melodiesoflife | Event || In Your Worst Memory

Event || In Your Worst Memory

Characters: All Heroes of Light. Only those who signed-up can start a memory.
Where: Interdimensional Rift
When: May 27th - May 30th
Summary: The Heroes of Light relive some of their worst memories, with a twist. All characters participating in this will be physically missing from Crystallis for the duration of the event.
Warning: It depends on the memory.

Where you were or what you were doing— It does not really matter. Not any more. Everything around you freezes, nearly as if time itself stopped, as if the world was frozen in time. And before you have a chance to understand what is happening, you can hear a voice right behind you.

"Kali Shashidhwaja."

Should you turn around, you may see a child who seems to be the only one aside from you unaffected by what is happening. And as she stares right at you, it makes no doubt these strange words are aimed at you. But before you can reply to her, the world around you collapses. Reality twists and shatters... Or maybe you are the one who is collapsing and shattering away from reality as you know it. No matter what the answer is, it will only take a few seconds for you to find yourself sinking into a void, Crystallis vanishing into the distance. There is nothing but darkness as far as the eye can see.

And once again you feel different: all the powers from your Jobs are fading. Not only that, but you might find that your Crystal is gone and your clothes back to what they were before you woke up in Crystallis. It is silent, cold and before long it feels as though life itself is slipping out of you... And yet, slowly the world reforms around you. The darkness fades away and a new world appears, yet at the same time this is not a world.

This is a memory. The question is, is it yours or that of someone else?

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The Al Bhed looks right at home in the industrial setting. The mechanic in her has her instantly following the pipes, trying to determine their primary function. She can feel the familiar comforting whir of motors that held them aloft. "Some kind of machine." Perhaps a ridiculously obvious answer to Johnny - but the girl came from a world where many people had never seen the insides of one.

"Yunie!" The pugilist dashes beside her cousin in a flash of orange and green, concern creasing her features at the look on the brunette's face. She assesses her surroundings, no longer mesmerized by the enticing new machina.

Jack - she preferred him with his coat. And his cockiness. It suited him better. The frantic look on his face makes her heart drop. "Ok but, where do we go?"

[OOC: Even if more people join in, feel free, but I'm going to have Jack respond anyway. Reminder that canon powers are restored, since he's asking.]

"Follow me," Jack starts, leading the group to an alcove, underneath a set of metal stairs made of that same grating material. The echoing sounds of footsteps can still be heard, but this is enough to keep them out of direct sight. He turns and eyes over the group carefully, seeing who he has with him. There is still a note of fear in his eyes, in his voice, but he is trying to shove it down. Be the Captain these people need you to be, Harkness.

His voice is low but insistent. "All right, I'm only going to go through this once. Welcome to the HMS Valiant, best thing I can compare it to from Crystallis is the airships, but more complicated. We're even higher up than those things go, though, so anybody wanting to take the shortcut off here? That trip's going to end in a sudden stop."

"I don't understand why we're here, but everything here is dangerous. Guy in charge is a nutball calling himself the Master. Time Lord, but absolutely psychopathic and ruthless. Also psychic. That's how he's got control of the guards on board, and of these things called the Toclafane." Jack cranes his neck and falls silent for a second as it almost sounds like a patrol is coming close, but the footsteps recede.

"You see any flying metal spheres, just get away from them. They can and will kill you in an instant. Ruthless, and they kill because it's fun. Technically, their minds are human inside, just regressed to about five year-olds. No idea if we can make use of that, but only other way one has ever been taken out was with a direct bolt of lightning."

"There is a way off of here, but to get to it, we need the Doctor. Friend of mine. And he's being held up on the Bridge. It's going to be hard to get there, and this distraction is only going to last another few minutes." Said wryly, but he knows exactly what's going on here.

"So, plans? Ideas? Anybody got, I don't know, mind control, telepathy, illusions? What do we have to work with here? I-" Jack reaches out a hand, and he tries to cast one of his Dark Knight abilities. Nothing. He shakes his head. "Nothing. Can't cast anything."

Johnny listened, keeping an even expression until Jack got to the part about the Toclafane. That sounded pretty bad. Without their Job powers, they sounded like they weren't going to make it through this. But when Jack rattles off a list of other abilities, that gets him thinking.

Johnny reaches out to a piece of metal railing that looks inconsequential enough, and after a moment's hesitation, wrenches off the wall with ease. Then he takes the metal bar in both hands and bends it in half with little problem. He can't help but grin a little. That felt damn good.

"Yeah, I got a couple things that might help."

If he had his strength here, then he might have his charm powers too. He didn't want to mention that if he didn't have to, but it sounded like it might just come in handy here.

"The doctor?" That was enough of a reason for her.

