clean up, aisle endeavor

The devil finds work for idle hands. It was a saying his own mother used to throw at him, one that had never ceased to haunt him. It had always rang true for him, finding focus, keeping things together. It's also what kept him busy. Although, in an attempt to keep busy, that also led Roman to things he shouldn't necessarily be doing. But this all has to measure up in trying to keep morale up, doesn't it? This was his line of thinking, regardless of how it turned out anyway.

There were some rags tucked into his belt, a bottle in one hand, wearing a pair of gloves, as he practically slid down the hall. His communicator playing an old song lightly playing. It was just enough for him to hear, and even attempt the to sing it without causing too much of a disturbance. At least until someone caught him turning to do a little spin in the process. However, much like anything else, the man got a little too into the moment, and closed his eyes as he did so. Nearly sliding into a body he wasn't aware was there.

"Ay mierda," he spoke before turning the communicator off a moment. "A clean ship is a happy ship," the words fell out almost immediately, as though he needed to explain himself. He was sure in that moment that his mother would be all too proud of him. Then again, if it weren't for those words, a number of things may not have happened in his own navy career. "You okay? Busy?"

The truth was, Astrid hadn't been sleeping well since the whole thing with the ship had happened. For the most part, she kept close to her post, not straying too far, only going away for a nap or two here and there. It wasn't healthy or good for her to do that, though, and after she had some reprieve, she went off on her own, to take a little walk around the ship and clear her head.

It was exactly what she needed, beside a good nights sleep, but that wouldn't come until they were safely back and out of the black hole. While the normal ship routines were happening, she did happen on Cortez and she smiled to herself as she watched him from a distance at first, laughing silently to herself. In the midst of all of the chaos, she didn't realize how badly she needed something like that until she saw it. "No, I'm good," she said with a smile, crossing her over her chest and leaning against the wall of the ship.

"I'm tired," she admitted and shrugged her shoulders. "The stress of the situation will do that to you, I guess. I think a lot of us have been through worse. No one's injured so that's comforting, at least." She didn't even want to say yet and jinx the entire mission. "How about you? You okay?"

For that brief moment, listening to Astrid's response, just taking everything in as it were, Cortez acted quite serious. Nodding, as though what had just been seen of him hadn't happened. A thoughtful look crossing his features, possibly too much so, as she turned the question on him. Clearing his throat, he haphazardly shrugged. Looking down both directions of the hall, he then leaned in and spoke quietly. "This is the first mission here that I haven't been shot at. I'm fantastic." Straightening himself up, he quietly mouthed 'It's true' before speaking up again and adding, "Tell no one. This conversation never happened. I don't need anyone thinking I don't love that." He only continued this feigned need for secrecy before smiling and even laughing.

"Don't get me wrong, I know we're not exactly on mission. I know we're all technically in danger. But I'd like to think this is the universe's way of saying here, have some free time away. We put our lives in each other's hand every time we step onto this ship. And I happen to know they are damn good hands." Roman said it with enough certainty that even he wondered if he hadn't said too much.

Grabbing hold of a rag from his belt and wiggling it in Astrid's direction. "Wanna help with some busy work? I'll even let you choose the song?" Only for the man to start a small dance. "Because I can't get NO satisfaction when there's dust bunnies haunting this place."

When he mentioned he hadn't been shot during this mission, Astrid wanted to make a witty little quip that it hadn't happened yet. But she didn't. Neither of them needed that sarcastic energy in their life at that moment. Instead, she leaned in and she whispered, "Your secret is safe with me," and threw in a thumbs up for good measure. It was nice for her to have a moment of levity in a moment where she was feeling like everything was out of control. Even in her attempt at positivity, she worried that she wasn't letting the gravity of the situation hit her in a way that was productive.

She took her position leaned against the wall again, this time resting her head against the wall while he spoke, not making any mention that they were in good hands because she felt like an utter failure in that moment and couldn't possibly acknowledge that she hadn't done something that had landed them in this hell in the first place. Instead, she took a deep breath and let herself swallow hard.

Thankfully, the pity party wouldn't last long when Roman was now dancing in front of her. She grabbed the rag mid-air and let out of a laugh. "Oh, we can keep these tunes on. I don't mind." She started cleaning opposite of where he was currently cleaning. "I mean, you saw what my karaoke song was so I can vibe to something like this." She said with a smile and she began her work while she spoke. "I do appreciate what you do to bring us together as a team. I think we need that, for moments like this, you know? It's good for morale."

Even without any sarcastic remarks, Roman was still expecting to get shot. It hadn't happened yet, but it was still worth it's own minor celebration. Living up the good while it lasted, before that other boot dropped. Whether it be some accident set off, maybe a bolt that just found itself buckling and being set out to all too literally bite him in the ass. Or his own relivable nightmare of someone trying to take the ship. But these were all thoughts he had purposely left behind, in his own bunk. With a lot of little notes based on what tactical advantages they may have here. Her ease only added to his own demeanor as he smiled widely, lifting his own thumbs up to match her own.

As she shifted, taking a deep breath, he regarded her a little differently. Almost as though he were the one trying to read her mind, and coming up nil. That didn't stop him from going on though, especially for one good point. Especially given the perfectionistic tendencies he had found in the crew. "You know, you count in that too. If it weren't for you, we really might not have made it through still breathing on this side of whatever was out there." Between whatever accident or chance occurrence that happened, the outcome was what mattered the most where he stood. Not everything could truly be prepared for, known, or understood. That's why they were out here anyway, letting nerds be nerds. "You deserve some time off."

With a happy groan, Roman's thoughts were easily steered back to karaoke. Pointing a finger at her, he had to give her props. "Look. 10 out of 10, would listen again. You knocked that out of the park." Roman gave far too matter-of-factly, only to turn and begin to get cleaning again as well. The words though, he hadn't been expecting not only gave him pause but also grinning. "How dare you figure me out like that. Everyone's supposed to just see me as..." he looked up at the wall a moment before finally coming up with the words he was looking for, "an eccentric kiss ass." Breaking into a small bit of laughter though, he shook his head. "But really, thank you." The thanks spoken with him looking at Astrid, but with little pause as he moved back to cleaning. "None of you are built to be machines, while forever facing the unknown. High stress, shit pay, for a thankless job with what return? You deserve to know your worth outside of your name, rank, and serial number. You deserve opportunities to not be dragged down by shit you met out here."

Astrid couldn't take a compliment, even when one was directly given to her face. She was always striving to do better, to be better, and she couldn't accept anything that she deemed less than perfect. It was a damn high bar and, while she appreciated the words that Roman was saying to her, she couldn't acknowledge them with anything more than a shrug. "After all of this," she started, an amused look on her face, "We all deserve some time off." Astrid figured that would be the case - they were always pretty good about getting time off in between missions to rest and recuperate but this was a little more mentally taxing than most missions were.

She rolled her eyes at Roman giving her another compliment but this one she could laugh off more, since it was in regards to her karaoke skills. "Oh thanks. Any time anyone here needs a little song to cheer them up... I'm your girl." She half pointed to herself but rolled her eyes even at the thought of saying that out loud. She continued to clean a little, since that was the whole reason that she was there. "I mean, this isn't so bad." Astrid said, as she looked at Roman. "It's high stress but it's not as bad as something else."

She thought back to her time in the war and how stressful that was. This felt like a cake walk in comparison. "I mean, when I was in the war and flying all the time? That seemed like nothing else could get more stressful." Her voice got a little quiet and she smiled to herself to not get down about anything. "If I could make it through all of that I feel like I can make it through anything."

He had heard those words so many times, even spoken them, but when it came down to it he only really viewed it outwardly. Roman taking any time for himself always had a sort of feeling he didn't like to reminisce on. The kind where all hell would break loose, finding a vacation he needed one from. Time away was far too rarely a positive experience. The more time spent, the worse it seemed to be. Not for lack of trying, but perhaps it was a good time to take up believing in luck. Perhaps he had broken a metaphorical mirror years ago and still found himself in the cruel abyss that drew him to whatever gremlin that held tight to him.

The idea of a little song for cheering up, he couldn't do anything less than look over at Astrid and smile. "Then you're always my girl, because if you haven't noticed, I can't handle a certain kind of silence. I talk far too much, and can barely sit still." It wasn't a way that he had always been, but it had always seemed to have a hold on him. The need to move, to do something. The thoughts that lie ahead of him, calling for a shift in what he could attempt and what reality told him. But her next words gave him pause. Listening a bit more intently, as he wondered where she was leading.

It didn't take long to figure that out, as he gave a knowing nod, even flashing a smile as he paused his own work. "During the war, I was always on the move, locked away in engineering." Too bad on a few of those circumstances, it was far too literally. Memories he would never shake, but also never regret. Even if at one point he was held prisoner and treated in a way that still made his skin crawl. "I like the way you see it. Although, I think mine was more if I could survive post-war, I could survive anything." Roman gave a small chuckle. "The way that people treat each other, no matter the cause, well. Being on this ship? Traveling between, this is where I feel most myself. I'll fully admit, I have no idea what I'm doing on station, but at least the orders are clear cut when on mission. Even if we're dodging death." Cortez tried to keep his tone lighthearted, even for the sentiment placed there.

anatomy lab

There was an all but clinical stench in the air, as if it had to be overrun by the presence of death and the metallic fluids from Vadu's latest and greatest achievements. If only there were a way to move forward from that, to take the man away from this place for the harm he's done here. The sheer aggravation held by Roman alone over the sake of yet another holographic image flickering out. First at the door, and now this too? Was the man ever really anywhere? Maybe he wasn't entirely real or maybe he didn't really look the way he claimed. There were enough thoughts on this, but the one that remained abundantly clear, they were left empty handed, outside of the very large tank opening up. Another turn that left Roman's heart plunging from his chest. Was there no end to the way this guy tortured the souls of others? Either way, they needed to get out of dodge, and fast.

Slick feet stepping onto the laboratory floor in their very own unbridled heavy thump as this mangled beast came to life. Joints flexing as if to bring those claws to light, drawing upon the fear that could be called upon here. One look at it, it was safe to say, it's only thought appeared to be to do it's master's bidding. Even as Vadu had already left it behind. There wasn't much time to think what to do, there wasn't even a certainty on what could slow or stop this Vadu created beast.

The stairs they came through behind them being the only exit, Roman gave the two women a worried glance. "Run!" Where it may have seemed obvious, he still urged them as he lifted his blaster and began to take shots at it. At least in hopes of buying time, allowing them a head start while he covered them. Perhaps there was something or somewhere that would help them out, from their way here? He hoped so, but he wasn't about to go until they were already running. "Move!"

The smell of something awful fills the air, pungent and yeasty, it stings Dr. Honda's eyes and wrinkles her nose. She meanders closer to the monster to get a better look, her white kitten heels sloshing through the spilled green liquid. She sees it emerge. An enormous slick, rubbery body soaking with green goo. It's swollen pink tentacles writhe in the open air as it lets out a hideous screech. The scientist stands in amazement before it, slack-jawed in wonder, "magnificent..." she utters. She immediately recognizes the abomination from the designs she discovered in the parlour, and she's astonished by its existence. It's ability to exist and the empirical implications of such a creation. "Don't hurt it!" She begs, grabbing Cortez's wrist to stop him from firing any further. "It's a creature of science!" Unique in its creator's hubris. Her respect for Vikomt Vadu grows.

The monster has less compassion. It lumbers, fumbling to gain its bearings in its master's laboratory. With a frightful, enraged shriek, it grabs hold of an ancient tesla coil standing erect in the room. It throws its body until the pillar cracks in its grip and lifts it high into the air with a wet roar. The monster rears back and hurls the electric tower with unspeakable force towards them.

Zoie didn't feel like she was holding up well. She was genuinely starting to think the mission had triggered something within her, some sort of traumatic impact she would deal with later. She couldn't help but tremble periodically. She just wanted to complete their objectives and get the hell out of there, as quick as possible. Though making their way up what seemed like an impossibly long, winding staircase, seeking Vadu's lab - Zoie couldn't see how this would be quick. She recognized the smell of death before they even reached the labratory. And as far as she was concerned, this Vadu guy was a monster himself for putting them through this. A holographic monster perhaps, but a monster nonetheless. There was no time to be fascinated/distracted by any of the things in Vadu's labratory; another problem at hand clearly presented itself.

One horrifying hell of a creature. An experiment, to be sure, but horrifying nevertheless. She gagged at the smell of it, and couldn't help but notice the way she could not detect any sort of emotion or life force really within the beast. Zoie couldn't blame Honda for her fascination with the creature, as a scientist of sorts herself, but she knew that they didn't really have a choice. It was the beast, or them. Roman was taking point, firing off his blaster, and Honda was grabbing his wrist and trying to stop him - and Zoie could sense the trouble brewing. She wasn't about to leave her fellow crew member there. "It's a creature of science, but there is no conscious thought within, Honda," Zoie insisted. "It will kill us all if we allow it."

