legionworld | THE MIND SLAYER

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THE MIND SLAYER

THE MIND SLAYER

She's been setting this up for weeks now. It's almost too easy with how trusting these Legion fools can be. If they'd only taken her seriously, if they hadn't laughed at her then... Well, things would be different. Now they'd welcome her with open arms. After she killed a few of them, of course.

This has to be done up close. She'd taken a job as a waitress in the mess halls. The older Legion, the ones who'd been at her tryout, didn't even recognize her. They deserved this more than their replacements. She almost feels sorry for them. But, no, she had to move before Saturn Queen went to trial in a few days. Meta, Esper, she's Esper now, can't risk any more time. If it's to be done, it has to be done now. She'd rather be further away, but her mental range isn't as long as she'd like. Tucked away into a dark corner of Legion World, she stood across from her costume. Heroes wore costumes, and she couldn't call herself that while doing this, but she could still draw strength from it.

She watches it, imagining how she'll look in it, and shivers. Nerves, she tells herself, glancing at the trigger device in her hands. "I'm sorry," Esper whispers. "But I deserve this." With the press of a button, the nanofactories kick into high gear and, for over a dozen Legionnaires, the lights go out. Whatever they're doing, their physical bodies instantly collapse and slump over, as if they're in a coma. Anyone coming too close, entering her psychic range, joins them.

They awaken almost instantly, finding themselves in a hellish amalgam. Parts of their worlds slammed together to make some twisted patchwork reality. And, like Oz himself, Esper's head appears above them, smiling with forced confidence. "You deserve to know what's happening, Legionnaires. My name is Esper! And you're locked into your own mindscapes. I've seeded you with teletechnology designed to tear your minds apart! It will be painless, mostly, but the weakest among you will fall to your own memories as my machines convince your subconscious that you shouldn't be alive." She drifts back a little, examining the group. "And, linked like this, if one of you falls, all of you die. Don't resist and make it more painful for yourselves. Just surrender and make it painless and easy for your friends. And don't try anything stupid. I'll be watching."

With that, she slides out, making sure her mindfield keeps people away from this section of Legion World, and that those who are still awake haven't noticed the heroes dropping like flies.

But she'll be back. And her machines have already set to work.

[[If you wish to have your characters discuss matters, set up your comments in the mingle post! Otherwise, make new toplevels for every mental scenario you'll work with.]]

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[[If the Legionnaires want to get things straight before springing into action, do so here!]]

Ray is the first to pipe up.

"So, just to make sure we're all on the same page, we are absolutely going to try something stupid, aren't we?"

"I don't know, define 'stupid,'" Shepard replies, arms folded.

Since they're in a mental construct, she appears the way her subconscious thinks she should, meaning she's in head-to-toe sci-fi armor and carrying enough guns to equip a squad.

"By the lady's definition, I'd say she defines 'not dying' as stupid," Raynor chimed in, an uncharacteristic frown on his face. The man covered from head to toe in sci-fi armor of his own, although his was a lot more... bulky. "Too bad for her that I'm plenty stupid."

This part of the mindscape lacked any sort of distinguishable characteristics at first glance. The ground was white, the sky was white, and the whole thing looked like it stretched on forever. It was overwhelmingly huge, and it was definitely easy to get lost in it. However, if one paid close enough attention, they'd be able to find a lone building out in the white expanse.

It was a small building, perfectly quaint. It had a large opening in the middle, framed by two white pillars, and seemed to have two small rooms to each side. On the left, was the kitchen, leading to the pantry. On the right, was a bedroom, leading to the bathroom. On the sides of the building, were two gigantic hourglasses with green sand. However, opposite the entrance to the building, was a single door.

Except it wasn't one door. It opened to a stark white hallway, with more doors. Each door lead to a memory, although there were some doors that weren't properly closed...

( OOC: Okay so this is Gohan's mindscape, and I'm gonna tag this with the altered memories. IT SEEMED LIKE THE MOST ORGANIZED WAY TO DO IT. )

Edited 2017-06-09 05:17 (UTC)

"Judging by the choices she's given us, we don't have much choice but to do something stupid." Thad added from just outside the group. "But can we actually stop her technology from inside our own heads? Or are we just bidding time untile the others can figure out how to fix this?"

