[IC] TFW Chapter 1: Sloth

[ElfCollaborator]

"Bartek would like to ask; should we expect anything worse?"

Bartek shifts uncomfortably, looking around just in case something comes for them while they speak.

[Strider]

Sense-Those Guys

"Ask her what they've found on their end? Kind of relating to Bartek's question, since they've got their own problems." He leaned against the wall, waiting for Gypsy to send out the message. He couldn't think of anything else to add really. Except maybe the obvious "what now". With only the foggy notion of the mission's objectives and the general plans, he could only hope that things were being handled. So for now, he stared absently into the wreckage through the door across the hall, trying to decide what he himself could do until they moved forward.

[Shamitako]

Cheryn

 

"Alright, I'm gonna go ahead and say that blinking in there is a bad idea." she said finally, "So if I'm not back in thirty seconds, you should probably assume I was right about that." Her ring mech appeared around her and suddenly she was gone. A few moments later she reappeared. "Well, that place is spooky as fuck." she said, shivering, "There's literally zero sound at all, I bet it's pitch black too. Didn't find any doors, but there seemed to be a transporter. Also, um, shelves. I'd rather not think about what could be on them. Anyways, that map there show any teleporters nearby you can use to get in?"

 

Those Guys

 

Gypsy attempted to condense what everyone had asked into a manageable size. He then focused and created a telepathic link with Merlin. "Ran into Ansuz." He said, "Gave us a spook. No trace of Carls scientists. What's the situation for you? Have you met resistance? What do we do now?" Gypsy didn't let it show, but he was as concerned about the lack of information as the rest of them. Merlin hadn't been acting herself during this whole thing and he was worried about her. "Runes. No scientists. Children. Ansuz capture Fedora." Merlin said back, "Mission wrong, don't play the game." Gypsy took a moment to sort through this information before relaying it back to the rest of the team. "Apparently they haven't found any form of resistance. Ansuz has been busy though, he seems to have captured someone. They found some kids being experimented on." He said, "And we should probably hurry about and head for the center of the facility and try to meet up with Merlin. I don't think there's any resistance here at all, just Ansuz. and knowing him, he's got something big planned for when Merlin finds him. Get moving as fast as you can. Be careful if you see any strange markings on the walls or floor, but I'm pretty sure you won't find any."

 

MSC

 

"I have absolutely no idea what we're walking into at all." Merlin said, "Ansuz is far too unpredictable for that. But... he's got some big elaborate trap set up that's supposed to make you all turn against me. I'm sure of it. I'd appreciate if you didn't do that." she proceeded to demonstrate how to handle Ansuz's runes as she noticed some on the wall ahead of her. She fired off a chain of fireballs, incinerating the runes and a bit of wall around them. "If you spot any runes, destroy them before they have a chance to cast." she explained, "The best way to do that varies depending on what it's made of, but fire is a safe bet." The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful, Merlin had to blow up a couple more rune traps, but it didn't seem like Ansuz was actually trying to stop her.

 

Everyone but Cheryn

Spoiler

Obvious music is obvious

 

 

Merlin walked into the atrium. The walls were lined with various instruments, but the center of the room was empty save for a metal table with some strange tools on it. By one of the walls was a metal and glass cylinder holding Feardorcha, who seemed quite captured. Shortly after Merlin and MSC had entered, Those Guys walked in through another doorway, Bear's bee swarm hovering just behind them. Walls of stone erupted from the doorways, blocking them off. Ansuz walked forward from behind the cylinder. "Merlin." He said as dramatically as his voice could manage (not very), "Have you come to play my game?"

"Nope." Merlin replied, raising her arm. A barrage of various elemental orbs--fire, water, electricity, love, wind, stone, light, darkness, sound--flew from Merlin's extended palm. Ansuz threw down a few plastic runes and a barrier sprung up to deflect most of the assault, but several of the shots collided with him, knocking him backwards. He fell to his knees, his arms hanging limply at his sides. "What are you doing?" He asked, his voice filled with fear.

"I'm not playing your game." Merlin said sternly, "We're fighting like real mages. I'll give you one chance to surrender before I put an end to this."

