2018-05-08 - SPACE JAIL: Group Takk-tics
| Title: SPACE JAIL: Group Takk-tics | |
|---|---|
| Summary: In which Sailor Pluto finds a packed cell and teamwork gets everyone out. | |
| Who: Fuu Hououji, Kasagami Araki, Niramo Umokeshi, and Setsuna Meioh | |
| Where: SPACE JAIL | |
| OOC - IC Date: Tues May 8, 2018 - Thu April 16, 2015 | |
<Pose Tracker> Setsuna Meioh [Infinity Institute (U)] has posed.
The soles of Sailor Pluto's feet ache with accumulated chill, but she wouldn't wear her shoes even if they weren't abandoned back in the cell she and Fate Testarossa had shared. The last thing she needs is to announce her presence with the metronomic clacking of heels. Even moving with the hush bare feet afford her and with all the stealth available to an Outer Senshi, her questionable freedom has nearly been lost to patrols multiple times since slipping away from Fate, Steven Universe, and...
Ami Mizuno. Sailor Mercury. It's difficult not to be preoccupied, and that's far from the greatest surprise Pluto has incurred in the last 24 hours -- and one of the gentlest, truth be told -- but she can't afford distraction, and with an iron will pushes it away with the rest for later contemplation. The detransformed senshi sneaks down strange hallways that are rendered in vivid alien green, her priorities split between evasion and searching.
Her Lip Rod is on board somewhere, Pluto knows. She suspects the same holds true for her allies, since they rode the same gravity beam in, as best she can recall -- and Steven and Ami showed up, after all. She remembers Kassie, floating upward... But these halls split endlessly, laid out by alien minds, and she cannot begin to find her way.
She's wearing civilian clothing now: a violet skirtsuit trimmed in white and black, the shirt beneath gaping at the collar. A makeshift mask made out of a bright red strip of fabric crosses her eyes and protects her identity. The rest of Pluto feels too exposed, deep in this enemy stronghold with no power to hand. All she has is the detached metal leg of what used to be a patrol: it is something... and it is utterly insufficient. Robonoids and their masters are everywhere.
Up ahead: a junction. Sailor Pluto ghosts up to the oddly-angled corner -- it seems that nothing is ninety degrees here -- and waits, listens. No clanking of metal feet. At least the patrols aren't subtle. She peers around it, and sees another long hall, this one punctuated by bright yellow forcefields running down either side. Another cellblock.
She scans in all directions, then slips down this new direction. As Pluto reaches the edge of each cell entrance she whispers to a stop -- her movement almost soundless -- and listens before leaning forward to peer inside. There are some faces she'd rather not see, a couple she'd welcome, and one she dares to hope for with each new cell she checks.
<Pose Tracker> Fuu Hououji [Infinity Institute (10)] has posed.
Time has passed, and the pain which still plagued Fuu when she awoke from being Destabilized (on top of getting beaten up generally) has faded; as long as she doesn't move too abruptly or forcefully, she can imagine that she's not actually hurt.
Being distracted helps with that, of course. Concern over how much her family will worry that she hasn't turned up after she left yesterday (was it yesterday, yet?), trying to find possible weaknesses in the cell's construction ... and other worries. She tries to stay productive with her thoughts, but -
Try as she may to be her normal serene self on the outside, the cold fact is that Fuu is flat-out *terrified*. She's not a complete stranger to helplessness, even if you only count from after she first received her magic in Cephiro, but there's a long (and very literal) distance between being helpless somewhere in Japan, and being helpless an untold distance out into space.
She's studiously avoided looking out of the viewport; there's nothing useful to see out there, and dwelling on the ship's surroundings (or apparent lack thereof) won't give her anything useful to work with anyway. She hasn't been able to come up with a great deal to talk over with her cellmates, although she's relatively open to conversation if either Kasagami or Niramo choose to strike up a conversation. She's even napped a little bit, uncomfortable as it may be, on the premise that if a chance comes to escape, it's better to be at least somewhat rested in advance of it.
