Event - The 25,000 Light Year View

[apocalypsehowmods]

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The 25,000 Light Year View

The atmosphere in the lower level gym at ADI headquarters is… tense, to say the least. Nia, Neil, and Rae are present with the rest of those remaining at the organization (or willing to come when called by Neil and Rae for a final statement) seated in benches and chairs that have been dragged in. It's not the usual, orderly meetings that some might have gotten used to for mission briefings.

Neil speaks first. "Thank you, everyone, for coming in. Lot's been happening, but we've come to… an understanding about where we need to go. The artifacts that were in the Vault have all been accounted for or noted as destroyed in some manner with a few exceptions. We're still chasing- ADI is still chasing those down with help from anyone who might want to give it. Won't pretend this is going to be a kumbaya moment, so let's get down to brass tacks. There's an apocalypse on. Whatever this organizations stands for now, its original mission was to uncover and stop those. That's still my mission."

"Mine, too," Rae chimes in.

"It's one we all share," Nia adds.

Neil nods before continuing. "So, we stop this, and we go our separate ways. I'll be leaving ADI and starting my own organization. We've seen a large number of threats in the Appalachian region and a lot of folks heavily impacted by decisions ADI's made. I'll be taking my organization there. Already been in touch with our- with ADI's field agents in the region. Some will be joining me. Along with a certain newsperson who keeps sniffing around. We'll do what we can to do right by the people who've been hurt most. That's going to be our focus. Support and security. We're not feeding the Hunt anymore by running down threats."

Rae steps up next. "And I'll be going where I need to. Lot of threats out west. If you're looking to do some good that won't be working for the Hunt… maybe think about heading that way."

Nia is the last to speak. "And I'll be staying here in Gloucester. ADI will be staying. And I will be its final Warden. We're stopping Zyrian, then we're figuring out what the hell is going on with Dogtown to get all of you people from other worlds home. Or at least stop anyone else coming in. After that? I'm out. What happens after that is still in the works. But Neil's agreed to stay in touch to help with everything… once I'm gone." There's a flicker of emotion across Neil's stoic expression. Regret, frustration… grief. "But right now, we look to Wolf Trap. I-"

There's a pause, and Neil and Rae look to Nia in concern as she puts a hand to her temple. She recovers, though. "Huh… We look to Wolf Trap, Virginia. We'll have buses to get everyone down there. We'll be arriving just as Copernicus' launch of the New Horizon's project is underway. That's where Zyrian Steel's going to do his ritual. We need to find the server rooms at the event. Those are important."

Rae squints at Nia, "You sure?"

Nia nods. "Yeah. I'm real sure about that. It'll be dangerous, though, and that's not the- it's not the only threat that's gonna be there."

Neil's looking wary. "Nia?"

"There's something else. The Web? It's not just the Vast that's involved in this, I don't think. It would make sense, right?" She shakes her head. "We'll be facing multiple Entity threats down there, not just the Vast. And I'm sure Zyrian's gonna kick the ritual off on the last day, once he's had time for-for something… not sure what. But he's a dramatic bastard, if nothing else. And timing's everything."

Neil and Rae exchange uncertain looks before Neil speaks up again. "Coming is voluntary, like always, but we'll want boots on the ground to cover as much ground as possible. They'll be holding the biggest events and productions at the Filene Center stage. But we're expecting tech booths scattered all throughout the park. Be on your guard."

"And bring a gun," Rae advises.

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Wolf Trap Park
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[failedpromise]

She slams into Zyrian and they tumble together in a wreckage of blood and broken wires. Cortana almost grins in satisfaction but the rage is still there to twist it more towards a snarl as she attempts to put her hands on Zyrian's throat. "What? Did your little plan to kill me now that you can't exploit me anymore fail? Not able to torture people to death as you please anymore? Your vision for a new world in your image crumbling before your eyes?"

She'll give him only a few moments to respond before tightening her hands, provided she's able to get them wrapped around Zyrian's throat in the first place.