Yuna looked down at her hand feeling her magic return. "I have a lot more power than I have in crystallis." She summoned the chaos into her palm like darkness gathering before dispersing. She smiled at Jack suddenly feeling excited. "It'd take too long to explain." If only because her skills were so fast. She peeked into her bag making sure she had her sphere grid.

"I think we can save him." She smiled. "Let's go."

Something felt weird in this world. She could feel something off but without focusing she couldn't place it. She looked back towards Jack studying him curiously. "Something feels off here. Jack. Have you told us everything?" Yuna was worried and with her cousin here she wanted to make sure they were safe.

Time Lord? Did that have something to do with haste? It made things fast so things took less time? There are some things the blonde doesn't follow, but psychopathic and ruthless, she catches that. Why did it have to be one of those types.

Rikku's eyes widen at Johnny's display of strength. "Whoa." That says little for the bafflement her expression shows when her cousin displays powers she's never seen before. The girl is perhaps too used to life or death situations for her own good, pouting a little when she doesn't get an explanation - she wants to know!

Flexing the familiar weight of her pugilist arm and gauntlet, the claws of her weapon reflect in the din lights. "I can fight." What she lacked in strength, she made up for in speed and agility. She reaches a hesitant hand into the pouch on her thigh, and beams, "My alchemy supplies! They're back. And well...I can steal things. Heh." Not exactly the kind of thing you laid out on the table, and who knows if it would even wind up being useful anywhere, but if it had the potential of keeping her cousin safe? Oh well.

So they were looking for some kind of a healer, huh? Called himself The Doctor? "These flying metal spheres, they're machines? I'm real good with those."

Edited 2015-05-30 06:15 (UTC)

Cloud felt himself pulled from where he was to this new landscape, and almost immediately he felt the thrumming of the ship moving up through his body. His stomach churned in reaction to the sense of motion that he couldn't place. He leaned against the nearby bulkhead, focusing on not losing control and in that moment he realized he was back in his ShinRa military garb. He could feel the weight of the rifle over his shoulder. It seemed like he had some materia on him as well. Something odd was happening here and he needed to figure out what it was.

The sound of wrenching metal called his attention and he moved towards it, catching the tail end of the conversation going on. He rounded a corner and found the others gathered about and moving along with Jack. "E-Everyone, what's going on here?" He looked unsure, but he was standing of his own power and seemed to be fine for the moment. His question was honestly for the sake of asking more than any real worry. These people were friends and whatever they needed him to do he would do his best to not slow them down.

((OOC: Other person I was waiting on has bowed out, so it's just us.))

Jack's eyebrows go straight up as Johnny shows a strength that he seems to be lacking in Crystallis. Okay, guess whose side Jack isn't leaving while they're here?

He beckons Cloud closer, and looks between Yuna and Rikku. "To be fair, there's probably a lot I haven't told you," he has the look of someone who is trying to remember, rather than hiding things.

"Good with machines," Jack mutters. "Maybe there's a second way out of here, then. The Master, to explain a Time Lord, he's psychic, crazy and essentially immortal. Kill him, he'll regenerate and pop right back up, even more dangerous than before. He took over Earth in a span of minutes. His army, the Toclafane? There's about 7 billion of them, and he can summon the whole thing at once."

"He only got away with this because," what is the short short version of explaining paradox theory? "He's got the Doctor, but he's also got a machine of the Doctors. Something that usually travels through time. But he repurposed it, and now it's holding time in place. We're kind of inside a bubble," Jack waves his hands. "It's preventing time from passing normally. We are all stuck, stopped, nothing can get in or out. Because what he's done here is impossible, but that machine is powerful enough to keep it in place. But if we break his adaption to the machine? Pop the bubble, time resets."

"If we go for the Doctor, we go up. The Bridge is the top level. Heavily guarded, but a little less so right this second, because of the distraction. You're looking for an old man, really old. He's obviously being held prisoner here. You might also run into a family, mother, father, adult daughter, the Jones'. They're also trapped here, and if we can get them, that would be nice."

"If we go for the TARDIS, the time machine, then we go further down, near the boiler room. It always has a group of Toclafane in front of it, though. You're looking for a box, a blue box." He looks at Johnny as he holds up a hand and tries to indicate a shape. "Uh, like a phone box, says police on it, like the kind you'd see in England?" He hopes Johnny at least would get the reference.

He glances specifically at Rikku. "Either way, if you're good with machines, we might want to take out as many security cameras as possible along the way."

"Well. Both ways sound equally shitty. But I think maybe going for the time machine might be the better one. A time machine that's a... phone booth?" That's an odd thing for a time machine to look like, but then again, is it any weirder than a Delorean or a hot tub?

"These Toclafane. You said they have about the intelligence of kids, right? Would there be a way to distract 'em, or is killing people they only thing they're interested in?"

Yuna smiled. "It's also bigger on the inside." That much she remembered from the last time she had an interact with the doctor. It was pretty interesting and while it's obvious that the situation was grim Yuna felt like she can do something here and that gave her hope.