The battlefield was nothing but mountains and fields, out in the middle of nowhere. The ground all around them riddled with craters, every inch of it covered with evidence of the various battles that had gone on here. It wasn't just craters though, there were also corpses littered all over the place. One in the middle of a crater, covered in burn marks. Another lying in the middle of the field, missing an arm. And another scattered into pieces, as if someone had exploded. Among them however, was one living person; a short bald man, incapacitated, struggling to stay conscious.

Across from the massacre, was a large brute of a man. A hulking wall of muscle, his only distinguishable features being his mustache, and his bald head. He certainly looked like the one responsible, if his bloodthirsty smirk and battle damage was anything to go by. But further behind him was a much shorter man, arms crossed, simply watching the events unfold. Both seemed to be wearing battle armor of some kind, the shorter man white and blue, the larger man black and yellow. However, the former looked completely untouched, while the latter looked like he barely had any armor left.

Kneeling in front of the man, looked to be a small child. Wearing white and purple, and looking like he was crying in a bigger crater than the other ones. Inside this crater, looked to be the bleeding corpse of yet another fighter, this one a green man, wearing a purple outfit similar to the child's. But before anything could happen, the child reared his head back, and screamed.

"GRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

The pink eyepiece the shorter man was wearing began beeping wildly, drawing his attention to the child. The larger man, however, had a manic grin on his face. "Alright, that's it kid! Bring it on!"

The kid brought his hands to his forehead, teeth grit in what looked like blind fury. The one incapacitated earthling blinking in astonishment. "G-Gohan...?"

Gohan's hands began glowing then, yellow energy gathering in his hands. However, it was erratic, with bolts of lighting lancing out of it. The shorted invader continued to watch the kid, his eyepiece continuing to beat. "Seven hundred... eighteen hundred... what the..." He muttered to himself, until the eyepiece finally let out a steady beap, and his eyes widened. "These earthlings can hide their true strength!" Finally, he addressed his partner. "Nappa, look out! The little one's power has risen to twenty-eight hundred!"

Finally, Gohan extended his hands forward, and a brilliant yellow beam shot out. Carving through the ground as it fired at Nappa, before the hulking man simply punched it, and sent it elsewhere, leaving Gohan completely stunned.

"Nappa, we're not taking any more chances." The shorter man called out, gritting his teeth. "Kill him now. We can't risk them joining forces with Kakarrot."

"Aw, come on Vegeta, do we have to?" Nappa said with a chuckle, before he bit it back at Vegeta's glare. Sighing in resignation, as he clenched his fists and turned to face Gohan. "Sorry kid, you heard the boss. Play time's over..."

To what should be absolutely no one's surprise, Shepard's subconscious is represented by her ship, the Normandy, a military vessel that looks like Legion levels of tech happened in a much less optimistic future, all holographic displays and smooth automatic doors...and corridors guarded by armed marines wearing targeting eyepieces. The ship is crewed by an eclectic mixture of people from Shepard's memories, human and otherwise, some of whom wear uniforms and some whom are civilians present solely because of dream-logic.

At a closed door, the holographic lock spins for a moment, processing, and flashes from orange to green. The door splits into three sections, sliding away, and the Normandy gives way to...

...Low gravity and brisk air tainted with the acrid scent of smoke and carrying the sound of distant explosions and the city's anti-aircraft emplacements firing. These streets must have been neat and orderly once, but now they're torn up and scattered with rubble and destroyed vehicles...and bodies, human and alien. Some wear civilian clothing, but many more are fallen combatants, a few in the neat, understated armor a legitimate military force would issue, but most in battered hardsuits painted with garish unit insignia and and kill counts. These might have been professionals, but they weren't soldiers.

Closer inspection reveals that most of the infrastructure damage is tactical; someone has turned this city street between two warehouse blocks into a choke point and a killing field, carefully placed craters and collapsed walls forcing the attackers to advance only where the defenders want them to go. Or rather, the defender.

2nd Lieutenant Shepard is currently experiencing what will hold the title of "Worst Day of My Life" for years. She's slouched behind a pile of concrete and twisted rebar, sniper rifle in her lap, her armor stained with the rainbow of blood that results from close quarters combat with multiple species. In one hand she's holding a small device, thumb idly flipping some kind of cap up and down. A holographic display wraps around her other forearm, projecting a screen on which she's watching the raiders advance yet again in a much more cautious approach than such a numerically superior force would usually take.

