RP: YSS Eucharis [Mission 27, Part 4] The Sleeping Giant (YE 39)

[Immortal Cyan]

Machine Planet Labyrinth - Room #32

Junko let out a bloodcurdling scream as she pushed her muscles at full power while forcing her plasma blades through the thick material of the rigid and unflinching door. Beneath her zesuaium faceplate, beads of sweat trickled from her hair, slid down her cheeks, and came to rest at her collarbone. All the while, her expression was strained and relentless.

She only took a brief reprieve to shift her feet into a better position so that she could gain more leverage. Before pushing on, she took a deep and audible breath and impaled the door with both of her plasma blades. Once again, sparks and white-hot bits of metal began to fly out from all around her as she renewed her efforts to destroy the infallible barrier...

 

[CadetNewb]

Machine Planet Labyrinth - Room #32

A bright flash later, and the power armored Noriko simply blinked, slowly, like a feline.

"I see. That is why he is more qualified," the Neko remarked, utterly deadpan. She paused a moment more before opening her comms. "Hanako-Shôshô," the young woman calmly began. Though she was feeling rather incredulous, the newbie was also feeling rather resigned with the situation. "According to observation and sensor readings, it would appear that Suites-Heisho has been teleported to another location," the Neko's sultry voice explained rather matter-of-factly. As Noriko simply stood over where Candon was, Junko continued to scream her battle cries, savagely attacking the door in the background as Freyja silently cheered her on. "I will relay to you what readings I have and will be on standby; Hasegawa-Hei should finish breaching momentarily."

Somehow, Noriko was already starting to feel like she was a hundred years older.

 

[Primitive Polygon]

West Corridor -> Room #4

Creeping. Tsuguka's perfectionist side was annoyed about the fact her metallic footsteps didn't match the squishy nature of her mycelium disguise, but it wasn't like even letting the volumetrics clip into the wall really mattered. So long as she could not speak mushroom, it was really just a distraction to let her dive out of the way, or get the first shot in, should it come to that.

First mission and you're wondering about what spooky things you're gonna meet. An internal musing. Four or five in, and you realise that you were the spook the entire time.

First corner, with a turn to the right. No door?...

Mushroom off, full black silhouette on. Tsuguka looked for any evidence of that spore-like material layering the floors from before, and any distinct light sources or noises. Then and only then came the dangerous bit, sticking her head inside just slightly, getting a quick gander at the room's contents before retracting back into cover again.

 

[Ira]

Heirophant

Bronzi let Wazu exit the Heirophant. Then once he was clear, Bronzi threw the full power of the Machine into its arms, and it shoved it self free with a loud shuddering scrape of metal. Bronzi then back the heavy mecha away, and exited him self.

He set the big machine to guard mode, so that if it got attacked the AI in it would mount a good defense or at the very least if overwhelmed it would retreat. Bronzi then followed Wazu into the interior of this construct with a GP-12 rifle in hand. Catching up to Wazu, Bronzi stuck him like glue, ready to pull him out of the way, or leap where ever he needed to be to keep the man safe from harm. "It's kinda spookeh in hea." He rumbled over the comms.

 

[Wes]

Machine Planet Labyrinth - Room #32

The heavy door finally came loose and was able to be pushed aside, revealing a five-by-five meter room (#28) with four really aggressive looking giant beetle-like creatures who immediately began spitting flaming acid into the doorway and into room #32. In the beetle room there was one open doorway to the East (to #36), one to the West at the back left corner, and two doorways to the North.

Machine Planet Labyrinth - Outside Room #4

Tsuguka found the room on the side of the corridor had two flying creatures with large needle-like "beaks." They were staring at her for a moment, and then they tried to fly over and penetrate her back with the beaks. However they were not effective on her power armor.

 

[Primitive Polygon]

Room #4;

"Contact! Some kind of birds!" Tsuguka chirped out quickly over the team link, both for the benefit of her friends behind her, and the command structure. Her calm voice would have been a lot funnier if anyone could see her, frantically batting the creatures away with her shield. "They are being a nuisance!"

What the heck were these things? Some kind of guard dogs? Bio-weapons? Really alien sentient aliens? Escaped wild-life from some kind of bio-dome interior? Tsuguka was still in the frame of mind that the die was already cast, and they should just murder everything that they came across, but... Well, they were here for answers, and that didn't really give them any answers. They still had no idea what this station was even really for.

Orange light glimmered, and their shield arm summoned an arc of reflective polygonal arrowheads, chaining together in one long volumetric whip. The slashing shapes were not an intentional killing blow, however, only gouging chunk out of the wall and scorching the floor.