Ansuz stared at Merlin, his face looked completely betrayed. It had never once crossed his mind that Merlin would be willing to fight him outright. Tears began to stream down his face, pooling on the floor around him. He raised his arms to cover his face and sobs began to tear across his body. Merlin was clearly taken aback, but she refused to back down. "Very well then." she said with a twinge of sadness. Ansuz continued sobbing. Merlin walked toward him, her arm outstretched. She stopped about two meters away from him and began speaking slowly and deliberately.

 

"Natasha Trinity Child. Magus title: Ansuz. On my authority as the second Prince, I find you guilty of misconduct in the third degree."

An orange light began to glow behind Merlin, forming into an oval with jagged eyes and mouth cut out. Her gloved palm glowed brightly in the same color.

"You have become a threat not only to yourself and not only to others, but to the very world itself."

Ansuz's sobs intensified. The light dimmed slightly, Merlin spoke as herself for a moment.

"Ansuz," Merlin said softly, "You know... I called you a witch. I really did care."

Ansuz didn't respond. The orange light grew brighter again. Merlin's eyes changed into orbs of glowing orange with those same jagged black faces on their surface.

"The world has judged you." she continued, "Your sentence is death."

Ansuz lay in the fetal position, a puddle of tears by his face as he clutched it tightly with his hands and cried.

[Sutoratosu]

"Hang on..." Cheryn pulled up the HUD again, glancing at the document for a few moments.. "Yeh, there should be one in "Dry Foods", just across the hall. A bit weird that they'd have a teleporter in that room though... but whatever. It should be just down this way..." with that said, she headed out of the room, setting a path towards "Dry Foods"

[Strider]

Sense cringed a little, as he watched this warped feminine child crying on the floor. Something had gone wrong, something in this kid's life had gone very wrong. Or a combination of things. Outside influences, his form, an inherent weakness. He had no choice in any of this. Did he choose to be born weak? Did he choose to look like a girl? Did he choose the multitude of other factors that drove him to this atrocity? No. He couldn't be blamed for any of this really, so much was probably beyond his control. But. That didn't matter. The same could be said for anyone, and being unable to control your direction in life in a world where no one could did not excuse you from justice. So, Sense sat back, waiting for the blow to be struck. He didn't turn away, but he didn't focus entirely upon this sad scene. There was one more thing still nagging at him. This all just seemed too easy. They had been able to get back to Merlin without problem, and now she had overwhelmed Ansuz without problem. And it seemed that she would be able to dispense retribution without trouble. Not enough trouble. And so, always keeping Merlin and Ansuz in his peripheral vision, where his reaction speed would be highest, he scanned the room, searching for possible traps, reinforcements, or signs of another enemy.

[Chevaleresse]

Sense wasn't the only one feeling uneasy. Ice watched the scene, face expressionless as always as she kept alert for potential incoming threats, but the bulk of her mind was devoted to considering what Merlin was doing at the moment. Merlin surely had a good reason for it, but something wasn't right about this. An execution of this sort didn't seem to be in-character for the woman. Some sort of illusion, perhaps? Or had Ice merely underestimated the practicality Merlin was capable of. And. . . if Ansuz was supposed to be such a threat, he couldn't possibly be taken down this easily.

 

"Merlin. Something is wrong. Verify the identity of your target before striking." A pause. "We know they are using children."

[Empiricist]

Exile

 

A blade of energy flashes into existence in Exile's hands as she sees the opponent, the adversary appear. And as Merlin unleashed her barrage the illusory weapon twitched as if with excitement, until... 

 

"WAIT!"

 

"His name's Natasha?" She begins giggling. She begins laughing. Rolling around in hysterics as if it were the funniest thing in the world as her now phase-shifted blade fires off at a chaotic angle, the burning energy streaking into one of the walls of stone.

[Shamitako]

Cheryn

 

"Alright, that's easy then. Let's go." Amelia said. Although she could have just gone through the wall again, she decided to follow Cheryn. They teleported over to the child bank. The lights came on as they entered, probably tied to the transporter system, and Cheryn was able to see the shelves Amelia had mentioned. Several rows of shelving filled floor to ceiling with steel and glass containers. Most of them were empty, a few of them had children, ranging from ~6 to to~14, inside them. They were wired up similarly to Tallow, and similarly seemed to be in a very deep sleep. One stasis pod (that was the most obvious thing for them to be) in particular caught Cheryn's eye, as the girl contained within it seemed much older than the rest and was wearing a lab coat.