She tugged on Honda's sleeve insistently, noticing already Roman's frustration with the fact no one was running. The terrifying shriek that Vadu's monster emitted was enough to set Zoie's skin crawling, and as soon as it picked up a tesla coil like it was nothing, hoisting it high triumphantly, Zoie knew they were in deep trouble. The tesla coil was flung in their direction and there was no choice then. "Run!" Zoie shrieked, turning and bolting down the long, winding stairs, tugging on Honda's sleeve as she went. The three of them seemed to narrowly miss getting struck by the ancient tesla coil, and skittering down the steps, Zoie within her blaster pistol and fired off a few shots of her own. She was horrified, watching the monster smash through a stone entryway smaller than him, following their path down the stairs.

This was going to be fun, was a short-lived, sarcastic thought pushed out into the universe as he all but dead eyed the good doctor. Of course, scientists. There went his hope that this was too morbid for everyone. But no one had time for this. They didn't even know what could or would really hurt this thing. And even with Dr. Honda wanting to make sure nothing hurt it, or in this case, Roman didn't hurt it, he couldn't imagine Zoie's attempt at talking sense was about to help them out here. The lack of conscious thought, that likely could be experimented with all on it's own. Here's to hoping there's no likely ability to play with time here, at least given the trouble he had with that clock in the room he had entered. There was no way he would live through this hell on repeated time loops.

His jaw clenched, exhaling. "If we kill it, I will personally drag it back to your shuttle and you can do whatever you want with it." he tried for, but then in the midst of it noticed that Zoie threw something. What? He didn't know, but could at least surmise what it was. Even as Zoie tugged at the other woman's sleeve, he wasn't about to worry that she was about to get free of this and pull something that would get her or all of them into more danger. He also wasn't about to knock her out, and carrying her held few options. Few in the fact he wasn't about to go giving her opportunities to really get loose here. Dipping down, his shoulder hit her middle as he threw her over him.

Leaving Zoie to run ahead of them both now, and him still with his own blaster out. Not bothering to look back until certain noises hit his own ears. Especially with how the thing moved through a doorway. So there was likely no trapping the thing. With all the doors in this place, there were a few mitigating questions in his head. "Do you think there's a room we could leave him in?" Maybe some other beast to battle it out with? But was that looking to get them into more danger on their way out? It wasn't as if they could let this thing chase them to their shuttles.

She could have slapped Roman right then. "I’d want it alive, dammit!" Accentuated by the loud smash overhead, a deafening sound as the coil cracked and clattered to the ground, crushing more laboratory equipment as it tumbled. "Unhand me, Dr. Wikolia!" Honda snapped, yanking herself from Zoie's grip. She didn't care if it had conscious thought! Then suddenly, "Oof!" She felt winded as her throat dropped to her stomach, and she was lifted off the ground and onto Roman's shoulder. "Set me down this instant!" Wiggling uselessly, feeling like a small child.

They booked it down the stairs as the monster smashed through the archway, sending stone shards flying as it stormed through a cloud of dust. Honda bobbled on Roman's shoulder like a novelty toy. Stomp, stomp stomp stomp!! The creature's glistening body came closer into view, taking two, sometimes four steps at a time in its pursuit. As the light from the laboratory shone through the cracks in the monster's silhouette, Dr. Honda could hear the heavens sing. Time slowed, and she felt weak, gripping onto the fabric of Roman's shirt for support. "It's so beautiful." She whispered, her mouth opened wide as she stared, brows knit together in veneration.

The monster squealed until her eardrums ached. It thrust an arm forward and swiped at them. It smashed its claws into the side of the wall, and stones tumbled down the steps towards them. Honda rouse from her trance, "Go, go!" She tapped Roman's back anxiously.

Of course she'd want it alive. Zoie could only shake her head, able to sense in waves the emotions coming off of both of them. The need for survival in him, and the near worshipful respect for Vadu's creation rolling off of her in waves. She wasn't surprised when Roman finally just picked Honda up and threw the doctor over his shoulder. Whatever got them moving faster, as far as she was concerned.

Zoie ran down the stairs ahead of them, the long stone staircase winding out in front of them forever it seemed. She stumbled over her feet a couple of times, turning and trying to fire off shots from her blaster. Roman's question was valid. A room, possibly, that they could abandon the creature in? Somehow? Something had to give with this beast, they couldn't just lead it back to the shuttles. "Uhh... maybe?" Zoie had no idea what to do. "What did we pass when we came up? Was there a room we can barricade?"

The loud, ear-piercing shriek of Vadu's beast was enough to leave Zoie's ears ringing. "Fuck..." Zoie winced, holding her ears, sparkly pink blaster in her hands. "If we can lead it outside we'll have a clearer shot--" The space they were in was too narrow. Too primed for the creature to snatch and swipe at them with its claws. "Fuck these motherfucking stairs! Fuck!" Zoie couldn't resist shouting in frustration. "If we can aim where the brain stem would 'supposedly' be, that might take it down?"

Roman had to stop himself, at least for the reply he wanted to give Dr. Honda. The kind that said, 'So bring it back to life. Apparently that's possible.' That was not a tale he wanted to worry about as far as the next issue on Terminus. Some rampaging living dead thing stomping, slashing, killing, and meandering in it's own general destruction. One mad scientist this year seemed like enough of a less than trivial problem. Although, he may have been willing to see a singing plant that didn't eat people.

Following Zoie as close as he could, he was all too happy to ignore the good doctor's comments. At least up until she started calling for him to go. Which he hoped was away from the monster, and not to let her go now. One might have been better than the other, having the eyes behind him in a way that didn't force him to have to look back and turn. Either way, he was going to take it as the better of the two and run this more like a sprint and less like a marathon.

"I don't know about barricading," he said in a rush. "But if we end up in one of those room's like wolfman's and find the other door? He might get trapped in there?" Barring that there wasn't another crazed occupant and they could figure it out quickly? "How fast are you at puzzles, Doc?" he asked, gripping the back of her knees a little tighter to signal he was in fact speaking to her.

The noise had him closing his eyes for a second but not enough to lose his footing. If his ears ended up bleeding by the end of this, so be it. He was set on getting out of dodge. "But how are we supposed to get behind him?" he asked, sincerely, given the current close quarters. He wasn't about to take that idea out of the running, even though he worried about there being some possibility that this thing wasn't built with popular physical anatomy, except to what the eye could see. That didn't mean he wouldn't shoot for it first and ask questions later, if there were a clear shot for it.

Blaster fire sizzled off the monster's chest. It left scorch marks but was otherwise unharmed, unable to penetrate its thick flesh. Dr. Honda whimpered; its perfect anatomy was being tarnished. "No, we will not aim for the brain stem!" She shouted, her voice a jumbled mess of desperation as she continued to bob over Roman's shoulder. "We'll trap it on the Dauntless." She sounded rash, reflecting her decision. The monster would likely wreak havoc on the ship before being contained in any meaningful way. Even as the words escaped her, she knew better. Knew they'd never make it to the ship in time. There was no way they could outrun it without a significant lead. But even if they could, she knew that they'd be trapped without the time to properly contain it. Knew they'd be bringing danger to the rest of the crew.

She let out a surprised "Oh!" as strong arms tightened around the backs of her thighs, losing her train of thought. She scoffed at Roman's question, "I solve puzzles for a living." Yes, she took it personally. "Did you say Wufman?" And yes, that's how she pronounced it. What fantastical moving castle was this, and how could she stay forever to explore its enchanted perversions?

There was a short, guttural huff, and Honda craned her neck to look up, suddenly face-to-face with the monster. It's tentacles snagged her around the throat and ripped her off Roman's back like a ragdoll. "HURKK!!" Was all Dr. Honda could muster as she went flying into the air, nails struggling to dig in, to get a grip on its pink flesh. It squeezed tighter and more tentacles wrapped around her chest. She could feel its hot breath on the back of her neck and smell the foul it emanated. "Shoot the brain stem." She choked. The monster spread its arms wide, it's prize caught in its jowls.

Trap it on the Dauntless. Zoie couldn't resist a snort; that would go over really well with their captain. "And which one of us is gonna break that news, huh?" It didn't really matter, she thought, they weren't going to make it back to the ship in time. Roman mentioned the wolfman's room, referencing the strange cabin room they had investigated with others before ending up here, and Zoie couldn't help but frown. She thought of her concern for the wolfman, who was clearly - to her at least - something of a victim. "How many more rooms might there be? Vadu can't have that many monsters, can he?" And were they all victims? She was starting to get Honda's frantic desperation.

But it was them or this beast. And if they didn't put it down, it could hurt someone else, even if they managed to evade it. She had no idea how they were supposed to get behind him, but it seemed it didn't matter. Vadu's monster answered the quandary, when he suddenly and terrifyingly snatched Honda off of Roman's back. Zoie froze, immediately sensing her fear and finding it spill over into her own. "Shit!" Zoie skittered to a stop, nearly colliding into Roman in the process as she tried to aim her blaster. If it had been any other moment, she might have found it comical the way Honda finally gurgled, Shoot the brain stem. But a life was in the balance, and Zoie couldn't laugh. She fired off a couple of rounds in the beast's direction, but the ghastly thing kept writhing, and she couldn't seem to steady her aim enough to hit any vital points.

So she did the only thing she could think of to do. "HEY!" Zoie suddenly yelled, charging forward, back up the staircase and towards the creature with Honda in its jowls. "HEYYYYY, YOU! OVER HERE!" Her aim was to leave Roman on the other side, to distract the creature and hopefully turn it around enough so that Roman could get a good clean shot. Zoie fired off a round from her blaster, but aimed it at the stone, setting off a spark that caught the creature's eye. "Yoohoo! That's it, look over here," Zoie coaxed.

Roman had literally no words for anything being spoken of. Talk about hard to do with this man. But the thought came to him, given the thick skin of the beast itself, as all of this went on. A thought about how things happened back in time loop central. And the thick skin of a certain Vorut on his own team. One he sorely misses in this very moment. Maybe if she were here, she might have a better chance at holding this thing down without getting hurt and leaving it tied up to whatever fate that it held, without having to argue with anyone about how to live through this.

But before he could get a word out about this, everything may as well have moved in slow motion. Dr. Honda being pulled away before he can even do more than turn around and attempt to hold onto the woman he had forced onto this little venture of running away. Jumping back as those claws slashed at him, barely missing anything important, leaving his shirt cut with a long, but superficial trail of blood along it. Hissing in pain, he began shooting at the tentacles with his blaster, careful not to hit Dr. Honda, hoping beyond anything that either he could reach the brain stem that way or else the flesh wasn't nearly as strong there.

Above all else, he only wished he knew what he was handling here. As Zoie tried to get the attention of this monstrosity, who at least did pay her the time of day. Roman dug into his bag as he kept firing his blaster. Throwing everything he could from smelling salts to battery packs at the damned prehensile tongues. Watching as it dropped Dr. Honda and moved for him again, Roman guessed for annoying the hell out of it, or maybe it was that battery pack it swallowed? Either way, Roman finally found what he was looking for. Pressing a button and tossing it next to the creature, only to take off running two beeps too late. A small, condensed explosion left the stone ground beneath the beast crumbling from it's feet, claws reaching for them like a good little minion doing it's masters bidding. However, this led to the ground crumbling under Roman and Honda's feet too, even though he pushed her ahead of him.

Just as he thought he was about to make it, he didn't. Dropping out of sight, seconds after the beast fell to a level below. Roman left holding onto a beam struggling to hold himself up in such a position. "Little. Help. Here?" he tried calling up at the women through gritted teeth.

With Zoie distracting it, Roman was able to get more than a few clear shots fired into the monster. She could smell its fried skin, crackle and pop from the blaster shots. Dr. Honda closed her eyes as the wind choked out of her, and dust from the stone stairwell peppered her glasses. She reached up and tangled her fingers in the wiring on the side of the monsters' head and pulled, ripping as hard as she could to no avail. Her shoe came flying off in the struggle, watching the white pump clatter against the steps as her vision started to turn black. Some kind of tongue hit Dr. Honda, and it was the last thing she remembered before the explosion went off.

Momentarily dazed, Honda came to on the cold steps, gasping and inhaling as much air as she could. She coughed and pushed herself up on her palms, looking over her shoulder to find a chasm in the place of where the steps once were. She felt a pang of regret as the monster had, clearly, fallen into the pit. Looked around to find Zoie safe and ... "Where is Roman?!" That's when she heard his plea for help, and she scrambled closer to the edge. "Hold on." She reached forward with an outstretched hand, and the stones beneath her supporting arm crumbled under the weight. The tips of her fingers barely swept against Roman's hand. Through the corner of her eye, she saw the colourful reflective glow of four eyes shining in the darkness below. "Dr. Wikolia, help!" They didn't have much time.

Zoie was in shock. Everything seemed to happen in such quick succession. While she distracted the creature, Roman picked up the metaphorical baton and threw everything he could at it. Firing his blaster, throwing smelling salts and battery packs, even an incendiary device. It was a relief, watching the creature eventually drop Honda. But everything really happened so fast. The blast, a small explosion that crumbled the ground underneath the creature's feet, not to mention Roman's. And Honda's, though it was with more relief that Zoie watched Roman shove the scientist ahead of him to safety. But Roman didn't quite make it, and Zoie was taken by surprise at the way her gut churned at the sight of him dangling, struggling to hold onto a beam. "Oh my stars..." Zoie breathed, stunned at the end result. She couldn't tell if the monster had been really taken out in the blast or not, not that there was time to consider it, what with the way Roman was gritting his teeth and pleading for help.

