SCARY TOWER SIEGE #2

[capitalm]

Who: Downtown LA Rescuers/Captives
Where: That tower that just hatched from that office building.
When: Saturday March 15th, around 6PM for when they appear.
What: A creepy looking tower hatches out of a downtown office building and superheroes come to fight it and save its captives.
Warnings: Violence, body horror, mind control, fucking creepy bullshit.

A spiral tower looms ahead, the rubble of its shattered camouflage still littering the ground. Civilians panic, the streets crowding with an unexpected traffic jam. Cyborgs flood the streets, and defensive fire opens from above.

Eventually, you break into the inside of a vast tower, like a tall layered cylinder of steel and black metal. You can see a seemingly endless height above you, and an endless depth below. Each layer is lit by a ring of multi-hued light that seems to bleed into the black material below it, like veins into flesh. A circle is cut through each layer from the tower's top to bottom, and occasionally a vast black form will rise and fall between layers - a mass of black metal with lights like eyes and grasping mechanical hands. Sometimes it takes captives with it.

Cages line the exterior walls like an arena, with other restraints set up on the layered floors outside. There is a tone of clinical order and structure without, though the black metal leaks a substance almost like the sweat of an animal. Cages open and close themselves, and smaller machines and familiar looking cyborgs wander the floors. Entire cage sections can be removed mechanically and taken to lower levels. Muffled voices and the animal cries of captured strays can be heard around the shaft, as well as the rhythmic hum of vast machinery down below.

There is no natural light here, and the tower's shaft travels far beneath the earth.

[OOC: There will be specific mod NPC posts made within each rescue log for dealing with the central hub of the AI. Remember, if you want to fight one of the Nightforce, ask a mod.]

Comments

[nitrodamus]

"Of course I'm going to," he says, looking around as if for a place to start. "How much of the tower have you covered?"

[10thingsihateaboutme]

"Well, we started at the bottom, you know, like regular people who can't haul ourselves around with our own brains," Karkat replies, as if he isn't on a team of superheroes with weird powers. He takes another glance over his shoulder in case of cyborgs, and goes on, "We split up to get around the entire thing so – pretty much anywhere higher up than here, we haven't covered."

[nitrodamus]

"Right," he drawls. "Gotta make up for you land creatures wasting time." He glances up the side of the building, contemplating where he's going to enter, but then he pauses when something comes to his attention at a delay.

"Wait - splitting up? Seriously?"

[10thingsihateaboutme]

Karkat bristles a little, faintly offended that Sollux is questioning the choices he's made about his own team. "Yeah, so we could cover more ground." He frowns, defensive, and adds, "The others will be fine, they're tougher than me."

[nitrodamus]

Hells of eyebrow raising right here. Sollux gives him a look as if to indicate 'wow why would you ever', but is relatively swift to move on.

"Okay, well, you should probably get the band back together because those guys almost killed you. I say this based on actual intel."

[10thingsihateaboutme]

"I said they're tougher than me," Karkat says; "those guys are all at least C rank, alright, Katniss can fly, Jon has a healing factor and his goddamn dog..." He huffs. "They'll call if they get in trouble. Look, if you want to help, check out the higher levels and let people out, we don't have time for this."

[nitrodamus]

Sollux is really not sure what makes Karkat think that he gives a shit about what the other guys are doing.

"KK, I'm saying that I literally just heard you die a few minutes ago," he snaps, a growl rising in his throat. "Stop fucking around! No shit they're tougher!"

[10thingsihateaboutme]

Because as far as Karkat is concerned, the worst implication of what Sollux is saying is that he's made decisions that will screw other people over, rather than himself, and so that's what he's most offended by – but he does balk at that, his ears flattening against his head.

"No fucking way," he says, but he doesn't sound much like he disbelieves it. He growls in frustration. "Well it obviously wasn't a pinpoint accurate predictor of the future, was it?"

[nitrodamus]

"I guess not," he says. "But it pretty much always is when I hear it like that. Except this time I actually had the chance to do something about it before it could be."

There's something meaningful to that. For much of his life, Sollux has felt as if he was powerless to change these things, with the way it had always worked out on Alternia. The fact that he actually stopped something - it's important to him. Even if it all just sounds like the same bullshit to someone from the outside.

"Point is I don't give a shit about what they're doing. You've got guys supporting you that are tougher, so fucking use them."

[10thingsihateaboutme]

Karkat lets out an exasperated little huff. "Fine," he says, "fine, okay." He gives Sollux a Look that's annoyed and resigned, but accepting, and holds up his hands, having hooked his sickles into his belt. "I'll find the others, sure. Now get out of here, you're not my moirail."

[nitrodamus]

Sollux smirks at him a bit, glad that his argument has had some traction. He pulls away from the window he's made, waving Karkat off.

"Damn right, I'm not," he says with an air of satisfaction. He pauses for a moment. "Oh right, and if I don't see Metabee before I have to go, tell him that he sucks at Mario Kart."

On that note he flies away.