HALO 182: Wait, what if we ARE Lawbreaking?

[Beans]

[Outside]
From the water, a shape rises, water streaming off its bulk. Roughly the size and shape of an aircraft carrier, it rises into the air. Tubes on its flanks expel hissing objects into the water around the base.

[Training Room]
Khaari grabs her autosabre. "My room's close." Out a window, she sees an object---one of the flares deployed by the carrier outside. It burns and bubbles blue in the water. "Hell, the Doc is involved? That woman scares me." She begins to dash toward her room.

[DoomITP]

As Grant strolls jauntily down the hallway, evidently missing Toby's door. He plops Civvy down to do whatever she feels like.... And then Grant got an idea.... A wonderful idea. He leaned over to the entrance to Toby's office.

Hey there, Your Royal Highness The Supreme Edge Lord of Dark Misery and Stuff Like That. I was totally gonna come down here to offer to help you out but then I thought about it. Why would I ever help such an absurd, paranoid egocentric, definitely not a furry, person? Y'all talk about wanting to go get stuff done and then you ghost off only to come back and groan about the status of the place. You think you can run an organization that protects the Nexus. Dude, you can't even keep your kids in line, let alone accomplish anything that actually matters. Might say, "Oh... You never dun nuffin though, et tu." I do PLENTY, it just so happens that when you are never around, you don't see it. Your bad choices track record is about sixteen miles longer than mine. But hey, you've got your kingdomy... Thingy... Thing. Anyway, it's been a time and a half. I'mma go do some stuff. You enjoy that office and that ego.


The Daemphage then moonwalks through a shifting portal of blue fire that he brought into existence. The portal snaps shut just as he finishes walking through.

[Nova_Eclipse]

[Office]

Quin takes Tobias' hand in his own massive mitt gently and shakes it.

"Thank you, sir. Now, is there anything pressing I can help you with? That is, after all, why Civvy brought me to your office."

[Morty]

[Conference Room]

Thariza doesn't waste any time digging into the ribs. They crack in her powerful jaws. She had no idea she was this hungry.

"I don't have anywhere to go that isn't here," she admits. "So if I'm allowed to say, I'd like to. But... why did your people have to leave the base?"

[The Bushranger]

"I certainly think so. Kwen sort of... mm... makes me hate the world less. Hey, how's your wife?" Esmock had as much conversational tact as ever: not so much.

Dani giggled, beaming happily. "Sammie's doing great! She's busy a lot, but that's because she's important and oh so good at what she does," the little redhead declared after munching on ice cream for what seemed like a week.

[FireFox]

[Office]

Quin's finer control and gentleness are noted. He's probably starting to realize by now that Tobias' fox eyes miss very little. But why does everything have to be a test? Or perhaps he was just stalling and it took this long to come up with a plan. I want you to go to Skyside for two reasons. The first is that we need to see what's going on up there, get the lay of the land, check the city's pulse, take its temperature and maybe let it stay home sick from school for a day. The second is that we need to be seen doing so. Head on over after you've settled in here. Check out the sights. Buy a souvenir from a local market. Talk to the citizens. Do a good deed or two. Foil some petty crime. Try not to blunder into anything heavy. Call for back up when you do. Sorry, if you do. Tripping on another player's plot hook and falling face first into a scene with unbalanced power levels is inevitable, really, but it won't do to imply a lack of confidence in the newbie. Getting the picture? Sufficient words to the wise?


[Conference Room]

Of course you'll be allowed to stay. You aren't selling us out to the demons, are you? Douglas dabs at his nose with a crumpled tissue pulled from his pocket. Oh it's all a little vague at the moment. My company's use of HALO's resources might be a bit of a sore point to some. Perhaps there are concerns about our usefulness. Could just be a drill, like practicing to get us all out safely if the demons come here. I'm not going to worry about it and you certainly shouldn't. Once again, thank you for your cooperation. If anything you've said helps us with this threat, I'll be sure to let you know. He smiles and follows the teenaged archer out of the room. The door stays open. The charr will have no trouble finding her way to more familiar parts of the base when she finishes her meal and leaves.


[Fort Itude]

Alex is here with Khaari and the rest of the Vulpanian personnel who crossed through the portal from HALO's main base. They've just now been told the evacuation was a test of various emergency systems, including a hitherto untested psychic interoperability system. The swordsman is visibly uncomfortable with a Royal presence riding along inside in his mind, but he shakes it off when it's all over. Before the assembled people disperse, Khaari will have opportunities to notice and recognize a few notable NPCs and/or infrequently played PCs. Bellatrix Vulpan, one of Matt and Patty's future twin daughters, come back to serve as officer for the platoon of Civiron's paladins. Diane, priestess of Kynegetis, recently switched from Spec.Ops. to Intel on secondment to the RCA's Station. Douglas, the Chief of said Station and facilitator of Khaari's hookups in at least one timeline. Finally there is Soteira, the holder of a divine spark Khaari never had in this timeline? Retcons are so confusing! I demand you help untangle this mess.

