TRP is a post-Great War AU RWBY RP set in Mistral City and Haven Academy with no canons, no rank claims, no maidens, and no god interference. We offer a progression system and site-wide events that change the setting based on player actions.
And Knight and Red were wise for erring on the side of safe, even if this first room was empty, aside from a few dusty crates.
Knight kicked open the door with a loud crack as the old wooden entry gave way easily to her heavy boot. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it) there was no threat in this room to open fire on. Just a couple of cockroaches and mice which quickly dispersed at the sudden noise.
As she examined the crates on the floor here, Knight would find that these first few had been mostly picked clean, aside from a handful of rusty wrenches and screwdrivers, and a faint sprinkling of what appeared to be lightning dust- not enough to be useful for anything, but enough that it was clear upon closer inspection that it was, in fact, lightning dust. And while it wouldn't be as apparent to Knight, thanks to Red's knowledge of basic electronics, she would note that the dust was specifically the type used for powering large machines, although it was definitely a more archaic variety than the ones she would have likely been used to, being Great War tech.
Once they left the room, heading back into the wide corridor, they would be a bit closer to the damaged area on the floor. There, they would definitely notice that the damage seemed to have been caused, at a glance, by an explosion of some sort, long ago- the cracks in the concrete floor were widened by water damage, where a leak in the ceiling must have allowed it to seep under the broken tiles, and scorch marks still stained the floor of the old building.
They would be able to see the next room easily enough, with one door down a short hallway to their left, and one further ahead, just in front of the damaged floor. Up ahead, they could still hear buzzing, a little louder now as they got slowly moved closer...
Post by Alina Rybalka on May 5, 2020 16:48:21 GMT -5
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[attr="class","nikki101"]WE CAN ALL AGREE THAT VIOLENCE BREEDS VIOLENCE
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[attr="class","nikki102"]BUT IN THE END, IT HAS TO BE THIS WAY
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[attr="class","nikki109"]”Yeah, feel free to go on ahead. I’ll just go room by room. Stay in touch.” She wanted to wait until the first room was confirmed clear, because if the place was teeming with Grimm or other inhabitants they probably would have seen some of them by now. There was the chance that they were just farther in, but that meant there was likely a solid few sections of the place that was completely empty just like the first few rooms. From a practical standpoint, Red was capable of moving multiple times as quickly as Knight through uncontested areas and would be able to save them both a lot of time. [break][break]
Moving out of the first small room, it became apparent there was a damaged section of the floor. That in and of itself wasn’t bad, and if the next room was clear she’d just toss a box or something on it to see if she needed to use her semblance to get over the obstruction. The buzzing got a bit louder, but the faunus didn’t recognize what it was at this point. There was something still running in the old area, whether it was some backup generator still somehow running or something else remained to be seen. If it was a backup generator, then that would be great because wiring this place from scratch would likely be complete hell to arrange logistically. [break][break]
When she got the option to turn left or continue forward, Knight would go left until she reached the dead-end and open the door on her right to clear the next room in much the same way if allowed to continue that long without anything unexpected happening. That wouldn’t be for a little while longer, though, but that would one hundred percent be her decision making if nothing happened in the first room. She was not particularly fast and would take the time to briefly check each room to ensure there were no bombs or traps inside before moving onto the next. Kicking around at boxes and drawers to see if they reacted to it, that sort of thing. Knight was comfortable doing this because, frankly, she could afford to trip a bunch of traps with her aura if she needed to. It was more than strong enough to take more than a dozen attacks designed only to kill a person without aura, though she would much prefer if this mission didn’t require being whittled down quite so much. [break][break]
The doorways were a bit too narrow for her to use her Szabla, but in the hallways if they were attacked, she could always pull it out without an issue. In the rooms themselves, though, she would rely on her reinforced boots as the first option due to always moving back to the last safe door in order to funnel the potentially multiple enemies into a situation where only one could attack her at once due to one creature body blocking the others. While she was more than confident in her own fighting ability and her capacity to take some hits, she also didn’t want to do more work than was required and playing smart was better than playing cocky when enemy forces were unknown. While hobos and other vagrants were not impossible, the more real possibility in these long-abandoned complexes was Grimm. They could get in through the vents, through the sewage, or through any number of ways that didn’t include going through the city streets where they’d be noticed… or simply being locked in here the last time they were fought due to the inability to destroy them at the time. [break][break]
While she would rely on her boots as her primary weapon, the pistol in her hand would fire almost simultaneously with kicks at point blank range if an enemy showed itself. Her helmet had hearing protection, so she had no reason to be shy about firing the thing even indoors. If the next room was instead clear, she would carry out a box or cabinet or something and toss it on the fucked up floor with some force. If it gave way, she would look back to double check nobody else was in line of sight before turning so that her back was facing the broken floor and snapping her fingers to create enough kinetic force for her to be vaulted over the unsafe flooring. This would lower her aura by eleven percent but was better than falling down into the unknown. [break][break]
If it instead survived impact with the object, Knight would instead just walk directly over the ground and use her semblance to get to the other side if it was necessary due to the floor breaking underneath her feet. After that, she would just go into the next door on her left and clear the room the same way as she did the previous two. Her pace wasn’t rushing and was instead fairly relaxed due to the fact that she had no idea how big this place was and was careful to not be sprinting around and wasting her stamina on empty areas of the complex. [break][break]
Plus, it made no sense to rush. The longer this took and the more she did the more overtime she got. Why would an hourly worker sit there and rush to get a job finished when they could instead delay and squeeze the employer for an extra buck? Boss makes a dollar; you make a dime. That’s why you waste company time.
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[attr="class","nikki103"]916 words
[attr="class","nikki103"]ASCHE SYNDICATE
[attr="class","nikki103"]916 TOTAL WORDS
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NOTES
B Semblance, D Weapons, C Dust Enhancement, C Durability, C Agility, D Stamina, D Exhaustion, D Martial Arts
Post by Sinopia DeStellanova on May 5, 2020 21:17:35 GMT -5
"Understood. I'll see if I can get the lights on for the rest of the team. I'll be listening for trouble, and will move towards you if I find it."
She hoped that would be a clear enough indication that, while Knight had protection for her ears right now, she didn't. They were in an ominous warehouse with no lights and no knowledge of what was inside. Of course she wanted to keep her ears open, at least for now. Sure, she had some improvised earplugs in when they first walked into the building, but she took them out once it was clear there was nothing dangerous in the first room. At that point, being able to listen for trouble was more important than protecting herself from loud noises. As much as she hated sudden loud noises like that, she could deal with it. She had been for the past year.
With one last nod and check to make sure communications were working, she darted off down the hallway, past the unstable part of the floor, looking to get to the end of it. Her pace was one she considered brisk, one she could carry for a long time that was slow enough for her to take in her surroundings and keep her foot falls quiet enough for a degree of stealth. Only a degree of it though. With as loud as Knight was being she figured that if someone was here to hear them, they would have by now. It was more to conceal her exact location, so she wasn't willing to sacrifice too much speed for it.