"See, I told you this place was spooky." Amelia said. Her voice echoed throughout the room, highlighting how silent it had been before she spoke up.

 

Merlin

 

Merlin understood Ice's concern, and she would have to explain later why she chose to ignore it, but right now was no time to hesitate. A beam of orange light lanced out from her outstretched hand towards the cowering Ansuz, a deep, disturbing cackle accompanying it. It engulfed the boy, completely hiding him from view behind its deadly curtain. But when it finally faded, Ansuz was still there. A shimmering golden forcefield surrounded him. Merlin turned to look over at Charity, who was panting heavily. She didn't say anything, there wasn't anything to say, what was done was done.

 

A strange sound began to creep its way into Merlin's perception. A horrific, demented laughter had begun to fill the room, replacing Ansuz's sobs. She looked back to him, and fear struck her heart when she saw his face. Any and all sense of rationality was gone from him, it seemed that being confronted with death had finally pushed him over the edge. Merlin cursed herself, it was her fault that things had reached this point. "You liar!" Ansuz said between bouts of insane laughter, "You said I was going to die, but I didn't. HAHAHAHAHAHAH. Can't you see? The world hasn't judged me at all. HAHAHAHAHAH. And you say I'm the witch. I know you, I know you, I know you. HAHAHAHAHAH. Stop pretending. A witch is hardly a good thing. HAHAHAHAHAH. And you! HAHAHAHAH. You're were the first witch!" Merlin said nothing, stunned into silence by what Ansuz had become. Ansuz's magic cannon came into form behind him. He kept laughing. The cannon targeted Merlin, who still stood just in front of him. He kept laughing. He tossed out a set of six runes, they began to shine and floated up in front of the cannon, linking together and forming a sort of magical lens. Ansuz kept laughing. The cannon began to glow with power, ready at any moment to unleash its full might on Merlin at point blank. Ansuz kept laughing. "It's your turn now, Merlin. You couldn't kill me, but I'm going to kill you!" He shrieked.

[Raindrop Valkyrie]

Anemone

Anemone was a bit overwhelmed with the circumstance and further now due to sensory overload. The 6 runes for the lens were blinding due to her true vision. They burned bright with powerful magic. She wasn't really sure what type of magic it was however, she figured it had something to do with the giant fuck off cannon that was going to fire. Unfortunately she didn't think to prepare a barrier or some spell in advance. Probably a mistake given her style of casting. She knew they'd be entering a dicey situation, but now wasn't the time to lament what she forgot. lt was the time for action.

She stepped forward quickly touching her hand to Merlin's shoulder. lt helped to touch what she was meaning to cast around and this shield wasn't just for herself. She tapped her staff on the ground, the sound of plastic tapping on the floor it's result. A soft glow of purple came up from the floor quickly forming a bubble around Anemone and Merlin as the small mage put her arm around the woman much larger than herself. The signature symbol of the Anemone flower bloomed on the front of the barrier ever so faintly. lt started to glow brighter as Anemone funneled her concentration into it. She tried to focus everything she had. lt just to be enough to stop the blast from killing Merlin... She didn't really care if she died in the process so long as it saved her. Anemone's eyes glowed with a faint soft purple. More than her usual colour, clear she was focusing all her magic possible, that she'd entered her casting trance.

 

Spoiler

 

"Ansuz, You're not killing anyone today. Not while l'm here."

[Strider]

"Well, shit." It took Sense a moment to fully processed what had occured, and an instant to quell the feeling of hatred towards Charity. What she had done was understandable, but idiotic. She would save the murderer's life when he still had the power and the will to kill the victims? It showed a lack of trust in Merlin, and a naive understanding of Ansuz. But after Sense had pushed all these thoughts back, he quickly summoned the will, the energies that would let him do his job. And that, for now was to destroy any focus that Ansuz might have. Thus, he let out a barrage of emotions, one after the other: guilt, to make the boy think a moment longer; impotence, to make him doubt himself; reverence, to make him question whether Merlin deserved to die. Sense knew none of these would stop him. They were all delaying tactics, and distractions. With a practiced flick, the lanky man levitated and flung one of the sharper looking tools from the center of the room in a wide arc, so as to hit the boy in the side.