But mostly, she's left with little to do except to worry. They don't have anything to plan with that she's been able to identify, and if their assets are limited to the three of them and what little they have on their persons, those are far from enough resources to actually break out of this cell. At least, so far as she can establish.
<Pose Tracker> Niramo Umokeshi [Juuban Public School (9)] has posed.
Staying upright causes pain to shoot up and down Niramo's legs, but it was the good kind of pain that seems to dwindles away with each moment the muscles are stretched into new positions. Massaging her legs with stiff fingers, the ravenette is doing her best to focus on one problem at a time, the biggest right now being the after effects of being Destabilized. Even if the Gem rod weapon was originally designed for Gems, the effect it has on a magically-enhanced human makes it nearly as potent.
Hearing Fuu comment on how she might be onto something, Niramo offers her cell phone to Fuu after opening it back to the main screen. "Well, if you think those robots actually do follow a path, you're more than welcome to use the clock, Fuu-san! Just, um, don't mind the look of the application? I didn't like the generic one that came with the phone..." Rubbing the back of her head sheepishly, Niramo tries to play off the slight embarrasment she has from the application. Besides, doesn't she have better things to worry about right now?
Such as what to do for food, water and...bathroom needs. Water isn't too much of a factor inside the cell, thanks to the ice close to Kasagami that was slowly thawing. The other two were much more important, however. Judging by how the rest of the cell is in terms of amenities, or lack thereof, Gems may not need to eat food or depose of remains. "Hopefully our wardens will have some sort of food to bring to us, but we may need to mark someplace as a toile-AAH!"
Niramo's position while standing up proves to be a poor one as, if summoned by her comment, an half-sphere made out of the same hexagon-like material pushes out of the wall aburtly and without warning. With Niramo occupying the same spot where the half-sphere was coming, she ends up falling against the opposite side of the cell, her body shuddering from the unexpected impact jarring her muscles, as well as just how /cold/ the walls were when compared to the floor.
Getting upright quickly and turning around, the young girl can't stop herself from kicking against the base of the sphere, but like Kasagami's previous attempt of her fist against the wall, the only thing Niramo gets for her efforts is a freshly bruised toe. "Why did it have to do that right then and there?!...this is terrible."
Fuming slightly, Niramo turns her head to stare at the yellow energy field that was keeping them all in such a tight spot. Her emotions were moving from one extreme to another, and it was obvious that she's honestly terrified of her situation. Trying to mask her feelings behind bad jokes and puns like she would when she was using her Miraculous wasn't helping when she knew they were basiclly helpless now.
She couldn't even be sure that help could arrive for them.
<Pose Tracker> Kasagami Araki [Ohtori Academy (11)] has posed.
Kasagami Araki isn't doing much better than her two cellmates. She just happens to be playing things a bit differently.
In true Ohtori fashion, Kassie has taken to a number of 'amusements' to stave off the growing helplessness and frustration of not knowing /where/ she is, how she's getting out of here, and the gnawing fact that her /ring/ has been taken away. Nevermind what the Shepherds and Steven might be enduring right now.
Her biggest amusement being taunting a certain green Gem whenever she happend to walk by, fully enjoying the few chances she gets at putting down the design of the ship. Needling an enemy nerd is /satisfying/, even if she's being a jerk.
Also as the pain began to wore off, she started a combination of shadow boxing and upside down pushups. Right now she's on her fifteenth set, sweat dripping down her chin.
"/That/, Nirachan, would constitute actual competance and forethought on the part of our captors." They're /very/ competent all things considered, but Kasagami Araki refuses to stop spitting venom in the theoretical direction of her newest enemies.
A glance to Fuu. She's worried for the two girls. Time to inspire.
"Just keep your thoughts on what to do once we're out. They'll slip up. No security is perfect. Once we're back on Earth, we are all going to a day spa." Hopefully not on her dime. She's said stuff like this again and again when not being Ohtori. Need to keep everyone's spirits up in her own Kingly way.
<Pose Tracker> Setsuna Meioh [Infinity Institute (U)] has posed.