She shifted her weight between her feet and her grip on her guns tightened. Her gaze flicked towards Rikku. She was happy that she was here.

"Sounds like a plan. Let's get going then." The whole team here were people that Yuna could trust and for that she was grateful. If anything she remembered about The Doctor was true then they were in for an interesting adventure.

Rikku listened attentively to the Captain, blanching at the number of Toclafane. The Spiran could not wrap her head around that, she doubted there were even that many Pyreflies in all of Spira. All this time stuff, it was way beyond her, but, "I'm sure I could stop his machine." They were second nature to the mechanical savant.

What was a phone booth? Sounded like Johnny and Jack could point them in the right direction. Machina with the intelligence of kids? Clearly they were highly advanced. In the end, it all worked the same though. The Al Bhed's gaze lingered at the guns in her cousin's holsters, a look of utter confusion crossing the blonde's face momentarily - before flickering up at Jack's comment about the security cameras. At that, she offered a confident grin. "Sure!" Child's play.

At first Cloud thought this all went over his head but as he listened he could at least justify it. Not the parts about an army in the billions being able to be summoned at once. He could at least meet that halfway considering red materia. Even the idea of dying only to get up stronger had some foundation. Even the time stuff could be attributed to magic.

But Jack seemed to know the deal with all of this and he had no reason not to trust the other hero. He was a little curious about how Yunie knew about it though. Did it have something to do with how she knew him when they first met in Crystalis?

"I have some materia with me. Ice and Lightning I think." They were his usual go to materia when a mission allowed him to use them. "So I can probably use magic. But if we go for the box first, will we be able to do anything with it? You said it belonged to your doctor, right?" Would they be able to fix it or operate it if he wasn't there? Cloud pursed his lips in uncertainty. Jack and Rikku seemed confident but it didn't seem like they had time to make a mistake.

His eyebrows raise at Johnny in surprise. "If it's possible, I never pulled it off. But my way of 'distract the guard' isn't too effective on them anyway. We run into one of them alone, maybe?"

Jack regretfully looks up through the grating to the upper levels, imagining he can look all the way through to the Bridge. It feels like they're leaving the Doctor behind, especially with Cloud's question. His answer is both for himself and for Cloud. "We don't need to use the box, we need to break it. Break the Paradox Machine, time goes back to normal. None of this ever happened." His voice is less confident and more determined. This isn't going to be easy, but it's the only path they've got.

He stays low as he beckons and starts to lead them up the path. He's going from one point of cover to another, as the guards keep crossing on the walkways above their heads. Whatever else is going on, it's certainly gotten some people's attention. They have to pause and hug the walls before a cross-corridor, as guards run past, luckily focused on their objective.

"We're headed all the way, straight to the back, then next to last level. Close to a boiler room." He eyes the forms of the human guards in military garb scrambling after someone. "There's one more hitch," he finally admits, "in the plan. The guy they're all looking for?" The corner of his mouth lifts without actually being a smile. "It's me."

"I can't run into myself, under any circumstances. I'm pretty sure I'm about to be-" Jack doesn't get time to finish that thought.

Yuna will feel it, just before it happens. To the Summoner, even though it isn't happening near her, she will feel someone's death, the soul being released, and then a forcible pull, like the power of a star collapsing in on itself. And that pull is yanking on Jack. One second, Jack is there, and then the next, he has vanished.

A moment later, the all-clear sounds over speakers, the alarms stop, and the overhead lighting goes back to normal. It seems their prisoner has been recaptured.

Edited (Oops) 2015-06-01 00:57 (UTC)

Johnny reeled back in surprise, but manages to stay low and quiet, which is remarkable for him. He looks around the group.

"What the hell just happened? Where'd he go?"

"Jack!" She looked at the others with a worried expression spread across her features. The tug on his soul was enough to make her almost lose her balance. She hadn't felt anything like that in so long. Then he was gone.

"We have to go after him." Except that he had given them another mission. Like he knew this was going to happen. They couldn't very well split up with only four of them on a ship that they didn't know anything about.

Yuna's gaze flicked from Johnny, to Cloud, to Rikku wishing that one of them knew what would be best. She couldn't just leave Jack but that pull, what did it mean? If there was a summon taking place here then couldn't she stop it? She needed to end the dream again.

Rikku rubs a hand at the back of her head, glancing over at Cloud. She had to admit, she was a fan of the spiky blond hair look, "I'd keep lightning extra handy." As much as she hated to admit it, it was always handy against machina. "I ca...whoa!"

Shooting a look of confusion to Johnny, she shakes her head. "I dunno!"

Her clover eyes dart back to her cousin, nodding after the older girl spoke. Rikku was confident she could help with the machina, but in the end would follow her Summoner. Besides, they did not leave people behind. "Do you...know where he went though?" They could do little otherwise.

