head is taken off. Carefully, she touches her shoulder. It's bleeding a little, and there's a sigh and a slight smile sent her friend's way at the cursing. "No big deal. Believe me when I say I've had worse wounds than this." There's a short pause before she glances back towards Kaidan's position. "Wait until he unleashes his biotics."

Even if Bariyan doesn't know what they are exactly, it's clear by the tone of her voice that it wouldn't be good.

"Now we..." The commander falters, listening to Wrex's heavy breathing as he gets back up. Stupid fucking krogan anatomy. She doesn't know what to do. These are her friends, her companions. And Kaidan is...

Well he's the guy that rejected the hell out of her recently, but he's still her friend.

"Wait, wait. How the hell did you even get here?"

Bariyan is quick to drop behind the debris that Shepard's using as shield, swearing as he hits the ground.

"Not sure -- it keeps changing--" He's speaking quickly, still trying to scope out the situation. The completely alien environment is causing him no end of trouble, however. He shakes his head and continues, "None of this is real. It's all hallucinations. The Initiative's playing with us again, I think."

He looks straight at Shepard. "This is your memory." Half-question, half-statement.

Hallucinations.

Shepard makes a face at that word, and then she catches the rest of what Bariyan is saying. "It's the damn VR program, isn't it? I knew that thing was too good to be true." She leans out from cover and takes a shot at Kaidan now, clipping him in the knee. Not real. This isn't real. Shooting him doesn't mean anything.

She looks back at Bariyan. "From a few years ago." Not a pleasant one, but better than some of the memories they could have been thrown into. "So how do we get out? Because if I remember correctly, that thing I killed earlier is going to return in a... zombie husk form."

"I think so," he answers, frowning. They should have been more suspicious of that announcement. Especially since it'd come half-drunk.

Without a ranged weapon of any sort, all Bariyan can do right now is keep himself out of the gunfire. He winces as Shepard shoots at Kaidan, and waits until she's done before ducking his head out briefly to look Saren's remains. He's scowling when he comes back. More undead. Bariyan can hardly approve of that.

"I don't know about getting out -- I don't even know how I got in." Bariyan shifts position in order to give Shepard more room to maneuver. "There's no way to keep him from coming back?"

Shepard had been suspicious of the doctor and of this training program from the beginning, but this fiasco was just enough to push her over the edge. The Initiative needed to be stopped before something else went wrong, and the transports once again were once again the victims of their decisions.

Glancing at her companion, she slides an extra pistol out and holds it out to him. "Here, you're probably going to need this, unless you know a way out." She frowns then, shaking her head as she glances to where Saren fell. "Sovereign brings him back, so no."

Sorry, Bariyan. Welcome to Shepard's world. Just be glad this isn't a reaper fight. Or husks. A lot of husks.

Bariyan takes the pistol but stares at it like he's never seen one before. Luckily for both of them, he has -- he just isn't terribly good with them. It's all new technology to him.

He adjusts his grip and hopes like hell that it works the same as the pistols back home.

He doesn't question what 'Sovereign' is, though he keeps the name in mind. Probably not important right now. More important that they get out of here alive. Hallucinations or not, it seems they're still capable of causing grievous injury.

"Should we take down your--" friends, Bariyan almost says, then catches himself "--the others, before he comes back?" Before Shepard answers, he's already on the move, working his way towards the other side of the debris and searching for Wrex.

She notices the way he stares at the weapon, and despite the situation, she can't help but laugh at him, at this entirely ridiculous thing. "You point and pull the trigger. I'll back you up."

Take down her friends. Shepard watches Bariyan move out before her gaze drifts back towards Kaidan. "We'll want to keep all of our attention on Saren. He moves quickly." Almost at terrifying speeds, actually. He's faster than normal husks, she remembers. More like a geth than a dead and transformed turian.

She shakes her head. No that's not important right now. Right now she has to focus on finding a way to put Kaidan down. Don't even think about it, Alice. It's not real. He's not Kaidan. But her stomach still tightens painfully when she spots the man and begins shooting.

Saren, Saren, that was -- the dead one, right? It's hard to keep track of names already, but he's fairly sure he's right. So Bariyan tries to look out for Wrex and keep an eye on the platform at the same time.

Wrex is, at least, easy to spot. Bariyan levels the pistol and fires. He can only hope that it actually causes injury, and doesn't just make the Krogan angry. But just in case -- he goes in for a second shot. A third.

"What is this one?" Bariyan yells back. He can't see what Shepard's doing from here, though he hears gunfire well enough.

"Wrex? He's a krogan," she yells back, the answer just automatic. Most of her attention is on Kaidan, but she wonders if maybe she shouldn't ask to switch targets. No, that would be stupid. He throws a Reave at her, and Shepard flattens herself down against the floor just in time before she's engulfed by the biotic blast.

Shepard knows that she has to do this, or Bariyan could get hurt. That's just something she can't let happen. Leaning up, she aims at the man again, takes a deep and steadying breath, and pops shots at his head. The kill shot.

"Their biology is set up to make them war machines. He'll start regenerating his health soon." With Kaidan down, she turns to focus her attention on Wrex as well.

The biotic blast catches Bariyan off-guard, even though he hadn't been its target. He nearly breaks focus in order to look over, to see what Shepard's getting up to, but manages to resist the instinct and focus on Wrex -- who, Bariyan swears, is somehow just shrugging off the shots that land. Not that Bariyan's landing most of them.

He's rather grateful when Shepard comes to his aid.

"Regenerating?" Bariyan echoes, in utter disbelief.

And then a tiny click, a sound that registers above everything else. Shit. "Shepard. I need a reload."

Bariyan lowers the pistol, but doesn't duck out of the way just yet. He keeps his eyes on Wrex, careful to keep clear of Shepard's lien of sight. Even if Bariyan can't shoot right now, the least he could do is take a shot.

A wide grin stretches over Shepard's face, strained and hardly amused. She's fought krogans before, sure. A lot of mercenary groups hire them because of their particular anatomy and bloodthirsty need to prove themselves in combat. But none of those aliens are quite like Wrex, who has lived for so long and been a fighter for most of those thousand plus years.

“They have back-up organs,” she explains further. Okay, so this part is sort of amusing.

She barely registers Bariyan's words, so focused on her target as she is, but then it clicks. Does she have spares? She has to. Shepard never leaves without having a few backups. But this isn't reality.

There's her Valkyrie, of course. It still has plenty of ammo, and while she isn't sure about letting him use it, she can fight Wrex with her biotics.

“Bariyan-” She starts to turn towards him when Wrex laughs and sprays shots in her direction, forcing her to refocus her attention on him.

It's not a long ways to throw himself in the way of Wrex's shots, though Bariyan may have thrown out all his carefulness about keeping out of Shepard's line of sight in doing so. He doesn't see how many shots Wrex fires -- probably wouldn't be able to count, even if he was paying attention -- or where they hit, but that doesn't matter to him. Nothing seems to have ripped far enough to hinder his movement, anyway.

"Never mind," Bariyan said, with a grimace. This round hadn't been bad. Another one or two would probably start to wear on him badly, though. "Get him down, first--!"

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open log » ❝ The VR Program ❞

welcome to the world of video games, enjoy the stupid battle cries

enjoys them thoroughly tbh

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