AW [Secret World] Luminocity

[Big Dicc Marty]

Between the rude transfer to the weird kids, the uncomfortable rock of troop transport too similar to dusty remote gravel back roads and the now oppressive weight hanging on his shoulders inside this all too quiet lobby far asunder from what should be order, Justice was nervous. He hardly even had a grasp on his abilities. Being able to bend the will of his own muscles to summon some sense of strength on his scrawny frame didn't transfer too terribly well, the best he has practiced was twisting away another person's arm to make clean shots harder. The small stack of books he keeps about anatomy hasn't helped nearly enough even after the hours of late night studying and practice.

The pressure to impress was arguably worse than that gnawing unease that had his palms clammy and his far too powerful brain racing to halt and tremors that wanted to arise in protest of his anxiety. Calm yerself, Jack. You'll make it. Scraped knee ain't nuthin'.

Justice continued to recite the words of affirmation in that low drawl he missed so much as his watery eyes scanned the chaotic lobby, looking over the chunky morphs of armor for some insight into just what happened. Look 'round ya boy, what woulda deer do? He paused at the map, slowly stepping forward to get a clearer picture. What woulda deer do? Justice thought over and over, mumbling the evacuation procedures as he read them. Were he a deer, scared and frightened, he'd follow those evacuation procedures. He would have seen it over and over and over and practiced by rote. Even if it doesn't lead to anything good, he would be proud Justice at least learned where everything is. That's why they hiked up the mountain. To see the city. To learn the place of everything and everyone and take pot shot guesses at what would happen next.

 

[Gunhand4171]

As they were all shuffled in the elevator Judgment gave a slight nod to Justice in greeting as they waited.

He spent the entire ride to the reactor in silence, contemplating what they might find, only breaking the revelry to listen in on Black and Blue's instructions.

Once they arrived, Judge stuck to Kay like glue staying just behind and to the right of her as they walked into the facility.

As soon as they reached the lobby, he felt the alien pressure against his mental defenses. His hand shot to his head, as his stomach began to churn. This was bad... what the hell was it?

When Kay went to her knees, he moved next to her. His hand rested on her shoulder as she began speaking. "I'll help you." He said from her side looking to the other AUGURs and giving a nod as if to say 'I got her.'

Moving next to her he began expanding his own awareness out as far as he could, allowing his precognative ability to take hold. He was trying to find what was around them, and more importantly what was about to happen.

 

[LavaLung]

For the majority of the trip over, Moon was simply doing their best to hide an overwhelming delirium and nausea. She didn't want to appear quite so useless, before they even reached the damn facility itself. Fortunately the rear of the APC was quite dimly lit, and the sound of the rain on the metal hull lulled them into a semi-comfortable half-sleep that drowned out the worries of the real world.

She thought about how Judgement and Hierophant coped. They didn't have the visual stimulus to distract them, only the naked minds of others exposed to them. How did one stay sane with all that... Unending, torrential noise?...

Actually walking through the rain was something else. It was sickly and humid, not the refreshing kind of shower at all.

Just keep moving, Moon... One foot in front of the other... Focus on the person with the most drive?...

or, perhaps...

"...Justice... Your spirit ills..." A ghostly-half-whisper. The tall, white-haired girl didn't look at him, only moving into his vicinity with her palms arced upwards at the elbows. It was like she was running her fingers through his personal space, somehow teasing at the negative aura and trying to divide him from it. "...Use your... other eyes... feel how Black rages... This is how we will... assert our survival... yes..."

Kay was calling for assistance- Judgement attached herself to her before Moon could even turn around. They really were two of a kind, she considered...

Now, her own eyes were open. There was a cold pit inside her stomach. An uncertain frailty in her bones. But she was going to use it, she decided. Channel it outwards. Weaponize it.

She moved behind the reception desk, and put out her tendrils. She wanted a target. An unfamiliar organic body, to focus this feeling towards. There had to be something, even just the warmth of a recently touched keypad or handle...

The river only needed a direction for it to flow...

 

[Wolf626]

After the tie debacle, Magician kept quiet. Initially it was because of the shock of the memory, but afterward it was because of something else. Someone else. The Lady Tiamat. Magician felt she'd fit in right with underworld mob bosses, grandmasters of assassin guilds and fairy tale queens of air and darkness. What some books had described as a "baddie". Someone to be wary off.

But then they brought out the guns. Magician wished he could whistle as he was handed his own psypistol, it would've been classic. Instead he settled for the classic line. "A more civilized gun for a barbaric age."