Cloud looks as shocked as everyone else, but as Yunie suggests they go looking for their ally his eyes narrow and he shakes his head, "No. He gave us a mission and we need to carry it out. We all know this isn't what it seems to be, but if we want to get him out of here then we need to do what he told us." At least, he assumes so.

Somehow he is reminded of that escort mission from so long ago. He lost friends and fellow soldiers on that mission. He had taught that Turk that it was important to stand by your ideals, even in the face of mission orders, but at the same time she taught him that he couldn't give up on a mission in the face of tall odds.

"We go to the box or his doctor. That's what he wants us to do." He's fine either way, as long as they make a move quick.

Cloud is absolutely correct that they have to make a move, as guards are beginning to get back into their normal patterns. With all the interference of both time and death energies in the area, it would be hard for Yuna to isolate where Jack is, for now.

If they choose to go after the Box, Jack indicated they would have to stay low, and go through the maintenance corridors that run the length of the bottom of the Valiant. If they choose to go after the Doctor, their path takes them up and towards the front of the ship. There are plenty of stairwells, some open, some more closed off near the corners. Despite the ship being in the hands of a maniacal supervillain, there are still maintenance maps available with the stairwells marked (Safety First, maintaining the Empire takes the efforts of every one of us! That's the British way!)

Footsteps are sounding on the metal walkways, not too close, but there are an awful lot of them.

Johnny mutters some expletives when he hears the incoming footsteps. If they make it out of this alive, it'll be a miracle.

He whispers to the group. "I say this doctor, but whatever we choose, we need to go now, before we get spotted. I'd rather deal with some guards that can't kill us in one hit. If we stay quiet we can take 'em out before any alarms are tripped."

Yuna looked over at Cloud and then Johnny. "I can't feel Jack anymore but I know I can find him. The doctor first but we aren't leaving anyone behind." Her eyes were determined as she rose her guns up to fight.

Then she looked over at Rikku with a smile. "Right?" It wasn't in her to leave someone behind and she knew that Rikku was the same way.

When she heard the footsteps she quieted trying to think of the best way to deal with the guards. She had magic, now that her powers returned she had a lot of magic but she didn't know how long they'd be here and she didn't have any items with her. She gave the group a slight nod ready to jump out when they get closer.

Rikku shoots a grin back to her cousin, "you betcha!" Time to save this healer person. They were always getting themselves into trouble.

At that, the young thief takes the lead, moving fast and keeping low. Rikku's no tank - but her stealth makes for the perfect scout as far as being likely to go unnoticed to look ahead for danger. She keeps an eye out for security cameras to take out as Jack suggested.

Cloud drops into old training, pulling down the visor on his trooper helmet and using the HUD to support Rikku's scouting as best he can. She's still spotting the cameras before he does, but there's no harm in the extra set of eyes. He holds his rifle securely as he moves with the group, ready to fight if he has to.

(ooc: Going on hiatus but you guys can move Cloud around as needed if you want to keep him in the group)

As Jack indicated, the fastest way up to where the Doctor is being held is one of the stairwells. The first camera for Rikku to disable is just outside, before they can start to go up what is indicated as a fire exit.

It's absolutely quiet, and the good news is that the Toclafane, fliers, don't take the stairs. The bad news is that there is no warning of running into the guard on the second landing up who was sneaking a cigarette. They startle him, and then they've got maybe a second to stop him from getting on his radio and making this situation a lot worse.

It's a good thing Johnny is a fast mover. With his old power back also comes his old training, too - those ridiculous superhuman moves taught to him by Coby. Johnny is over to the guard like a shot, almost literally, as the jump he takes gets him onto the second landing in a moment. He punches the guard hard in the gut, and when he doubles over, hits him fast to the neck in the hopes of knocking him out. Hopefully Rikku would be able to deal with the security cameras before he's on video.

Yuna heard the noise and moved from her hiding spot. She trusted Rikku's stealth and her skills with machines but she wasn't expecting to hear combat so soon. She quickly rose from their hiding place and followed the other three. She skidded to a stop at the sight of the man on the ground.

"Rikku." Though Yuna knew even as she said her cousins name that the young thief was most likely already addressing the camera.

"We should move." There wasn't any point to stopping and waiting. Yuna moved up the steps keeping quiet and quick as well as on the look out for camera's. She can at least help by shorting them out.

No sooner does Rikku see the flare of the guard's cigarette, then Johnny is already leaping towards him. No time to be impressed though - ok - maybe she can be impressed so long as she does not let it slow her down. She can't let the camera catch him.

Honing in on the device, the thief ducks out of where she calculates its sights. A mad dash and a swipe of her pugilists claw cuts a critical wire, taking out the camera's power feed.

She falls back in with the group, moving up the stairs to join the two.

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