[Beans]

[Fort Itude]
Ah, good old Fort Itude, a place Khaari has totally been before, probably, yes. She waves to her niece Bella (who came from the tiiiiiiiiime dimension) and her quasi-pseudo-almost-ex Diane, and also to her kinda-once-wingman Douglas. Also Soteira, who probably won divinity as part of a scholarship, and/or at a track meet, and/or in the ghastly trenches where more men and women were brought down by disease than enemy fire.
Or something. Maybe it was delivered on the retcon truck that smacked into Carrie.
"So! Gang's all here, then?"

---

[Outside HALO]
The hovering craft's speakers crackle.
"False alarm, everybody! Back to your lives!" Its speakers then blaspheme the very air with a chorus of airhorns as it sinks back under the waves.

[Nova_Eclipse]

[Office]

Quin nods, then salutes.

"I'll do my best, sir. I'll file a report when I'm done." And with that, he turns and leaves Toby in peace, heading for the shuttle bay. He doesn't really need time to settle in; all of his possessions are carried stored as data that can be materialized whenever he needs it. Better to get started right away.

[Morty]

[Conference Room ==> Forge]

"That sounds like something above my pay grade," Thariza observes, before Douglas leaves. Once she's finished with the ribs, she considers what she should do next. Find the people she knew? Her quarters? She settles on checking to see if her old forge is still there.

[Siena]

Dani giggled, beaming happily. "Sammie's doing great! She's busy a lot, but that's because she's important and oh so good at what she does," the little redhead declared after munching on ice cream for what seemed like a week.

Psh, what's a week to a demon that's lived 300+ years. He's still a young'un. ((Not to mention how slow I am. ))
Said demon young'un realized he didn't really know anything about Dani's wife other than that she existed. "What does she do?"

[Cola]

((I found something very un-subtle, but at least this will keep new plot lines from being overlooked. Does anybody of you veterans even use this massive smiley?))



[-->Outside Underwater]

On a riftline train that's just about to arrive at HALO beach station sits a mermaid who goes under the name of Strawberry. A little unusual looking mermaid maybe, worthy of about 117 words of description. Instead of legs, she has a fish tail with a small, stiff caudal fin. She is around 2.5m or 8'2'' long and has a physique comparable to an Olympic athlete. Her entire body is covered in slick skin, blue-greyish in color and adorned with a natural camouflage pattern. Each hand sports six elongated fingers (two thumbs per hand, one on each side) with webbing between them. On her back sits a large, folding dorsal fin, two additional breathing holes are located in her sides, just below the rib cage. She's wearing a colorful wetsuit and a tight hijab with floral pattern. Since she obviously can't just walk around on land, she's sitting in a manually powered wheelchair.

Looking out the window, Strawberry lazily scans the vast ocean for any signs of a hidden base. Nothing to see. Maybe the giant island floating some kilometers high in the sky, but that couldn't be used as a reliable landmark for navigation.
Finally, the train arrives at HALO beach station. Strawberry rolls off the train, towards a pier, parks her wheelchair next to a ladder, straps a submachine gun, survival knife and flashlight to her suit and jumps into the water. But not before nomming some Fish and Chips at the local snack stall. You gotta set priorities in life.

Once underwater, Strawberry just follows the thick backup cable that's bolted to the sea floor, connecting the HALO base to the shore. (If there is no such thing, she will stay at the surface and navigate by smartphone GPS). Once she arrives (if not intercepted), she quickly checks the map of the complex on her smartphone and begins working. Which in this case means suspiciously swimming around the base with a flashlight and checking everything for potential weak spots which could be exploited to damage the structure in any way. Strawberry doesn't even try to avoid swimming by windows while doing this.

[Morty]

[Outside Underwater]

As Thariza walks around the base, trying to get herself familiar with it again, she spots... she has no idea who or what this is. But this someone is examining the base in what is pretty clearly a suspicious manner. She looks around, concerned. She can't do anything about this... fish person, and she's not tapped into HALO's communications anymore, after all this time spent dead. She's not sure how long it's been, come to think of it. So she drops to all fours and goes running, hoping to meet someone she can warn about this.

