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WAYPOINT SHRIL, PT.3
CHARACTERS: All (New Hosts may tag anything from their arrival date on Waypoint Shril forward.)
WHERE: THE FAIR HEART, WAYPOINT SHRIL & SURROUNDING SPACE
WHEN: Day :038 - :039
SUMMARY: A theft, a rescue, and of course - the grand finale of the galaxy's most fabulous competition.
WARNINGS: N/A, will update as necessary.
LATE ON DAY :038, a select group of Hosts makes their way to the imposing mobile headquarters of the ABA!, the retrofitted prison ship known as The Fair Heart. The goal? Steal those prizes, break out the captured rescue team, and make a clean getaway.
Or just get away at all. That works too.
((OOC NOTES: This log is the catch-all for the finale of Waypoint Shril. It covers the heist, the rescue and the escape from The Fair Heart in addition to any events taking place concurrently on Waypoint Shril. It covers the escape from this universe and taking the Station back into the void. Questions? Check out the OOC POST. If you have additional questions that aren't answered there, feel free to either drop a note in the log-specific questions thread or touch base with us on the Mod Contact page.
'Wait, can I NPC this character?' When it doubt, the answer is probably yes. Use your best judgement, but we encourage you to go wild. Should you desire mod input or for us to bounce into a thread, feel free to reach out to us and we'll be happy to accommodate. We may also be threadjacking some of these threads, however don't feel compelled to wait for us to do so. Have fun and don't get killed!))
WHERE: THE FAIR HEART, WAYPOINT SHRIL & SURROUNDING SPACE
WHEN: Day :038 - :039
SUMMARY: A theft, a rescue, and of course - the grand finale of the galaxy's most fabulous competition.
WARNINGS: N/A, will update as necessary.
LATE ON DAY :038, a select group of Hosts makes their way to the imposing mobile headquarters of the ABA!, the retrofitted prison ship known as The Fair Heart. The goal? Steal those prizes, break out the captured rescue team, and make a clean getaway.
Or just get away at all. That works too.
THE FAIR HEART
A. THE RECON TEAM Congratulations, you're in a cell and stuck with a tracking bracelet. But it isn't all bad. The food's okay and the company is-- well, whatever. It could always be worse. Sure, getting interrogated isn't the best part of the day, but if you're lucky you might get to sit down and have a conversation with the mercenary group's second in command, Vinka. Vinka is nice. He cracks jokes. He plays space chess. He's clearly the good cop. If you're unlucky you'll get stuck answering the questions of a very dry, humorless cyborg called Bradd who likes to use his arm attachment to shock people.
But eventually you begin to sense the minds of your fellow Hosts nearing. Time to prepare for an escape.
B. THE HEIST TEAM You all know where you're going, right? Now it's just a matter of getting there more or less safely. There's a bunch of security measures between you and your goal, so proceed carefully. Or don't. After all, the rescue team is headed in the opposite direction and someone will need to cover their tracks won't they?
C. THE RESCUE TEAM Here's what you know: somewhere in this labyrinthine ship your friends are being held captive. Where they are and how to get to them is a goshdang mystery. And once you figure it out, it looks like you're going to be getting very close with The Fair Heart's personnel. On top of that, shouldn't you be helping to distract security from paying attention to the vault? Boy, you've got your work cut out for you.
GET THE HECK OUTTA DODGE Once the prizes are removed from the vault or the prisoners are taken from their cells, an alarm will sound. Time to go! Fight or cleverly elude your way out of The Fair Heart. Get a ride (any ride will do) and take off. Mind The Fair Heart's guns, darling.
FASTER. FASTER WOULD BE BETTER. What's that saying? Out of the frying pan and into the fire. Once you've escaped The Fair Heart, you'll be facing off with a literal armada of ships trying to blow you out of the sky. Luckily you've got backup. Station 72 is the biggest thing in the sky and it's moving. Towards you. Through other ships. There's a lot of explosions.WAYPOINT SHRIL
LET THE GAME BEGIN! Remember how everyone had to carefully register their team and jump through a bunch of hoops to get to the finale of the ABA!? Well there's been a scheduling change. Thanks to Miss Mystery's announcement, everyone and their great grandmother is now an official competitor. And lots and lots of them are taking it seriously.