Exactly like she wanted them to. The APCs inch forward and their infantry escorts maintain a nervous watch, for all the good it does them when Shepard detonates the demolition charges in the skyway they're dawdling under, bringing down several tons of steel and glass on the vehicles and personnel. The lower gravity makes it less effective than she'd have liked, but those APCs aren't going anywhere under their own power ever again, and neither are most of the people who had the misfortune to be on foot when the trap was sprung. In the confusion, Shepard starts picking off mercs with neat headshots as they stagger back to their feet or venture out of their ruined vehicles.

The memory is suffused with fatigue, almost seeming to wash the color out of it and leave only a gray weariness behind. After hours of heavy combat against impossible odds, Shepard is bone-tired, running on adrenaline and discipline, but where the fatigue has leached away everything else, there still lies a bedrock of determination--if they want this city, they're going to have to kill her, because nothing short of that will stop her. Unfortunately, it looks like they might succeed.

The battlefield here looked like a bomb had gone off. A gigantic crater clearly visible, the edges of the crater littered with the remains of an army. Tanks, planes, infantry, they were all there, dead and destroyed. However, there were plenty of other signs of battle damage, the barren field littered with what looked like destroyed mountains, in addition to other smaller craters.

In the middle of the battlefield, looked to be a large green bug man. Large black cockroach wings on his back, as he stood with his arms crossed, looking elsewhere. Behind him was a child with spiky blonde hair, looking to be in his preteens. Covered in various bruises, but otherwise still standing. Both of them seemed to be looking up to the cliffs, watching seven fighters fight with seven blue miniatures of the green bug man. However, while the green bug man looked on in amusement... the child looked panicked, desperate, ready to beg for the bug man to stop.

"L-Look, I was lying. I don't have a hidden power, just... just please stop!"

"Oh Gohan, you don't really think I believe that, do you?" The creature mused, back still facing Gohan. "No, I know you're just trying to save your friends... but don't worry, you can save them all if you just show me this power."

"I DON'T HAVE IT!" Gohan screamed desperately.

The creature chuckled, sounding plenty amused. Not a shred of empathy in its words, as it raised its voice to casually address the blue creatures. "Alright children, enough playing around! You can go ahead and kill them now!"

"NO!"

...An H. R. Giger nightmare, organic-looking machinery integrated into what resembles nothing so much as an insect hive of enormous proportions, the machines and the structure itself dwarfing Shepard and her fireteam, a light-skinned, dark-haired human woman and, for those who've both met him and have a knack for recognizing turians or at least their facial scarring, Garrus.

Shepard and her squad are advancing with agonizing slowness as the Collectors throw wave after wave at them, more of the remorseless insectoid aliens appearing from the vast reaches of their base to replace their comrades as quickly as they fall. It's not merely a firefight; Shepard and the other human are wreathed in biotic power, as are some of the Collectors, both sides pounding each other with dark energy in addition to bullets.

One of the Collectors glows as if burning from within, which seems to grant it greater biotic power and resistance to damage. When Shepard and her teammates do succeed in killing it, the glow appears in a new host, accompanied by a deep male voice emanating not from the possessed Collector, but everywhere, the sound of it seeming to fill even the enormous cavern in which they fight.

"We are the Harbinger of your ascendance," it says as it unleashes yet another biotic strike and Shepard ducks into cover just in time.

"Do you ever shut up?" she mutters through gritted teeth. All three of the squad are clearly flagging, their reaction times growing more sluggish and their aim suffering, and Shepard's inexhaustible grim determination can't entirely hide the fatigue and mounting dread woven through the memory. They're holding their own, but it's a near thing...and then Garrus screams as his chest explodes into a spray of blue blood.

"Garrus!" Shepard charges from her cover, her shields absorbing several shots from the Collectors as she all but slides into Garrus where he's fallen, lying unmoving in a spreading pool of blood.

"You will know pain, Shepard."