[Cola]

[Outside Underwater]

The longer Strawberry spends examining the base, the more she realizes that she has no idea what she's looking at most of the time. Is that an out-vent for sewage or an in-vent for to-be desalinated drinking water? Is this a radiator or some kind of mechanical gills? There, a screwed-shut maintenance hatch or just an off-color hull plate? No idea.

But there's one weak spot Strawberry can actually recognize: a badly cracked window in an unlit section of the base. What lies behind? Something important, even vital maybe? Too bad she can't see because of all the algae growing on it. Strawberry holds the flashlight between her teeth, draws her knife and tries to scrape them off with the blade. But algae are tough, having rooted themselves in the most microscopic roughness of the glass. Strawberry presses the blade against the window even harder. A mistake.

The badly cracked window breaks. Hundreds of liters of seawater quickly rush into the room, taking Strawberry with it. Some kind of emergency system activates and metal shutters slam shut, keeping more water from flowing in and trapping her inside. Panicked, Strawberry looks around. Nothing of value in this room, just a few bed frames and empty cardboard boxes. The door seems watertight, too. From inside the walls comes the sound of little pumps beginning to slowly drain the flooded storage room again. Maybe some alarm was set off somewhere.

Oh boy, she screwed up. But hey, she found a way inside, even if it was a bit too sudden for her liking. Still feeling the scare, Strawberry tries to find a way to open the shutters, so she can swim outside again. Why does a storage room even have such big windows, anyway?

[Recaiden]

((People certainly do use that colossal smiley even these days.))

In the library, settled into a chair, someone looks up.
Of course something like this would happen. It's difficult enough to find time to read, to find a moment between drawing closed the boundaries of the planes of existence and twisting the loom of fate and midnight raids on cult hideouts and hunting down interplanetary criminals bent on rewriting the laws of physics (not that anyone trusts you to do the job, even when you're the only one capable of it, not that anyone else even thought about the possibility that this might happen again) and taking care of a young child. How long has it been since they looked to simple solid written words, to learn the details of some tiny scrap of existence or to imagine a story far in time and place? To forget, briefly, the perfect shining doom to which they had condemned themselves. Not that it would be had any other way. Joy, fear, faint hope, this all fades away into the pages of the book. The written word is truly a distillation of all that the mind is capable of, and-

Anyway. Now a pressure alarm is ringing and someone, on taking a closer look, is racing about the base looking for help. Surely they'll find-
No?
No one else is around to help?
And is that fear one detects from a disused bedroom out near the old power plant?

The book is shut (carefully, you have to be quiet in a library) and set onto the table. Arlem steps out into the hallways to investigate. The shapeshifter looks like a perfectly generic human boy, the sort of body you can forget you even have. But even these days, when he doesn't wear a mask, you can always know him by the knife at his side.
Surely Thariza can find him on the way towards the disturbance.

[Morty]

[Inside Underwater]

"Kid!" The Charr blurts out. "Someone's trying to get in from the outside... and I think they might have made it, judging by the alarm. Where can I find someone in charge?"

[Recaiden]

First, Arlem points along the hall.
"Offices are down that way, first on the left. But you don't need their help to stop an intruder. Come along with me, or head to the security room - right down the entrance hall - and keep me updated with what you see there."

Then he runs off towards the broken window. Thank goodness it wasn't into the garden this time.

[Morty]

[Inside Underwater]

This kid... doesn't sound like a kid at all. Maybe he's an adult who looks like a human kid? Let's go with that.

"Uh, if they broke through, the room must be full of water now," Thariza says, as she follows Arlem. "What are we supposed to do with that?"

[Recaiden]

"Don't worry. Even if the shutters and drains didn't handle it, it won't pour out."
This is true, and one might notice the magic making it so, holding any free water into the compromised room. If you're good at picking up on those things.
Arlem slides to a stop in front of the appropriate door and pushes it open, to see what they might find inside.

((You're up, Cola))

[Cola]

[Inside Underwater]

This kid... doesn't sound like a kid at all. Maybe he's an adult who looks like a human kid? Let's go with that.

"Uh, if they broke through, the room must be full of water now," Thariza says, as she follows Arlem. "What are we supposed to do with that?"

"Don't worry. Even if the shutters and drains didn't handle it, it won't pour out."
This is true, and one might notice the magic making it so, holding any free water into the compromised room. If you're good at picking up on those things.
Arlem slides to a stop in front of the appropriate door and pushes it open, to see what they might find inside.

((You're up, Cola))

[Inside Underwater]

((If it's not an action or a spoken line, it's probably a readable thought.))