The creeping senshi is a couple of checked and empty cells down the hall when she catches the low susurrus of conversation. Sailor Pluto freezes in place, worried it's a patrol -- but then Niramo's 'AAH!' rises loud and clear, and she relaxes fractionally before slipping toward the cell that cry came from.
She sneaks up to one side of the forcefield and eavesdrops, hearing the end of Niramo's pained complaint. '...this is terrible.' That voice sounds familiar, she just can't quite place it...
No such difficulty exists for the next voice she hears. Pluto would know it anywhere, the recognition so swift and fundamental her heart begins to race before her mind processes it. She closes her eyes, letting the outside wall hold her up a moment.
Then she gathers herself, at least somewhat, and takes a long rotating step to face into the cell, her hair swirling evergreen behind. The face of the senshi is varying degrees of readable to the occupants. To Fuu's eyes she is a mysterious young woman whose most notable features might trigger some sense of odd familiarity, and convey little emotion; Niramo sees Setsuna Meioh, the person she knows to be Sailor Pluto, looking a little worse for the wear.
Garnet eyes land on Kasagami and, though their margins crease with signs of deep weariness, they warm and widen. She is sad and relieved and hopeful, all at once, stirred beneath the surface. "A day at a spa sounds like just the thing," she says, and there's a little quaver beneath the light statement.
"Kassie...!" All are welcome to hear the hushed and desperate joy there, though Pluto tries to keep it down. She keeps looking at the swordswoman, her eyes unable to tear away, no matter who she's addressing. If it were safe to press her hands against the forcefield... but knowledge of its effects keep her back.
Her eyes gleam beyond the forcefield. Partly for Fuu's benefit and also to signal to the two in the cell who know her identity, she says to the detransformed Wind Knight, "I am Sailor Pluto, and you will all be free very soon." She looks both ways. "Do any of you know how long it has been since the last patrol?"
<Pose Tracker> Fuu Hououji [Infinity Institute (10)] has posed.
A day spa? That's not a luxury Fuu usually contemplates indulging in ... but assuming they get back safely from this, maybe some pampering above and beyond the norm would be in order. And of course, thinking about it means thinking ahead about getting out of here and safely back to Earth - which is likely why Kasagami suggested it.
She's about to reply to it when Sailor Pluto presents herself, and Fuu does a double-take. There's something familiar about her that *isn't* a Sailor Senshi, but ...
Well, odds are that she's another magical girl who was in the battle. And if she's gone to the trouble of hiding her face, it means she's worried about letting *her* secret identity slip. That's all Fuu really needs - more than enough, really; she may be lax about her identity but she respects the secrecy of others' - and she smiles, bowing politely to Pluto. "Not more than three or four minutes, I think? Peridot came through just after the last Robonoid patrol. Niramo-san, were you looking at the time more closely than I was?"
<Pose Tracker> Niramo Umokeshi [Juuban Public School (9)] has posed.
Looking back over to Kasagami from the view of the inaccessable hallway, the distraught Juuban student focuses on the Duelist's scarred face. Yet again does Kasagami show that she is the voice of reason in this tight spot they find themselves in, and Niramo takes in a deep breath and holds it. A few seconds later, she exhales and nods, trying to calm herself. Letting her emotions control her right now will only make things worse for themselves, but it was just so hard. She never expected to find herself in an alien jail cell.
"I think I would like that, Kasagami-san. I...never actually been to one, so if we make it back, i'll like it. Well, if my parents will let me out of the house ever again." Even the threat of being possibly grounded for life seems like a pleasant thought compared to where they are now. Her room has an actual bed, for one.
When a somewhat familiar voice speaks out behind them - behind the forcefield -, long raven locks go flying with the speed she turns back around, and blinks in surprise. While the ribbon mask is certainly new, the beautiful green locks of hair help Niramo place the voice, and a large grin quickly spreads on her face. The intense joy Setsuna joy lets out for a desperate moment upon seeing Kasagami speaks volume, the sight of a friend seeing another she thought lost.