After fiddling with it for a bit, remembering to not point it at anyone and to keep his finger off the trigger, he holstered it. It unbalanced him a bit, the weight. He felt it was appropriate. A weapon should weigh heavy in a hand. The weight of death.

As he listened, to the briefing he nodded along. Seemed standard mid book plot level mission. Clearly something was gonna go wrong, and they'd find some clues that lead to the final boss. No biggie. So, Magician asked the truly important question. "Don't we get a cool codename too?"

As the liquidator, introduced Justice, magician couldn't help it. He looked at Justice. Then at Judgement. Then at Justice again. He leaned towards Kay and whispered, "There's two of them now..."

Facility, Lobby

There was a certain appeal to watching masters of their craft do their work. It didn't matter what it was. Cooking, building, cleaning and more. It was probably something deep inside the human's pattern recognition psyche. All tasks could be entertaining to watch as long as they were done quickly, efficiently and symmetrically. So, the young augur watched in marvel as the raid happened.

He followed behind Judgement, keeping close by. Then it hit. The mental equivalent of the sewer waste coming from roses. Polarity shifting. Up was down and vice versa. It was wrong, all wrong. It was alien, in the oldest sense of the word. But they'd been trained. So Magician did what he did best. He distracted himself.

"Black and white... dun dun dun... red and yelllow then came..." he muttered and hummed, the half-remembered song. One of his few safeguards. "As above and below, I imagine..."

Magician knew he wasn't the strongest, or quickest or smartest of the Augurs. All things told he was average. Equal in all aspects. A jack of all trades. Magician liked the old stories, the really ancient tales. Jacks were archetypes from such stories. Crafty ol' bastards who tricked gods and fairys and demons, leaving nothing but a nod, a wink and a wisecrack. He liked Jacks. So he decided early on he was gonna try to be one. He couldn't fully block out the external pressure. But...

He could withstand out just enough to try and sense where it came from. Just enough to get a bead on them and call it out to the others. Good thing he was good at multi tasking. So has he muttered, mumbled and sung, Ciaphas reached out with his third eye, looking, seeking and probing for the origin of the wrongness.

 

[Soresu]

The strangeness of the sensation was nigh on incomprehensible. Hermit felt it. Her mind tried to translate it into sensation, to process this into something not dissimilar to a familiarity of bodily expression. With Kay and Judgement investigating, Moon going about her task, Hermit all but ignored Justice. She had nothing against him. But so consumed in her thoughts, the young lady had been steadily moving around the reception area.

Her peculiarities lie in the biological matter of things. Coupled with vision so acute that it helped in the manipulation of the delicate makeup of organic matter. The others' awareness had expanded, this she felt, even as this... pressure? Something she had come to associate being akin to one's ears needing to be popped. Or a pressure headache perhaps. Her jaw worked reflexively.

"Skin flakes, human, crappy shampoo residue, not old, mildly fresh," she murmured, humans shed them like dogs or cats did hair regularly. Squatting near what appeared to be clean tile, her head tilted slightly to set the beret precariously on the verge of falling. So intent, the young Augur hadn't so much as blinked for a couple of minutes behind the glasses. Her eyes lubricating of their own by rote accord.

"We... can't explain the feeling. I'm trying to associate it with needing your ears popped, or a pressure in your head. Something is there but isn't something you can feel. Imagine that subtle feeling of being watched you can sometimes get. But no one is around or you can't see them. It's just... the wrongness part." giving the same answer, the latter portion as Kay audibly showing just how disturbing and distressing it was.

Her words were barely loud enough to be heard while focused on the floor. A moment longer and accompanied by a grunt she returned to her feet. Head slowly turned even as her body moved without the encumbrance of needing to see where it was going. Near one of the doors leading to the interior past the lobby, Hermit stopped. Almost reaching to touch the frame, halting and then the keypad. Inspecting them both in minute detail.

Could the reactor, that impossible creation be causing this sensation? Part of her compartmentalized mind tried to rationalize while the remainder worked on other problems. It was something she had been slowly learning to do. The brain was a computer of a sort. Able to perform many processes at once. And now she had assigned part of that capability for that particular problem.

Hermit peered at the muddy prints marring strewn papers on the floor. Taking from them what she could decern. She raised a thin arm, slender fingers curled with one pointing. In a slow arc, Hermit waved it from one point to another. Tracing something, likely were those that had stormed in before, retracing their steps and whatever little details she had gathered. This was more Judgement and Kay's thing than her own. Moon was more aware and specialized in this than her as well.