It just happened that even moving at less than half speed wasn't that much slower than the average person sprinting.
Getting over the hole in the floor wouldn't be any trouble for her. It'd be easy enough to just grapple onto the wall on the other side and pull herself across, potentially using her natural agility and momentum push herself off the wall if it was still in tact so she didn't have to slow down. She made sure to take a good look at the floor while going over it. It was old, the water damage surrounding it made that clear. Not immediately relevant, but it made her wonder what happened. There must have been a reason this place was abandoned, and that probably had something to do with it. Something to keep in mind for later. Likely meant that all the machines would have to be thoroughly inspected before trying to use them, which made her a bit nervous about the generator that was supposed to be in here.
For now, she was ignoring any rooms she came across, and wouldn't slow down unless one of the doors were open, in which case she'd slow down, peek very carefully around the corner to see if it was clear before either going back (if it wasn't) or continuing onward (if it was). She wouldn't go inside and be thorough about it like Knight was for the time being. If she either reached the end of the hallway or reached any large forks, she'd listen carefully for that buzzing sound and head in that direction. It was hard to pin down exactly what it was, but it wasn't quite what she would expect from electricity, which made it very strange. If it started getting loud and clear, she'd slow down considerably until she had a good idea of either what it was or where it was coming from. Speed was important, but she'd prefer to avoid getting maimed by some unknown force.
As Knight and Red exited the first room, and Red shot down the hallway at a good speed, Knight would notice the damaged area of the floor give just a little as Red skirted by the edge of it,not enough to break, but certainly not enough to feel too comfortable about either.
Less pleasantly, as she entered the second room, however, it would be incredibly clear that something had happened there, some time ago. The blood itself had long since dried into stains in the corner of the room, but the handful of bones scattered in the room were definitely either human or faunus- they appeared to have been ripped apart by Grimm, no question about that, and the bones were picked clean by vermin. Not a pleasant sight. And a foreboding omen as to the contents of the building, further ahead. The boxes in this room had even less useful items in them than before, only really consisting of empty packaging and a few screws and nails here and there.
Moving further, and faster, than Knight, Red would follow the buzzing sound right up to the end of the hallway, where it was loudest. At the end, as she slowed down to investigate, she would find a crate blocking the open threshold between the long hall and what appeared to be a massive storage space, very likely intended for loading and unloading trucks, and storing huge palettes of materials- several of which she could see, stacked up high, once she easily found her way past the crate blocking her entry.
She would also immediately see a large machine, which looked at a glance to be a very large forklift, sitting dormant about fifteen meters ahead of her or so, in front of yet another large palette. And to her right, she would notice a large metal door, though it appeared that the door either didn't open from this side, or that if there was once a mechanism to open it, it was long gone.
And unfortunately, while Red was stealthy enough to stay out of sight long enough to get a good view of the back room, she wasn't quite stealthy enough to stay hidden for long, as the buzzing began to swiftly approach. And as soon as they were within her line of sight, it would be extremely clear that the buzzing had not been electrical in nature at all, but instead, a pair of Lancers, large and wasp-like, which were approaching rapidly.
And at about this time, Knight was further down the hall, in the process of moving the box out to test the damaged area of floor. From where she was standing, she would not see Red, unless the younger faunus moved to run back towards her, away from the Lancers.
Post by Sinopia DeStellanova on May 8, 2020 18:02:18 GMT -5
It figured that she'd run into trouble the second she separated from Knight. It also figured that the path they were on was entirely linear and there wasn't a lot of need for her to split off in the first place. Well, at least she found what they were looking for. Clicking her tongue, she darted back behind the crate and started moving back towards Knight. What the hell were these things again? Red wasn't a crazy person, so she tried to avoid Grimm when she could and thus knew very little about what they could actually do. Flying. Dangerous looking stingers. Probably not that long range considering they were moving towards her rather than lancing her immediately...
Ah right, there we go. She tapped her earpiece and sent a message to everyone setup to hear it.
"This is Red." She had no idea if they knew her name, but what else was she supposed to do to identify herself? "Found Grimm. Lancers. Two. Might be more. Knight and I can handle these, but be careful. Grimm are in here."
She couldn't remember how strong these kind of Grimm were or if it was even worth her taking a pot shot at them, so she decided to be on the safe side and run back towards Knight. It definitely wasn't worth trying to go further into the room because there could be more, and that fact alone made her not want to attempt to fight them off on her own at all. They had a strong combatant who was currently on the other side of a very unstable floor. It was her job to get that person on the right side of the hallway.
Red had already been spotted, so she gave up all pretense of stealth and ran down the hallway at full speed. It was a completely straight path with only one obvious obstruction in that unstable floor. No reason to hold back. Normally she would have given some kind of signal to Knight that she was on her way back, but considering she didn't get that far to begin with and she just sent a message saying she found trouble, talking more would be redundant. She had more important things to do, like make sure those bugs didn't catch up to her and to get her ear plugs back in her ears. Hopefully Knight wouldn't feel the need to shoot until they were closer. She was less concerned about the sound and more concerned that she was standing between Knight and a bunch of agile wasps when Knight struggled to hit anything at range.
If she was able to get close enough, she'd put one of her grapples back on the wall and swing herself back to the other side of the unstable floor. Rather than land, she kept her feet anchored on the wall and offered Knight a hand to help her over to the other side. All she could really do was hope that she was fast enough that she wouldn't shot at while stuck on the wall like this, but she at least had a few options for dodging while in mid-air. She wasn't a sitting duck like most people would be thanks to her semblance. Even if the stingers were too hard for her to phase through, the wall wasn't and walls made excellent shields.