The pumps are working just fine, the bedroom is already one-third drained.
Strawberry has already given up on finding a little button or lever to open the shutters, so now she's trying to just pry them open with her knife. The door opens, the water doesn't spill into the hallway, and Strawberry stares at Thariza and Arlem in fear. Her knife is still wedged between the shutters, her submachine gun visibly strapped to her suit.
Since her head is above the water surface, she can at least explain herself. If she could think of something reasonable, that is.
"Umm... Hi?"

[Morty]

[Inside Underwater]

"Well, as far as break-ins go, I've seen better," the Charr observes, her tail swishing behind her. She appears to be a large, humanoid sabretooth cat with horns. Her fur is dark grey, but it's covered in black and white streaks here and there. She's wearing black armour. "It'll go easier if you tell us why you're here."

[Recaiden]

"Hi."

Arlem looks up disapprovingly at the knife.
"That's probably not going to work."

But right now, he stays out in the hall behind the invisible barrier, letting the water continue to drain, inch by inch. Thariza seems to have covered the main points.

[Cola]

[Inside Underwater]

"I didn't want to break the window, I swear!" Strawberry explains and pulls the knife out from between the shutters. "I was just swimming outside, looking for weak spots in the base's exterior, when I saw that broken window covered in algae. I just tried to scratch them off so I could see what's inside, but it broke. Oh god, I'm so sorry I screwed up, I'm sorry, I can pay for the replacement!"
Although Strawberry's thoughts are racing, Arlem can tell that she's telling the truth and not hostile at all. Only sorry and afraid.

[Morty]

[Inside Underwater]

"At least you're honest," Thariza says, shrugging. "So, why did you swim around and try to find weak spots? We don't exactly have a very strict admission procedure, so you could've just visited if you wanted to take a look."

[Recaiden]

"You just wanted to find weak points. But not break them. Because...you're just so helpful you thought you'd repair the windows?"
Arlem smiles and leans his head into the flooded room.
"Is that it?"

[Cola]

[Inside Underwater]

What's up with that boy? Strawberry didn't know HALO had children in their base, let alone such snappy ones.
"No! ... Yes, I..." Strawberry is struggling for words. "I'm really sorry, was just trying to do my job, which is 'look for potential weak spots in the base exterior'. HALO called me for that, right?"
She reaches in a pocket and pulls out a folded, plastic-coated paper and gives it to Arlem, careful not to touch the magical barrier at the door. Strawberry really doesn't like magic.
It's a printed copy of an email, from Civvy to a construction firm in Bayside. Boiled down, it says something like "Hello, I'm a senior member of HALO. We're concerned that our base isn't as safe as we thought, and since you're specialized in underwater construction, maybe you could send someone over to check for potential weak spots. Maybe someone with security or even military experience, and they should bring a weapon too, since the sharks around here have grown rather bold."
"See? I didn't really want to come here, but my boss said I had to." She had feared there would be lots of magic in here, or mind readers. Also, she wonders why the text had been written in pink.

(Civvy never sent such an email. It's a fake, but one that's good enough to fool Strawberry and her boss.)

[Morty]

[Inside Underwater]

Thariza's ears flick.

"Anyone could have written that, you know. We probably ought to ask Civvy if she did."

[Recaiden]

Arlem reaches up to take the letter and looks it over.
"Hmm. Looks possible, but like, there aren't any ♥s or anything in the text. More importantly, there are like 8 people here who could have done the job. But that's just the kind of thing that would get overlooked..."
He looks over to Thariza.
"It seems like she's telling the truth, and really is just too foolish to think to knock and too clumsy to do the job without breaking things. In the meantime, should we just put her in the swimming pool, you think?"

[Cola]

[Inside Underwater]

"Well, who else should have written it if not Civiron?"

"I'm sorry for not having announced my arrival, I had thought you had all been notified or something. And I'm really, really sorry for that window, that was absolutely my mault."
Strawberry wants to ask why they would put her in the 'pool', whatever that may be in HALO terms. But she keeps her mouth shut out of fear and guilt.

[Morty]

[Inside Underwater]

Thariza shrugs.

"Sure. I can keep an eye on her there while you go looking for Civvy. Maybe this all was just a... misunderstanding and an accident."

[Recaiden]

"You, your boss, someone who doesn't like your boss, someone who doesn't like us, another member as a test of our security, another copy of Civiron from a parallel reality...the possibilities are endless."

Without moving from where he is, Arlem reaches through the doorway and stretches his hands out to try to pick up Strawberry. Sure, arms might not be meant to reach that far, but it'll be fine, definitely. He'll make it work. Pretty clear indication that he's not a normal human boy, though.

"I actually need to be leaving as soon as possible. I'm sure Civvy will show up soon though. You can go find her if we need to hurry." This is not, in fact, sure at all.
"You don't seem to like your job terribly much. Wanna join up here instead?"