[Sutoratosu]

Cheryn

Spoiler

((figured we could use some uh... fittingly sinister/creepy music as BGM here))

 

"Yeah.... I can see you weren't kidding..." an ugly weight formed in the mage's gut as she took stock of the few speci-.... kids that were trapped in the room. she approached a few of the stasis chambers, peering at the faces of the children within. The boy- Tallow -wasn't anywhere in immediate sight, but in all honesty as the sight of it all dawned on her, the whole fiasco with how she had released the terrified kid took a back seat, as her eyes instantly narrowed on the girl- ney, more a young woman really -occupying one of the chambers, her coat a dead giveaway of her likely involvement in the facility. Eye's burning a faint scarlet, she stepped closer to the tank, looking up and down at the young scientist, lips curled in disgust

     "I think... that these sick fucks are growing kids here or something... like literally, making embryos and sticking em inside these things until something happens to their current subjects... or they start a new project and need more guinea pigs. Why the hell is a lab tech here though- unless...." slowly, but surely, the full implications of it all donned on her

     "... these have to be their own kids, right?" she asked the Speed God "Like... kidnapping someone else's kids, that would draw too much attention wouldn't it.... but if they use their own stock, make them from scratch as needed, do... something to them to accelerate the growth... and maybe... maybe a few out of each batch is smarter than they expect, and they turn them into another member of the team instead of just another subject. Fucking hell, these bastards could have a potentially infinite supply of kids to cut up and do whatever they want with.... and wouldn't have to worry too much about recruitment either."

[Chevaleresse]

Ice only hesitated for a split second when it was revealed that Ansuz was shielded. The party responsible would have to be eliminated at a later date; it would not be efficient to pursue that goal in the present. Merlin's safety took top priority. Her eyes seemed to burn with an inner light as she activated her Spark - a burning that may have been all too literal. "Pierce with frost. Break with ice." She sent twin shards of ice speeding through the air at two of Ansuz's runes. "Shatter with cold." A third, toward the cannon itself. "Beseeching the lords of winter. The knights of the cold leap at their call, and the lords leap at mine. With their authority, I pass my own judgement upon you. Let the will to fight be drained from your limbs, the courage leeched from your breast, and let the rage of winter shatter your body and feast upon your soul!" The final incantation was aimed at Ansuz himself, aiming to freeze him and the air around him in a good foot in any direction solid.

[Twinwolf]

Forge 

 

Forge is... really not sure how to react, besides quickly. She takes in the situation quickly, and prepares to quickly conjure a metal wall in front of Merlin - it might not withstand the cannon, but it would impede the shot and possibly give Merlin an instant to dodge or prepare her own, more effective defense. 

[Empiricist]

Exile

 

Exile's vision bounces up and down across the room watching everything but the beam. The beam was nice and all, it was flashy at least but it was terribly dull. No, there were far more fun things to be on the look out for~! Like runes! Maybe Natasha (hehe~) still has his wit's about him? With an entrance and beam like that who'll still be paying enough attention to see some traps~? And what better trap was there, than this entire room? A killing chamber baited with Natasha himself.

 

He may only care to flail about at Merlin, but what about his employer? They probably aren't too keen on all of them barging in like that, and surely they're not just going to bet on him besting his own master, right~? That'd be pretty dumb, right~? They haven't even seen any of the employees here, but all their expensive stuff was here, so they probably didn't abandon it, unless they only had a short time to run... but that's just boring! No! If she was going to think about something, it's going to be something exciting! Like beams and bullets tearing through the flimsy barricades and the bodies of everyone in this room! Ooh! Or the entire place being rigged to blow! If any room had a self-destruct, it would be this right?

 

"You know... it'd be pre-tty weird if they trusted Ansuz to beat all of us alone! Think there's a death squad waiting for us outside~? Ooh! Ooh! What about a capture-and-vivisection squad?" 

 

Prancing over to a position so that any fire coming through any of those flimsy walls won't hit her, she projects an illusion on the other side of one of those walls, an illusion of an intact wall.

[Sutoratosu]

Cheryn

 

"Trouble..." Tamar sighed beneath her breath. She doubted most of the eggheads here could put up enough of a fight to cause this much ruckuss. And if what Merlin had told them all was true, "we uh... came here to stop a traitor, get rid of any research we could find about magic, and well... I'm pretty sure the rest of them just found him. Or will soon." With that said, she turned back to the bank after bank of tubes and pods lining up and down the rooms interior, eyes scanning for even the slightest bit of movement in the dark.