Post by Alina Rybalka on May 8, 2020 19:29:01 GMT -5
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[attr="class","nikki101"]WE CAN ALL AGREE THAT VIOLENCE BREEDS VIOLENCE
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[attr="class","nikki102"]BUT IN THE END, IT HAS TO BE THIS WAY
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[attr="class","nikki109"]Huh, it looked like Red had found some Grimm. [break][break]
Neat. [break][break]
She nonchalantly dropped the box she was carrying and stepped outside in the hallway. She moved her right index finger away from the trigger and instead rested it pointing straight forwards leaning against the trigger guard before holstering the weapon entirely. When her partner offered her hand to get across the unstable floor, Knight would take it without hesitation so they could make their way over. This sort of thing was routine, because the wolf faunus could do an immense amount of damage but had zero mobility while the fox faunus had all the mobility but very little in the way of destructive power. [break][break]
One benefit of being in such a dark space, separated so much from the other strangers was the fact that nobody could see any semblance usage except for Red. She didn’t quite remember how strong lancers were, but did know that she didn’t want to melt through the environment around her. Grimm were mindless and predictable, and after sensing emotion near them they would simply rush towards its source. While she grabbed Red’s hand with her left, her right hand was still free, and she pressed her thumb and middle finger together in preparation to unleash her semblance. [break][break]
Flash was a fire-type manipulation semblance that allowed her to create fire, with the act of snapping her fingers being a crutch way to focus her aura into one particular location. There was no reason to waste time shooting or jumping around if she could just snap her fingers and be done with it with no consequences. Unlike some other manipulators, control was definitely something that Knight got good at. In Vacuo, she was routinely able to pick targets out of crowds and take them out without any collateral damage due to honing her accuracy and ability to control how powerful the flames she emitted were over the years. [break][break]
She had seen many over the years callously use a semblance that they spent no effort to learn how to control in order to hit anything that moved. Collateral damage didn’t mean anything to them, because they felt as though their semblance was their birthright and their legitimate basis for putting their boot on the neck of those weaker than them. A severe allergy to personal responsibility also meant that they would never actually admit to any fault no matter who they killed by accident. For better or for worse, Knight had resolved to be better than that and take full responsibility for whatever happened whenever she triggered her semblance. This meant that her semblance was perhaps the one aspect of her aura that she could fine-tune her control with, with everything else only being available at the highest setting while on, or completely absent while off. [break][break]
The average lancer was more than twice Knight’s size, so it wasn’t exactly hard to aim for the small, middle section that seemed to connect the upper half and the big old stinger on the bottom. Once they entered her line of sight she’d snap the fingers of her left hand with a blast of fire that was only about a twelve inches wide and tall with a power level one notch down from what she was capable of with the goal of bisecting the monster immediately. Any others that would get into her line of sight would have similar attacks, the flames purposefully being controlled in both size and intensity in order to not melt the walls or the ceiling. In fact, due to how small the bursts of fire were it was likely the walls and the floor wouldn’t even get noticeably hotter due to the fact that the rest of the lancer’s body would absorb the rest of the heat before dissipating. [break][break]
Even turning the intensity down by a third, the flames on contact would melt through the Grimm like ten gauge buckshot melted through a single sheet of paper. It was overkill, even with the small amount of fire, largely due to the fact that most creatures had a tremendously hard time being bisected and living to tell the tale. Lancers were agile, but this was also a small and confined space where flying wasn’t particularly effective and it was a lot easier for Knight to abuse that and the fact that she likely had better vision of the surrounding area than the lancer to easily make the shots needed to take them out if they walked into her line of sight. [break][break]
”If there are any more, just run them back.” she’d note, ”I’m going to check the other rooms. The second one was filled with corpses. People were trapped in here alive, it looks like. I doubt there are any survivors.” These words were not transmitted to the others, but only shared with Red. Her mic was off and would remain off unless something crazy happened due to the fact that the last thing she wanted was the goon squad of four other people running back over here and wasting everyone’s time for any reason whatsoever. [break][break]
Assuming no other obstructions, Knight would unholster her pistol with her right hand and clear the third room the same way that she cleared all the others. She was much more hesitant to use her semblance in a small room versus a long hallway due to the chance that a stray spark would ignite something flammable and light the entire room on fire. That would be a less than ideal outcome, so she’d stick to her boots and the muzzle of her gun pressed against a Grimm for now. [break][break]
The place was fucking creepy, but the bright side was that she wouldn’t be the one whose job it was to clear out all the bones and wash out all the blood. That would be some other poor bastard’s job, someone paid a hell of a lot less than she was to clear out the damned place. It was funny how that worked, really, because lancers were piss easy for a team like Knight and Red but cleaning out all the filth would take days if not weeks of time from dozens and dozens of people who would have all sorts of health risks from the biohazards potentially present in the remains… but would get paid pennies on the dollar from what Knight and Red would make by the hour. Crazy how that worked, but at least she was the beneficiary of that fucked up system for the time being rather than the one left to rot.
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[attr="class","nikki103"]1096 words
[attr="class","nikki103"]ASCHE SYNDICATE
[attr="class","nikki103"]2012 TOTAL WORDS
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NOTES
B Semblance, D Weapons, C Dust Enhancement, C Durability, C Agility, D Stamina, D Exhaustion, D Martial Arts
While they had been able to clear a good bit of distance thanks to their initial charge towards the vulpine faunus, the second she turned and ran, full sprint, away, they were unable to do more than keep pace, and worse, she was just out of range of their deadly stingers. And with a show of nimbleness, Red made it across the broken floor, once, and then again with her partner in tow, before they had managed to clear the gap.
And from there, it was over in an instant.
Knight's Semblance, even weakened by her holding back, was more than enough to rip apart the pair of Lancers. The first was instantly incinerated, while the second had just launched its barbed stinger, and it was barely a foot from Knight's nose, as the second attack followed shortly after the first.
The white-hot flames, even as comparatively weak as they were to Knight's full firepower, illuminated the hallway for a moment, far better than any flashlight could, and indeed better than their natural night vision, allowing Knight and Red a nearly unobstructed view of the large room up ahead- Red would be better able to recognize the handful of remaining, rusted, items stacked on the pallets as odds and ends, replacement parts for various vehicles and weaponry, and Knight would get a glimpse at the pallets stacked in the northern half of the room for the first time. Both would also see two distinct sets of bones among the dusty spare parts- if it hadn't been clear from the room Knight had just cleared that people had died here, it was abundantly obvious now. A crowbar lay near one of the skeletal arms, and a duffel bag that seemed equally out-of-place was torn and lay several meters away.
The light from the small flames dimmed quickly, leaving only those glimpses of the far end of the building. It was doubtful that the other team was able to see anything at all, of course, being so much further away, and elsewhere in the labyrinth of hallways.
That threat dealt with, Knight continued on, towards the next room, where a faint buzzing could also be heard. Like before, the door swung open, but this time, there was a third Lancer, which appeared to have been trapped in the room long ago. Its stinger shot out at the exact same time that Knight's foot and pistol moved into action, but Knight was far too agile for that to work. However, it did throw off her aim just a bit, in addition to the added complication of making an attack from the doorway. Her attack with her boots caught the Grimm off-center on the side of its abdomen, and her pistol caught the side of its thorax.
While the attacks weren't necessarily her finest work, given the circumstances, even those two glancing hits were enough to bring down the Lancer, leaving it crumpled and mostly-defeated on the ground, for Knight to finish off however she wished, before moving on to examine the rest of this room.
There honestly wasn't much in this one, though, even compared to the others. The boxes here had also been picked clean, though a partial handprint of dried blood could be spotted on the edge of one of the two. Maybe the most interesting object in the room was a pretty nifty refillable lighter, which was steel with a leopard print pattern, and was about half full, if Knight were to inspect it further. It, however, was not in one of the boxes, but appeared to have been dropped by the other door, which appeared to just lead out into the same hallway again, like all of the others thus far.