[wewillwewill]

It is truly for the best that Zyrian's focus has been returned to the real world and thus sent his defenders into such disarray. Elidibus will waste no time in taking out the snake that missed its strike at his legs. The defending power that would have transferred damage taken by Cortana to himself reaches the end of its potency, dissipating with a subtle shimmer.

Well, it can easily go unremarked in the chaos that follows.

Yelena still stands and, it seems, holding her own. Therefore the silver-haired man focuses first on finishing off the snake which had been stunned by the thrown gun, sought to be accomplished by stepping forward and a sure thrust. A subtle limp suggests it isn't as easy a task as it might have been earlier and so it is very fortunate indeed.

"Quickly, Cortana!" While not yelling, Elidibus speaks in a loud voice and tone that conveys both urgency and insistence. "Do not give him a chance to recover."

cw death by strangulation

[trappedwolves]

The hanging wires reach for Cortana and Steel, ready to ensnare one and free the other. Yelena's bullet strikes at the root of them, sending sparks flying as the mass of wires drop to the floor, adding to the chaos of broken machinery. A fire ignites above their heads, the reek of smoke from plastic and metal filling the air.

"You're so--small!" snarls Zyrian, wild-eyed, caught between fury and terror. He struggles to get his arms free, scrabbling at Cortana, at the wires on the floor, at her grip tightening on his throat. He twists and writhes in the wreckage of his altar, one desperate hand reaching for the copper snake stunned by the thrown gun, foiled by a strike from Elidibus that takes the construct out.

In his own digital world, Zyrian Steel was to be a god. Here in the land of the waking, he is but a man. His defenders, wires and snakes, seem to mirror his increasing desperation along with his increasingly clumsy movements as he teeters on the brink of unconsciousness, gasping for air that will not come.

It takes perhaps twenty or thirty seconds before his struggles weaken, then cease, leaving only the copper snakes still sluggishly trying to reach his attackers, slow enough now to be easily picked off as they come. His heart still beats--it takes some few minutes, after all, for a human to die from strangulation.

[musicdied]

Yelena flicks the safety on her gun back on, and picks herself up carefully, knee and ankle twinging on the leg the wires had caught, but still able to hold her weight. She makes her way towards the tumbled altar, leaving the snakes - better targets for a sword, even sluggish as they are - to Elidibus, and flips the weapon in her hand to offer it to Cortana grip-first.

"Here," she says, voice tight enough with pain to suppress any other inflection. "He deserves a slow death, but his victims deserve freedom more."

[failedpromise]

"Don't you know that size isn't everything?" Cortana is, as usual, full of jokes, but honestly she's so unimpressed and disgusted right now. After all the horrible things he's done, that's all he has to say?

What a creep.

She'll take Yelena's gun when offered and hold it in one hand -- the other she'll keep wrapped tight around the unconscious man's throat -- before putting a bullet in his brain.

"Thanks Yelena. Some payoffs aren't worth the wait."

[wewillwewill]

It was the rational minded Elidibus who had suggested not to delay Steel's death. Certainly not about mercy; it was just the best idea to finish it quickly so there was no last minute rally by the defensive forces. No escape of his essence into the tangled web of machine existence. To this end he strikes the defenders down and seems for a moment content at his role of keeping his allies free to execute the Avatar.

Until Yelena passes the gun to Cortana. Caught out of the periphery of his vision, Elidibus is suddenly made aware of how much Zyrian may have gleaned from his time as an Avatar of some machine mainframe. How much more the millionaire may know about the status quo of this world and its fear-based 'divinities'.

All Steel is and was, it was about to slip away to return to whatever Underworld this world possessed. A singular, obsessive thought urged Elidibus to act. He must obtain it before it is gone.

Ignoring the nauseating twist of desire or any of a usually formidable restraint and will- something those that know him well would be shocked to see- the silver-haired man swiftly drops his blade and holds out his hand with the palm facing the tangled mess of wires and Zyrian Steel. A red sigil appears before his focused features; the instincts urging him to treat this as some magicks of importance.