     "We need to find him quick, get back to them... either Merlin's just destroyed like half the facility- she was pretty pissed last I saw her -or shit just really hit the fan. Maybe both." 

 

with that said, she started to search through the rows of pods, looking for any particular spaces where a frightened kid might be inclined to hide, calling out "Tallow" all the while...

 

God this was probably gonna take too damn long. But she didn't really know how else to search- she was a Shieldmeister after-all, not some Pyschic. Well, some basic telepathy yeh, but... not like she could just sense him if he was in the room or something.

 

 

[Shamitako]

Amelia

 

Amelia scolded her self for not realizing that the explosion was just fighting. This room creeped her to hell and back, it was impairing her judgement. Of course fighting wasn't much better than creepy rattling for no apparent reason, but at least fighting was something she could deal with. Although right now she needed to look for the boy. She realized what Cheryn was doing and decided to do the same, calling out to Tallow and searching for the soft warmth that he had been emitting when he ran through the wall. She was curious how he'd done it, she'd have noticed a spacial disturbance so it must have been him actually phasing through the wall. Her search took her a good ways away from the transporter, such that she didn't notice that one of the stasis pods near to it was opened, releasing its inhabitant.

 

???

 

The excessive rattling of her prison woke the young woman. It took her a moment to regain her bearings. She remembered that it had been time to evacuate, but not what came after. She must have done something wrong, because it seemed she'd been stuffed in a stasis pod, likely to be left behind. It must have been done in a rush, the pod was probably still calibrated for someone much younger, which is what let her wake up. She would have to yell at someone for that, calibrating one of these wrong could severely hurt the chil- She cut her own thought off and corrected it. It could severely damage the subjects. That sounded much more professional. The woman in the labcoat still didn't like being professional, but she liked being yelled at even less. With some effort, she managed to pry herself out of the pod. She heard someone calling out and followed their voice to find Cheryn. She didn't exactly know who Cheryn was, she'd never seen her before. Someone new? She went up to them, making sure not to be too quiet so they wouldn't feel she was sneaking, and introduced herself. "Hello there, I'm Genealogy." She said, "People call me Genie. I'm also referred to as C1111: Mint Tea. Can I help you?"

[Sutoratosu]

Cheryn

 

"N-Nani?" cheryn stuttered a bit, not quite expecting to turn around and find someone...calling themselves "mint tea" standing there. Well ok, 'Genealogy' was apparently her name, but gods, these eggheads were guilty of more than she even thought... naming one of the subjects... "Mint Tea" damn, there were few naming crimes a parent could commit that were worse than that...

 

but wait, wasn't she...

 

"Uh we're... looking for a friend of ours who wondered in here..." Cheryn finally answered, looking the woman- nay, a mere girl... screw it, yes, she was definitely her, without a doubt. A subtle shift lit up Cheryn's eyes as the recognition finally dawned, glowing with dim crimson "Genealogy though, eh? so you're the one who was asleep in that pod just a few minutes ago..."

 

Shit shit shit... she cursed mentally all the while. Damn their luck, of course the fucking lab techie who got frozen woke juuuuuuuust when they were trying to find Tallow... she shot a look over to Blink on the other side of the room, silently asking for help, but in all honesty? she was beginning to question if she... well if she was all there in the eyes.

     Not that she'd had anything concrete to base the feeling off of- she navigated well enough, and god knows how she pilots that giant... fucking wheel thingie if she was, but... there had still been little things, here and there... like when she had came into this room and the only things she had really been able were impressions of what was inside here, not definite descriptions, and it wasn't like this place was... particularly dark enough to hinder sight.

    Either way though, it didn't matter, she didn't feel like waiting to see if she was right or wrong in her hunch. 

 

"Hey, we got company..." the mage called to Blink telepathically "that Lab tech who was in one of the pods, she woke up..."