If Red went on to investigate the large room once more, she would find that the buzzing had quieted considerably, although there were still traces of it coming from further back, towards the group of four. It didn't appear that there were any foes remaining in this room, but what she could see, was even more boxes, along with the same remains that she might have seen when they were lit up by Knight's Semblance, laid out atop the large pallet to her left of the forklift. A few crates were scattered along the floor of the loading dock, and a larger pallet was in the lower corner of the room, and seemed to be filled with empty fire dust canisters. Near that pallet was a huge pair of metal doors, spanning about 8 meters in length each, with a well-worn lever mechanism, likely used to open the doors to the back of the building. Directly across from these doors, was a second door, though much like the door she'd seen before the Lancers had attacked, there didn't appear to be a means of opening it from this side, though there did appear to have once been a lever for that purpose, a long time ago.
A smaller doorway lead back through the building, towards where the group of four had been sent, wedged between the two large metal doors, and to the southwest of the room, behind a few stacked crates, Red would see a stairway, much like the one at the entrance to the building, winding down into the second level of the building. However, unlike the first stairway, this one was unobstructed, and appeared to be in stable enough condition for use.
Post by Sinopia DeStellanova on May 11, 2020 21:29:24 GMT -5
She blinked as Knight fired off her semblance and the room lit up. If she would have known that was coming she wouldn't have been trying to think of potential follow up. In normal circumstances she knew that's exactly what Knight would want to do, but this wasn't a normal circumstance. Knight was trying to avoid having her identity discovered for the time being. Was it okay to use it like that? Red jumped off the wall and landed at Knight's side, taking a moment to look over her shoulder. The hallway was pretty long, but the darkness was a double edged sword here. The darkness would hide a lot, but it would also make the light from the fire that much more noticeable. That was enough to make her worry. After taking a moment to make sure she wasn't about to broadcast this to everyone, she spoke in a more hushed voice than she had been until now.
"What should I tell people that ask me about the light? Just so I'm not thinking about it the entire time."
Obviously Knight thought it was safe or she wouldn't have done it, but that did little to soothe her nerves. Worrying was just something her brain did regardless of whether it made any sense at all. It was why, while running down the hallway, she was thinking about what would happen if the lancers weren't immediately defeated, or what she would do if Knight did try to shoot at them as though she would ever do something so irresponsible. It was why she was able to think things like 'but what if there are cameras recording what we are saying underneath Amity' or 'will breaking this falling glass elevator get me arrested for vandalism.' Nipping those thoughts in the bud would save her a lot of grief in the long run. Knowing that she would have a consistent story with Knight and wouldn't have to worry about accidentally exposing her or otherwise making them look suspicious would go a long way towards stopping those thoughts.
That was especially important here because there were plainly visible corpses laying about. She was glad she spared the last room Knight cleared for that, but she wasn't surprised there were more. Red really hated seeing dead bodies. She didn't have the strong visceral reaction she used to when they started working in Vacuo, but they still made her queasy. These weren't as bad because they were picked clean. No lumps of flesh, no horrible dead eyes, minimal smells. That said, she was still going to explore the rest of the room before looking in those directions.
There wasn't much else here. Lots of boxes to search just in case, a bit of machinery to inspect, but that was about it. There were two paths to explore from here, one back one down. She figured it'd be worth verifying with Knight to see how she wanted to proceed before picking a direction. It was easy for her to get back to Knight here, the walls wouldn't do much to stop her, but if she went down the stairs it would be far more difficult. Going through floors was easy, but going through ceilings was not. Or at least, going all the way through them in one shot was not and she'd rather not have her legs dangling on the floor below while she tried to figure out how to get out if there was a potential threat. She basically had to launch herself towards the ceiling and hope that her momentum was enough to carry her all the way through because she would immediately lose contact with everything once she started to phase. If she went down while Knight stayed up then they could actually get separated.
"Room's clear." She jogged back towards Knight so she wouldn't have to shout. "There's lots of boxes and I can double check the machines, but nothing immediately dangerous. Two paths. The first is on this floor. I think it doubles back to the entrance. Probably where you sent everyone else. I still hear buzzing, so probably not clear. Other path goes into the basement. Stairs are clear. Look sturdy enough to use. How do you want to proceed from here?"
There was still one more room for Knight to clear, so she decided to start looking through some of the boxes in the large room in the mean time. Starting with the ones nice and far away from the bodies. As long as it didn't look like any of the machines were going to immediately collapse or otherwise cause damage, she could afford to focus on the boxes for now. She'd keep doing that until she was given something else to do and would do whatever it was Knight wanted her to.
Post by Alina Rybalka on May 11, 2020 23:38:14 GMT -5
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[attr="class","nikki101"]WE CAN ALL AGREE THAT VIOLENCE BREEDS VIOLENCE
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[attr="class","nikki102"]BUT IN THE END, IT HAS TO BE THIS WAY
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[attr="class","nikki109"]”Nothing. Chances are they haven’t seen it. If they did, we can just say we used our scrolls. An accidental opening of the flashlight. They’re using flashlights anyway, so it’s not like a flash of light would be as obvious as it would be for us. Humans can’t see in the dark.” [break][break]
It was a quick and easy response, and one she was comfortable with. They were deep enough inside that it was almost outside of the realm of possibility that the other team saw anything. They were a team of four and would be moving slower than a team of two. There was no way they made it to the giant room first, it made no sense that they would be able to even if every room was uncontested. Knight would have only been flown out to Mistral if they had a muscle deficit, which meant that everyone else had to be weaker for that move to make sense. There would be absolutely no reason to bring this many people if even one of them had her skill in a fight, so it stood to reason that whoever ran this at least assumed that six people were going to be needed for this operation. [break][break]
The room had a lancer inside, which wasn’t surprising given what had just transpired. Reflexes far and away above what a normal person was capable of got her out of the way as the stinger embedded itself as the wall behind her. Her initial attacks disabled but didn’t kill it, dropping it to the ground and not even attempting to get flying again. She’d walk forward and savagely stomp on it until it disappeared into dust from the force of the reinforced boots. No use wasting a bullet when a good stomping sufficed, largely because bullets cost lien and shooting them this far into a closed space would not be fun for her even with the hearing protection. And if Red was more nearby than she thought, well… It’d be way worse, better not to risk it. [break][break]
Nothing in the room and kicking around there was nothing to find except an old as fuck lighter that she left in its place. She had no use for it, both because the types of germs that must be on it after being around decaying corpses for so long must be disgusting but also because she could generate fire just fine by herself. Red was also coming back, reporting that the big room at the end was empty. That was nice, but this also wasn’t the end of the mission just yet. They had to clear the other floors too, of which hopefully there weren’t many. One or two floors below ground she could probably do, but any more than that and things were going to get pretty dicey. She normally had weapons that handled that fairly well, but they got confiscated on the airship over and she hadn’t been able to find the right person to bribe in order to get them back since then. Fucking annoying, but that was simply how things worked in Mistral. They might even be in some pawn shop in the Cloud District right now for all she knew, which would be absolutely fucking infuriating but also honestly pretty plausible given how corrupt the police were. [break][break]