Edited 2017-06-09 06:52 (UTC)

Assault
To the inexperienced, the giant making its way through the ruined city was especially huge. To YoRHa and the androids, they simply knew it as an aptly named "Goliath-class" machine lifeform. Slowly, it continued its rampage. All available YoRHa units had been ordered to engage and disable the machine. The sky was light up with flight units and artillery crashing against the Goliath. 2B and 9S were on the way to their own flight units to join the battle, when a horde of machines surrounded them.

On their own, these machines posed little threat to the two YoRHa androids. They'd dispatched these smaller units countless times already. This specific bunch, however, had a special trick up their sleeves. They surrounded 2B and 9S, their heads extending several feet from their torso and beginning to spark vividly. A blast was generated, small and without causing any additional structural damage. However, 2B and 9S were in range and subsequently disabled.

"Ngh! Can't... can't move!" They'd been caught off guard by an EMP and needed time to reboot their systems. A few minutes was all they needed, but the rest of the machines weren't willing to give them that precious time. Not to mention the Goliath that continued stomping through the ruined city.

Long Live The King
A large forest teeming with machine lifeforms. Though they stayed within the trees and ruined castle, they were fiercely protective of their territory. Those who entered would be attacked on sight as the machines acted in the name of their king. Who was this king? Simply a machine lifeform equivalent of a baby. No limbs, no way to communicate, confined to a crib. Yet the other machines of the Forest Kingdom had called this child their "king." They had died protecting this king who couldn't walk, much less defend itself.

And so the king fell, with A2's sword piercing its metal body. A2, a YoRHa deserter and traitor. Command had called for her annihilation assigning both 2B and 9S to the task.

Despite being an older model, and outnumbered, A2 remained a formidable opponent. In fact, her skills were proving enough to gain the upper hand on the other androids.

"That all you got? You newer models aren't so tough." With her superiority established, A2 took the time to gloat. She was landing the cleaner blows and the more frequent hits. And it didn't look as though she was going to back down anytime soon.

2B and 9S could only hold out for so long.

Become as Gods
"Alert: Large quantities of enemy machine lifeforms currently approaching unit 2B's location. Proposal: Engage in evasive maneuvers to ensure continued operation."

"Pod, locate the fastest escape route out of this factory!"

"Affirmative." But the news just kept getting worse. "Analysis: All known exits have been sealed."

"Damn it! 2B to Bunker! Come in! Requesting immediate assistance!"

There was only static.

"Communications currently too unstable." Pod 042 responded continuously floating next to 2B and assisting with combat operators. It continued to fire a steady stream of bullets at the approaching machine lifeforms, as 2B used her sword to carve a path through their numbers.

"Pod, keep looking for a way out. Anything we can use!"

"Affirmative."

Meanwhile, the machine lifeforms continued to attack 2B and Pod 042. Some remained silent, others made audible calls for the android's demise.

"Gods! Gods! Gods! All of you shall become as gods!"

While other machines took their own lives, jumping into fiery pits of molten metal, thinking that they too would become as gods.

What they chose to do was of little consequence to 2B. Their continued aggression needed to be dealt with. And while 2B was more than capable of thinning their numbers, she and Pod 042 were still trapped inside the factory.

Edited 2017-06-14 01:11 (UTC)

Wash is terrified.

There's a reason he's stayed away from telepaths since he arrived. There's a reason he doesn't want the press' Anywhere Machine anywhere near him. There's a reason he didn't want to share memories with Chief on Olum. His mind is a jagged, broken mess that shattered and was never put back together even remotely close to correctly, and now everyone's survival is going to depend on how well he can keep himself together, because he, with his breakdowns and panic attacks and trauma, is the weak link in this chain.

Oh God. Oh, God.

But he takes a breath. Lets it out slowly. Takes another. Keep it together. They'll get through this. Thank God he's in his armor.

"We don't know what's going on on Legion World right now, so we can't assume the cavalry's coming. We need to find a way to break Esper's tech from in here." He shrugs. "So, let's do something stupid."

One might have been forgiven for expecting a base or military installation of some kind, given Locus's general mentality, the lens through which he viewed the world. After all, his place of comfort and solace on the station had been a replica of a base he'd served time on, somehow more appealing to him than any luxury or comfort he could have asked for.

But this? This lacked even that most basic human element. No furniture, no doors, no sign of life at all.