"Mister Blue, Miss Black?" she finally called, "This is more Judgement and Miss Kay's thing. Moon as well. I can only tell you people were here. Decern their health from whatever residual organic matter and take in more minute detail." deflated, but still with a few embers of a fire in there.

"This could be from the Task Force, bits of what I can make out are from different people. They still seem... mildly fresh. Flakes, skin flakes, little hairs. Differing material in the dirt under their boots." she sketched out a pattern or rather tried to by pointing for them.

 

[Char]

Lobby

Through their investigations, it became steadily apparent that the utilities present were well used. Latent and lingering oils on keys gave indications of possible 6-digit combinations on keypads as their advanced cogitation abilities deciphered in moments what would take a normal person likely hours of guestimating codes before all possible routes were cleared.

Aside security office was easily entered; Banks of monitors displaying outside cameras in IR spectrums to better cut through the darkness and rain, the lobby in various angles, and a few side halls beyond where any of them could easily make out the distinctive sheen of perspiration trails from the entry teams passing through. Little else beyond as it became all too likely it was just the most minor of checkpoints.

The reception terminal was also partly a bust as the phones various speed dials simply rang endlessly at various points without answer only to be met with message machines requesting their information to be contacted again at a later date. The terminal there was still active on the facility's private network but with too-little network, clearance to discover anything beyond the mundane when prying deeper as whatever receptionist was pretty much only allowed scheduling meeting reservations, and sorting through mail too mundane for their superiors to bother with.

The map, likewise was only surface-level detail of publicly available spaces and fire/emergency evacuation routes. Even so it was memorized with clarity at just a glance by any of them.

While investigations were made it was hard not to dedicate at least some of their attention to Kay and Judgement still stoicly sat in the center of the lobby with Black lingering nearby as Blue stood off by the entrance. As the two focussed their mental energies outwards in a sweeping motion that swept over and through them like an invasive scan only to pass on as it expanded outwards. Able to tap in to some degree the nearest of their surroundings was made as clear as day to them all without needing to worry about things like walls or line of sight.

The ground floor was noticeably barren. The entry teams were obvious to them as the teams swept out in small clusters; The liquidators' team burning bright with a resonance of familiar psychic wavelengths that paused only briefly when the scan washed over them, only to be responded to by what could only be three with a responding pulse of empathic energy.

The feeling he gave off to them was one of confusion, apprehension, and concern. The emotions processed and disseminated instantly as nearly the entire ground floor was swept over.

And was completely empty with the exception of themselves...

A facility of this size, they all knew by simple mental maths, should have at least 500-600 employees. And beyond just the entry team it was simply... empty...

"What do you mean, gone?" Black questioned when they broke the connection, Kay physically swaying as she fought the vertigo of so much processed information after she began to mumble everything they saw.

"Gone." She affirmed again, "No sign of even a mouse, this floor at least." She followed up.

"Sub-levels?" blue asked, rejoining them as he referred to the levels below the facility where the actual meat of the machines and the actual reactor lay.

"Too deep, can't see through the ground; Jus soaks up anything we throw at it."

Deeper in the ground level of the facility was a bank of stairs and elevators that led downwards deeper into the facility, she explained. Of which one of the teams was already stacking up against the door to one such stairwell; The signals emanating from the bulkhead indicating it was quite the security door as anti-em pulses surged through it to avoid EMP or power surges from locking the door down.

They breached the door without issue and within moments they were out of their psychic senses as they descended downwards with the other teams answered some kind of signal from them and began to converge on the stairwell.

"Time to move." Blue cut in, clearly on the same net as the other teams.

It was hard for judgment to break the psychic link with Kay as she seemed completely zoned out. The strange feeling of wrongness was strange and psychically charged in some way to be both receptive and resistant at the same time and was strongly distracting to gaze upon with the third eye. With some gentle shaking and nudging from Black, however, Kay snapped out of her trance and the two of them took a moment to fight off the vertigo of their returning senses.

"Vanguard has reached the subfloor, time to move out." Blue urged them on as they followed the advanced teams' path. Twice they passed other teams tasked with a more in-depth investigation and securing of the ground floor and waved them on without pause. Just as noticeable was out of place, small metal disks secured to the walls at every junction and were instantly recognizable as Three's matter-shaped tools, though their use was still unknown.

Investigating anything else was nearly impossible as the pressure and wrongness grew the closer they got in their destination until just a few halls away from the stairwell Blue paused and leaned into the comm-bead in his ear urging the others to hold as well as the team filed into a breakroom of some kind to get out of the main throughway while he listened to the report.