GET TO THE CHOPPER! There's a mad dash to take to the sky. Waypoint Shril has been transformed into utter chaos. Platform Alfa is a mess. Ships are being hijacked. ABA! employees driving shuttles are now ditching their jobs to compete. Waypoint civilians who stuck around through the madness are taking their ships out of their garages and taking off through the Jump and the Graveyard. If you're a Host on Waypoint Shril, it might be a good idea to get off it.
Luckily if you were competing in the ABA! you're practically ready to go. After all, weren't most of you building a ship to compete in the finale with? If you take the fruits of your labor, you better hope your astroengineering holds up to a high stress environment.
CAUSE A RUCKUS: Your friends are flying against an armada. Shooting down the competition might be a good idea.THE GRAND FINALE
GUESS WE BETTER JUMP: Just make sure to get to the Station before it jumps to the void. It would be very, very easy to get left behind. (Be aware that if a Host is left behind, you will be dropping the game.)
((OOC NOTES: This log is the catch-all for the finale of Waypoint Shril. It covers the heist, the rescue and the escape from The Fair Heart in addition to any events taking place concurrently on Waypoint Shril. It covers the escape from this universe and taking the Station back into the void. Questions? Check out the OOC POST. If you have additional questions that aren't answered there, feel free to either drop a note in the log-specific questions thread or touch base with us on the Mod Contact page.
'Wait, can I NPC this character?' When it doubt, the answer is probably yes. Use your best judgement, but we encourage you to go wild. Should you desire mod input or for us to bounce into a thread, feel free to reach out to us and we'll be happy to accommodate. We may also be threadjacking some of these threads, however don't feel compelled to wait for us to do so. Have fun and don't get killed!))
II!
At the same time, he surges across his connection with Shepard, crashing through the shields he helped her build. They're more connected than not these days, but he hasn't gone as deep as he had the time he'd found the warning from the Protheans, the time they felt each other die, until now. Now he floods her, a whirl of feathers like the actual bird he's named for flying through her mind - fear determination hold on hold on hold on hold on. ]
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--and, it would be beautiful if it weren't so damned inconvenient.
Shepard's world is. The narrow band of perception that is the instrumentation. Yaw, pitch, speed, altitude, telemetry laid out like the holy grail of vital data, your life in trajectory and momentum. Shepard world is a writhing body, lost in the void, the feel of an unfamiliar spacesuit under his hand, the memory of those he's lost. He's fighting to keep the yoke steady and she's dying, dying in the lifeless beyond and Shepard realizes in the moment that that's her. She makes the distinction and the leap in one moment. But she's not dying in the--
Shepard remembers. Dying. Cold. Darkness. No air, no light, nothing but the harshing of-- she remembers. Where was the clone? Ripped away when the--
Shepard recalls the clone and the woman in the vacuum dissolves like sugar into water. The memories of that near-death strike Shepard like a hammer-blow. She can't breathe. There isn't enough air and the whole world is narrowed down to the rush of feathers, pitch and yaw, speed and momentum, the feel of wings folding down around her, the blackness tearing into her eyes with teeth of ice and she is dying and dying, hold the yoke steady and--
Someone is begging, shouting, commanding, Hold on! Hold on! she doesn't know to what, except that the grip is painful against her palms and if she doesn't hold it steady they'll die. For the first time in her adult life, Shepard's biotics slip the leash, flaring blue-white and black, distorting the local gravity and turning perception weird and viscous. Shepard is--]
( Sam! ) [Recognizing the source of the flooding of warmth and presence and a sharp grim terror enough to match her own is well enough on its own: just a start. She fights the pain as the symbiote's ability inflicts its price, the nauseous uncertainty of who she is, waves of black-stars and flashbacks only intensifying the sensation. Shepard's biotics flare harder and the steel-frame back of the pilot's seat begins to crumple under the stress of impossible gravity-shearing.] ( Sam! )
[That what is happening here is too much to bear is obvious. She is good at her work, possibly the best there's ever been, but even Shepard has her limits. Shepard says it again, his name, just to anchor the notion, and-- she gives up. She gives in. She gives him everything.