A pause, and a moment of intense observation. She wanted to know if the enemies continued to attack, stood their ground, or ran away; Perhaps that would give them more information?

 

[Immortal Cyan]

Machine Planet Labyrinth - Room #32/28

Just as the door came loose and fell to the side, Junko was engulfed in a blaze of flaming acid, which shot directly past and around her position. Her Mindy automatically adjusted the sensor suite in response and marked the enemies in her HUD.

Look more like a flaming apparition than a power armor clad super soldier, Junko TAP boosted into the room with a cacophonous scream on her lips as she charged the beetle-like figures in her HUD. She thrusted her plasma blades directly at the closest beetle as she flew through the air. Without missing a beat, she followed up with a series of wild, on-the-move slashes to the next closest one, the dancing blue lights of her TAP engines the only visual indication of her location through the haze that engulfed her armor.

 

[Zack]

Room X

"I did not think you would be afraid of the unknown," Wazu replied, moving forward at a slow pace... thanks to the weight of his space suit he would be quick to tire out. He did consider running to catch up with the others... but that would just wear him out. Not to mention there were plenty of 'other' groups to go join.

It did not take him long to figure out which group he would prefer to go with. Wazu would take a look at his datapad to check his map.

View attachment 14915

"Lets go meet up with the group. The red one is to our right."

Wazu started to head down the hallway... and then abruptly stopped.

"I mean. Left.... this way."

As he walked, he would catch up on the goings on by manually scrolling through the chat logs on the datapad.

"What kind of birds?" Wazu would ask, "What would they eat in here? Are they alive or robotic?"

 

[ArsenicJohn]

Machine Planet Labyrinth - Room #32/28

Freyja could only watch as Junko was swallowed up by the flaming acid. The acid-covered Mindy charged forward, blocking the doorway momentarily. She watched Junko's apparition zoom towards a beetle before moving into the room. "Encountered some sort of acid-spitting beetles. Hostile intent confirmed. Moving to assist Junko-hei." She announced.

With a clear objective in mind, she was in her element. Freyja walked into the room, stepping to the right to clear the doorway if Noriko decided to follow. She fired a three-second beam of Aether energy at the third beetle with her ABSR. Her shoulder-mounted Aether cannon simultaneously locked onto the fourth and poured three rapid pulses into the creature.

 

[Ametheliana]

Rooms

"I can only say thank you for teaching me, Suites-heisho..." Masumi thought back to what she had said a year ago in the Eucharis' power armor bay as Candon taught her how to utilize his LSP and telepathy to see what he saw and hear what he thought. The memory flooded her digital mind as she turned her power armored-body away from Hanako.

Masumi leapt through the air after seeing out of her suit's optic suite that the Shosho was handling herself just fine on her lonesome for the time being as Masumi's suit wrecked the wall next to the doorway leading into the spread box's room. The scientist whipped out her scanner and began doing scans the moment she had busted through the once-solid wall, splattering Noriko's position with rocky debris.

Then, this morning's memory was the next to turn over in her head as she idolized the buttery warmth of the pressing of bodies and the quiet few moments they had shared before remembering duty. Before, perhaps more than that, Candon recalled his past, who he had been, and haunted by the shadow it could cast on her future. For that reason, if he had left, Masumi was unaware. To her, the memory was a vivid reminder of what it meant to save him.

Masumi took her scans and tucked the scanner back into her special duty butt pack in one quick motion as she dove towards the ground near the box and threw he arm out to grab Kōku Ken from its position on the ground while the rest of her body tucked into a roll that stopped dead in front of the box, the flying sword in one hand while the other hovered over the box. She finally felt confident enough to reach out wit her telepathy and dorsal pack to connect up with Candon's Leader Support pack. One of them had to work.

She sent out her thoughts to him, "Candon? Tell me you're there... I'm at the box. Direct me, please." She paused as her body hunched over the box, wondering if she should repeat. "No!" she thought. Then to him called out. "I know you can hear me!"

 

[CadetNewb]

Machine Planet Labyrinth - Room #32/28

"I can't get a clear shot!" Seeing the others charge through the narrow chokepoint instead of drawing them back, Noriko realized she had no other option but to do the same. "Advancing!" the snowy haired Neko called over the comms, informing the rest of the squad. Keeping her more powerful weapons in reserve, Noriko pushed into the room with the others and switched to her suit's advanced sensors, peering through the acidic-flame before opening up with her wrist gun.