Honda was quickly there, leaning over the edge and offering her hand, but it wouldn't be enough. Zoie could already see stones crumbling beneath her weight. As soon as the words fell from Honda's mouth, Zoie was thawing and rushing over, worry in her eyes as she too tried leaning over the edge to offer her hand. She inched a bit closer than Honda had, and Zoie could feel even more stones crumbling beneath her feet as she stretched out. Somehow, she managed to clasp around the warmth of his hand, but the weight of him would be too diffcult to lift. "Help pull me," Zoie gasped, refusing to let go of Roman's hand no matter how much of a struggle it was. She was hoping that with the added force of Honda trying to pull her body backwards, they could get him over the edge before every damn stone crumbled.

As far as Roman was concerned, they were safe, even if it were a 'for now' scenario. Mostly due to the fact that he could hear both women above him and not any of those nightmarish tentacle sounds. Roman knew he wouldn't be touching anything that resembled squid for a long time. There was no need to add to his PTSD pile.

Looking up and seeing the outreached hands moving for him, he idly wondered if he weren't heavier than both women combined. But the lack of stability for him, in his current state made him hope that wouldn't be an issue. Once he did, that perhaps he could try and help the weight issue by how he threw it around. This couldn't be too much worse than rock climbing? Or that cliff he found himself jumping or falling off of through a number of time loops, during the Endeavor's last mission. Roman recalled the falls all too well, from the wind in his face, to the sickening crunch upon not going head first. Taking a deep breath, he was not looking down. If he thought for a minute that he might take either or both women down with him, he would rather accept that fate again.

Between the two outreached hands, it seemed like Dr. Honda's was closer, so he went for it. Fingers were within a breath of hers, but even as he pushed himself further, trying desperately to close that distance, some of the stones shifted, falling his way. Slipping back down, Roman tried not to get smashed by rubble. For all the good that did him. A spray of pebbles flew over him, as if some meteor shower display of it's own, using him as target practice. Followed by a larger one, slamming into his back, calling a quick, garbled slur of air rushing out of him. "Aña rako peguare!" was all too emphatically spoken through gritted teeth.

Taking a few deep breaths, he looked back up again, focusing on Zoie's hand. Jaw clenched, slow breaths taken in and out through his nose. At least until he was holding that same breath, ever close to her hand before finally gaining it. He was sore and moving, but focused on the task at hand. Feet reaching another, seemingly more stable support beam he tried to help the process and not task them with such a hard pull on dead weight. But all of this seemed to take a little too long and while he caught sight of some more stones about to fall, there wasn't enough time to call out and let them know. There wasn't even enough time to let go of Zoie's hand.

The stones falling from beneath her feet, as she fell, his hand in hers instinctively gripped tighter. Unsure if Dr. Honda had went with her, as his eyes clamped shut in pain of the jerk that causes his muscles to sing against gravity. Looking up again, there were less stones in the way, and he was a lot closer than he once was. But this was an extra bind. Licking his lips, he could taste the dirt. Unable to move given where his hands were, one in hers and one gripping a beam. "Everybody okay?" he tried for first, his own voice more raspy than usual. "I'm going to need you to climb me." In any other situation, he might have laughed or used that as a bad joke, but this wasn't about to be that time. But at least he wasn't about to be a falling stone.

Dr. Honda found herself falling backward on her rump as the stones fell away, and Zoie fell forward towards Roman. The situation was going from bad to worse, and very quickly. The steps, ancient as they seemed, were no longer stable and crumbling rapidly. The chasm had widened on the opposite end, steps leading back to the laboratory even further apart now. The gap was growing, time was running out, and the wisdom within Dr. Honda told her the odds. Informed her of their chances and probability of survival, and a smart woman would cut her losses and walk away now. One survivor was better than three dead. And even though she heard their voices, she deliberated on this, teetering between self-preservation and foolish heroics. A whirl of calculations and outcomes, playing multiple scenarios within her mind.

Until another variable entered the scene, Vadu's monster began clawing it's way up the stone. Of course, it could climb, Dr. Honda thought. Was there nothing this remarkable specimen wasn't capable of? Zoie was dangling like low hanging fruit, ready for the swiping. It let out a terrifying yowl, followed by some eager clicking sounds, informing them all that it wasn't done yet.

Honda may not have come equipped with a blaster, but that didn't mean she was unarmed. With the power of science and gadgetry, the doctor reached inside her lab coat to retrieve her wand of wonder, or so she technically denominated it. Pressing the button on the handle, it began to charge. "Below you!" She shouted, if there was any time to climb a man, Dr. Wikolia needed to seize the opportunity now. The wand started to whirr with an electrical charge, the motors within the device spinning; sparks cracking off of it. The monster took a swipe at the dangling pair and huffed in frustration. Its claws dug into the stone wall again, prying its way up a few more feet. "Brace yourselves." This gadget still hadn't been tested, not entirely foolproof, but these were desperate times. She took aim at the monster and discharged the wand.

A powerful stroke of electrical energy slammed into the creature's chest, bolts ripping over its body, seizing the monster tight. The darkness below lit up in a blinding flash of crackling blues. Some of the wiring on the side of the monster's helmet caught fire, melting the metal casing on the back of its skull. The creature bellows in agony, so loud that the stones begin to crumble around them. Massive rocks plummet from above, taking chunks out of the remaining stairwell. The ground beneath Dr. Honda shifts and gives out from under her. She falls to the level below.

It happened so quickly, Zoie didn't have time to think. Stones fell away, hurling her forward towards Roman. She had that floating in space feeling, before gravity took hold. Somehow, Roman kept a grip on her hand, though she didn't know how he accomplished it. It left him gripping a beam with one arm, while she dangled below him, with only his hand keeping her from falling below. She felt a wave of panic threatening to overwhelm her, and it took everything within for her to calm herself. Everybody okay? "Oh, I'm swell, how about you?" Zoie answered Roman somewhat sarcastically. He told her to climb him, and had this been any other moment, she would have indeed found something amusing there.

But then she heard that yowl, sending a chill down her spine. Those eager clicking sounds, making panic threaten to return when she realized they hadn't really taken Vadu's creature out. More than that, it was climbing its way up the fucking stone. It was Honda's words that pointed that fact out to her, lighting a metaphorical fire under her ass. Zoie let out a string of expletives as she started trying to climb her way up the length of Roman's body. She noticed Honda taking that wand out of her pocket, and knew that there was very little time. Brace yourselves. "For what, exactly?" Zoie managed, breathing heavily with exertion, more than halfway up the length of Roman when she saw Honda taking aim at the creature. And then it discharged, with that magnificent spark of electric energy.

And once again everything seemed to happen so fast. The darkness below lit up with crackling blue energy, the creature bellowing in agony at the shot it had taken. So loud that more stones continued to crumble around them. It didn't taken much for Zoie to realize they were in deeper trouble, what with the avalanche of rocks around them. She'd released her grip on Roman's hand, making sure that he had a two handed grip on the beam - just with her added weight, clinging to his torso like a little monkey. "Dr. Honda!" Zoie gasped, watching the ground shift from underneath her, giving out and sending her freefalling to the level below. Somehow, in the midst of everything, she and Roman had managed to hang on to the beam.

She was frantically trying to calculate what kind of damage a fall of that height could do. She felt a duty to get down there and render medical aid, but also wasn't certain there was any other way of doing it short of the two of them dropping themselves to the level below. "Roman? Do we let go?" She peered down at the darkness below. "Honda? Can you hear me? Are you alright? Can you move?"

Where the sarcasm was noted, it seemed ignored. Mostly due to the position he was now in. Standing and not entirely hanging off the side of the chasm of doom here. And for the sake of how he knew she would get a bulk of whatever feelings he had. There was no good to come in adding to any of her possible aggravation, fear, or panic. The only thing Roman Cortez cared about was where to place his focus and determination next. And it was all too specifically set on all three of them getting out of here alive. "Oh, you know, just hanging around." Once the reply was out of his mouth, he began humming some of the words to the song Stuck In the Middle With You.

Looking up, the humming didn't stop, while Dr. Honda had pointed out what was below them, Roman didn't really want to look down. Not out of fear, but more a sense of worry due to his actual position and likely bumps on the head from being pelted by rocks and dirt. Looking down held the possibility of gaining vertigo in the moment and that was not okay. With Zoie now at least mostly up, he gripped her as hard as he could pulling them into the side of the broken stone. Everything moved in slow motion, helpless to do much in the moment but at least was able to spot the platform below, to the next level.

Quickly helping Zoie gain footing where he had found his own, that allowed him a free hand and even possiblyone of her own, leaving him to shrug off what was left of his bag. "Not jumping from here. If we make it, we could still fall through again and take her with us. Got any rope? Cable? A zip tie?" Not necessarily in that order or even needing all of them. He only hoped she got what he was getting at as he dug into the bag for some. Fingers wrapped around it before the beg fell from his one handed digging, leaving it ignored as it fell to find the depths below with that creature. Tying it to the beam above them, he used clamps he had connected to his own belt to secure it, using anything Zoie might have had in order to help with length and security. Each motion quick and memorized, not leading into taking more time with this.

Tying in his waist, he knew this was going to hurt regardless of whatever happened. His other arm pulling Zoie into a tight hug. "Just brace for impact. And be ready to run." Because who knew how much would still end up falling at their feet with their combined and hard dropped weight? Especially if he was unable to collect the speed and angle he was hoping for here.

Dropping down step by step until there was no more slack to give, they sat nearly dangling but at least in view of Honda. Taking a deep breath, he swung them both, watching for timing and angle, before pressing a release on a clamp, propelling them to what was left of that floor below. Cradling Zoie, as he attempted to take brunt of the damage as they hit that flat, but crumbling surface. Pushing her to run before they even stopped rolling, while hoping their was an exit to make from this crumbling area close by.

This. This was not ideal. This was so much more than not ideal, this was a fucking nightmare come to life, and Zoie didn't know what to do with herself. Every reaction went on autopilot. Finding her footing where Roman directed it. Digging through her bag to pull out a coil of rope. She always did like to overpack her medical bag for a reason. You never knew when things came in handy. She handed it to Roman to deal with, feeling a tremor to her limbs that she was sure would do disservice to the ropework. Besides, she only knew a couple basic knots. And it seemed Roman had a vision in mind, Zoie quickly catching on that he wanted to rappel them down.

"Wait, isn't this going to--?" Hurt. She was so sure she liked where this was going, but his reacting before she did was necessary. It was the only option, this way, and keeping Zoie from thinking too much about it was what would keep them alive. She could feel panic threatening her as he pulled her in for a tight hug, telling her to brace for impact. "Wait, wait wait wait--" She couldn't help the shriek that fell from her lips as he started to rappel them down the stone.

Somehow, he got the two of them down until they were dangling in view of Honda, and she wasn't so panicked anymore. The damage didn't seem catastrophic, her neck didn't look broken. But she needed a closer look. "Honda? Say something if you can hear me," Zoie prompted, before Roman started swinging them. And then that clamp released, and Zoie shrieked again as they crashed to the floor. Even though he tried to cushion the fall, cradling her to him as they tumbled, it was still a hard fall, and Zoie groaned with the exertion. "Ohhhh, that's gonna leave a bruise," she managed, feeling the wind knocked out of her a bit, even though there was no time to recoup. Seeing as the castle was starting to crumble and collapse around them, for reasons Zoie couldn't fully wrap her mind around. And Roman was already urging her to run, before they even stopped rolling from the impact.

Run, she did, though it wasn't necessarily to the light of day. It was to Honda's crumpled form on the ground, where Zoie cautiously cradled her neck, already using her empathic ability to diagnose the damage that had been done. "We need to carry her," Zoie told Roman. Away from these crumbling walls, to safety. "I can heal her, but there's not enough time here." Not when crumbling slivers of rocks were hitting her in the head.

There was no response from Dr. Honda down in the darkness below. Zoie and Roman wouldn't see until they clattered to the basement level where she lay unconscious. Her glasses lay broken, one shoe missing, and her gadget was thrown far beyond sight. Her cheek rest against the wet cobblestone of the underground aqueduct, arched tunnels stretched on in every direction. They had tumbled to one of the deepest levels of the castle, the drainage system beneath the laboratory where the water ran neon green. The colour danced along the stone wall, refracting from the murky water in the channel between the walkways. But where there was water, there was drainage to the outside. There had to be a way out if they followed the current.

A few more rocks peppered down around them, some slivers bouncing off Dr. Honda. "Mmm," A groan escaped her, gripping Dr. Wikolia's arm even before she opened her eyes. Then she inhaled sharply, and her eyes flung open wide. Dr. Honda hissed, then gasped, and could not articulate what was wrong with words - but the pain she felt in her lower left leg was excruciating. She inhaled another breath and let out a pained cry that came from some guttural place within her. She had never broken a bone before, but this was what it had to feel like. She froze, unable to move and clenched her hands around Zoie's arm tightly. "The fibula," was all she could flub before releasing another sharp cry. She had to pull herself together, inhaling deeply through her nose, testing the limits of her other leg and trying to stand. "Ah!"