”We’ll go down after clearing this last room. Don’t worry about rushing, chances are we get there first by a decent bit. No use getting tired before the end, yeah? Just stick on this floor for a second and once this room is clear we’ll make our way down -- assuming the big room is clear. You can go first, I just want to be in the area in case there’s more Grimm.” [break][break]
She had zero desire to meet up with the other team. While she detested being underground, going down was the quickest and easiest way to get this mission done and over with as quickly as possible. Being in a larger group that wasn’t trained simply meant everything took longer due to people chiming in with their opinions or to posture. She had no desire to deal with that and was content to just clear everything she was supposed to clear and then leave regardless of where the others were. Having communications was good enough, and if they needed help, they could double back. Until then, though, the others would be left to their own devices. It wasn’t her job to play babysitter for a group of grown ass adults. [break][break]
Knight would kick open the door to the last room and clear it the exact same way she’d done the others. A side kick with her reinforced boots along with a point-blank shot with her sidearm would ideally seal the deal in a second or two against most lesser Grimm. Ultra close quarters was not her comfort zone as a fighter, which showed a bit in the last room. She preferred having room to maneuver, and certainly preferred to be above ground and breathing in fresh air rather than this fucking filth. Even filtered through her mask, it still wasn’t exactly pleasant to experience and if she had to do it again she’d bring some air freshener to dump into her mask periodically to help. That'd be a good idea for next time. Great idea, even.[break][break]
The hallways were much more natural, and the doorways were in many ways the worst possible place to fight a single enemy. It restricted her movement and blocked her view of the interior of the room, but still provided the best option when she didn’t know how many opponents there were. If there was a swarm of five lancers, controlling the door ensured none of them got out and also ensured that all five of them couldn’t attack her at once. Making sure that none of them got out was the number one priority, well above personal comfort level, so she’d just fall back to the doorway at the first sign of trouble to ensure that anything inside the room when she opened it never made it out.
[break]
[attr="class","nikki103"]1018 words
[attr="class","nikki103"]ASCHE SYNDICATE
[attr="class","nikki103"]3030 TOTAL WORDS
[break]
NOTES
B Semblance, D Weapons, C Dust Enhancement, C Durability, C Agility, D Stamina, D Exhaustion, D Martial Arts
As Knight took her time checking out the last room on that hallway, any further investigation of the large room, by Red if she so chose to do that, would confirm for sure that the large room was still clear, with no further surprises in store.
And luckily enough, so was the final room on the hall. However, unlike the crates and boxes they had seen up to this point, this room contained two long stacks of sheet metal strips, each as dusty as the rest of the building, but surprisingly less rust than some of the other metal seen scattered around. With a skilled hand, it could probably be salvaged and used for something else.
As she began her search, a gruff voice chimed in over the comms as Pickett announced that his group had found Grimm as well: "We are about to engage a potential Grimm in a closed room. Over."
There wasn't really much else in the room, aside from those, so searching, even at Knight's speed wouldn't take very long.
So, unless the two of them had anything else to do in that room, the stairs awaited.
The stairs in question were sturdy, with metal steps that creaked a bit as they walked down, but were otherwise solidly built, at the least. It was a relatively short walk down, too, with only two short flights leading to the next level, in an angular spiral. At the bottom, the two would be faced with a very small room, compared to the others they'd been in- fifteen meters wide, and ten from the back wall of the stairs, to the metal door across from it. To their left, there was a second door, metal like the first, but it appeared to be bashed in from the other side, to the point that it bulged inward a bit, and didn't appear as if it could be opened without a hell of a lot of strength or firepower.
If they were to open the other, much more normal, door, the two would be able to see down a long, straight, hallway, just a bit more narrow than the ones upstairs. Towards the middle of said hallway, they would be able to see two doors on their right, with the second being just at the edge of their vision, though walking further into the hallway would just reveal more hallway, until they spotted the door at the end.
Post by Sinopia DeStellanova on May 16, 2020 16:11:43 GMT -5
Flashlight. They were about the same color and she did send a message right before Knight attacked, so it was plausible enough to let her brain stop worrying about it for now. She just nodded, not wanting to devote any more words or time to this. She was probably worrying too much, but it wasn't like humans were completely blind in the dark, and changes in light were easier to notice than most anything else in the darkness. However, Knight was probably right and it was a little embarrassing that she kept worrying so much over small details like this.
The boxes in the big room weren't interesting, and there was nothing else of interest in there for the time being. Better than the alternative. It looked like Knight's room was a little bit more interesting, but she did little more than look over her shoulder to verify it was just an enemy rather than anything she had to be worried about. Red continued investigating the large room and the machines (preferably as far away from the corpses as she could manage) until Knight was done clearing her room. She agreed there was no reason to rush, and it made more sense for them to head down the stairs together if they were both going to explore the basement. It was safer for her to wait, at least for the initial room. If they were dealing with Grimm, odds were they would have come up the stairs already if there were any at the base of the stairs, or there would have been sound if they were too big to get up the stairs, but there was no reason to take any chances here.
The message from the other team she mostly ignored. They had already confirmed there were Grimm here, and she didn't need to know the exact movements of the other team; they weren't relevant to her unless they were facing a threat they couldn't handle. Here it sounded like they weren't even sure if they were dealing with a potential threat, just that there might be one there. Had they even opened the door yet? Odd thing to report unless they were worried about whether or not they'd be able to fight it? He didn't sound too worried, but neither did she when she was in very dangerous situations most of the time. He didn't ask for help, and there was no screaming in the background, so she wasn't going to act on it for now and tried to suppress her usual response to worry way too much about stupid things. If they needed help she was fast and had a quick path she could take if necessary.
She would let Knight take the lead down the stairs unless asked to do it herself. Knight was sturdier, and Red had the mobility to get around her in tight spaces if needed. The bottom of the stairs were uneventful, which meant it was time to remove her hearing protection again. Hearing was by far her strongest sense, and as long as she was scouting, she couldn't leave it muffled.
Red took a look at the broken door and the surrounding walls. The door was metal, but if the walls were made of the same materials as the upper floor she should be able to go though the wall the door was in. However, she wasn't sure she wanted to. If whatever caused that couldn't even break through the door then it probably wasn't much of a threat. To Knight. If she went through the wall she'd be alone, and while it would be easy enough for her to get back in theory, there wasn't much reason for her to go into a room, alone, with such obvious signs of danger when there were other paths to check. If Knight wanted to bypass the door and go in together, she could arrange for that, but otherwise she was going to go down the hallway.
