( open ) our ag wing's back and you're gonna be in trouble (hey now! hey now! our ag wing's back)

[initiates]

Date & Time: October 31st, 3313, 11:59PM - November 3rd, 3313, ????
Location: Agriculture Wing, Moon Base to start. Cafeteria, warehouse, docking bay, VR rooms, Transport Pad, or Observatory later on.
Characters: Any & all!
Summary: Space Zombies are allowed out of the Agriculture Wing, slowly revving up their systems to try and infect and absorb as many of the Transports (or 12 Initiative Members) as possible.
Warnings: Log will be locked for potentially graphic violence. Please warn in threads should the violence or gore become graphic.
Notes: Specify a date and location in your top comment. You may specify multiple dates/locations. Specify a time if you wish as well.

Everything is a success at first, from the cool rush of air out of the Agriculture Wing once the doors are fully unlocked, to the heady sense of accomplishment for finally moving forward on something good for the long-term usability of the Moon Base. It's intended to remain a resource, after all, but not be a permanent home. Fraying tempers and the sense of cabin fever descending on Transports continues to showcase how important it is to get back down on Earth to regain some breathing room.

There's little enough dust between all the unmoving, unlit structures, many even supporting the barest dried husks of what once grew there. Upon the lightest touch, they disintegrate, turning into a dust that falls to the ground. The silent rows will be reclaimed and turned into functioning units, based on Transport efforts, and Transport time invested in the project.

There's just one problem. Something stirs in the reclaimed wing, among tangles of hosing and wiring. Skitterings and movements that make no sense for a long abandoned Moon Base. The further in Transports go, relying on magic or technology to generate light past the bare minimum maintained by the base, the more disturbing sights they may run into.

Of course, the most disturbing of all might be lying just around the far corner -- but don't worry, it's only a flesh wound. Try not to get surprised in the machinery, caught suffering from not looking up or caught making out with anything unsavory this holiday season, Transports. We need all of you to stay alive!

We can't bring you back right now!

Comments

[astraia]

[Jean nods, as she falls into step with him.] There's nothing we can do, except...put them out of their misery. [There's something rueful in the words; it sounds too much like a justification. But she knows it's true.

That's when two spring from around the corner. As if they heard her, and wanted her to put her money where her mouth was.

Well, okay. She focuses on the one nearest her, leaving the other to Beetle; a flick of her wrist and it's flung aside, bones crushing and organs bursting.]

[khajidont]

[Jaime's about to ask if she really thinks that they even have a misery to be put out of, if there's any inkling of a consciousness lurking within those twisted bodies, but it turns out that nothing is quite as distracting as a body being crushed to death with a flick of one's finger.

He stops in his tracks, gaping openly at that little display before yanking his eyes away to attack the other, his arm turning into a gun in an instant. Blue energy sparks across the room and encompasses the necromorph until it's little more than a charred lump upon the ground.

Once they're dealt with, he looks back at Jean with wide eyes. Her powers are terrifying - though he's not terrified of her. Every time he's spoken to her or seen her around, she's seemed so gentle, so even-tempered that it's hard to think of her and those powers in the same sentence.]

I thought your powers were fire powers. [She had shown Jaime, but not Blue Beetle, something that he has forgotten. Even if he hadn't, it doesn't seem important in this mess.]

[astraia]

[It's so strange. Part of her aches at the fear, and part of her revels in it. She tries so, so hard to push that piece of her away from the rest, but then something like this happens and it almost overwhelms her.

She doesn't meet his eyes, as he speaks; she looks at her victim, broken and twitching.]

The fire is - a by-product. It can burn, if I want it to, but it's...more like an aura.

[khajidont]

[His gaze follows hers. The necromorph he had gone up against fares no better in some ways, though it is no longer twitching, no longer alive in any sense of the word.] And your aura can just...

[He gestures at the body, lost for words. The Scarab, ever-helpful, pitches in, half admiring, half wary.]

Application of extreme force. End result: broken bones and ruptured organs.

[Jaime doesn't bother repeating it.]

[astraia]

[Oh - so that's what she was sensing. It's enough to draw her gaze back, to peak her curiosity.]

Yes. Who is that?

[khajidont]

[Jaime tears his gaze away from the corpse to swivel his head back and forth, looking around the area, searching for whoever Jean is talking about.

Predictably, he sees nobody.] Huh? Who're you talking about?

[astraia]

[Her lips quirk. Much easier, when she's not looking at the carnage.] I meant the guy hitch-hiking in your head.

[khajidont]

The -- oh. You can hear him, huh? [Funny, how he seems to flip flop between him and it these days. The Scarab honestly doesn't seem to care what it's called, but with all the talk about evil AIs going around, he feels a little protective of the Scarab's personhood.]

That's the Scarab. It's an AI, technically. It's a part of me. [It's the only way he can think of phrasing it that's not it's fused to my spine.]

[astraia]

[A slow, thoughtful nod.] You're a team, then.

[khajidont]

Yeah, exactly. [His own nod is a lot quicker, pleased at her easy acceptance.] We're partners.

[astraia]

[A faint smile.] It's nice to meet both of you, then.

[khajidont]

Thanks. Most people around here aren't too fond of AIs.

[He gets it. He just doesn't like it - and though the Scarab doesn't particularly care, Jean gets a faint buzz of approval nonetheless.]

[astraia]

[A slight shrug.] They can be killers or heroes, just like anyone else. [The sentinels, of course, are AI. But so is Vision, so is Aaron.]

[khajidont]

That's what I keep saying, but. [He gestures with one arm as if to say what can you do?.]

It's not common knowledge, though. Just so you know.

[He doesn't care too much if people know that Blue Beetle has an AI in his head, but it's not something he particularly wants spread around.]

[astraia]

[She raises a hand to zip her lips, and mimes throwing away the key.

It must look completely ridiculous, with eyes blazing white and hair aflame.]