Dr. Honda was a mess, and the entire castle seemed to quake with a deep rumble that shed more rocks from above. A landslide of stone sloughed off the remaining stairwell and clattered to their level, sealing off one of the tunnels on the far end. A quickly deteriorating hole opened wider above them. "We don't have much time. It's too unstable." Pointing out the obvious, but her head was in a spin. She wasn't sure if it was just the area above them or the entire castle itself, but the rumbling continued steadily. It was only a matter of time until something crushed them. And that wasn't the only problem. As Dr. Honda stirred, so did the monster. Its arm twitched, and fingers flexed, and it began to wake up, too. "My wand!" Dr. Honda spotted it, blurry but recognizable. It was tucked under Vadu's beast, and not something she was keen on leaving behind.

Moving to stand, he took in what was all around them, only bothering to eye that creature behind them for about two seconds before being quick about reaching where Zoie and Honda were. He did not need to be told twice, helping Dr. Honda up, he then scooped her up into his arms. This time, bridal style. "I'm sorry, doctor. This place is coming down and we need to get you out of here." His voice kept low. As far as he was concerned, to hell with that wand, she could make another. The stairs weren't an option, and there was a lot of green water to follow, as long as that didn't kill them. If that creature decided to wake up again, they needed to be out of dodge.

Any rocking of the ground and the surrounding walls, he couldn't help but question if it was more than just them. How badly everyone else must have it and if they were making it out okay. The structural damage that was caused by their own explosions couldn't have moved so deep into the integrity of this place to create continued rattling damage. Something bigger must be up. Which only left them with even less time, no matter what was behind them.

With little time to waste, only a drainage system to run through, he hoped that no one was about stopping for shiny things. Besides Honda and her wand, anyway. Taking the woman and making it to the edge of the platform they were on, he jumped down, splattering the green water beneath his boots. If he became some weird mutant for this, oh well. It obviously wasn't acidic or something that would destroy them if it was able to handle the walls and ground the way it was. Making a run for it, he moved to follow the only direction it held.

Another hard shake, and he nearly dropped the woman he was holding. Righting himself before seeing how even the walls here were beginning to crack. But he could see it, another staircase wedged off in a corner on the far end. A blinking red light stemming from the area. Picking up his steps again, he looked over in the direction of Zoie. "Stairs?" He needed to know that this wasn't a mirage by now.

Zoie's mind was racing a mile a minute it seemed, barely keeping up with the way her body reacted with movement. Watching Roman scoop Honda into his arms, and following them as he led the way. Right into the damn drainage system, and Zoie couldn't help but frown at the sight of green water splashing on her shoes. Honda was going on about her wand, but Zoie knew that Roman was right - they needed to get out of there, and quickly. There was no time for stopping, not even seconds. "Wands can be remade, Dr. Honda, I promise you," Zoie insisted, hurrying alongside them.

There was another sudden, violent shake, and Zoie nearly tripped over herself in the process. "What the fuck is going on?" She couldn't help but wonder; nothing seemed right about the way their environment seemed to be imploding around them. She was starting to feel disoriented, split between vigilance in their dangerous surroundings and employment of her empathy, an attempt to abate at least some of the pain Honda was experiencing. The fibula. The damn fibula. She needed to reset it. They needed safety. She needed for there to not be rocks falling on her head and green water on her shoes.

Roman suddenly stopped and looked at her, nodding towards the sight of stairs ahead of them. It was an unexpected and welcome sight, that blinking red light shining like a beacon. When he spoke, she understood the question - she, too, briefly wondered if it might be a mirage. And yet this... looked real. "Stairs," Zoie echoed, picking up her pace. Hurrying ahead of Roman and Honda towards that red light. "This better lead to the docks or so help me..."

Out of breath, panting, Zoie reached the staircase, feeling overjoyed at the sensation of steps beneath her feet. And also because at the top of the stairs she could see a door. "Door!" Zoie breathed heavily, trying to scramble up the stairs with her neurologic function seemingly disrupted; each climbing motion seemed arduous. "Door, door, door..." She was the first to reach it, her hand clawing at the doorknob. "...locked? Fucking locked?" She jiggled the handle violently before pulling her multitool out of her bag and trying rapidly to break the lock open.

"My prototype," she lamented, practically welling with tears. "No, it cannot simply be remade!" And here she was, weeping, and finding herself bobbling in Roman's hold again like some damsel. Her arms clung tightly around his neck as she looked down. She had a few theories of what that green water was, and honestly? None of it was good. They were going to need a decontamination bath immediately upon returning to the Dauntless. Assuming they ever made it back to the ship and out of here alive. Her eyes caught movement over Roman's shoulder; Dr. Honda squinted and watched the blurry figure rise. The monster pushed itself up onto its feet, its entire body crackling with electrical energy. "Great galaxy..." She whispered quietly but forgot to alert the others in her awe.

Stairs! Dr. Honda turned her head, but she couldn't see shit without her glasses. If there were stairs, she'd have to take their word for it - it was too dark to tell from this distance. She sighed, feeling completely useless and shut her eyes tightly as the pain of her leg radiated through her with each jerky step. And of course, it was locked. Dr. Honda's voice was laced with derision. "My wand would come in handy right about now. It's also an omnitool." Stating very matter-of-factly, not that she was very helpful in this moment. "We could try another tunnel..." The monster screeched, and suddenly the sounds of it stomping through the water grew louder. "There's no time, Dr. Wikolia. Roman, put me down this instant." From the hinges, she could tell it opened away from them. "Blast the side of where the lock is mounted and force it open." It was the weakest part of the door and could be compromised with a lot of force.

Between Dr. Honda wanting her wand back and Zoie finding this door locked? He had a full mind to drop the one in arms down onto her ass. If she hadn't already fallen through a hole after trying to at least help them, he would have. Worse yet, the words he heard coming out of Dr. Honda seemed to never mean good things, and he was currently ankle deep in that realization. Not looking back, only continuing on that much faster for the sake of it.

Putting her down without a second thought, more than happy to be rid of the extra aggravation that had been building. She was like a weight off of his shoulders, given whatever actual internal injuries he had going here. Pulling out his blaster, he didn't even pause. "Let me make this very clear," jaw clenched, even as he spoke, Roman began shooting at the spot that was noted. "You're not my responsibility, anymore than I am yours." The door falling open, his gaze turned directly to Dr. Honda. "So run." The words a strict command, only turning towards a threat as he pointed the blaster towards her legs. "Now." Not looking over at Zoie as he continued to speak. "Get her out of here, she needs the care. I'll catch up and buy you some extra time." If they came back for him, that was on them, but he was adamant on them getting ahead, enough to still point that blaster all too seriously.

Waiting for them to run, he turned away from the door. It was hard to say if he had finally snapped, or if that happened much sooner, back through time loops. Some might have said that he did so well before he made it to Terminus. But regardless of what it was, he wasn't going to hear more about a wand from this woman who kept wanting to go back for this giant creature of death and destruction. As of this moment, Roman fully had a bone to pick with another source of aggravations. This place was going to come down, and he didn't need his four years in college understanding structural engineering to figure that out. Stepping back into the green water, he eyed up the creature, as if this were some sort of old fashioned standoff. For whatever reason, the creature seemed to question this. "Alright ugly, time to dance?" With one great yowl in response, the ground rocked beneath their feet.

Roman dropped to his own knees from the shake, but his eyes stayed on the prize. The wand that was peeking out from behind the beast before him, even as the creature sizzled with the energy. He only hoped that wasn't leading up to him being who is electrocuted. Blaster out and pointed at the tongues, Roman waited for the anger to build and burst, leaving the creature running for him. A game of chicken as kept firing at the tongues. Waiting until the moment the creature tried to go at him with those claws again, Roman ducked down and slid through the water beneath the beast's legs. Reaching up and grabbing the wand, sparks sizzled against his fingers causing him to toss it away. Turning, only in enough time to finally try and shoot for the brain stem behind it.

Two good shots in, the great yowl came about again, as the electrodes connected smelled of rotting, burned remains. A large thump of it's body hitting the ground, along with the backlash of green fluid splashing Roman like a small tidal wave. His face contorting into disgust, trying to shake himself off and spit whatever may have made it to his mouth out. Reaching for a part of the wand he thought may be safe, only to find he was wrong through his own body going into convulsions over it. On the plus side, he hadn't lost consciousness, on the negative side, that was a surge of PTSD.

Deep breaths, he moved to push himself up, he started kicking the wand to the door, treating it as if it were some sort of soccer ball. His own hope being about the rubber on his boots would help. Once through the door, kicking it as hard as he could, letting it slide down the narrow path. "Honda's Sex Toys 'R Us has a delivery!" His body feeling heavy, he fell into the wall next to him, using it to keep himself upright a moment. If this didn't speed them up into finding a way out of here, he hoped someone just took him out now.

see 'n say

"I have it this time!" Tui exclaimed, though it came out as au te 'iloa in her native Vorutian. The excited sentiment was obvious all the same, though, no matter the language. Her shout was loud enough to startle Niu'niu from his perch in the windowsill overlooking the street, where he'd been napping in a warm artificial sunbeam. He lifted his wide head to peer over at Tui and the guest, though he didn't get up just yet, allowing them to go about their game.

For the purposes of this afternoon's exercises, she'd disabled the chip implanted behind her ear, which was wired into her brain and networked into her synapses, able to process audio input and rapidly translate any identifiable linguistic patterns into her own vocabulary with minimal error. Output worked in a similar fashion; whatever she intended to convey, the algorithms took care of selecting the correct words and syntax for her to 'speak' aloud, or type into text. It was sort of a cheat - Tui rarely had to deal with the messiness of miscommunications and misunderstandings, save for the occasions where she stumbled across an uncommon colloquialism or had too literal an interpretation of a phrase.

But after her second time dealing with C.A.L.'s particular brand of technological havoc, Tui knew she couldn't afford to become complacent or lazy. She'd spent enough time around humans that she ought to have been better at their language by now. It was, frankly, embarrassing that she wasn't - she lived in their world, yet hadn't really tried to assimilate. Now that she had more partners to practice with, she felt determined to face this challenge. She was smart, she was capable. She had this figured out.

Tui pulled up the holoscreen on the application that was rated for kids 3 and up, flicking through the options available. Her finger hovered over the image of a quadruped with the splotchy black and white body. "Moo! Cow! Moo?" she pointed it out to Roman, hoping for confirmation of her guess.

Even as unfamiliar words hit his ears, Roman was waving her on. Whether he was being a little overzealous about this was difficult for him to say, because for him this was like watching a game. Yes, he was part of it, but in the moment she may as well have made it to the twenty yard line and finding her opening to make that goal. Lost in those seconds, watching as she made it there, he jumped up from his own seat. Arms were stretched above his head, as he did. "Yes! Yes! Yes!" he called out, moving to touch the tip of his nose as if this were now a game of charades to let her know how spot on she really was. But also, in a sad attempt to force some similar version of a nose as a cow.

A low, guttural sound came barreling out, as he even recalled days where he did get to taunt and harass the cows back home. One though, stood out above all the rest. The one that his little sister had favored. The way that she would rush over to the fence and try to get the cows attention, only for it to wander on over at the sight of Roman. Mostly for the sake that he had to help feed and clean up after the large animal. Even how he would slide a gummy worm or two in to her hands to pass along.

The memory of it all, only furthering on his enjoyment of this, and how happy he was to even be able to help like this. There was no lack of faith or trust in Tui's abilities in anything she set her mind to. And the creativity to improve her Common like this blew him away as it is. Waving her on in another way, for the next animal, he only continued to cheer her on without the use of words for the sake of not drawing her focus from the task at hand. No, he was using all of the excitement he was easily pulling from all of this.

His excitement and enthusiasm was infectious, because Tui was suddenly whooping as loudly as he was, as if they'd had a gravball game on. Which would've probably made more sense to her neighbours, but the only sounds in the apartment were coming from them rather than the holoscreen, which sat powered off for the time being. She raised a hand for a high five - a human gesture she'd readily adopted and frequently found reason to utilize, though she often had to remember not to put too much force behind her arm.

"Yes! Good!" she laughed, proud of herself, but delighted in general. Tickled, even, by the concept of a cow. She reached up to the projection of the bovine, stretching it out to enlarge and enhance the image. "Cow like that? Really?" She'd never seen one before - a steak, yes, but not the living animal, and the Fetu had no livestock. Their edible protein was usually plant-based, or otherwise acquired from planets they traded with, or managed to hunt and gather resources. It was almost hard for her to imagine an entire farm just for cattle, though she knew they existed.

Looking down at the controls for the app, Tui tapped another button that brought up a wheel on her screen - the randomiser that would select the next animal she had to guess. She passed the tablet over to Roman to read the screen, so she wouldn't cheat.

Roman was not about to leave Tui hanging, he was going in for that high five like his life depended on it. He trusted her enough that he didn't expect to end up hurt purposely. If there were any sort of accident, he wasn't about to hold that against her either. Only be all the more thankful that there was no hurt involved if he ever figured out that was even a remote possibility after that training. Because that was a time he fully expected to get whipped around a room and go flying a lot higher than he had.