Almost about to make a comment about the makeshift mask Setsuna wears, she bites her tounge as the Sailor Senshi of Time introduces herself of such. The mask was there to hide her identity, but in the opposite fashion! That...actually makes a lot a sense, and Niramo wishes she wasn't so quick to change out of her school uniform before the events that took place in Tokyo Bay. "Sailor Pluto, i'm so glad to see you here! Um, right!" Holding up her phone again, Niramo glances at her phone and nods, before showing the Sailor V clock application towards Sailor Pluto. "Fuu-san is right, there is a little over 6 minutes before they come back. Can you really get us out?"
Unexpectedly, another voice speaks up, one that wasn't warned by foot prints or even a swish of fabric. "Unforunately, that will not be enough time. The locks designed for these cells are deviously designed to be unlocked manually." Once the speaker comes into view of the cellmates, however, it becomes obvious as to why. It was a floating...mouse, if a mouse had a slightly bigger head than normal and no muzzle to speak of, and floating into view at around Pluto's eye level. It doesn't seem like it was going to call out for the guards, however. "I am Takk, and the mechanical hazards that act as the main guards for these halls will return before the lock can be bypassed, if they are not otherwise distracted during their patrol." Turning to face Pluto, he offers a miniature bow. "Sailor Pluto, I am sure you will have more success than me at freeing these three, but I will offer you any assistance I am capable of." Turning his head back towards the cell, he looks at Niramo directly and offers her the slightest of smiles.
"T-takk...um, thank you as well!" It's hard to push out thanks when your throat suddenly tightens up.
<Pose Tracker> Kasagami Araki [Ohtori Academy (11)] has posed.
Kasagami Araki nearly falls on her fabulous butt as the voice of Sailor Pluto filters into the cell and her eyes open wde. She drops into an awkward roll and comes up on one knee. She stares. For a long, long moment, she /stares/ at the beautiul figure of her lover that's come to save them from this green heck.
"Pluto!?" Her good eye mists up. She stands, takes a step forward...and then glares at the yellow barrier keeping them apart. If looks could kill, that barrier and it's energy field great-great-great grandchildren would be toast.
She's crying here. Sobbing just a bit.
"Pluto, you are absolutely beautiful. Maybe more than you ever have been! Get that cell open, we're getting out of this place!" Kasagami's dwindling hope is neatly duct taped back together with the sight of her love. The pure /trust/ she has in her voice in Setsuna should speak a lot to their relationship.
A glance to Niramo, a glance to Fuu, and she claps both girls on the shoulder then tries to drag them into a hug. She even mostly keeps her voice down. As much as that's ever a thing with her.
"Didn't I tell you two!?"
Oh hey, it's Takk! Hmmmm. "Do what you can, little fuzzball. Fuu-chan? Nira-chan? Help me keep an eye out. Pluto? Keep a place in mind to duck into, I don't think any of us want to run into those patrols without a proper weapon right now." She snarls out that last bit, but she's a Duelist. She knows how to size up the opposition.
<Pose Tracker> Setsuna Meioh [Infinity Institute (U)] has posed.
Fuu Hououji volunteers a time estimate, sounding subdued and unsure -- it doesn't quite sound like the Fuu that Pluto remembers, but considering their surroundings and situation... "Thank you. So six or seven minutes, that may be enough." She hasn't opened a cell herself yet, but Ami Mizuni is an /excellent/ teacher and showed her some of how things work.
For the senshi's part... she is rapt. When Kassie drops and stares, she meets a garnet gaze brimming with emotion. The corners of Pluto's lips flicker upward, joy strobing through the sorrow-heavy exhaustion. She hears the trust and nods, smoothly covering a swallow. After a pause she says, in a low voice gone even more quiet, "This barrier is trying to stand between us. It has no chance at all."
She wants to say more, but... there is company, and even more importantly, very little time. Niramo holds up a clock application and manages, for just a second, to pull Pluto's eyes from her love. Doing so gives her a precise count, and the timer begins to run in Sailor Pluto's mind: three hundred seventy-two seconds and counting down.