Shepard gives Sam the pain in her hands and her head. She gives him the weight of the memories, flash-backs rolling through enough that it's like viewing reality through a strobe, and to survive Shepard needs more. She gives him the horror of dying, and the relief of life. She gives him the part of herself that is screaming for a rest, and the part that is flaring her biotics in a reflexive urge to fight, and the part that's not sure that she was ever cut out to be a pilot, and the part that wants to die. She cuts away and focuses until all that remains in her world is what needs to be there.
The instrumentation. The pitch and yaw and speed and momentum. The goal. The mission. Kill the enemies, protect the rescue shuttle, go back to base. She is not one person. She is not two people. But Shepard is damn well going to pilot this ramshackle shit-box of a ship to a safe landing, and she's going to live through it.]
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If he wasn't already in too deep, he'd back off with an apology, but now - now he feels what he'd expected in the first place, the cold grip of death tightening around her ribs and sinking into her lungs. The loss of self that he knows comes with Shepard using her symbiote ability, that he'd grounded her through the last time he tried to heal the migraine that goes along with it. She calls his name, and he can feel the world breaking apart around her - literally, as he gets the feedback from her biotics - and even if he could untangle himself from her mind, he wouldn't.
He takes everything she's got. Later, he'll sort through it all, separate her memories from his, but right now he takes it all.
'I'm here', their connection whispers though he doesn't say anything, 'I'm here, I got you.'. His wings curl around her mind as he settled deeper into it, as he pulls her into his, safeguarding every piece of her that she can't deal with right now. He can't give her the rest she desperately needs, the one she deserves - the one she won't ever take, because he knows her like he knows himself; they're not the kind of people who are ever able to put down the fight while there's still one out there, and there will always be one out there - but he can do this.
Their minds are united, for a moment, and he'll hold on to everything that isn't what she needs to do right, until they can breathe again.
I've got you, you've got this. ]
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The back of her mind is open to the woods, a house with no fourth wall, and the neighbors can see in, all the way back. Well, the one neighbor, at least. Sam can see. She can see him too, if she had the attention free to look, but they're each cluttering up each other's minds. Like hvaing a houseguest for a week, they'll both have to tidy up afterwards. If they can.
It's impossible to believe he's in the other ship, more than a few kilometers away. She knows it must be true, but it's impossible-- Sam is right here, thinking her thoughts. Feeling her feelings.
The flight, chaotic, careening, it's easy to remember that insane flight through the Omega-four Relay. Names and faces flash through her mind, and she focuses, spiraling around debris, warding the shuttle's flank, helmet sweaty against her chin as she works. Joker would have done this better, without any sweat, but with a lot more cursing.
And then they're through, caught up in the gravity of the Station, and the gaping maw of the hangar-bay is ahead of them, welcoming with its selective force-fielf. They made it. They made it, thank fuck.]
Son of a bitch. [Her hands are steady as she sets the ship down in a likely gap. It's good for nothing but scrap, though it did a good job for all that. Shepard puts both hands on the console and lets her head sag in a way that feels strange, like she's at once too short, and too tall. The words are automatic, and Shepard has no idea she's said anything at all, let alone that.] Damn.
[She closes her eyes.]
( Sam? You okay? ) [She knows he's unhurt, can't help but know that, but everything is so vague and mixed up. Shepard is suddenly very unsure of what, exactly constitutes the word myself. Every physical motion feels remote, as if her body is a doll operated at some distance. So she tries not to move.] ( I-- )
[Is she talking about herself, or Sam? Or the both of them? That's not the right pronoun, is it, "I?"]
( ...Gotta focus. )
[She doesn't, not really, except for appearances sake. There's no obligation that says anything about this. For a moment, it feels good to let go, but that same vulnerability frightens her deep in that gut-grown part that never knew a parent's love. She wants to stay like this forever, and that's what makes her want to pull away, most of all.]
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But he breathes, in and out, focuses on the feel of the console under their palms, the brush of fabric over skin, toes being squished in heavy boots. The wings of his shields block out everything that isn't them, and they should - he should -
Focus, they need to focus. Both of their ships are safe, and now that the adrenaline rush is fading, Sam can feel himself coming back down. Can feel her wanting to pull away. ]
( Stay? )
[ It's out before he can help it, the singled worded question accompanied by a seamless flow of thoughts and emotions. Just for a moment, just until he can make his way to her physically, and then they can detangle from each other's minds.