That smile of his wasn't about to go dropping anytime soon, only giving an emphatic nod as he answered her. "Yes, really, cow. Just like that." He didn't know what she had seen in her lifetime, and really he could only imagine. Especially with the way it was far more extended than his. He was grateful for how he was brought up, even though it simply put, wasn't for him. Even if he could easily go back to it, find a place for himself, take care of his father's land. But he wouldn't, except maybe to visit.

Getting the controls, his face lit up that much more. Content to let the wheel spin, literally too. Until it brought up a slightly taller animal. A muddy brown color, with a long trail of perfectly brushed hair down the back of it's head that matched it's tail. Roman put the controls down for a second, finding a seat and cupping his hands. Clapping them against his knees as if to promote the sound of the animal coming towards her before adding, "Heeheehee" shaking his head and blowing a raspberry with his lips.

She wanted to ask how Roman knew, if he'd seen many cows, if they were nice animals - but that would all have to wait until they were done playing the game. Her vocabulary wasn't diverse enough yet to convey all of the thoughts and questions she had swirling in her head, though Tui made a note to return to the subject later. For now, she focused on identifying the sounds Roman was making with his hands and his mouth. Her literal mind had trouble understanding what the clapping was about - she couldn't recall seeing any farm animals with hands, though that seemed like it would be extraordinarily useful in an agricultural setting.

No, she was getting too distracted by the visual - Tui had to focus on the sound of it. The simulated clip-clop was familiar, from some old holos she'd watched late at night. The ones with the men with funny hats with broad brims, and the silvery bits on their boots that jingled when they walked. Cowboys - that's what those people were called. But not because they rode cows (though that would've made more sense) - this was the other animal they used as mounts! She'd figured it out, but now she had to recall the right name of the beast.

"Au. What is?" she started to say, thinking aloud. It was on the tip of her tongue - literally, her tongue stuck out, expression as goofy as it was pensive as the image slowly crystallised in her mind's eye. "Is...is hoss?"

Roman was having far too much fun and getting a little too into this in the moment. But that was far too easily in his own nature. The rhythm for that simulated clip-clop, it held a high standard for old memories. If he had thought for a second her mind moved to cowboys, he may have wished he had a cowboy hat on. Sadly, the only one he had on the station was locked away in his closet. All with enough little things from home that were only sent here a few months after he had been sure he had a place for it.

Once he looked up and was watching her, taking notice of just how close she seemed to catching it all? He was prepared to go full throttle on this whole scenario and prance around like a horse on as close to all fours as he could get. Or at least imitate while prancing around, half doing the doggy paddle like he had to in a play as a child. Those memories, he wasn't looking to relive, but you did what you had to in the moment. Including galloping in the wrong direction in that play, and falling off the side of the stage before jumping up and yelling that he was okay.

But there it was, he tapped his nose and jumped up in excitement. There was no 'r' in there, but he suspected that was more than likely an accent even though he was not at all sure. It wasn't as if he heard her going on about horses lately. "Yes, horse!" Something about this, it felt like he needed a scoreboard for all these she was getting right. That was his thought for a next time.

Taking hold of the controls and letting it spin again, his eyes went wide with mirth as it all stopped. He loved this one, on a personal level, and there was no denying it. Getting onto the floor, he rolled over onto his back, moving to his front, and back and forth. A few good snorts coming from him, until he got on his hands and knees. Lifting one hand enough to reach his face, he pulled his nose up and blew up his cheeks before snorting and grunting again. Then in his own amusement, went charging at her feet, coming up short. All the while, snorting and squealing.

"Auuu. Horse. Hooorrrse," Tui repeated, correcting herself. It hadn't been her accent so much as a bit of confusion, blurring the slow drawl of the cowpoke in those classic western holos with the more common rhotic pronunciation of the word. She would remember it now, or at least she hoped she would, the next time a horse became relevant. But there weren't that many out here in Terminus space for it to be a frequent topic of conversation. In fact, there were probably far more useful words and phrases she could be learning right now, when the nearest farm was several planets away, but she had a fondness for astrozoology.

Plus, it was just plain fun watching Roman's animated performances. Among the many traits Tui appreciated, his lack of pretension was one she ranked highly. Some people were the type to make others feel small - even those of her stature could be reduced to a joke, a punchline. But never Roman. Since they'd met, she'd always felt at ease in his company, accepted for exactly who she was. Tui tried to match that energy, valuing Roman's qualities rather than judging him. She was glad for his sense of humour and willingness to be silly - at least, when levity was appropriate.

Niu'niu, on the other hand, was far less appreciative of the display. Where Tui couldn't help but start laughing at Roman snorting and rolling around on the floor, the cat-beast shot up straight, alarmed by the squeals. Back arched and hair standing on end, he started hissing and jumped from the windowsill. His talons scraped loudly, pitter-patter along her floor as he skittered sideways across the room. Niu'niu leaped onto the kitchen counter, then sought higher ground on top of her fridge, where he glared down at them, thick tail lashing back and forth. Tui had held her breath to that point, finally breaking with another laugh, "Au. He no like."

The correction of herself only added to his own excitement in her having it. A few added cheers as he pointed to his nose, as if to tell her she still got it. If there were points to be had, he would have given it to her fully. Roman very much believed that correcting one's self was about the best thing anyone could do to remember anything later on. Even if there wasn't something to find of relevance, he could only imagine good possibilities in Tui being able to find or create a reason to use the word itself. Even if it turned out to be due to some random nerdy literature about horses.

Tui had been nothing less than that welcome wagon, albeit unintentionally, for him from the start. He was sure that worked out differently for others, with the actual intentions and less a run in with Niu'niu and Beemo along the way, or large rats in alleyways. He had never felt anything less than pride in knowing her, and easily treasured any conversation they had. The allowing for silliness and seriousness where it was needed without the hold of judgement only added to the sentiment.

A little too into his own play of the role of pig here, Roman hadn't quite caught sight of Niu'niu right away himself. But once he had, he looked over at Tui and let out a bark of laughter of his own. Getting to his knees, his hands on his thighs as he shook his head. "Everyone's a critic," he still laughed, before slowly getting up to his feet. "Is this how you go about asking for some extra fish too?" he asked, looking up at Niu'niu. Roman sucked in his cheeks for a fish face, full pucker. Hands raised to try and play fins on the sides of his face. As if Niu'niu had to get in on this little game too.

Another growl rattled through Niu'niu's throat as he glared suspiciously down at Roman, judging him as though some kind of imperious child emperor atop a metal throne. The offensive squealing might have stopped, but the cat-beast's ears were twitching warily. The only moment they had stilled was when Roman had said the magic word: "Fish." Tui repeated it, seeming to diffuse at least enough tension that she wasn't pained by fear her pet might try to launch himself at Roman's head again, claws out and fangs looking for skin.

"Eat fish?" Tui said in the sing-song sweet voice that animals seemed attuned to, then approached the kitchenette to rifle through her pantry. Tucked away in one of the upper cabinets was a bag of treats. All it took was the softest crinkle of the plastic for Niu'niu to sit up straight and cautiously tiptoe to the edge of his perch, curiosity piqued. "Fish!" she called again, shaking the bag until Niu'niu was successfully lured over.

With lofty grace, Niu'niu descended from the refrigerator and hopped on her shoulder, curling around her neck like a fancy fur stole. He sniffed at the bag, nudging his flat face against it until Tui opened it. A strip of fish jerky wasn't quite the same as a fresh filet, but it was better than nothing, and better than letting him tear up her friend. One talon snatched up the treat presented to him. "Hungry." She could understand the sentiment, feeling a sudden pang of hunger churning in her own gut. "Break time?" she suggested to Roman, although she had forgotten to make her last guess.

If someone would have decided to launch himself and attack, it certainly wouldn't have been Roman's first rodeo. All that would have mattered to him was that it wouldn't have been his last. His first meeting of Tui and Niu'niu had been strong in the forefront of his mind. The last thing he would ever forget was what someone favored, especially from such a fateful day.

Watching Niu'niu move for Tui the way he did, it nearly felt like a case of deja vu. The simplicity of it, anyway, without people getting knocked to the ground or giant rats looking for fights and hissing as fire was directed at them. But also, it was nice to see someone simply so content with only having gained a treat. Animals always felt easier to understand and read than people, in so many ways.

Roman now relaxed and without a single animal sound to give, stood no differently than as if he had just stepped inside. A smile on his face at the words, he gave an affirmative nodd and repeated Tui. "Break time."

While Niu'niu was preoccupied with his treat, Tui had a hand free to reach up behind her ear. The gesture looked like a simple tuck of hair away from her face, but the point was to trace her finger over the patch of skin where the subcutaneous piece of Vorutian tech was installed. It took a second, but she soon felt that strange, familiar tingle in her scalp as the neural network reactivated and rewired her synapses. From the outside, nothing changed, though she gave a little shiver as the chip kicked in.

Aural transmitters first, filtering speech to her own tongue. Then vocal settings, turning the thoughts in her head into sentences that Roman would understand. At least to the best of its capabilities, anyway - some words just had no equivalence in any human language. But the translator could parse out something as simple as, "Want lunch? I've got stuff for sandwiches." She waved vaguely at the kitchen, to say 'make yourself at home'. Her pantry these days was overflowing with food in store - mostly to cover the appetite of her brother, Kit, who had become a part time roommate since his arrival on station a few months ago. Whether he chipped in for groceries or not was another matter, but Tui had been raised with the mentality of sharing resources if she had them.

Which was one reason Tui had encountered a bit of culture shock when she'd come to this side of the Gateway, and saw how humans lived. So focused on monetary exchange, on the concept of individual wealth, on having more than someone else. It wasn't a universal quality, but one she saw frequently enough, promoted in society, in advertisements around the station. No one on the Fetu would go hungry if they could help it. Though, she supposed the one thing they lacked was the luxury of choice. If they didn't want sandwiches, there was always noodles, or sushi, or anything else at the tap of a finger on a commlink menu. "Or we could order in. I'm not picky. Though I reckon I'd rather go for something veg after all those animal noises."

welcome to the frozone

A haze of flickering and dimly lit emergency lights gave all the dire aesthetic this needed. Even if it weren't for the automated and ever glitching words spoken through the speakers assaulting their ears in regards to the amount of time they had, no one was going to view this as a bad night clubbing. This was one of those areas left in the depths of Roman Cortez's nightmares. A place he had been before, in a number of ways. But never on Terminus, never against C.A.L. As much as he wondered about the suicidal tendencies of this supposed viral intelligence and the anger it held against whatever was left living, he had to be thankful for one thing. At least outside of the company he was keeping in the moment, anyway. For as well acquainted with this station as Cortez had made sure to be through the usual and unusual means, what better time could one have to reach depths as these? He couldn't help it, he did love to know how things worked and how much of it was optimally. For as many years as he spent in engineering throughout his career, he was a fly to this honey.

Reaching what appeared to be the right level, he eyed the two men curiously. With the manual approach to everything that had to be done, right down to making it to this level, not everyone would have been up to the task and he knew that. This was one hairy situation to be in, but he could at least say he was in good company. If he ended up in part of some explosion and shot into space, these are some of the people he would be content to last see. Mostly because of the belief that they did do all they could, and to actually believe it was the truth of it. That semi-emotional two milliseconds aside, he pressed a button calling back maintenance on the other end. There was a high temptation to speak in code, playing this out like a military operation, but he bit it back. For once, anyway. "We've made it, what's next on our to-do list here?"

The silence on the other end irked him. Only for the sake of not knowing if anyone was able to actually hear or if something else had glitched again. In retrospect, at least he had permitted to memory the schematics he could get ahold of of this station. Private sector or not, the last thing he was willing to do was sit on a floating space rock and feel helpless of some wayward attack. The last plant diabolical antagonist proving that point. But hope came through the static filled radio. "Down the hall, second door on the left." Another pause. "Panels at each of the tanks will have pump levers to break the seals. A crank in the middle of the room to push the water."

Tan wasn’t a sentimental person. He had no particular attachment to the station beyond recognizing that it contained the few people he’d come to care about in the verse. So preventing it from hurtling itself into the nearest planet seemed—prudent, and if the first step of that was getting control of the reactor so they didn’t all blow up then he was game enough to try. His mind wasn’t exactly on the job—despite how he tried to keep his focus, he was distracted, and only so much of it could be blamed on his mildly malfunctioning memory.

“Second door on the left.” If he could repeat things, he could generally remember them, for at least as long as it took to take action on them. Tan didn’t know the men he was with, but it didn’t matter—they had a solid enough goal and a clear enough initiative to handwave little things like trust and familiarity. Tan came to the aforementioned door, expecting it to slide open as he got there—but it was locked tight. He stepped back, taking a look at the door panel beside it, even surreptitiously leaning back to count doors and make sure he’d approached the right one. One, two—and this was definitely the left (yes, he was enough of a trash child to mentally check that using his hands before he reached for his radio. “The door is locked—can you let us in?”