[Shamitako]

Genie

 

"A friend? All the way out here? Odd." Genie wasn't so much suspicious as curious. "Yes, I was in one of the pods. No clue why, we were supposed to be evacuating." Genie grabbed a notepad and pen from the chest pocket of her coat. "Can you describe them? I can request a search. Don't get your hopes up though, the others rarely take my requests." She readied herself to write, but as she did so, her mind finally processed an earlier thought. "Holy crap we're supposed to evacuate!" Her hands shot up to the sides of her head in panic, flinging the notepad and pen into the air as they went. "We have to get out of here!" She panicked, "We have to get the ki- experiments to safety!"

 

It was at this point that Amelia, who had been standing behind Genie ever since she'd heard Cheryn's telepathic message, finally decided to intervene. She grabbed Genie's coat, flipped it fully over the girl's head, and tied it back behind her. Genie looked rather stunned at her now trapped arms. Realization dawned on her face. "You! You're the emergency!"

"Chill." Amelia commanded, "We're not gonna hurt you or the kids. Right now we're looking for a skittish boy that runs away through walls, you got any way to track him down?"

"Oh, you mean Tallow, right?" Genie seemed devoid of any wariness towards her captors. "He wouldn't be in this room, the stasis pods don't work for him, even his water wisps make too much heat. There's a room not to far with a special machine for keeping him still. There's only one though, so if the others took it then he could be anywhere in the facility by now. He can't go outside though, the ambient light makes him sick for some reason."

[Sutoratosu]

Cheryn

"Photosensitivity... so he's got Albinism then? Well it would make sense I guess, with the white hair and how pale he is..." she briefly shoke her head though, clearing the distracting thought, now was the time for more pressing questions "Not important right now though. Just outta curiosity... how many other kids like Tallow did you try to make here? How many other kids you pump ungodly amounts of raw information into or did Watcher knows what else to them to try and force some magic outta them, how many before him turned out as failures, or worse? And how the hell did you end up trapped in one of these pods, if your colleagues have all apparently upped and noped the fuck out of here?"

[Chevaleresse]

Ice bit back a cry of pain and the accompanying tears. She still had to fight for Merlin. Assess the situation. Anemone wounded, possibly severe enough to lose combat efficacy. Self: unable to walk. A spike of pain drove up from somewhere in her lower back. Organ damage of some kind. Kidney? Does not appear to be immediately life threatening. Ansuz partially frozen, weapon undamaged: threat not reduced. Shielding disabled or nonexistent, evidenced by efficacy of previous assault. Merlin. . . Her mind slid over that thought, refusing to grasp it. Merlin status unknown. Feardorcha still imprisoned - minimal known combat effectiveness. Optimal course: continue attacking. Sacrifice remaining leg for increased power - will not result in meaningfully reduced capacity. "Breath of winter, cloud your sight." Clouding was perhaps the wrong term, as Ice attempted to drive thorns of ice into Ansuz's eyes, using his currently-frozen arm as a base. "Talons of winter, pierce your soul!" Her voice showed increasing strain with every word, like glass breaking under a high-speed camera as her spark twisted at her still-healthy leg, contorting it until it mirrored its twin. Her second spell attempted to use a similar base to the first, this time aiming to insert a spike of the stuff between the boy's ribs.

[ElfCollaborator]

Bartek

Bartek, having stood there, frozen as Merlin was more or less incinerated in front of his eyes. Death wasn't something Bartek was afraid of nor shied away from, though he did his best to stave it off for others, so he managed to just about phase out Merlin's demise for the moment. There would be time to mourn her later; perhaps a few drinks of goat milk in her honor, as the Kemmerich custom was. Probably with a game of goat tossing.

 

Furthermore, he was a very big, very athletic and muscular man, and Ansuz, for all his magic, was far smaller than him, and totally vulnerable after all that had just happened. He was readying a second cannon blast. Ice MIGHT stop him, but he wasn't going to lose another friend today.

"Bartek does not want to do this to little friend, but is for own good!"

With a yell, Bartek runs towards Ansuz to tackle and pin them to the ground, placing up a shield to smash through whatever defenses he has up.