"Ah, good. I cannot think of anything I would allow to stop me opening this cell, do not worry. Let me take a look..." She's turning to something just outside the cell door when a mouse comes floating up, bearing aid and information.
"Hello again, Takk-san. It is appreciated -- we each have dear reasons to want this cell open, I think." She looks back to Kassie again, and nods. "Back the way I came, maybe. I should get to work." It's hard to tear away, but after another small smile she manages, looking back to the wall outside.
"Ah, just so..." She's working on something set in the wall to one side of its entrance. "Here it is. They are subtle, these panels..." Pluto keeps her voice at the lowest of murmurs. "Now, what do you have for me?" The senshi is addressing the revealed touchscreen, not the girls inside the cell or the mouse outside it.
Sailor Pluto throws her mind into the puzzle, fingertip racing and tapping. Her focus looks absolute, and it very nearly is. The sentinel does apportion awareness to a well-practiced caution, ears straining for intrusions from either direction. After a few minutes of this heavy mental work, she also looks a touch more at ease. There is no room for emotional weariness or worries in this moment.
But three hundred seventy-two seconds passes all too quickly, and as Takk warned, the patrol returns long before the puzzle is solved. Down one end of the hall, the metal clack-clack-clack of an incoming Robonoid sounds!
It's coming close, and might turn the corner any minute. Close enough to hear them, certainly. Not wanting to risk speech, Pluto casts a silent look of appeal to the mascot.
<Pose Tracker> Fuu Hououji [Infinity Institute (10)] has posed.
Even with rescue so close - at least a degree of it - she still can't do anything to help; the panel which Sailor Pluto needs to use is out of sight, although Fuu takes note as best she can of approximately where the disguised Sailor Senshi situates herself to work on the lock. Takk's presence, too, elicits a smile and a slight bow from Fuu. "Whatever help you can provide, Takk-san," she says, quiet but friendly, wholly trusting - because really, there's no benefit to being suspicious.
But with Niramo sharing her phone's clock, Fuu is once again directly conscious of the time, and she moves away from the door for the time being. Surely being stared at, or even near, won't help Pluto at all. And it may have been a smart move in any case - the sound of Robonoid footsteps is enough to push Fuu back to her previous set of behaviors - not looking hopefully out of the cell, as she had when Pluto made her presence known, but curling up against the bottom of the wall, as if she were trying to sleep. The movements are quiet enough to be lost against the vaguely mechanical clacking ... or so she hopes.
So close. And yet so far. And she can't think of anything to do that'll help keep Pluto undiscovered or help spring that lock all the faster ...
Although if any of her cellmates *can*, she'll play along. Eagerly, even.
<Pose Tracker> Niramo Umokeshi [Juuban Public School (9)] has posed.
Being called an fuzzball by Kasagami ruffles Takk's metaphorical fur, but the only sight of it showing is by raising an eyebrow at the crimson-haired Duelist. "I can do much more than you at this moment, cyclops." There's no meant insult with those words as he nods at Kasagami, knowing that this human tends to shoot her mouth whenever possible. Perhaps he could show her to have some caution in the future.
As Sailor Pluto turns her attention to the puzzle, the Kwami pushes his senses outwards, slowly looking up and down the hall and his tiny ears twitching wildly at every slightest change in sound. Despite the constant singing that echoes through the cell blocks, there was a new voice, one panicked and desperate, but not in true physical pain. That might be worth investigating at a later junction.
Then when the sound of scuttling feet start to approach their position, Takk glances back at Pluto and notices her progress. Among the mass chaos of numbers and spaces, only half of those grids seem to have an actual pathern to them, proving that his theory about the lack of time was correct. "Sailor Pluto, Fuu, Kasagami...Niramo, I will return shortly." Without any futher warning, the Kwami speeds down the hallway towards the sound. Just around a curve is a lone Robonoid, but even one is enough to sound the alarm if it catches any escaped prisoners. Any escaped 'samples' however, should be easy enough to catch.