There was silence on the other end—a long enough pause for Tan to pull a skeptical face and look at his cohorts—but the radio crackled to life before he could outline how sketch the situation was in general. “Hey, sorry—the doors aren’t working. Just give us a second to try something.”

He was about to respond when the door in front of him hissed and opened up, allowing their entrance into the reactor. Tan wasn’t dumb enough to hesitate on entering even if every bone in his body screamed that this felt like a trap. “That worked, thanks.”

The radio hissed to life for a second before it was cut off—and in that moment Tan would have sworn he heard the maintenance tech start to say they hadn’t done anything before being cut off for silence instead. He didn’t want to ask for clarification—it was better not to know.

As terrible as the situation very obviously was, Ronan much preferred it when there was something he could do, so he hadn’t hesitated when there had finally been a task he could help with—that it was in the company of his XO was a bonus, since he had just about enough of maneuvering perilous situations in the company of untrained or downright chaotic civilians, and considering everything that was on the line (his newfound home and the people he cared most about), there really wasn’t any room for error.

Then again, they were only one of many simultaneous missions to keep this station from careening into MALM, and there was no point in thinking about how many ways this could go absolutely terribly wrong. They had a job to do.

Ronan had easily fallen into line as the last of the three of them, particularly because he knew little of Tan and this hence seemed wisest, but that did mean the doors prematurely sliding shut behind them with an ominous hiss only barely missed him. It didn’t exactly come as a surprise, but it certainly didn’t bode well, either, and he cast a glance over his shoulder at the door that stayed shut.

“If this isn’t the right way, great news, we won’t be turning around,” Ronan pointed out wryly, a little too accustomed to everything in his life leading towards the next near death situation at this point, and only hoping his friends were faring better. He knew Cortez had gotten onto the station even later than Ronan had himself, and he turned to Tan instead. “Were you already here the last time this … thing tried to take over the station?”

Where Cortez didn't hesitate anymore than anyone else to step into the room, there was that little devil on his shoulder that was practically singing the warnings of others. The number of times he had heard or been asked if he had been staying out of trouble on the station, through all of this mess. The ever vigilante greeting and end of conclusion of conversations that held the phrase 'don't die' felt all too regular. The way that door closed behind them, he was feeling Ronan's words. "With any luck, we won't need to," he threw back with a grin. Of course, that only led to him questioning if there was any luck left to squeeze out of this.

The corner of his eye turned to check on Tan's answer to Ronan's question. Tan had seemed quite capable, from what he had seen. Between a time of angry plants, and trudging down here through the insanity of a virus. Cortez knew little beyond what information he had gained from Fletcher, his own curiosity piqued. Looking over the room and trying to find the right panels. It was too quiet in here, even for his own tastes.

The furthest panel not wanting to pry off, Cortez moved for some tools he had left inside his coat pockets. With everything that had been going on in past weeks, he hadn't once left home without some for this last week. It becoming increasingly easier with the extra drops in temperature. If there were traps here, may as well get this party started.

Looking back at both men, "I come packing, if you guys need anything let me know." He offered, quickly. A small lingering thought on how this place didn't look like it would start shooting at anyone, so there was that. No worry about Ronan getting shot having to help someone. Or so he hoped. Even though, he wasn't entirely sure that didn't mean they couldn't get shot into space. Not the best time for those new experiences, at least on the station. At least without a tether and a suit? But that one wasn't actually new to him, especially since one of the ships he was the engineer on had blown up. What were the chances now?

A shift in color in the corner of his eye caught his attention just as he had pulled the wall panel away. It was a floor panel turning red a few feet away. Brow furrowed, he called out to the two men. "Anyone else seeing that?" The last thing he needed right now was to think his brain wasn't getting enough oxygen right now.

Tan usually was fairly capable—less so now, with his memory and inner ear still not perfectly up to snuff—and this was hardly the kind of situation where his talents really shone. He was better at the kind of tasks where you pointed blasters and told people to put their hands up. Still—he’d been on enough varied jobs to know his way around general machinery (that he’d also grown up on a tiny, dusty mining rock where things broke as often as they worked was a detail that he rarely brought up—he was never sure how much of that he could truly remember). There was a eyebrow at Ronan’s question, but Tan answered honestly enough. “Nah—lived here, but I was off-station at the time. “

The next part was wry, and utterly contradicted by the fact that Tan moved further into the room, approaching another one of the panels on the wall that maintenance had mentioned. “Kind of wish I’d been off-station for this one.”

He looked up as Cortez spoke, turning to figure out where the other man’s gaze had drifted towards the floor. The panel was definitely red. “No—no, that’s definitely red.”

Tan reached for his radio again, calling back to maintenance. “Hey, guys—we’ve got a floor panel that turned red on us—something we should be concerned about?”

After a moment came the reply. “Um—hang on a minute, let us check something.”

They sounded concerned. Tan pulled a face but didn’t press for a reply. The only way he could see out of this mess was to work forward. He turned back to the panel he’d just started working on, taking it down so he could look for the levers that had been mentioned. A moment passed and then a floor panel near him shifted to red, and he hesitated—when he spoke it was to the men in the room, not to the radio. “Guys, we’ve got another one. I’d assume it was some kind of sensor panel for when these are open, but they sure didn’t seem familiar with it.”

“Are you just reciting your fuel bio, boss?” Ronan arched a skeptical brow in Cortez’s direction, though, similarly, Ronan had come prepared, within means. Shooting things certainly wasn’t the most tactical way of turning anything off, but it was one that came in handy, and he had paired his usual gear off with wrist cuffs that administered electric shocks, made for him by a friend. Because life on Terminus was strange, and called for stranger means of dealing with it.

Nodding absently as he focused his gaze on their surroundings, Ronan grimaced. “I was supposed to be on vacation right now, don’t remind me.” Should have been somewhere on Babylon, with a view of the mountains, maybe a campfire, not freezing his limbs off and possibly dying, again, for the third time in four months. “Think we all would have been better off elsewhere.” Of course, had he been off station for any of this, while his friends were stuck here dealing with this, Ronan would have driven himself mad and restless with guilt.

Still. It would have been nice if the station simply weren’t trying to kill them. Too much to ask for.

While Tan turned towards the wall panel, Ronan made for the crank they were supposed to use once the levers were flipped, careful to avoid the lit up plates on the floor. “So I’m guessing red means bad, does it,” Ronan mused out loud and just barely suppressed a sigh at this less than pleasant, yet less than unexpected turn of events, as another panel flashed up red. At the current rate, there would be more red than regular ones left within minutes. “Is this... normal? Anyone at all think it is?” The resignation in his tone suggested he certainly didn’t think so, and a cursory glance around told him there wasn’t a lot in the way of higher ground. “Maybe we should hurry this shit up.”

"Dammit, I knew that late night decision was a bad one. You found it on there and sent me a slew trouble, didn't you?" Cortez tossed back in reply, feigning seriousness. At least for the moment, anyway. If only he could have been so easy to pin all of his bad decisions on someone else. But that wasn't about to happen today or any other day. "I knew all those dm's about being a killer and wanting to choke out a fleshbag were a little off." Cortez only half muttered to himself.

The idea of a vacation right now, sounded like a dream. One that was intangible, no matter how far Cortez could reach. He really couldn't recall the last real one he had. Where he had the time, there had been this near nonstop need to be of use. And a level of worry about what he was missing, what could be needed, all while he wasn't there. As if this one man could make such a difference, even in the slightest of ways. But the idea of being somewhere real, surrounded by nature, breathing air that didn't need to be recycled. Priceless.

His mind was left reeling over thoughts of the possibilities on what was going on. What C.A.L. was up to here again. It didn't help that he was really beginning to question the level of experience of those people on the other side of the radio. Was there some manual reading going on here? A great disquisition of systems while it was actually their lives on the line? Would they get a plaque here if they ended up blown out into space?

"Fuck," he muttered, before pointing at the crankshaft on the other side of the room. "He's trying to block the path of the water." Pulling off his gloves and dropping the coat, outside of the omnitool he had in hand, he moved for the crank shaft on the other side of the room. "The water isn't held back like a dam, it's compressed." Ignoring the lockout blinking on the panel, he opened it up to a few sparks. Nothing he wasn't used to, given how many times he had to play with equipment these past weeks. "Say this is a normal engine? He's setting us up for something like a hydrolock. To damage the pistons pushing the water using opposing force compression."

Working on the panel and swapping a few wires, the room started to shake. Just enough for Cortez to grab a pole for support, but also the panel to close with some flickering skull and bones smiling back at him. Rolling his eyes at it, he turned towards the other two men. "I need you guys to turn this crank and don't stop." Opening the panel back up, he went back to work muttering again. "Yes, that is what he just said."

(While he would never have admitted it, Tan would similarly not actually have chosen to be anywhere else. He had begun to care too much about others on the station—he in fact cared too much about people in general to leave them to this fate.)

And none of that engineering stuff made much sense to Tan. He had never focused on that side of things, but it didn’t mean that he couldn’t get the gist of what Cortez was saying (it was the specifics where he was lost). When he was at his best, the shaking wouldn’t have affected him in the least, but it played right into his current state of mild vertigo. He stumbled slightly, having to reach out to steady himself against the panel.

He hurried after he settled, moving to help Ronan. He could only assume from what Cortez had said that it was going to get way more difficult to turn and quickly. He fell off with the banter—because that was what Tan did when things were going wrong. He focused, went serious—he tended to be quiet and focused instead of fun, which made him good enough at his job and terrible at being charming when the world was blowing up.

It didn’t take long for it to look like Ronan was struggling with the crank—he braved himself and reached out to help crank. As he did he paused for a moment and then snorted, loudly. Looking up at Ronan with an almost sheepish expression, “Sorry, I uh—just got that joke.”

Hypothetically speaking

“If, hypothetically, we ever get back to Terminus—” Ronan looked out across the sweeping grandeur of Idlosa from the cliff ledge they had somehow climbed their way up on, in one of their many, many attempts at discovering new routes that wouldn’t kill them while they attempted to reach the control panel again, then back at Roman. “What’s the first thing you’re gonna do?”

If it weren’t for the others who had retained their memories from these loops, like Cortez, Ronan would have been absolutely certain he had gone completely bananas by now—and even then, there was still a chance he had, though judging from the way the rest of them seemed to be losing their wits about it also, Ronan was pretty sure he at least wasn’t alone in it.’

“The longer we’re here, the more it seems like a particularly cruel fate to strand us forever on a planet that doesn’t have a single fucking bar, really,” he added, with a heavy, wistful sigh. Under normal circumstances, Ro would never drink on duty, or even leading up to it; he took his job seriously, maybe too seriously sometimes, but they had left ‘normal circumstances’ so far behind, it wasn’t even a grain on the horizon anymore. “I didn’t even bring any smokes.”

Roman scoffed at the idea, not because of his lack of hope of getting back. That doubt was sitting in the back of his mind, having taken hold more than a few times through the course of this. But this scoff was about the surprise of Ronan having to ask. Giving a look that practically screamed, as if he didn't know. "You mean after kissing the ground?" Cortez joked. "I've got a bottle of rye whiskey that's begging to be taken out for a good time." At least, as far as being a good start.

Laughing, but not actually amused at the thought, he rubbed the back of his neck. "Yeah, think about it. Sober for the rest of eternity having to see my mug everyday. I'm already sorry." Looking over the landscape, he pointed at a few random areas with flat clearings. "Imagine the bars and distilleries would could set up if we had more time, you know, between deaths and restarts."

Taking a deep breath, this all felt like an arcade game where he may as well hear noises in the background when they found something, or gained a free life, died and had to restart, or met the bad guy at the end of the level. Except the princess was forever in another castle. "But if you had to choose, would you have that one bottle your smokes. Only one, for one of these days. Because, don't forget, this is hell and you're only getting one for good behavior." For all the sense anything made anyway.

Ronen smirked as he shot Cortez another look. “Likewise. This never ends, you’ll know my face better than my own parents.” He paused, shrugged, though his expression was one of amusement as he added, “And probably like it much less.” There were highs and lows; days when he thought they would never leave, doomed to relive this over and over to the point it made him maudlin, other days, he thought they might actually make it out of this – yet others, where he was so certain they wouldn’t that it bordered on nihilism.

“Good behavior? When did that happen?” He huffed out a laugh, but he didn’t have to think the answer over long. “Cigarettes. I already know you’re picking the drink, so we can swap at least. Besides, I would hate saying the wrong thing drunk to someone who will actually remember it.” Which did seem less and less relevant by the day, since it didn’t look like they were getting back to Terminus any time soon.

“Give it a while and we’ll start hosting contest what we can build in the shortest amount of time.” Speaking of, Ronan checked the time. 1418, forty-two minutes until this whole damn mess would reset again. No doubt they wouldn’t make it on this loop, either. Trailing alone the cliff edge, an old looking bridge came into view, and he looked over at Cortez with a raised eyebrow. “We got about forty minutes left, what’s the dumbest thing we can come up with in that time?”

Cortez froze in thought. A grave look falling upon him. A slow, "Shit," flew from his lips. Frantic hands moving to the back of his head. "That means I'm going to grow eyes in the back of my head. I'm not ready to play daddy!" Dropping his hands, he drew in a deep breath and relented to his future now. "I won't even need to see your face to know." Nodding in Ronan's direction without facing him, he added, "Like now." Eyes now returning to look over at Ronan with a feigned look of challenge.