"I'm going ahead."
Her movements were slow enough that she could be called back if necessary as there wasn't much need to race down a straight hallway to a door at the end. Doors were one of the worst things she could run into. While Knight could easily kick them open and deal with whatever was inside, Red wasn't nearly as good at quickly eliminating enemies and her aura was flimsy. Not even flimsy in comparison to Knight's, just not very sturdy to begin with. Getting surprised or caught out could be legitimately dangerous for her, so each door had to be approached very cautiously since she couldn't see what was on the other side.
That was why a lot of the time she didn't use the door and went through a wall from an unexpected direction if she was able, or at least peeked through some other wall to see what was waiting for her. There wasn't much need to do that here. For one, the door was at the end of a narrow hallway and there wasn't another angle to check. If she had to, she would have gone through the ceiling to check it, but as long as Knight was only a few meters away there wasn't much need. Instead, she focused on making sure nothing would ambush her the second she opened the door. She approached it cautiously, listening for any sounds on the other side. If there weren't any obvious ones, or if they sounded far away, she'd press one ear from each set of ears against the door and listen again. If it still sounded safe, she'd check any cracks around or under the door for changes in light or anything else unusual before gently turning the knob and cracking open the door. She'd bolt back towards Knight at the first sign of danger, but if there was nothing she'd gradually open it enough to put her head through so she could get a good look around.
Post by Alina Rybalka on May 16, 2020 17:16:50 GMT -5
[nospaces]
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[attr="class","nikki101"]WE CAN ALL AGREE THAT VIOLENCE BREEDS VIOLENCE
[break]
[attr="class","nikki102"]BUT IN THE END, IT HAS TO BE THIS WAY
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[attr="class","nikki109"]Huh. [break][break]
Banged up door. That was interesting, but not super relevant at the moment. She’d give it a kick to see if it gave way or something from that, but assuming it was as strong as it looked the faunus wouldn’t fuck with it further. Pulling out a piece of chalk from a pouch in her belt, she’d mark the wall next to the door and write out ‘<- Unchecked, caution.’ This wouldn’t stop them if the next group if they were determined, but she also didn’t know how far behind they were so didn’t want to risk using her semblance at the level required to melt this through. The temperature would shoot up and there would be a lot of light from the melting metal, and in short about a million ways that it could go wrong. [break][break]
The message from the other team was annoying to Knight for much the same reason as it was annoying to Red. It provided no information and reeked of insecurity. They had four people who were assigned to a combat mission and Red had already confirmed there were Grimm in the warehouse. In a normal distribution of personnel, they’d only have three for two groups of three. Knight had given them an extra person for extra firepower, and it would be fucking absurd if they couldn’t handle lesser Grimm with that many supposedly battle-hardened criminals. She adjusted the metal cuirass covering her chest with her free hand, realizing at this point that she had way over prepared for the level of danger that was actually in this place. Since it was beneath the leather jacket and the red hoodie, it was kind of a pain to adjust and she regretted going mostly concealed with it rather than wearing it on the outside given the fact that going concealed provided zero benefit against Grimm. [break][break]
Her paranoia about the other potential members of the Asche Syndicate made her think that small advantages might become relevant, but in truth it appeared she vastly overestimated their abilities. If she had to go back up to bail them out against some Grimm that a local militia from Bumfuckia could handle without issue, she was going to be furious. She didn’t move across Remnant to babysit some grown ass adults who were supposed to be self-sufficient and able to handle the basic shit by themselves. [break][break]
The big room they had passed through earlier was empty, which was kind of weird that all the Grimm seemed to be locked into little side rooms. When Red said she’d go on ahead, Knight didn’t contest. ”I’ll keep giving the local door… producer person more work.” That sounded better in her head, but communicated semi-clearly that she would just continue to kick through the side doors as they came up. Upon starting to walk in the extremely long hallway, however, Knight came to the conclusion that this would be an appropriate time to holster her sidearm and draw her Szabla instead to clear the next section. Knight made no effort to hide the metallic noise of the blade being unsheathed and figured the echo in the hallway would be much louder if she fired off bullets and fuck with her partner in ways that would not be particularly helpful in their current situation. [break][break]
While Red went to the end of the hallway, Knight kicked her way into the first door on the right and didn’t immediately enter this time. She had more space outside the room and was more than happy to let any Grimm inside come out into the doorway to get hacked to pieces. If there were no threats, she’d slide into the room to rummage through the room and default to her reinforced boots and a secondary thrust with her blade in order to fight anything in the room itself. If it was a normal room like the last few she had explored, she would simply move on to the next one without further interaction. [break][break]
If it led to another path through the warehouse, however, she’d call Red back verbally without using the line that the other group was in before moving on. There was one likely threat they had ignored so far due to the risk of opening up the heavy metal door, but there was no use having two threats at their backs as they continued on further into the underground structure. The red mask she wore hampered her vision just a tad but was well worth it for the aerosol and gas protection. Her sense of smell wasn’t amazing to begin with, but it also further filtered out the no doubt horrific smells throughout this entire place a lot more than they otherwise would have been. She’d take the smell of her own sweat rather than the smell of the decayed bodies and likely decomposed feces and other nasty shit any day. [break][break]
Speaking of nasty shit, some of that filth already coated her gloves and that was why she was trying to clear as much of this place with her boots as possible. The gloves were extremely replaceable and served mostly to just provide a thin barrier between her skin and said filth along with hide the Kevlar sleeve that would have been visible a little past her wrist and around her thumb if the glove hadn’t been present. Again, small advantages that didn’t matter unless there was legitimate threat. In Vacuo, a lot of the highest paying missions were Huntsmen level ones where the target was either Grimm or a person around that power level and any slight advantage that you could eke out to surprise them provided a window to kill them and complete the mission. Using less or no aura to block a bullet because you have a hidden, if thin, breastplate to absorb the impact or counting on the Kevlar sleeve to stop a knife swing rather than burning aura was a way to best even someone who knew your abilities well and knew approximately how strong your aura was. [break][break]
If the missions in Mistral involved none of that while getting paid more, then she was going to enjoy the next year or two very much. The actual and omnipresent risk of death was not a fun experience, and only the legitimately mentally deranged enjoyed that sort of shit. Doing easy things while also getting praise and lots more money was much more enjoyable, because it carried with it all of the benefits with none of the risks usually associated with this line of work.
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[attr="class","nikki103"]1090 words
[attr="class","nikki103"]ASCHE SYNDICATE
[attr="class","nikki103"]4120 TOTAL WORDS
[break]
NOTES
B Semblance, D Weapons, C Dust Enhancement, C Durability, C Agility, D Stamina, D Exhaustion, D Martial Arts
Kicking the dented metal door was a good idea, but not one that bore much fruit- Knight's heavy boots dented the door a bit in the opposite direction, but not enough to break through, or knock it down.