Instead, there were screens. Tall, illuminated by text that listed off one file after another that could be selected, all with cryptic filenames attached to them. Some would result only in garbled, corrupted data being spewed back before the file was locked down and the screens returned to their default. Some flashed red and were altogether inaccessible, for whatever reason.

But some? Some would begin to spill narrative text across the scene, Locus's thoughts in his formal, stilted fashion, before everything began to shift...

Someone hasn't been polite enough to wait around, even though there's an entrance to their mindscape. It's a mansion, very posh, very well furnished. Pictures cover the walls every now and then, though their faces are blurred. And many of the doors in the halls are locked, strongly. They're all helpfully labelled, however, with numbers ranging from 1920 to somewhere in the early 2010s. Six doors, from 1940 to 1945, smell very strongly of freshly peeled potatoes and cut onions. Many others are frosted over. Combat can be heard through some of them, but not much else. Someone's had training in resisting telepaths, it seems. Even if it's not perfect.

One of the doors, for instance, has been forced. Mud and water leak from whatever's on the other side, and the sound of gunfire bleeds through.

Opening the door leads to an honest to god medieval fortress, complete with a moat and drawbridge. Gunfire and explosions fill the air as a small group of men lays siege, trying to push on despite the fierce opposition. Whoever's good and bad is likely decided quickly, once a flash of lightning reveals the swastikas flying over the castle. Nazis. And this doesn't seem to be one of Jason's sim scenarios.

The Americans down below, recognizable as Nick Fury and his Howling Commandos for anyone who knows their history, aren't faring well. Their hope for a stealth raid has been ruined by the searchlights mounted on the parapets, and they've been pinned behind rocks and fallen trees by German machine guns. While they're protected from the rattling fire of the machine guns, there's at least two mortars going off. Whoever's firing them isn't even trying to hit the Howlers, they're just keeping them corralled while the gunners get their kicks.

The sound's barely audible in the distance, especially with the explosions and ceaseless fire, but soon the roar of a high-powered motorcycle fills the air. Thundering across the battlefield, the machine hits the crest of a hill and soars through the air, the man in a red, white, and blue kicking off of it to carry himself to the top of the castle walls as the bike falls short, exploding in a fiery burst against the fortress walls. “Es ist der Amerikaner! Es ist

From there, the entire feeling of the area changes. Frantic, almost all guns are turned on Captain America as he storms over the walls, knocking soldiers to the side in his push towards the heavy weapons. The Howling Commandos cheer and leave cover to charge the castle as well, whooping battle cries and trailing grappling hooks… right as a mortar finds its way into their midst. Cap doesn’t seem to have noticed, he’s vanished into the castle, but he’d been depending on that backup. Not even a super soldier can stand up to an entire company of the Wehrmacht alone. It seems that this nightmare generator isn’t about traumatizing him, but outright killing him.

It’s going to take someone’s best efforts to search the castle in time to set this memory back on track before he’s convinced he died here. But taking down a few Nazis along the way can’t hurt things.

"You are all stupid," came the response from a rather different looking Widowmaker, her voice reflecting an utter lack of emotion. Here, she wasn't even going to attempt to pretend to have emotion... and if she tried, something she didn't want to be seen would be seen.

She turned, Widow's Kiss on her shoulder, and began to walk away. A few steps had her throwing words back to them. "If you know what is good for you, you will stay away from my corner of this land. No one hides from my sight. And I will remember."

Washington wasn't the only one that had been purposefully avoiding telepathy. And unless anyone stopped her, Widowmaker would disappear into the mindscape.

Edited 2017-06-09 19:49 (UTC)

Anyone who'd seen Locus's Legionnaire Legacy might recognize this particular memory. It was not a battle, but the end of one. Bodies lay littered across the dust of the planet, broken and bloody and some torn to pieces. Smoking ruins lay behind them, the remnants of a base, and smoke likewise drifted up from the shadow of a city painted against the dying light of day. This was a world moments away from annialation.

A nearby Warthog had been overturned, now crushing the torso of the man who had once been the superior officer of this unit, his eyes staring blankly upwards and his face caked with blood. Nearby, however, a moving figure was struggling to upend the Warthog before cursing, head turning back towards where Locus sat.