"Hey!" he was quick to defend the thought, only to pause scratching his chin. "I could make a case, but you have to go along with it. Just nod or sign some agreement written in bug guts or something." If only there were some presence to try and explain these things to. The idea of it would at least gain some freedom of feeling like there were such a chance. "And if it doesn't work, you sneak behind them and we blow them up, who ever them is." Smiling at the thought, he shrugged. "Now that's teamwork," he nodded and laughed in agreement. "But I can't imagine you being able to say anything that I'd hold against you. So you're free there. But I know the feeling and its hard enough with some of the questions tossed around." The feeling of trying to herd people who only hold the same disbelief and questions that were well-known by them and left to be an additional source of frustration and aggravation.

"We can be the two little pigs building their bars out of sticks and rocks. Waiting for the big bad wolf to blow it all down and restart again." Groaning at the time, he hadn't even thought to look at it at this rate. More surprised they made it this far without trouble, he grinned. His hand going for his blaster, holstered on his hip. "Wanna go hunting?" Quickly pointing at Ronan, he added, "Not me, you bastard." (Reply to this)(Parent)

Rope Bridge

There was an odd sense of deja-vu as Selina began to step across a bridge that looked older than dirt because the grass literally was greener on the other side. Go figure. Despite the niggling at the back of her mind, Selina wasn’t quite buying what her X.O. was saying about this being the third or fourth time they’d traversed this strange, new planet. Not that she doubted his sanity or anything, not really. She did, however, wonder if he’d slept much the night before after him relaying his apprehension. Selina couldn’t blame him for that; she’d had plenty of apprehensions herself before and during her first mission aboard the Endeavor. This particular mission so far had been mostly harmless with a few of their team getting scratched up by some vines. Now they were having to cross this old, rickety bridge. Selina had volunteered to go last and so, with one hand braced on the ropes on either side of the bridge, she started her trek across.

The wood beneath her groaned and creaked with each step she took. Since the rest of her team had already made it across, Selina wasn’t too concerned although maybe she should have been. A quarter of the way across and the bridge swayed Selina’s stomach along with it. Heights weren’t exactly her favorite thing. Another step and then another and the bridge continued to strain at her weight. She made it a handful of steps further when the telltale sign of wood cracking reached her ears and reflexively, her fingers curled around the ropes more as she took another step...and felt the wood beneath her boots give way as the bridge, at last, caved under pressure. Selina’s hands tightened on the ropes, even more, getting burned as the rope slid through them before her grip tightened and she was left hanging over a large crevice with a rushing river beneath her. Well, this was certainly new.

With as many things had caved in during their stay here, Roman had given up on much of the typical uses of his time. Instead, he had taken to adding a little flare to the over dramatic, playing things a little more wilder and less like he was going to actually die anyway. It wasn't as if anyone was going to believe him, and Selina certainly hadn't. Instead of waiting around for her with the rest of the group, he had managed to tie a rope to a boulder. Checking how tight it was, before tying it to himself.

Without any single warning, he launched himself off the cliff. Propelling himself down the side, moving to swing and grab her. The rope had been just barely the right length for this act. However, this didn't mean he knew it would hold their weight or not, let alone how difficult it was going to be having to pretend to hold some experience rock climbing back to the top, if they even made it. He was too lost in having fun playing Mission Impossible here, no longer caring about how it ended.

The grab of her was not at all smooth, leaving him twisting and turning, back ground against harsh rocks. "Believe me yet?" he asked, laughing in the moment. One arm around her, the other turned her face, kissing her as the rope jerked slightly.

“Uh, guys…” Selina called up to the rest of her team, trying to peer up the dozen or so feet to the top of the crevice. She couldn’t make out anything let alone anyone, so she just hung out for a moment, praying that the rope she clung to wouldn’t unravel in her hands. All she could do was hope that someone was working on a rescue attempt. The next time she glanced up, she saw a form beginning to make its way down the side of the cliff and she exhaled on a sigh. Although she thought it might have just been easier to use the ropes of the bridge that still hung, keeping her suspended over the river below, Selina wasn’t going to knock any kind of rescue attempt.

When the X.O. reached her, Selina carefully transitioned from gripping the ropes of the hanging bridge to gripping, well…him. She could only hope the rope he used was strong enough to hold their combined weight. Heart racing from the adrenaline rush of nearly falling to her death -no one’s died, ha-ha- Selina wasn’t exactly concerned about being gentle. Not that she wanted Roman to hurt himself but it wasn’t like they had much of a choice in tactics here. At his question, Selina just groaned. He’d been asking her that the past two hours they’d spent heading toward that damn skyscraper. Opening her mouth to reply, to tell him that in no way, shape or form did she believe that they’d done this already but she didn’t have a chance to do so before Roman’s mouth was over hers.

Naturally, the rope jerked more and Selina whipped her head back. “Whoa-what-?” A light laugh of her own fell from her lips but her brows furrowed in concern as she studied Roman’s face. “You’re not having a nervous breakdown, are you?” Because having this conversation while dangling over the side of a cliff was a great idea.

The corners of his mouth turned up, not a second thought was given. At least in the moment, as if this came off to be some average day. Although, it was nothing of the sort. Her question left him with one to throw back. Look on his face moving into a more thoughtful one, as he asked earnestly, "Would I know if I were? Are there signs?" Maybe that was something to study up on next time. "Why do you ask?" The final question left for another jerk of the rope.

Looking up, his brow furrowed before looking back at Selina. Nodding up, "You better try to move while you still can. Everything is jinxed, you said no one would die, and someone is going to. Again." Even if it was only him. But maybe that was better, at least here. If she reached the top anyway. No pain, no memory of pain. "Use up the rest of your luck, I'll be behind you," he tried, smiling. Internally questioning if he shouldn't just untie himself now, before things go that far south here, into the next reset.

He was definitely losing it if he hadn’t lost it already, Selina decided. While she’d gotten to know Roman in the past couple of weeks and knew him to be eccentric and unpredictable, this was pushing it. Selina’s mouth dropped open and a quiet ‘uh,’ escaped. She could feel her face flushing with color but tried her best to ignore it and the very real awkwardness of the fact that he’d just kissed her. “You’re a little bit more...antsy than usual,” she finally said softly, still watching his face for a sign that something was amiss.

Instead of starting to climb right away, Selina rolled her eyes at Roman. “No one’s going to die,” she insisted, even as they hung a dozen or more feet over a rushing river. “Everyone’s going to be fine,” she muttered, twisting in Roman’s grip to try and grab hold of the rope he hung from. She still didn’t understand why he insisted they’d already been on the planet for a day -several days- but then she was starting to think she wouldn’t understand anything that came from him today, especially that kiss.

Grabbing hold of the rope, Selina swiveled further in Roman’s hold. “I got it,” she informed him, silently wishing she had gloves to protect her hands. Nevertheless, using the side of the cliff, Selina began the slow climb up to the top. “I’d say I’d race you, but…” she called over her shoulder, glancing down more than once to ensure that Roman was on her tail. Up at the top of the cliff, Selina could see their teammates holding the rope so that the weight of the two of them wouldn’t send them both tumbling to their deaths.

That smile grew wider, as he wasn't about to let her live down anything anytime soon. What was the point of that when there was literally no tomorrow? Through his times of trying to hold it all in, believing it was nothing more than mold toxicity getting to his brain. And then having tried to see if anyone else understood what was going on? Without finding anyone listening, life changed before him. Why go through watching or waiting for someone to die? Might as well have some fun with it? Or let your mind unravel a bit. Maybe more. Who was to say, other than Selina, currently.

"You found my favorite color. Not that you'll remember. Oddly enough, that wasn't even referring to the reliving of days. No, that was a crack at her actual memory.

But he knew better, as far as anyone dying. Giving a small smile, he only nodded over her claims. "Okay. Everything will be fine." He repeated. Nothing less than agreeable, trying to help her move up the best he could.

"But you'll win because you're lucky." he mused, but also with a slightly sadder tone. As she moved, he didn't, staying still until he noticed some unraveling of the rope against a sharp edge of a rock, on the cliff wall. Untying himself, he didn't have it in himself to drop. Instead, he moved to grab hold of the rocks and what was left of the bridge himself. Still playing the part of Mission Impossible, only a tad bit quieter from below her.

Moving slower than her, his foothold left him before his grip did. Leaving him to feel as if everything moved in slow motion as he fell.

Selina’s eyes knit together further at what seemed to be rambling coming from Roman. “I found your favorite color-what?” She wasn’t following him, not for a moment. Well, except for the dig at her memory which was mediocre at best. She could remember small, inconsequential things at random moments from several years before but ask her something that was said in a conversation the night before and she’d have to wrack her memory and even then, the outcome wasn’t always accurate. And don’t get her started on her ability to follow a conversation.

As he parrotted her, Selina frowned but said nothing. There was nothing to say. She was trying to be optimistic and clearly it wasn’t working. All she could do from there, all either of them could do, however, was go up. Literally. Selina inched her way up the wall, holding onto the rope and pulling herself up against the side of the cliff. When he spoke those last words, Selina gave a shake of her head. “This isn’t a game to win…” Glancing down that last time, Selina wasn’t happy to see that Roman hadn’t made to follow her and intended to scold him for she watched in horror as he untied the rope from around himself. He really was losing his mind and Selina hadn’t the faintest why. Surely his anxieties about his first mission weren’t that great.

“Cortez, what are you-” And then he was falling and for a moment time stood still. Selina wondered if he was stubborn enough to prove himself right by doing something stupid like this. She couldn’t even shout his name as he fell and instead, silently moved to action, using the rope she held, Selina traversed over the side of the cliff wall to where the bridge remains hung and while holding onto her own rope with one hand, she yanked as hard as she could on the rope of the bridge hoping to draw it close enough that Cortez could grab onto it before he fell out of reach.

A fear of death itself had never occurred to Roman even before this mess. There may have been a fear of pain, but he had moved beyond that well before the navy. It pushed him on, propelled him forward. He learned to take hits, and use the feelings it brought upon him to focus on the next component of a mission. There was a strong capacity for fear, only it flowed in the direction of what his death was worth. If it would have been from a fall down the stairs, a worthless bump to the head, or an accident where he couldn't sacrifice himself for the betterment of someone else. The only other fear was watching others suffer. He couldn't sit and watch, he had to do something about it, no matter how big or small.

In his moments of pretending to hold some leading actor part in a bad movie, he quickly turned into a side actor losing his grip and falling to his demise. Where Selina didn't believe this was a game to win, he may have momentarily believed her. If only he didn't feel as though he were living out his life as an arcade game.

Too naturally, his hand went for that rope, but missed. In the process it managed to wrap around his other arm, leaving him suspended in air and barely hanging on. A full jerk against his shoulder, pulling it straight out of alignment. A sharp hiss, as he wanted to yell out but didn't. A string of curses, as he tried to find a way to ease the pain. Trying to focus, he started to call out the words to I Believe I Can Fly.

Having spent the better part of the first couple of hours of the day listening to Cortez try and convince her that this wasn’t their first day spent on Tidlosa had been tiring, to say the least. The other members of their team remained silent and out of the argument whether they agreed with Cortez or not. Naturally, that only convinced Selina more of the fact that Roman was losing his mind. Of course, she only thought such a thing lightly, not that he was truly going mad but she was starting to question that with each passing moment. Why the hell had he untied himself? There was no explanation that Selina could think of that would rationalize Roman’s bravado or...whatever that had been.

Selina’s heart stopped as she watched him miss the rope and continue his fall until all of a sudden he was jerked and left suspended several feet down from where she held the rope he’d brought down. And suddenly, their roles were reversed and it was Selina attempting to come to his rescue, rappelling down the side of the cliff wall in hopes of being able to reach her X.O. that dangled awkwardly. Unfortunately, she ran out of rope before she could reach him. Selina wasn’t one to curse, but the urge in that moment was strong.

As she gripped her own rope with both hands, Selina tried desperately to figure out what she could do to help. She wasn’t sure that pulling on the bridge again was the best option but she didn’t know what else to do. It was then that Roman’s words reached her and she almost laughed at how ludicrous it was. “Are you singing?” she hollered down to him. With an incredulous shake of her head, Selina wondered if he was perhaps dehydrated or something. Carefully moving over the side of the cliff wall, Selina managed to grab hold of the rope attached to the remains of the bridge and was trying to figure out what to actually do when she felt the tension in the other rope give way.

Apparently rappelling down the wall had set the jagged rock further up the wall, sawing at the rope until it was only held together by mere tendrils. Selina moving to grab for the bridge was the last it could take. Eyes wide in terror, not unlike when Roman himself had fallen, a scream died in her throat as she frantically gripped at the rope of the bridge. The rope slid right between her fingers, burning the palm of her hand as she continued to fall. The only thing that stopped her was Cortez’s arm, wrapped up in that rope at what had to be a very uncomfortable angle. The bridge shook from the force of halting her fall and Selina knocked against Cortez hard enough to rattle her teeth as she grappled for the rope with her other hand as well.