But it will all be for naught. While something might have stirred for a moment, the last of his carefully stored fuel for his powers on Earth had been near their end. Compelled to try to their very exhaustion, the sigil abruptly flicks out of existence and any aura of power about him immediately shuts off. He is utterly silenced by the abrupt return to mortal human.

Aches and injury that were staved off by subtle, passive forces slam into him. The half-healed ankle causes him to collapse to one knee again as it gives out. Yet the only expression on Elidibus's features at the time is one of complete frustration and disappointment.

"No..." With his power gone again, so too is any hope he had of salvaging what might have been useful knowledge. And it's a bitter feeling he can't seem to drag himself out of.

This will be the last NPC tag for the thread; you are free to continue to play this out if you wish!

[trappedwolves]

There's one last surge of copper defenders as Zyrian tilts toward oblivion, one last desperate charge of snakes. Then the shot rings out and it all comes to an end even as Elidibus makes his last grasp at Steel's knowledge. The copper snakes drop where they are, lifeless, and the room seems to shrink around them and become something more physically possible than it was before. Steel simply lays tangled in the wires, bloody and inert, gone from this world as anything other than a broken physical shell. Whatever his powers within his own realm, whatever powers given to him by finance and politics, it seems he was ultimately nothing more than human in this way.

Around them, Steel's victims claw their way back to consciousness and out of the entangling wires. Whatever happens now is up to the survivors.

[musicdied]

"They are always so surprised, the men like Steel," Yelena remarks. "Like they really think their little plans and powerplays can put them out of reach of dying."

She catches motion out of the corner of her eye, amidst the strange blur of the room becoming, somehow, more real, and half-turns - grimacing a little as even that much motion jars her - in time to see Elidibus slump to one knee. She doesn't miss the expression on his face, though she only frowns at him, something like concern in the crease of her brow.

"Are you too hurt to walk?" she asks. "I'm thinking we will be able to find help now."

[failedpromise]

"...Yeah." Says Cortana, and a part of her thinks of the genuine article, the monster who even after being blown to smithereens isn't truly dead.

A shiver passes through her before she is distracted again by Elidibus.

"Both of you need medical attention. The survivors too, probably."

[wewillwewill]

The sound of the others' voices intruding on bitter emotions seems to bring Elidibus out of his reflection. He looks up with, perhaps, a trace of surprise flickering just moments across his features. Reason returns to him. Or rather.... the necessity to set aside figuring out the cause of his own unusual behavior. Not that it would take much to connect the dots there.

He collects his blade- still around for now- and seems to see no reason not to use it as a makeshift prop to slowly get to his feet again. After a moment's self assessment, he looks rueful. Elidibus' expression is once more calm and collected, if a touch apologetic as if the bitter disappointment had not occurred at all. Nor is much of the pain he must really be in currently expressed.

"It seems I must impose on you somewhat. At least for the time we have left," he tells Yelena. A glance around at the room drawn back into reality and the stirring occupants suggests his meaning.

Looking to Cortana, Elidibus then adds. "I fear my appearance would stand out and my magicks have been exhausted." He speaks truth; a silver haired man in white robes carrying a sword and shield at a tech showcase? He can neither dismiss nor conjure what he needs to change that. But there is an ulterior motive as well, that normal medical attention would not be possible for his existence here. "My colleague will be around. If you can help me find him, he will see to my needs with discretion."

[musicdied]

"The survivors will need help more than we do," Yelena says quietly. Not all the shapes made visible by the sudden realignment of the room with actual physical dimensions are moving; some of those might still be saved, if tended to quickly enough.

She uses her good hand to tuck her injured arm against her chest, throat bobbing as she swallows back a surge of nausea.

Her gaze flicks back to Elidibus, briefly assessing. Measuring, almost. If she's considering whether or not they can disguise him in the clothes of the permanently unmoving, she at least has the grace not to sa as much.

Yet.

"Did your colleague follow you in here?"