Which meant that there was little left to do but continue exploring further ahead. As the two moved into the narrow hallway, Pickett's voice came through on the comms again, informing the two that his team was engaging two Beowolves. Hopefully the volume of update messages wouldn't prove to be a distraction, moving forward.
At any rate, Knight moved to investigate the first room on the right, as Red moved forward to scout ahead.
The quicker of the two would reach her door easily enough, even at a slower pace, and after several moments of cautious inspection of the door, Red would find no signs of a threat just beyond the other side of the door. Upon finally opening it, she would find the room to be very similar to the one at the bottom of the stairway, except instead of a set of stairs, all she found was a pair of boxes, and it was a little bit roomier than the other.
The boxes were about as interesting as any of the others so far, at a glance, but one thing that was noteworthy was a very faint, almost inaudible, hissing sound, seeming to be coming from the slightly open doorway to the left. A very slow, steady, hiss, it was quiet, very soft, but Red's sensitive ears were able to pick up on it, provided she didn't have her earplugs in.
Meanwhile, further down the hall, Knight would find the second door much more cooperative than the banged up one from the bottom of the stairwell. It flew open with her well-placed kick, banging into the wall with a resounding echo.
That poor local door producer person... He didn't get paid enough for this shit.
Inside the room was, similar to the room Red had found, little of too much interest. A huge palette, stacked with some machinery that Knight wouldn't be familiar with sat at the far south of the large room, while a few boxes, and a pair of stacked planks of wood were loosely organized in the center of the room. To the north, there was a wide metal door, with a lever that seemed to operate it. Unlike the ones upstairs, this lever seemed to be in pretty functional condition, though, and the door likely went to the room further down the hall.
From behind the door, Knight would be able to hear some rustling noises, but since the door was closed tightly, she couldn't see if there was any unusual movement from the other side.
Probably just more Grimm. And unlikely to be anything she couldn't handle.
Post by Sinopia DeStellanova on May 23, 2020 14:51:17 GMT -5
"Carpenter?" she offered.
At least, who she thought would make wooden doors like this. Doors were common enough that maybe someone could make a living off of doors alone, but she doubted it. There was a lot of skill overlap and doors weren't exactly an expensive commodity, nor were they particularly difficult to make. Even the really nice ones were just hunks of wood with fancy patterns and glass on them. Not something that was likely to keep someone busy full time.
The last comm from Pickett didn't annoy her too much, just made her worried about why he sent it or whether he needed help, but this one was making it hard to hear when she was trying very hard to listen to what was further ahead. Even if it was only a momentary distraction, there was still a half a second of panic when she heard something loud before her mind caught up to what it actually was, and then she had to wait for him to stop before she could go back to making sure the door was safe to open. She was glad they opened the door she guessed? Once again, he didn't sound troubled and there was no screaming in the background, just people shouting to kill it, which was a pretty reasonable way to react to Grimm. Did they need help? Was Pickett just really anxious about being locked in a warehouse with a bunch of Grimm?
This was her fault wasn't it? For saying something early on? Maybe it wasn't necessary, but she wasn't used to working with people outside of Knight and could only go on what Knight would like to know. At the time, they hadn't confirmed the enemy. It could have been Grimm, it could have been bandits, it could have been squatters that weren't likely to fight at all. Each had their own set of challenges they would have to face, and finding one implied it was very unlikely they would see the others. At the time, it seemed like a good idea to confirm what the enemy was, and she only threw her own name in to let them know where it was likely coming from. The rest was for Knight since she was luring the Grimm towards her. Red would have said that she was returning to Knight's position as well, if she hadn't said she'd do that if she ran into trouble about thirty seconds prior. So maybe she didn't need to say anything at all. Maybe she shouldn't have said anything at all.
Those thoughts carried over when she thought about whether or not she should respond now. He really didn't need to keep sending status updates like this was his social media feed, so politely telling him what would be useful seemed like a good idea, much like telling them about the Grimm seemed like a good idea before. Was she over stepping her bounds here? He was supposed to be one of the people running Asche right? Much like Knight was? She doubted Knight would care if she said anything, but would it be weird for everyone else if she did it instead of the person that was supposed to be leading them? She chewed her lower lip for a moment while she listened on the other side of the door, and opted not to say anything for the time being. If frequent comms started interfering with her ability to listen she could speak up then.
Carefully, she pushed open the door, keeping herself low to the ground as she peeked in. She didn't see anything too interesting, but she also didn't get a chance to look very hard Knight called her back. There was an open door in the next room, so she made sure to close this door again before making her way towards the door Knight found. No need to let something into this hallway if she didn't have to, given they didn't seem capable of opening any of the doors. She could also agree that it was a good idea to clear what was behind them before continuing onward, so she briskly walked back and positioned herself just outside the room. The usual spot at the usual distance she took when more directly aiding Knight like this.
"That room looks like it only has boxes again, but there's something further down. Distant still. I definitely heard hissing though. Like a snake?"
Red knew that she really didn't need to be here at this point. Not really. She felt that way when they first went to Vacuo as well. What could she possibly hope to offer someone who was better at fighting by several orders of magnitude, in an environment where fighting was the most important skill to have? She couldn't hope to close that kind of skill gap ever, let alone in any reasonable amount of time. So she didn't. She couldn't be a sword, but she could be Knight's eyes and ears. She couldn't be a shield, but she could be an extra set of hands; an independent actor that could move even while Knight was doing something else. Failing that, she could be insurance and bail Knight out of some of the few situations she actually found difficult.
But what she found she was really good for, was making sure Knight never had to worry about anything. Life was surprisingly complicated and a lot went into even simple day to day tasks. Making sure they had enough food and water, making sure their clothes and gear were clean and that rank smells wouldn't give them away, making sure their transportation was maintained and functional, making sure they had a place to sleep, making sure they wouldn't be too hot or cold, making sure they were as comfortable as they could be, making sure bills were paid and they didn't owe anyone money. She may not be able to fight Grimm, but she could keep any home owner's association of their asses. The list went on and she paid attention to even the smallest of details without being told.
The car was one of the prime examples of this. She spent hours modifying that thing to cover every need she could possibly think of. The seats weren't just comfortable, she altered how far back they went and changed how they laid when they were pushed all the way back so they'd feel more like an actual bed. They were certainly as comfortable to sleep on as any bed she had slept in, but she also wasn't the best judge of these things. The thing was so heavily reinforced that it was practically bulletproof, except for around the windows (which were at least tougher than normal glass and shatterproof), and even those had shutters they could pull up if necessary. Gave it huge tires and as good of a suspension as she could get so riding in it wouldn't be too bumpy. She even made a point to keep it cleaner than she needed to so it would never smell. Even quit smoking to guarantee that it wouldn't smell like ash. She also kept any small, useful items she could think of in easy to reach places. Knight really hated having her hands feel dirty, so she always kept a bunch of hand sanitizer for example.