"The reactor control room is secure, Liquidator Mitzi's team are moving on the reactor and-" Blue started to inform them before everything began to shift as all of their senses experienced some kind of vertigo as, like a bubble popping the immense pressure blew outwards until it was just barely perceptible at the very fringes of their senses as if they had been underwater before now only to have just breached the surface.

Blue was about to follow up but was easily ignored as, she seemed to have not noticed lacking their enhanced senses when the faint vibrations started a moment before in the same tempo that the faintest echos of gunfire came from the direction of the stairwell even with several junctions and walls blocked them from it.

"What 's that!?" Kay shrieked at something only she could see as she staggered against a desk with both hands pressed to her temples; Blood already leaking from her nose.

 

[Gunhand4171]

Lobby

Judgment kept quiet as Kay relayed the information to Black, trying to keep from spilling his guts all over the floor. Pushing his precognition and sight well beyond what he could do on his own took a toll on the young gen II AUGUR. As Black got Kay back on her feet, he too slowly rose from the floor swaying in place for a moment before he began slowly following behind the others. "I don't like this place. It's all wrong." He said, more to himself than anyone in particular.

As they moved further into the compound, that feeling of wrongness only increased further. It made his skin crawl and insides churn.

Then everything got so much worse.

He fell to his knees as Kay screamed out, trying desperately to stay upright. Ignoring Blue, he tried to focus on the other AUGURs and yelled "Shield your minds!" Taking his own advice, he began erecting his own mental barricades in an attempt to stave off the worst of what was coming.

Reaching out, he placed a hand on Kay. Maybe the two of them could make sense of what the hell was happening. "Show me, Kay."

 

[Soresu]

Hermit let out a yelp and out of reflex kept trying to flex her jaw of momentary shock. It was a pop (to her what of the others?) in her senses. More pops went off, and the shriek made her look to Kay and her bloodied nose. Beginning to reach out only to retreat at remembering where the blinded young man knelt beside.

One of her eyebrows twitched whether from this whole situation or the sensation that had just hit them all she had brought her arms up as if cold. "She may need to be checked after, Judge," Hermit cautioned, "Nosebleeds for people like us may not be a good thing." and then opined, "And pushing it might make it worse if it is," her look was on their teacher then to Black and Blue. Wondering what they'd think of what it'd imply. She was leaning toward risking it solely on how Blue reacted.

Tissue repair on a brain wasn't exactly a walk in the park. Something she didn't even comprehend trying yet. Or if ever. But her head pounded, eyes watering, teeth clenched as a shudder passed through her. "Bad, Bad, Bad, Bad," she murmured, her skin prickling with goosebumps and heart thumping in her chest. Whatever it was the Augurs were feeling, and the Liquidators either couldn't or were ignoring was also having its own impact on Hermit.

 

[Big Dicc Marty]

Justice has blindly followed his teammates when the mental assault had begun. He had been toying with the map and where they were on the, toiling with a mental canvas to keep him from stressing about his immediate surroundings. The thunder echoed in the distance, luring him from his train of thought until Judgement had called for defense. It was barely enough time for the rest, much less a more novice AUGER like Justice to properly defend whatever intrusion was threatening him. So he fell.

Justice found himself bracing against the ground and the invasive static that intruded just after he had managed to recover from the almost explosive depressurization in his senses. His voice cracked into a scream, quickly burning into aggravation. Regardless of the damage, Justice rose to his feet and endured the long swirling faintness. The appreciation of his father warmed him to yell, "Come on! COME ON, GET UP!" He called to the rest and any that had taken the hit, though mostly to himself. Justice barely fumbled with his psypistol, slapping the small screen open and leveling the barrel towards the door. His legs kept shifting, like rabid dogs bashing into the door, wanting to release and go fuck up whatever had caused him distress but the reigns of a second thought held him to the orders of his handlers. He seethed, unaware to the warm blood seeping from his nose.

 

[Wolf626]

Lobby

Many years from this day, Magician would agree without a doubt that he only survived through sheer dumb luck. As he let his sight wander through the building, his perception alert, sensitive. Exposed.

It came like a lightning bolt, straight into his skulls. Sounds mixed with images, blurring faster and faster. Bells that sounded like thunder, whispering roars that gnawed at his mind. Fire burning into his retinas. He barely remembered falling into ground and cutting his head. It was only the habit drilled into Augurs that saved him as the young Lusiad reassembled his mind defenses once more automatically.

"T-the Golden King!" he shouted, delirious with the sensory overload. His mind went back to stories of eldritch beings in search of context. "He sits on a throne of skulls! Red eyes aglow beneath a rusted crown!"