 

 

Edited August 9, 2017 by ElfCollaborator

[Shamitako]

Genie

 

Others like Tallow? Genie wasn't sure precisely what was meant. She guessed that magic was being referred to. She began listing off experiments in that field. "K073: Failure. A292: Failure. D3112: Flower, Success. F266: Failure, Deceased. F276: Comet, Success. I0110: Bulwark, Success. Manager Archaea: Cinnamon, Failure. D304: Tallow, Success. C097: Gust, Success. I234: Failure. Assistant Pluto: Nerves, Success. Mage Natasha: Ansuz, Success. E3112: Animus, Success. Assistant Genealogy: Mint Tea, Failure. G032: Cheesecake, Failure. D279: Caliber, Success. G018: Chocolate Chip, Success." List complete, Genie moved on to how she'd ended up in the pod. Her mind finally managed to catch up again. "Wait. I can't tell you guys stuff, you're the enemy, aren't you?"

[Sutoratosu]

Cheryn

 

"WAIT WHAT!?" Cheryn practically leapt out of her boots at one of the mentioned names towards the middle of the list, the dim glow of crimson in her eyes seeming to intensify two fold, "Hang on hang on hang on juuuust a damn minute.... Natasha... Ansuz? Ansuz? You mean... fucking hell..." She took a step back from the girl, sighing as she gripped the bridge of her nose. Well shit, perhaps that explained why the traitor would've chosen this facility in particular to defect to.

    ....he was fucking made here. Like the rest of these kids...like her. Like those 16 other kids... "We're not your enemies by the way...." She said once she'd gathered herself, voice measured, though she couldn't help the rising sensation of disgust in her belly, the more and more she talked about this. It was the lab techies whole demeanor that set her off more than anything else, how... nonchalant she was, how unflappable in light of all the shit that had gone on here. Cheryn guessed it really was as Blink had said- the bastards had probably been bred into this system for so long, no one had the sense or the moral character to actually see what was fucking wrong with what they were doing to these kids on a regular basis... their own damn kids on a regular basis.

    "Like my friend here said, we won't hurt the kids, infact we're here to try and do the opposite... and we won't hurt you either. If you don't cause any problems for our first directive, at least. Look around you, your colleagues trapped you in this pod and left ya for dead while they ran like cowards. But neither of us are attacking you right now, now are we? And it can stay nice and civil that way, if you just keep complying and answering our questions like you've been doing."

    That said, there was still him to worry about.... none of them had ever... really heard terribly much about where merlin found him, how they met, and in all honesty, Cheryn had personally never cared enough to ask either of them about it. To her, he had always just been that kinda weird but seemingly not too threatening guy in the background, Merlin's shadow...

 

   "So" Cheryn continued, "there's been what... 17 trials so far? 17 subjects...well I want you to tell me everything you know about the subject called Natasha... Ansuz."

[Shamitako]

Genie (OOC: How much I love playing Genie seems pretty clear now, huh?)

 

Genie mulled over that proposal. It was true she'd been left behind... "You don't seem to like treating these kids like mere experiments. We have that in common." The little blonde girl that had tied Genie up in her own coat said.

"It's unprofessional to call them kids... But I don't like being professional." Genie furrowed her brow in deep thought. "Alright, I will trust you." She cleared her throat. "I think you misunderstand Ansuz's situation. She came to us not long back and offered to trade us knowledge of magic in return for help integrating her magic into a mech. The experiments performed were focused on that. I was not directly involved with that part of the experiment, but the results were quite favorable, although unfortunately impossible to transfer as the integration was only made possible by usage of Ansuz's unique ability to prepare magic in advance. I haven't seen it, but apparently her mech is unmatched in offensive power. That's probably an exaggeration, but I would still be pretty scared of being on the receiving end of her attack." That just about covered Ansuz. Now Genie had her own question, "Before you ask anything else, could I get your names?"

[Sutoratosu]

Cheryn

"... Chernobyl" Tamar responded. So... she was wrong then- Ansuz wasn't some test tube baby bred to be a guinea pig... or at least, if he was, he hadn't been made in this specific facility. Odd how the techie kept referring to the traitor as a "she" though, but Cheryn wasn't terribly surprised... it made sense in a way, the kid had always looked kinda girly at a glance so... "And uh..." 

 

she looked over at Blink, and for the first time, realized she didn't even know the speed God's name... hadn't merlin mentioned it before though? Eh, if she had, it had probably been when they were standing around doing fuck all but talking and trying both the time the other group had bought them and the patience of everyone who wanted to actually get the mission done in a timely manner.

    "Well, I'm sure she'd rather introduce herself."