 

[Wes]

Machine Planet Labyrinth - Room #4

The flying creatures did not seem to be sapient. They continued to attack for a while and eventually gave up when they couldn't get any blood from Tsuguka, staring at her from a corner. There didn't seem to be any obvious features of interest in this room, and it was devoid of items. The passageway continued into a dim, misty, and twisting corridor with two paths. One of them led to a section where there were a series of flashlights lining the walls (v on the map), still lit. In the room up ahead (#63), the ceiling was covered with dripping stalactites and pile of spoiled meat lay in the east side of the room, with two Rixxikor hobos picking at it. They did not seem to notice Tsuguka and it appeared they were having a conversation about the value of autographs.

Machine Planet Labyrinth - Room #28

The room was now a flaming mess of acid and flaming bug parts.

Space

The YSS Tomoyo finished the last to of the supply transfers and then departed, heading back towards Yamatai.

Things seemed fairly calm around the Eucharis for now.

 

[HAMnJAM]

Bridge

Takao watched the Tomoyo leave from his console screens. As it jumped to FTL, Takao began a reset of the sensors to scan for anything again as part of the regular sensor sweep routine. He spoke up without looking away from the console, "Yamashiro-Taii, YSS Tomoyo has left the system. Continuing normal threat scans."

While the sensors and everything began to feed into his mind through his SPINE, the man began to think about asking either the XO or the Shosho herself if he could gain the order to move out of the box in the cargo hold and into a permanent room inside the vessel. As much as he was starting to bond with the people down there, he felt they were beginning to get annoyed by his guitar and his Kohosei's rank.

As he didn't seem to see anything, he decided to burn a little bit of time by asking the XO for her opinion. He let the information echo in his head as he turned his chair to face the XO, "Yamashiro-Taii, may I ask you a question?"

 

[Rizzo]

Machine Planet Labyrinth - Room #25

Candon could see that the inside of the box was filled with crystalline data-storage modules. After a brief flash, looking up would reveal he was now in an entirely different room, which was three by five meters. A tile mosaic of a Kuvexian goddess of ice covered the floor, and a rusted armored spacesuit of an unknown design lay in the north side of the room. To the West there was an open archway leading to a passageway out of the room. In the center of the south wall there was a simple upward-sliding metal door that was closed. There was a small window in the doorway and it was fogged up and covered in ichor and it vaguely looked like there were figures on the other side of it.

View attachment 14878

Machine Planet Labyrinth - Room #25

With no relevant data returning from his scanning Candon decided against going through the door. He had no idea where he was our where help would be. As far as he knew he might have been IN the box. With his active camouflage still keeping him invisible he headed through the hall to the west.

 

[Ametheliana]

 

[CadetNewb]

Machine Planet Labyrinth - (Flaming) Room (of Fire) #28

With the fight ending as quickly as it had begun, Noriko made to examine the room in detail as she took point again. By this point, she thought little more of Junko than a berserker accidentally placed within the wrong billet or position in the fleet, while Freyja? The new Neko didn't think anything of her at all. Solemnly stepping over the ashes and flames, she stood tall and dramatically scanned the scene before her. Just as Masumi ran into the room, perhaps panicked by the orange glow of flame and fire, and tried going through one of the other doors. Perhaps. She wasn't really sure what the other Neko was up to at all.

"What are you doing, Oshiro-hei?" Noriko's deep, sultry voice questioned.

 

[Ametheliana]

Room #28

Masumi didn't turn to Noriko as she spoke over comms to the Santô Hei. "Cover me with a frontal assault, sidle up to my right! We're getting him!" She tried the most obvious form of opening up the door, stanced strong with the intent to shoot out with a forearm weapon if it swung open easily as well as ready to kick down the door if it would not budge.

 

[CadetNewb]

Machine Planet Labyrinth - (Flaming) Room (of Fire) #28

"What."

These people. Noriko could feel it. They were going to be the death of her.

 

[Ametheliana]

Room #28

"Cover me while I open this door!" Masumi called back to her while plunging her hand down to try the door's opener. "If you can't understand that, go cower behind a Shôshô!! If you can, then do it!"

She was shaking underneath her armor. She wasn't used to ineptitude; she had trained with the SOFT, with Candon, with Hanako. Not this.

Plus, she really wanted to see him again.

She would, too.

 

[ArsenicJohn]

Machine Planet Labyrinth - (Flaming) Room (of Fire) #28

Freyja ceased fire, examining the remains of the creatures visually. She saw Masumi fly past her followed by Noriko. At this point, she was getting tired of feeling like nothing more than a gun. This mission was supposed to be her chance to redeem herself. She would not waste this opportunity. "We'll back you up, Masumi -hei. Try not to get too far ahead."

She floated past the remains and took up position behind Masumi. "Don't worry, we'll find him. He'll be fine, the man is a badass as the Nepleslians say."