But yet, some small part of Magician, some small nugget of defiance still shone through, as the young man pointed in the direction of the enemy. The source of the attack.

 

[A_Bibor_Farkas]

Staying quiet, Towers calm was the only way to stifle the sheer bloodthirsty rage that began to well up into her chest as the APC reached its destination. The lobby was odd, the feeling of emptiness, as if not a single life other than the teams, felt like a pitch black void. The wrong feeling made contact with Towers mind and she winced, looking around to her fellow Augurs,"Hierophant....this isn't going to end the way we think." Her tiny frame, stayed close to moon and Justice,waiting listening, trying to ascertain the origin of the negative feeling. The halls seemed to echo in her mind,like a drip of water. constantly falling making an echo, a ripple through her mind as the teams continued into the Lobby. watching the teams move like water flowing into an open basin, Tower was lost in her mind, the nagging pressure ripping at her mind, the feeling only pressed harder and harder before the pressure came to a head. watching her comrades fall one after another. Tower collapsed in pain, her hands falling to her temples, looking up at the shape near the desk."B-Blue.......T-The desk!" her scream echoed through the room as Towers thin frame became limp momentarily, as an arm grasped at her throat. another mind making herself known. now more serious. Tower slowly lifted herself from the floor wincing, blood trickling from her nose as her grey and gold eye glowed,shakily her hand unlatched the retention on her holster slowly fighting the onslaught before dropping the pistol, falling to the floor. the ground near the desk of the lobby began to shift, slowly like water, before snaking back to the young girl, as a short wall jutted from the ground, the overwhelming pressure finally beat out her stubbornness. The wall maybe four feet tall, creating a literal barrier between the augurs and the entity.

 

[Char]

Office

After the perceivable pop in reality and the various effects, it had on the psychic members of the group the crescendo of shooting tapered off. True to their training Blue and Black ignored everything except for the immediate threat as their PDW's were raised to each cover a sector parallel to the one entrance to the room.

Blue moved one stabilizing hand off of his weapon and slowly towards his ear where he held it over the single button of his combed until the now almost audible audio chatter of dozens of OIA agents instantly panicking or reacting or tripping up over each other on the channel was cut off. Even Black stuck to her training and her seemingly more approachable and endearing personality was creased over by a stoney mask of disinterest towards the various over the top reactions to the psychics as her now dilated pupils through her mask lock solely ahead with her weapon as stock-still as a statue.

While they focussed on security the psychics were left mostly to their own eccentricities and were forgotten momentarily. Kay, recovering rather quickly took a deep breath and subsequently blew both nostrils out at once with a shotgun spray of blood to clear her sinuses before she righted herself against towers chest-high wall of upholstered carpet and vinyl laminate pulled from a mostly barren floor.

"Incredible." She mumbled to herself as the plastic sleeve around her oversized tuning fork began to unweave and melt as if held to a flame before it slid off to reveal the radioactive metal instrument.

What most had seen with their senses opened was still undecipherable. A jumble of colors and non-euclidian symbols and overwhelming senses and a still lingering sense of vertigo before the sensation of an electric spike to the brain forced a withdrawal. If Kay, the most perceptible of them saw or made sense of anything different she didn't speak up as she too ignored the others and clearly once again extended her senses.

When the rest of them opened up again it felt much the same as before with the exception that the pervasive and oppressive feeling from before was simply gone.

The air was different; More humid and thicker with a dense concentration of motes compared to before. There was also a more populated feeling to the facility as the air felt more charged with recent lingering biological signals. While all this was processed the shooting ceased as it became clear from context clues that they were either reloading, or...

When several seconds passed and nothing started up again the quiet was broken as the group enhanced senses first picked up the slapping sound of bare feet on the tile floor out in the hall a fraction of a second before black; Her weapon already pointed in that direction twitched just an inch in that direction more as she too heard the approaching figure and adjusted.

Blue kept to his own sector.

As the target came closer Black began to visibly track it almost accurately through the wall through some means of training as the psychics could more accurately track and make more accurate guesses as to the individual with their senses and processing abilities.

By the slapping gait of his or her bare feet limbered more than actually ran with some kind of limp or slump from the uneven footfalls. When Black trained her weapon slowly to the left tracking it through the wall and it passed by the solid door Blue took over as it entered his sector until it continued down the hall and out of earshot.

Even then Black and Blue didn't move for a good thirty seconds, audible clicks as their weapons were safetied was the only indication that the danger had passed. While blue continued to loosely cover the door black finally turned her attention back to the group as her empathic energies went from hyper-fixiation and concentration to loose concern when she glanced at first Kay and then Tower, Magician, and the others.