Locus says nothing. Does nothing but stare through a sniper scope into the distance. What keeps him from stillness is the fact that he's panting heavily by this point, blood dripping into the dirt at his side where he sits braced against a chest-high wall of debris. And from him, echoing through the memory in ripples, one singular feeling. One thought.

They're dead. They're all dead. Why. Why am I... It's the thought that permeates this memory, soaks deep, lingers. That hopelessness and guilt is thick enough to choke on.

But a face, rough with panic and gritty with desperation cuts through the numb and despair. That figure by the Warthog has come closer, staring down at him through a very familiar scout helmet. Felix. "Look, I get it. Got to follow orders, cause you're a soldier. But see, our orders weren't sit here and die on this rock. You get me? Captain gave us orders to guard this spot, but last I heard? Top brass gave orders to win this war. You win a lot of wars by dying, Ortez?"

This was the turning point. He remembers that. This was the moment the war could have claimed him, when he could have closed his eyes and gone under and stayed there. Perhaps if he had, many lives in the long run might have been spared. But there was Felix, panting down at him, before pointing out the corpses of their fallen comrades all around. "These guys followed orders and they died. But we're better than them. You hear me? We're gonna survive--"

But something goes wrong. The words don't finish leaving Felix's mouth. He stops as a sharp noise pierces in the air, and some purple, luminous spike suddenly juts out of his throat. That brief flicker of something like hope shrivels and dies as Locus watches Felix crumple then and there, fingers desperately trying to tug the needler spike free, before his gaze lifts. An oncoming unit of Covenant forces, Elites and Grunts, towering armored aliens and their minions bearing down on this exact location and now?

Just him. Surrounded by the corpses of everyone he'd known, everyone he'd fought alongside. Maybe this was how it was meant to end, after all. Feeling nothing but a dragging, numbing heaviness, he lifted his rifle and turned it towards the approaching creatures. Only a few rounds left. But turning the gun on himself was the coward's way out. If he was going to die, he'd take as many of them down with him as he could. Perhaps then, this futile last stand wouldn't have all been so meaningless.

This memory is a more recent one. God help those who could remember the horror show that was Silent Horizon, and the Faceless. It is a place of nightmares, this strange cavern made of bone, blood vessels, and twitching sinew. A wet stickiness glimmers off the walls and pools around the feet of those gathered.

The Phalanxed. Those who were corrupted by the Faceless in its effort to absorb everything into itself. And the Legionnaires who stood against them.

Is it any surprise that Locus is on the side of the monsters? He's difficult to recognize at first, even to those familiar with him. Like the other Phalanxed, he's been mutated by the Faceless. He's even larger than usual, towering even while bent double, with what appears to be a rusted gear wedged into his spine that whirs and clicks with his movement. There are chains that burrow deep into his limbs, similarly swollen and overtaken by a grisly bone-and-gristle armor that layers over his signature sage and black. There are no visible eyes, mirroring the appearance of his helmet, except that dark, stringy hair finds a way through the cracks of this cartilage-like plating...and there is a far-too-wide gash of a mouth, filled with sharp teeth and dripping with some frothy black liquid.

Whirrrrr....click-click-click-click... Some shadow lingers at his back, pulling the chains attached to the gear like some macabre puppet master, but the bulk of Locus's figure hides them from view. For now.

The truth of the memory is this: The Faceless was defeated, Locus returned to himself, and was drawn to safety by the rest. Consider then if the battle had continued, long enough for the transformation's toll on his body to grow too large. It was the risk involved in this horrifying metamorphosis, as blood oozed from tears in skin and muscle.

Eventually, he would bleed out. Eventually, the process would be irreversible, and 'Locus' would be gone.

Edited 2017-06-09 21:33 (UTC)

Well, this is hell.

It's all Wash can do not to choke on despair and death, but he's lived through this war. It's hell, sure, but it's a familiar hell, and he can handle it. He'd never been to New Jerusalem, but this battle is easy enough to recognize from what he'd seen from Locus' Legionnaire Legacy. What's different - what's not supposed to be happening - are one very dead Felix and a hell of a lot of very live Covenant troops approaching Locus' position.

"If you think you can handle those," he says to the Legionnaires who followed him in, nodding towards the advancing Covenant line, "then get to it. If not, we need at least two people looking for Esper's machines. Try the Warthog-" Not everyone's familiar with the lingo- "-the jeep to start. I'll take care of Locus."