He's already moving, making his way to her ship - he doesn't need to ask which one it is, not when it feels partly like he's the one who's been flying it, and he clambers up inside of it. ]
( Shepard? )
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Sleek armor, back bent but strong, braced against the console. A part of her sees only N7 and settles against the deeply engrained friend/foe training, like putting your back against a thick wall in a firefight. Some other part remembers the last time a woman shared Shepard's face, and tenses, then lets go-- no, no. Red glow from cybernetic eyes behind that visor. Her hands are shaking when she moves to take her helmet.
She moves slow. Vision overlayed vision. Stay, he'd asked her, and she couldn't find the wherewithal to answer, but she didn't pull away. There's an art to taking a punch, and if Commander Shepard knows anything at all, it's sacrifice: she didn't suffer under the feeling, she simply took the fear like pounding jungle rain. Rooting her to the ground. Leaving her staring at him with wide eyes and a deep uncertainty.
What is this?
What is this?]
S͢͠a̴̕͢͝m̕҉͟͟͠?͏̸̧͝͞ ? )
[Thought and voice, overlaid, jumbled together. She feels more than a little drunk; someone does, at least. She stays.]
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He doesn't need them to know where she is, not right now, and they're only muddling things up. He can feel her confusion and uncertainty like it's his own - maybe it is his own - and the only response he's got is to keep moving, until his momentum means that when he pulls her into his arms, he picks her up completely. Armor and everything, and it's a good thing he's both used to hauling around super soldiers and has symbiote-enhanced strength as he spins her once - both to skid to a stop and just because.
For a moment he'd thought he'd lost her, and he hadn't felt fear like that since he watched Rhodes fall out of the sky. Even when he sets her down, he tangles his fingers into her sweat-soaked hair, careful of the metal now that he knows it's there, and rests his forehead against hers.
He breathes, mind drifting across hers with the brush of feathers as he hums a faint apology. Sorry, he knows this is weird, that it's too much, he just - he thought he'd lost her. ]
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The other part is, like lifting away, metal rusting out particulates into an acid, flake-flake-flake. She's not drunk, Shepard realizes, she's fucking high. "Contact high" is supposed to be a euphamism, isn't it?
Can't bring herself to complain, of course.
How can you complain, when someone like Sam Wilson picks you up and spins you around like the image of a princess? She laughs, and it's not the bitter, inconsolate laugh of someone who is denying the chance of death; it's joyful. He presses them close together, careful of her amp port, but no less fervent. Beautiful man, come the words, as they have before, but there's no hiding lust and love and affection and the terror of losing it, not as entangled as they are. Death ends physical suffering, but that kind of pain might never end. She's so tired of pain. Surely, something good must eventually come.
I'm here, is all she can give him, really. There are no promises to be made, only... Only that she isn't gone yet. As afraid as she is, and as vulnerable to death, she isn't yet gone.]
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But knowing that, knowing she'd never have made any other choice and he'd never have tried to get her to, doesn't lessen the fear he'd felt when he thought she was dead. And it doesn't lessen the sheer amount of his relief now, when he's almost giddy with it.
Fierce girl, beautiful woman, god the sound of her laughter - genuine laughter - is a dangerous thing, when he would do so much to get to hear it more. For her to have more occasions to laugh like that and, selfishly, to be the reason for it. He loves her. It doesn't matter how long he's known her or that he doesn't necessarily have a handle on what kind of love - different and the same from the kind he has for her broodmates, for Shiro and Clint and Bucky and Steve - it's there, as deep as his relief and his fear.
She's here, she's still alive, and he loves her.
Slowly the giddiness of his relief fades, slowly his breathing evens out - and slowly he starts trying to untangle his mind from hers. He pulls back, fumbling a bit as he tries and fails a few times to pull up his shields, until he's at a reasonably acceptable distance - that's probably still a little more close than they'd been before. ]
That was... more of an over-reaction as I planned, seeing as you're not dead.
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[That joke was so bad that it's like an assault-- Shepard's clearly angling for a groan, if not a laugh. It's particularly shitty, given the scare he just experienced, but... but if it had been any other member of her crew, she wouldn't have hesitated. Shepard didn't hesitate now, not on the realization that the phrase is true; not "if he were crew," not anymore.