"Somethings changed," Kay stated matter of factly without her usual mirth, eliciting a nod from Black who, in turn, one again looked questioning at the other psychics.

"We're leaving, fortify yourselves" Was Blues' response with an emotionless statement as to most of their emotional situation as he carefully tapped a screen on the underside of his wrist which ended with a click sound coming from each psypistol as an electrical lock was unleashed.

From the direction, the passerby had traveled three rapid gunshots eclipsed all else from the hall over and then went silent.

 

[Soresu]

How long had Hermit held her breath from that electrical shock to the brain and the sound of flesh on the floor? Feet? The sensations had been like an assault on the basic five senses a normal human could quantify. Trying to explain it to Black and Blue would be like trying to explain color to a blind person, music to the deaf. It had just been... intensely wrong. Her stomach had felt like she'd been flipped, or fell, that feeling of nausea and palpitations of the heart. It had been such a jumble, then that shock came, and Hermit fell back within her protective bubble of self-imposed isolation. It was only then she had found herself holding her arms. Like she had felt a chill.

Once Kay had blown her nose free of snot and blood like twin cannons, the Augur had come forward, her step light as Blue spoke. Her teacher would feel one of Hermit's hands press against her forehead. As if checking her temperature. Whatever sensation passed between the pair was for them, but she murmured to Kay right to her ear, that her serotonin levels had spiked higher than normal for Augurs. The left half of her brain had been firing erratically with a hemorrhage mending. Her words to the older Augur had been succinct, to the point as taught.

Her hand had moved from Kay's forehead quickly at the sound of the clicks, and Blue speaking. Followed by the rapid report of three shots going off... then silence. Looking to her fellows, the Agents, Hermit's hand caressed the pistol grip.

"Did anyone else feel that from Three earlier?" her voice low clearly not asking the two OIA, "Confusion, concern... apprehension. I think he was surprised, maybe scared," her red locks bounced a little as Hermit looked from side to side as if searching for someone visible to the eye. But dared not to reach out with her other senses. Those disks from before, the earlier emotion, and now the deathly quiet after the Bulletstorm and whatever had been said over the two's communication devices. The thin girl looked at Black, while her glasses obscured her eyes, she stared up at the OIA woman intently. Then to Blue at his order, nodding reluctantly. Of course, she felt concerned for her fellow Augurs, even the suits, her mind tried running through the permutations of what could have possibly happened from what had thus far been gathered.

It wasn't pleasant. Or it was just her cheery optimism.

 

[Gunhand4171]

Office

Judgment took several long seconds before rising back to his feet. The whole time he was battling with his stomach to keep it from sending its contents from spilling all over the floor. Looking back down the hall, he saw the figure that shambled by. It was only after it had moved on that he realized he was holding his breath. Allowing his mind to slowly expand outwards once more, he could see the figure in double. One moved slightly faster than the other as it left his range.

He had to stop himself from jumping when Kay spoke. The AUGUR was uncharacteristically on edge. He wanted to shut himself away like before, but he had to fight the fear that gripped him. If he didn't use his precognition, then they may get ambushed and someone might die. Expanding his consciousness as far as he dared, he allowed his precog to begin expanding as well, giving himself a few extra seconds of sight. He just hoped that would be enough of a warning.

Looking in Hermit's general direction, he nodded. "I did, but I couldn't make sense of it at the time. It was all of those emotion at once. It was hard to decipher at the time." He said quietly. He wanted nothing more than to get the hell out of this place.

 

[LavaLung]

Office

Moon had been quiet as the dead since the shocking contamination of the unseen entity had washed over them. Them, plural- She absorbed the emotions of the group, tuned in to every aspect of boiling despair and fear under the surface. It was quite possible she was picking up the total dismemberment of the other team too, but the rampant nosebleeds within her own cadre drowned out any specifics.

Deaf? Blind? On the verge of an out of body experience, she self-actualised an image of a brain that was ruptured, broken. Fragmented into areas of disconnected yellow mass like a smashed pomegranate. Her brain?

Hands with too many fingers clasped and teased, folding the parts back into a neat little pulsating package again. Real hands? Or from... somewhere else?

In the outside world, a shaky hand rose to her face, grasping her glasses and revealing a pair of eyes that did not flinch or blink. The tall banshee suddenly realised they were not only back in reality, but also that they were now the only one not bleeding.

...What part of this was real?... Did she just discover a power, or was this just one step closer to her falling over the edge for good?...