He doesn't wait for assent - his teammates are smart people; they'll figure themselves out - before he sprints to Locus and takes a knee next to him. "Holy shit, you're alive," he starts, like he's just come upon Locus' position. "Look, Command's ordered a full evac - the point's ten miles south of here. My team's orders are to harry the line and get any remaining soldiers the fuck out of Dodge, which means your orders are to fall back to the evac point and hold it until evac is complete. Got it?" It's a risky gambit - anything that involves getting Locus to listen to him is risky - but fits in with the narrative, and it's the best he's got right now short of bodily trying to haul an already traumatized Locus out of the line of fire.

It's a good tactic to take. Locus doesn't even appear to notice that it's Washington, that he doesn't belong in this memory and this isn't how it all happened. He's too numb, too overwhelmed to consider it, and the rifle lowers a fraction as he lets those words since in.

But he isn't looking at Wash. His eyes fall over the rest of his team. Felix, who by this point has stopped twitching and lies far too still. Guilt now supersedes all, something crushing around his lungs inside of his chest as he takes a shuddering breath and tries to push himself to his feet.

Why. Why them, why him, why had it happened this way. There had to be a reason...

Another wave of agony and guilt rolls over him, and God, it's so much worse when it's someone else's. Wash takes a breath, steadies himself, and gets to his feet, offering Locus a hand.

"Look, I get it. I've lost my whole squad more than once, and there was nothing I could do about it." It's not something he usually shares - that his life before Freelancer was peppered with loss, that he was the sole survivor of some platoons and one of very few survivors of others, that he was considered a goddamn bad luck charm before Freelancer pulled him for his survivability and marksmanship - but it's necessary here, and holy shit this memory is affecting him more than he knew if he's able to go that deep down his own personal rabbit hole in the middle of combat. "But that happens, and it happens without a reason, because war is hell. The best thing you can do now is survive and keep fighting. Now c'mon - you have your orders."

Whatever Shepard had been expecting...it wasn't World War II. She gives herself a moment to sigh while she evaluates the field of fire of the machine guns, trying to remember the average muzzle velocity of weapons of the period, if she ever even knew it. Definitely not relativistic. Low supersonic, probably? But high enough to actually trigger her shields?

Eh, fuck it. There's more than one way to storm a castle (seriously?), at least when you have vastly superior weapons. She's not even trying to win the battle, just cross the field to follow the guy on the bike.

Shepard pulls her sniper rifle from her back and goes prone behind a slight rise, leveling the weapon at the nearest machine gun emplacement. The gunner is a distraction, and she instead aims for the weapon itself. The barrel of gun shatters in a most satisfactory manner when her own mass accelerator round hits it, to a string of German curses the translation software in her omni-tool thoughtfully renders into English for her.

"Heh."

Wait. She doesn't actually have an omni-tool right now. She just thinks she does, so how--

--Dammit, she hates telepathy.

"Yeah, I got it. Not my first hopeless stand," Shepard says dryly...to Wash's retreating back. Okay then.

She sprints over to a wrecked Mongoose and crouches in cover, pulling a gun off its mount on her back. It snaps out from a compact package into a sniper rifle, stock and barrel unfolding automatically, scope popping up where there was nothing before.

Then she starts picking off Elites. No one's briefed her on the Covenant, but she can tell a miniboss from a trash mob when she sees 'em.

He has his orders.

There's always that. If he has nothing else, he has that to fall back on while everything else falls to this cacophony of chaos. There's the garbled shouts and war cries of the approaching aliens, and the sound of the Legionnaires holding the line and pushing back. They would have killed him. They still might, if they remained here.

Yet something still anchors him in place. This wasn't right, something about it was wrong, terribly wrong, and his gaze fell once more to the freshest corpse at their feet.

"There has to be a reason we survived," he rasps out, finally. "Tell me."

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THE MIND SLAYER

MINGLING POST

Re: MINGLING POST

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Gohan

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Saiyan Invasion

Shepard

The Skyllian Blitz

Cell Games

Assault on the Collector Base

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Locus

CAPTAIN AMERICA

SIEGE

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New Jerusalem

Silent Horizon [CW: Body Horror, Gore]

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