Any time they went to a new city or village, she asked around to see what was there, what to expect, and what they would be able to pick up so Knight wouldn't have to. Talking with strangers like this made her anxious enough that her mouth went dry, but she did it anyway. Any time their food reserves were even in danger of getting low due to an unexpectedly long trip (very unexpectedly long given how prepared she tried to be), she'd comb the desert looking for snakes or anything else they could eat in a pinch while Knight slept. She became very good at getting blood and sand out of clothing and hair. Red was even perfectly willing to do things others might find demeaning. If asked, she had no problem rubbing Knight's feet if they were sore, or spending hours picking sand out of her hair. As far as Red was concerned, if Knight had to worry about anything but missions she was failing. Keeping all those worries out of Knight's mind meant she'd have that much more energy for when they were completing these dangerous tasks, and she was okay with that being her role.
It was the one thing her excessive worrying was good for. That combined with her attention to detail and sense of empathy meant she could spot potential problems before they became problems, then could be so thorough in stamping them out that they'd never be noticed.
For this mission, she was just insurance. Something to have around so Knight didn't have to worry about broken parts in the floor that were hard to get over, or if something broke on her. Even if the whole warehouse came crashing down on them she was pretty sure she could get them both out as long as they stayed close together. Red would do everything she could to squeeze every bit of advantage out of herself, much like she always did.
Post by Alina Rybalka on May 23, 2020 16:57:08 GMT -5
[nospaces]
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[break] [break]
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[attr="class","nikki101"]WE CAN ALL AGREE THAT VIOLENCE BREEDS VIOLENCE
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[attr="class","nikki102"]BUT IN THE END, IT HAS TO BE THIS WAY
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[attr="class","nikki109"]”Do carpenters make doors? I thought they just made houses and stuff.” [break][break]
The next update surprisingly didn’t bother her as much as the first. Hearing wasn’t something she was really concerned with, and she had gotten angry enough the first time to tune out his voice enough to where she didn’t even register words. If it was something important, Red would let her know or she’d key in on an important word like ‘Help’ or ‘Overrun’ or ‘Dying’. None such words were spoken, so the message wasn’t important. It really was as simple as that. She really didn’t need to know every time his stomach growled or that his foot got all tingly, that was just oversharing. [break][break]
The thing about being underground and surrounded by heavy equipment was the unfamiliar sense of vulnerability. This was an area that did not play to her strengths at all, and an area in which there were dangers in which she couldn’t actually do anything about. Big metal doors were one of those things, because while her aura would survive being smashed in one it certainly wouldn’t be pleasant and getting out by herself would be a huge issue. She could probably do it by melting some of the metal that was away from her to make it collapse and fall down around her, but that would take a while and be unnecessarily risky overall… not to mention very draining to her aura levels. Red was there for insurance in case the damned machinery tried to kill her.[break][break]
She had no defense against being crushed by giant metal machinery and was fine calling for Red when there was the chance of that attacking her. The last time she fought one of those, she was wrapped up and had to blast her way out while taking damage from her own semblance at the same time she was killing the monster due to getting overpowered and attacked by both snake heads at once in extreme close quarters. Something like that could legitimately break her aura if it got the jump on her, which was obviously less than ideal. The last thing she wanted was for her aura to legitimately be at critical levels or worse down here, with so many unknown individuals around the place. While she certainly assumed they weren’t very strong, she also wasn’t willing to bet that with her life and would very much like to be half aura or greater when they left this facility at the absolute minimum. [break][break]
”Yeah, there’s a lever to the north. Given how there was a fight against Grimm, expecting traps at some point. I’ll yank it and see if it works, then if it does, I’ll enter the room first. Main concern is the thing smashing shut at me, because any sort of explosive charges or other traps are pretty ignorable.” The voice modulator still wasn’t on, so her voice was still only partially distorted from the mask she wore. She’d turn it back on when she had to talk to other people, but in this case, it wasn’t necessary and helped her focus. It meant fewer moving parts in the helmet got noticeably hotter, which unfortunately the voice modulator did when used a lot due to whatever was inside of it. [break][break]
She continued talking as she walked over to yank the lever, responding to the comment about the snake. ”If you heard snake noises, we’ll have to be careful around that area. I doubt there’s a legit King Taijitu down here, because one would be able to smash through most of these steel doors no sweat. When we get back to that area, let me know so I can switch to my work gloves.” [break][break]
Work gloves of course in this case meant one of her plant dust infused sets. It was one of the items that weren’t really regulated very much, even by Vacuo standards because it was a completely non-offensive item that seemed rather frivolous. What use is producing a flammable and sticky jelly when a normal fire did the job better? It didn’t make much sense, and plant dust wasn’t exactly the most expensive thing in the world either. It was seen as a party trick item by the people who made it, and that worked out just fine for Knight. Using them was identifiable, and she only really used it for things that she was sure could actually hurt her. A King Taijitu was one of those things, because being strangled by one of them was low on her list of things she wanted to do that day – or any day, for that matter. [break][break]
If pulling the lever opened the door to the north, Knight would physically stand in front of the door with her Szabla still drawn. This was a much wider and open area, with plenty of space to dodge and slash with full force without worrying about hitting a nearby wall or door frame. If whatever was on the other end of the door was a Death Stalker or greater in power, she would immediately snap the middle finger and thumb of her left hand to attack them with her semblance. If it was a swarm of enemies numbering more than two, she would again use her semblance to sweep the area and attempt to clear them all out at once. If the enemy fit neither of those criteria she would move forward into the doorway and engage with her sword. [break][break]
She didn’t know how far behind the other team was, so she wasn’t going to use her semblance outside of very short spurts unless it was absolutely required by a strong enemy. It simply wasn’t worth losing the advantage she had for as long as she kept it secret to kill Grimm slightly faster but judging by the overcommunication by the other team it was likely that they were significantly behind at this point. It was a balancing act, because if they took too long to move through then the other team would catch up and that would be less than ideal. It would mean that this team would be forced to move slower, and they’d all be in more danger than they would be if they remained split and out of sight. [break][break]
If the room was empty, she’d just signal for Red to follow her and explore the next room as per usual. No need to change something that was working, after all.
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[attr="class","nikki103"]1075 words
[attr="class","nikki103"]ASCHE SYNDICATE
[attr="class","nikki103"]5195 TOTAL WORDS
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NOTES
B Semblance, D Weapons, C Dust Enhancement, C Durability, C Agility, D Stamina, D Exhaustion, D Martial Arts