"P-peace, be still!" Moon spread her arms out wide, dousing the others with a feeling not unlike being doused with pure, cold water. The corrosive feeling of 'the other' was still lurking somewhere beyond the wall ahead... And, well, the crazy bitch still didn't have her gun out...

But being close to her somehow made the headaches more manageable? Somehow, it was actively possible to focus?

They made a special case of seeking out Magician and cradling his head with both hands. A kiss graced his scalp.

Freezing. Her flesh was freezing. But it was... soothing?...

 

[Char]

At silent signals from Black the group was succinctly formed up between her at the rear and Blue at the front. Blue fidgeted with his radio for a moment while the psychics were headed but ultimately discarded it into a pocket after interference loud enough to be audible nearly deafened the man.

When the group was at least resembling orderly he heel-toed towards the door with silent and precise steps while Black; At the rear of the group stood off at an angle to cover ahead of him. Instead of simply walking up to the exit he instead stood off to the side where he could open it with his gun barrel pointed towards the door as he gingerly put one hand on the handle.

No sooner had his index finger began to depress the lever to pull open the door than he froze as still as a statue.

Even slower than he had approached the door, Blue took a painfully slow half step back and raised his weapon to point directly at the door as a tense and palpable killing intent radiated off of him as some kind of operator's sixth-sense kicked in. Still moving as if he was moving through molasses he lowered himself to half his posture; Weapon still trained and ready.

The tense silence was cut with a startling six audible slap sounds that alerted them from the back of the group as Black, following some unseen signal put six rounds starting to the left of the door and leading them to the right until the last shot passed just a foot above Blues' head where he had just been standing.

Blue tensed his knees and shot up back to a standing position and shot a gloved hand towards the door just as the psychics heard 'it'.

The sound was like the vibration of a bass speaker mixed with a gurgling the human throat was incapable of replicating. Blue for his part did not hesitate from it and threw the door open with one hand while the other fired his jackhammer SMG three times at the figure as he stitched a pattern up a brown and gnarled leg, into its groin and chest.

While all this took place the fight or flight response of the situation kicked off the psychic's hyper cogitation and processing as the world slowed around them each individually until Blue seemed to be moving like he was underwater.

What stood at the other side of the door was only human in the fact that it stood on two legs, had two arms, and a barely passable facsimile of a human torso. From there it was all wrong. The skin of the naked creature was tight, dry, and cracked like tree bark and with a gray-brown pallor to it was unsettling. Each arm had two elbow joints instead of just one and were half again longer than a normal human to the point that its three-fingered hands ended in strange sphincter-looking digits would have brushed its knees.

The torso and chest were also unnatural as the torso was fat like a muffin and instead thinned out at the chest where the usually pronounced structure of the ribcage and solar plexus defined on a normal man was missing as it simply morphed into a C shape from the stomach until the shoulders.

THe most unsettling part was the 'head'. It had to neck, and instead a flower-bud like node the size of a football rested between the shoulders and had unfirled and opened up like a blooming flower until five petal-like mandibles opened up and exposed rows of asymmetrical teeth lining each petal with hooked shapes as a prehensile barbed tongue covered in similar calcium growths already languid out of a throat analog and was almost three feet long as it whipped about.

The vibrating sound was coming from the creature and emanated from the chest and out of its mockery of a petal mouth until it sounded like an unending vomiting sound.

By the time they digested this Blue had already put three rounds into the creature's chest and Black had just put her first round into its mouth; The 10mm bullet passing out the back of where a spine would be. The rapid assault of ballistics staggered the creature back against the wall where it flailed with every bullet that hit it. But still kept moving even when clearly vital areas that would have contained the heart, lunges, spleen, spine, and throat where succinctly hit.

Each round punched into the creature and opened as the kinetic vacuum of the round pushed through it until the wound just as quickly formed around itself like rubber would until just a pinprich-sized sphincter-shaped wound remained that no blood came out of.

Over twenty 10mm rounds were put into the creature's center mass in the three seconds the door had been open. Clearly processing the situation as fast as the augurs themselves Blue reached out one of his burly arms and grabbed the creature by one ankle and pulled it off its feat and dragged it into the room with one hand while firing five more shots into it in the time it took him to bring it into the room. In that same instance Black took up his position and leaned out into the hall.

The humanoid monstrosity was thrown into the center of the room where it sluggishly twitched on the floor clearly still alive in some capacity as it lethargically twitched and attempted to twist.

His gun still aimed at the creature, Blue addressed the Augurs without looking away from his target as they were able to mentally feel his attention placed on them.