The Kwami slams into the Robonoid at full speed and bounces off, not actually doing any harm to it but bound to have it's full attention now. "Now how does Plagg goes...? Ah yes. Hey, you waste of scrap metal and mechanical engineering! Your technological precursor was a toaster and a floppy drive!" Maybe the Robonoid doesn't actually understand the little fairy, but it knows it was insulted and fires a glob of goop, only for Takk to dodge at the last second by flying upwards. "Please, I seen better processing on a printer!" The Kwami starts to lead the provoked Robonoid back down the hallway, being cautious to stay out of it's effective gooping range yet still a viable target.
Niramo, for her part, feels useless just standing there at the door and looks up and down the hallway, trying her best to feel like she was doing something useful for the Senshi of Time. "Takk...be careful."
<Pose Tracker> Kasagami Araki [Ohtori Academy (11)] has posed.
"None at all!" Offers Kasagami, forcefully reigning in her voice, but not her belief! The resident timecop even has /time/ given to her, and so Kasagami smiles. She goes silent. She knows that PLuto can do it. She believes in her heart of hearts that the most beautiful and most wonderful senshi in he whole universe can do it. It's a fragment of hope she was beginning to lose.
She can't do anything physically. She's tested the forcefield herself, like an idiot more than once. But the former StuCo member leans back against the cold wall with this /look/ at Pluto. Then at Fuu. Then at Niramo. There's this gaze of unshakable faith in the Senshi of Time that only family or true love can cultivate. But that patrol sweeps by!
Before she even gets a chance to do more than glare at the fuzzball of a Kwami, off the thing goes bravely to distract the oncoming robonoid! Her heart pounds! She peers over to watch!
"...Brave little runt. He belongs at Ohtori." High praise, coming from Kasagami. Sniffle. Your sacrifice won't be in vain, you cute little fuzzy squeaky toy of a mascot!
Then, Kasagami Araki cracks her knuckles, and bounces on her toes. She's ready, and eager, to get out of this cell. And most importantly? Find her ring and then wreck absolute havoc upon the ship /and/ those that run the whole thing. Someone is /not/ happy with this whole involuntary trip.
"So. Once we're free and get out things back...who do we punch first? ....I want that nerd on too much coffee for starters!" They had to complain about /toilets/ darnit! This, and the cell itself, is a personal afront. One that she wishes to address violently.
<Pose Tracker> Setsuna Meioh [Infinity Institute (U)] has posed.
Pluto's unspoken plea gets its answer as brave Takk zooms off. She hears that *thud* from the collision around the corner, but even if a corner of one eye narrows in a sympathetic wince, she doesn't look away from what she's doing. The Guardian of Time has a new clock to race: the sooner, the better.
A line appears between her eyebrows. Half a minute passes, and another line joins the first. Takk's jibes float to them down the green halls, dopplering away and back again. Pluto ignores the trickle of a sweatdrop down one side of her face.
But she feels the trust in her love's regard, a warm awareness that steadies her pulse and lifts shadows from a heart overburdened. Her fingers fly, driven by urgency and eagerness alike. With a final quick swipe of her hand Pluto completes the pattern and steps back, expelling a held lungful of air. The forcefield winks out, dropping the cell into darkness and freeing its inmates.
"Let Takk-san know," she urges Niramo, making an entirely unnecessary gesture to wave the three out. Surely they need no encouraging! Pluto was going to try for some gentle humor, a reply to her love about her enthusiasm for punching things, but with the barrier gone...
The words melt away, and all she can do is meet Kasagami at the entrance with her hands open and out. It cannot be a long hug. They have to move. But it can be tight, and fierce, and a wordless promise of more to come made with arms that tremble. Pluto sniffs as she pulls free.
"Let's go. It is a maze, you'll all see... but there were some storage spaces I passed not too long ago. Maybe we can find them." Importantly, they're in the opposite direction as the patrol. The Guardian of Time carves a few seconds into their getaway to catch Fuu's attention. "Hououji-san. Look:" and she swipes at the touchscreen to bring up the puzzle. They're in a rush, but it's enough to show the other girl the basics.
And they're off! Into dubious freedom and great danger they go, four demagicked magical girls rejoined by one scrappy mascot.