If he were any other crewman.
Welcome to the Alliance Navy, Sam Wilson. You've been conscripted by a Spectre, or so it would seem.]
Aw, you were worried. Y'know you're pretty hot when you're doing that panicked action-hero thing.
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It's a habit he seems to have, being recruited by larger than life soldiers that he'd do a hell of a lot of potentially stupid things for. He can't bring himself to be all that upset about it, not when it puts people like Steve and Shepard in his life. ]
Just then? [ His tone is low and teasing, and he flashes her a smile before he huffs out another exhale, rolling out his shoulders. ] All right, now that the heroics are done - you wanna see what I snuck back up on the Station to do?
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[She once used a similar phrase to let herself in for bad news; now it sounds like blatant innuendo. Is she aware of the thing between him and Shiro? Of course she is; hard not to be, and today no less. But that doesn't mean there's nothing left to negotiate. Besides, Shiro is pretty damn hot.
But of course, now he's got her interest.]
...Keeping secrets? [If she's incredulous, it's for a good reason.] I'm pretty sure I just got an intimate knowledge of the layout of New York City, a city I have never visited by the way, and you're still hiding... Alright. Show me.
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In more ways than one, and Sam tilts his head in acknowledgement of that before he lights up a little when he catches her interest.
He'd gotten a lot from her, too - a fucking hell of a lot, and most of it is going to take a little unpacking before he knows what to do with it - but he's been hiding this as best as he can for a while, because he wanted to surprise her.
Sam'd worked real damn hard for that, and he's glad he was able to keep it buried. She's either going to love it or punch him for setting it up without telling her - or maybe both. ]
Come on, it's back in the life support area.
[ In what passes for her "room," actually. Set up in it are two aquariums made up of some kind of translucent alien material, with a few softly glowing alien fish swimming in them. ]
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So many, many things.
But, as much as she might have anticipated an ambush, or a lesser gift...not this. Shepard stops in the door to her little makeshift quarters and stares.]
Son of a bitch.
[It comes out in a whisper-- this in reference to Sam himself. Her first reaction is sheer surprise, a blank, unknowing thought: but who will feed them? No Kelly Chambers here, all helpful suggestions and easy manner. She forgets to shield, for that single breath of surprise, and then pulls herself together. Shepard crosses the few steps between, and puts one hand on the alien glass.
Cool, not cold. Humming gently with the action of the compressor and the soft buzz in the light, like an old companion. She doesn't know how to feel; eyes closed, letting the sound work its way back into her bones like a sympathetic vibration.]
You got me a-- [She stops, voice on the edge of something... Something she's not really equipped to manage, right now. Still raw, from their impromptu joining. Shepard swallows and continues, with more dignity.] ... You got me fish?
[When she opens her eyes, the largest of the fish is nosing at the glass just beyond her fingertips. It's an ugly little bastard, misshapen and alien, brown as mud where it isn't iridescent blue. Shepard loves it immediately.
Then she turns right back to Sam and punches him, hard, right in the meat of his shoulder. Not as hard as she could have done, really.]
Dammit, Sam. [She's not mad, she's just having a moment.] You're a conniving little bastard, you know that?
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But he loses it as he watches her press her hand against the aquarium, as her eyes slip shut and he can feel just how much this means to her. And that, hell, that makes everything worth it. ]
Yeah.
[ It's soft, barely above a murmur, and his own voice reflects the rawness of the moment between them. He got her fish, because while this isn't home for most of them - he wanted to give her something to make her feel a little more herself, a little less disconnected.
And he knows it worked when she turns around and socks him one. There's a sound that's half laughter and half ow fuck as he grins at her, wide and unapologetic. ]
Yeah. [ Might be the same word, but the tone makes a world of difference - light and playful and unabashed. ] You know I could just heal this, right?
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[She doesn't mean it. Indeed, she can't stop the smile, can't even keep it out of her voice.]
Sam-- [Words of kindness don't come easy to her. Shepard doesn't even know what words she means to say, the message that migt underlie them So she settles for] ...Thanks. This is a hell of a thing.
When did you even find the time to bring this in here?