"Find out what it is and more importantly; How do I kill it." The man demanded of them as he performed through sheer training and muscle memory in just thirty seconds what most of them needed to psychically enhance their minds and bodies to replicate without his years of experience.

"Now." He stated again, clearly breaking most of them out of a stupor at the commanding tone of this voice.

At the door Black was leaning against the doorframe only just enough to train her own weapon down one direction of the hall where the first passerby had gone less than a minute before.

 

[Big Dicc Marty]

Justice was caught off guard by the complete horror that had just taken every shot by one of his handlers, yelling in shock and staggering back and wildly firing at the thing as it stumbled and fell in the room. Once the initial gasp and struggle of comprehending that this thing survived their handler, Justice hastily came to the realization that it was on him to restrain this thing. He dropped his gun with a clatter and instantly rose his arms up, holding them in the air and concentrating on the feeling and muscles oscillating, driving his arms and bones to their position. It took some energy to think as deep as he was wanting, to project the feeling on the inhuman thing and hope that it's hands would soon be restrained against the floor, but it was his first attempt at using his psionics outside of training and twisting the arms of other Augurs that looked to antagonize him.

It was more than he was typically comfortable with, but he thought to try it with just how little Justice knew about the beast. He focused on his legs as well, standing tall and proud with his knees locked, projecting every feeling and every input his nerves gave. Out of his comfort zone, but he felt the warmth of accomplishment rising, Yer doin' good son.

 

[Wolf626]

The first thing that Magician felt was the disorientation. The lack of the noise, that awful thought consuming, painful noise. He laid on the hard floor for what must have been seconds. He was woken up by a cool sensation on his forehead. Considering the near fever he had it was nice. A moment of respite.

The young Augur felt tempted to fall asleep there and then. But his friends? Family? The other Augurs needed him. So, he gritted his teeth and lifted himself up. "T-thanks Moon. I owe ya some pancakes."

Rising to his weary feet, Magician drudged on, passing by Tower he gave her a curt but sincere, 'good job'. As he neared, Judgement and Hermit, he caught wind of their conversation.

"You guys alright?" he asked before nodding at where the entity had been hauled. "Is it too late to propose we just blow this place up and burn the rubble?"

Despite saying it as an attempt at levity, Magician was truly considering it.

 

[Gunhand4171]

Judgment looked towards Magician and nodded. "Yeah... I'll be fine. Just need to get out if here."

Then the AUGUR watched in horror as the monster flew in. Before he knew it Justice had jumped onto the creature in an attempt to restrain it. He needed to figure out how to kill this thing. Bullets seemed to have no affect. But maybe...

"Hermit! Can you takes it ability to heal away?!" He asked as he ran other scenarios in his mind. Using his precognition he tried to see what would happen of he shot the monster in certain places. Where could he shoot to cause the most damage...?

 

[Soresu]

'Let it go, let it flow over and past you... like water. Yeah, like water. Keep it together girl!' Hermit kept telling herself as the Liquidators poured fire into the monstrosity. Stuck in place with her glowing eyes wide behind the glasses. Whatever it was looked straight from a horror movie made manifest. In the flesh! The gunfire and sounds it made intermingled and sent a shudder through her and a chill down her spine. The other Augurs getting a small taste of something only rarely ever experienced.

Hermit's fear.

She had heard Blue bark his order. But the object of her attention was grotesque. Until Judgement's voice snapped her out of it. Her fellow Augurs always had that effect of being able to draw her attention if she became too fixated. A little pre-conditioned jolt of a support mechanism.

"Wha- Ah.. uh... I'll try Judgey, you try and think of what it'll do," Hermit babbled while lurching forward to stand beside Blue. Her gloved hands flexed. Falling into sync with him.

The young Augur placed her hands above the creature, clairvoyance subtly woven into biopsychokinetic power directed at the thing.

"It's like... rapid cellular regeneration. Wound closure... Humanoid body structure," her breathing a little ragged as she tried to 'See' more of it while rattling off medical nonsense. To impress her sight into the very cells of its body. Leveraging her power against its warped physical form. Plying precision to perform some sort of impromptu dissection while keeping away from the petal-like 'mouth'. The Lady only knew where it had been.

"If you want this thing dead, Mister Blue, it'll take a minute or two... this thing is strange. I'm trying to figure it out as I try to kill it. I'm going for whatever this bastard has for cellular structure and tissue."

Another grunt escaped out of the thin young woman who curled her thumb, ring, and pinky finger back until her index and middle remained, making a small slashing gesture at it waging biological warfare.

"C'mon beasty, gimmie something to kill you..."