"Why? You need me to change tracks? Have some requests?" he tried back, biting back against the pain. With little pause, he moved into another song. "It's time for me to fly, I've got to set myself free. Time for me to fly, that's just how it's got to be. I know it hurts to say good-bye." The words still more ground out than sung, but he was working with what he had, in attempting to keep himself together and find a way to shift his weight. An angle of some sort, to pull this arm out and either fall or just stop the pain. This wasn't in his description of a thousand ways to die here.

Having long ignored the screams above as anything more than background music or singers to his ongoing fiasco, he was still deep into trying to figure out a way out of this mess. A curious thought about how this type of thing worked in movies, even with people who claimed to do it for real. It only made him more fickle towards that lifestyle. Not that it mattered, he checked that angle off his mental list. Maybe next time he would find a way to work this into Die Hard. It felt right. That thought melted away as he barely looked up in enough time to see Selina falling.

This time, he did yell out, with an emphatic, "Yapiro!" He would have sworn he nearly saw stars with the pain that shot through him. A few deep breaths, and his mouth just had to keep on. "Couldn't just keep going up? That kiss mess with your head? The hell, woman." A few more deep breaths, unwilling to move an inch this time. He tried to compel the thought to her again. "You're going to either have to find a way to shove that back into the socket or cut the rope. Everything will be fine. Just because you don't believe me, doesn't make it wrong. If I acted like this before this mission, I'd have been actually dead way before the word Endeavor was a thought in someone's head. I'm not going through the rest of this blip of a day losing an arm. If you've got my back, then you're going to have to trust me here."

Selina couldn’t believe herself when she replied. “Maybe something a little more uplifting.” There was something about his tone that quickly clued her in to the fact that it was likely a distraction tactic for him. His arm was drawn up with that rope at an unnatural angle and she was sure that along with the fact that it was holding up his entire body weight was enough to make anyone uncomfortable. Not that there was exactly anything she could about it several feet above him. Of course, she wasn’t above him for long.

Cortez’s yell rattled around inside Selina’s head as her heart hammered against her ribcage and for several long seconds, she just hung there, practically on top of him. Both hands clung to the rope now and she dared a glance up to see the remainder of their team moving about frantically, no doubt, trying to figure out how the hell to get them up. Cortez started running his mouth again, drawing Selina’s attention to him as her face colored once again. “I’m not the one who untied myself!” she snapped back, blue eyes blazing as they moved over the rope that was wound around his arm. She didn’t want to talk about his absurd claim that they’d lived through this day (or died during it) already. Not right then anyway. Maybe if they did live through this, she’d humor him.

“I’m not sure I can get it back into the socket with one hand,” she confessed after a moment of analyzing her options. She could hold herself up with one hand for a short period but there was no way she could fix his shoulder with just the one hand. “Can you grab onto the bridge with your other arm? I think I can cut the rope.” Already, she was reaching for the knife on her backpack, twisting to reach it. Selina could only hope that their teammates were devising a way to haul them up the side of the cliff while she worked to make Cortez a tiny bit more comfortable.

Uplifting? He paused, wishing he could give her a dirty look. "Well, everybody needs a hero, but I'm not everybody else. I walk alone, yeah, I walk alone, yeah, I walk alone, oh, yeah. You know, I tried to be a hero, but I was lying to myself. I walk alone, yeah, I walk alone, yeah, I walk alone!" But that would be his last attempt at music, before the end felt as though it were nigh..during this extra life being played out.

Roman wanted to punch something, not her, but definitely something. Not that he would be doing that anytime soon, like this. This was her argument, right now? "I'm about two-hundred pounds of extra weight here. That rope wasn't holding and it doesn't take a civil engineer to see the remains of that bridge isn't going to hold much for long either." He snapped right back. "Everyone and this mother fucking bridge," Roman added to himself.

Shaking his head, he exhaled a deep breath. "I'll lose consciousness." It was a viable threat, especially if he was passed out wasting more time here like this. Waiting on someone else to die so he could move on. "Cut the rope, or I'll gnaw this damn thing off." Not a real threat, but he made sure to sound serious, through gritted teeth. There was no way he would manage to stay conscious through that either. He was lucky to have made it this far. "Let me go, Killer." The words a little softer, but still just as certain.

Selina didn’t get the chance to groan. She would have though, if she hadn’t practically fallen to her death. Although, there wasn’t necessarily a guarantee that the plummet into the rushing river beneath them was a death sentence. Selina scoffed even as she worked on freeing the knife from its sheath on her pack. “Well if you hadn’t decided to play Rambo, we wouldn’t be hanging out...like this.”

Freeing the knife from its sheath, Selina gripped it carefully in her free hand. “I’m working on it!” High tensions called for short snappy replies apparently. Without another word, Selina began sawing at the rope that was wound tightly around Cortez’s arm. She was mindful of not cutting him in the process which made it a little slower going than it would have otherwise been. Well, that and she was hanging there from one arm herself. Selina paused in her slicing to meet his gaze, noted the pain there and something inside her cracked. She quickly averted her gaze to continue sawing at the rope but stopped short of his arm breaking free of it.

“If you’re telling the truth, then it doesn’t matter if we die.” Even as she voiced the words, Selina’s heart raced in fear at what she was about to do. She still wasn’t sure she believed him, no matter how adamant he was, and certainly, no amount of a death wish was going to convince her either. Without another word of warning, she replaced the knife in its sheath on her pack, and then she released her one-handed grip on the rope of the bridge. Moving quickly, Selina wrapped both arms around Cortez’s neck, and just as she’d planned, her added weight was enough to snap the tendrils of rope that still remained together around Cortez’s arm, sending them plummeting the twenty feet or so into the rushing water below.

Murder Hornets

Noticing a path she enlists the help of Roman. The path was lined with vines and flora expanding up towards the sky and draping across each other like an entwined canopy she made note to keep from getting too close to the foliage. "How long do you think we'll be stuck here?"

Taking a deep breath, he shakes his head. There part of him that wonders if this won't be what's left of eternity with the way his own sanity seems to be falling apart. "I don't know, what's hell look like to you? Think we found it?" he asked Kamaria curiously. "Imagine your poor files crying for you now."

"It's an eternal reset on a day I didn't want. At least I don't have to worry about my whole team hanging off a cliff side." Looking over at him with a raised eyebrow. "Don't you dare mention my precious files, everything will be okay. Mamma's coming home!" Looking ahead as if bewildered to be without them and as if all hope was lost. "If we fall, we go swinging together."

Those two words may as well have been a trigger. Eternal. Reset. It practically snapped him right out of his revere of the path before them. "Wait, when did they hang off the cliff side?" Roman asked, cautiously. As long as it wasn't something from today, that mattered. This today, anyway. "Oh, ho, ho, I'll talk about those files all I want." Roman joked, feeling a little more like himself for a moment. "I wish I could keep up with the tally of everyone who has gone over." He added offhandedly.

She wasn't sure how to say they had hung off a cliff today, but not this today, a different today without sounding mental. Little made sense but it was her first experience in a mission capacity with part of the team. "The first time we did this, before we came back to start this day over again. We were crossing a bridge made out of sheet metal. It snapped and Emil slid, then Fletch reached for him and then the commander. I was on the other side with a rope. Beemo got fletch while I got the commander then Beemo got Emil."

She looked about trying to find the direction of where that actually happened in relation to where they were. Pointing and then second guessing herself she pointed to a different location. "Whatever day it was, it was the same day when I got electrocuted and you were the only one to check up on me. Then boom, at the start of it all again..." Her voice trailed off thinking about that time, seeing Fletchers body, seeing not everyone come together in that room and then all of a sudden it was morning and they were going to try all over again.

By his own amazement, Roman was able to follow her statement. While he hadn't been there, it didn't stop him from understanding what she was telling him. His own memory reflecting the moments after she had been electrocuted. The helpless figure that was sitting against a wall, much the same way he had recalled seeing Fletcher and the way it bothered him. It bothered him now too.

Pinching himself on the arm, he stayed wordless until that moment. "Ouch," he whispered to himself. Knowing full well he likely looked crazy. "Sorry, I had a moment." Roman laughed, before clearing his throat. "I'm not really sure how to make anyone believe those stories."

Her eyebrows furrowed as she watched him pinch himself, keeping the pace. "I don't know if there is any way we can. Just keep them from doing the same thing. We get to be the ones telling everyone not to step there, or open that door or touch this thing."

As if fate would have her life by the vice, waiting to pull the trigger she walks smack into a nest. Not just any nest. A murder hornet nest. She wasn't given much time, as a hornet came to fearlessly take care of business, stinging Kamaria in the calf, her leg almost giving out instantly from the sting. She clutched her leg, sitting on the ground. "Could he bee, more aggressive?" She knew it wasn't a bee, but the joke still came.

He hadn't been paying any better attention given the realization that someone may as well have said I believe you. All too quickly did his happy moment get plummeted by the sound of her walking into that nest. His jaw dropping, and not over the pun. No, the pun he could follow without skipping a beat.

"All stings considered, you really bugged them." He didn't know how much time there was to be had, but as more hornets came out, he wasn't expecting very long. Moving to pick her up off the ground, this didn't need to turn into that kind of death. Roman made a run for it, looking for any type of cover.

Helpless to do anything really but let him carry her to hopeful safety. "This day keeps repeating itself, and now it's my fault. This is un-bee-lievable." Shaking her head, holding onto Roman with a bit of a grip from time to time when the throbbing in her leg was becoming harder to deal with.

"Listen, player one. Don't tell them player two was the reason the game reset." Not that many of them would believe them if they were to tell them. "Thank you for giving me a noble death, you're the bee's knees."

The noise of the angry hoard of hornets behind them only grew louder. Whether that was due to the sake of Roman very adamantly paying attention to that noise or because they were getting closer, there was no way to tell on his end. Painful death 101 led him to believe this was not the way to go. Especially after he gained a couple of stings from behind as he was running.

The lack of shelter left him rushing for water. All too literally tossing Kamaria's body into the river before rushing into it himself. If this led to some waterfall and they ended up crashing against rocks, so be it. Escape of hornets was the only current need.

The water dissipated the hornets and they were free of them. But now it was a matter of finding shore or left to wade in the water. Her vision was going blurry and the strength to keep afloat was quickly disappearing. There was no land to swim to even if she did will herself to keep going.

Eyes growing heavy her arms and legs soon stopped fighting the water. Her body went limp and unresponsive as she slowly sunk deeper and deeper into the water until she couldn't be seen.

Cliff Dive

There was no adjustment to that sweet smell in the air, as the breeze blowing through only seemed to heighten it. Roman was beginning to only accept that scent as the true scent of death. Some floral aroma he couldn't quite pin down, even if he had wanted to. If only to avoid it. But now wasn't a time for paying attention to that. He was on the lookout for threats, and practically clinging to the path that Fletcher was taking.

However, Roman had fallen behind in his steps. All for the sake of avoiding a few choice vines. There was no trust here, not for anything native to this damn hell planet. "You find anything up there?" Roman called to him, noticing how close he was to the crevasse, but thinking little of it.

Fletch couldn't remember what to avoid - which was, perhaps, a little blissful, so that he wasn't perpetually on edge. Not like Roman, who worried Fletch, and if all of this time loop talk was real - well, Fletch couldn't exactly blame him. Beemo was further behind them now, with Fletch up ahead, inching along the edge of the crevasse with as much care as he could take. But it wasn't necessarily enough.

"No, nothing!" Fletch called back, poking his head out around the corner and down at Roman. "It just keeps going. But we should probably continue, right?" Fletch didn't notice the rock slowly crumbling underneath the overhang he stood on.

It seemed like a fair assessment. Roman hadn't actually seen this side of anything just yet. Not in any of his reset days. Maybe there was a safer route here, maybe everything should turn out better? There had to be some hope somewhere? And if not, there was another day for that too.

"Still?" he groaned. "At this rate we may as well be running." If it were away from something, he might appreciate that. Except in certain cases. Aka this planet. "I guess that makes sense," Roman began, but something felt wrong about this. What was it again?

Fletch looked up at the thin winding pass along the crevasse with a furrowed brow, and then back around the corner to Roman and Beemo beyond him. "I'm sure there's something helpful ahead!" He attempted, brightly, not dragged down by the curse of remembering absolutely everything that had gone wrong at every single turn - if that was what was really happening, and the others weren't just collectively losing their minds.

"We'll be alright, we'll just keep go--" Fletch started, and turned, shifted just enough and put too much weight on his back foot that, in little more than a second, he was gone. The path from the cliff had simply given out beneath him, and Fletch disappeared in a drop with little more than an, "Oops!"

The realization came far too late for Roman, just about to call out for Fletcher to move. Then it all happened, much like a whirlwind. Dropping everything he had on him, Roman's speed increased. The words, "Son of a bitch," were muttered along the way.

A full blown sprint came over this loss, not bothering to stop at the edge nor holding a second of hesitation. Never one for the swim team past the first year of tryouts, he still set himself into the position for a dive. As if he were about to go save Fletcher from drowning. Calling out as loud as he could, Roman jumped, "Fletcher!"