Somewhere... Beyond the Sea

[Mogar]

OOC stuff:

1) If you wish to participate, this is mid 1960s Rapture, city has gone to hell, the fall has happened, and not simply splicers, but zombies, mutants, biological monsters, Rapture was a bastion of superscience, but without proper controls, such things have a funny way of coming out. Create your own back story for your character. 

2) Survivors and Splicers are the most likely choices for said backstory, if you have questions before you decide to join feel free to throw me a Query,

3)the intent of the thread is survival horror, I will be the "GM" for the event and hurl whatever randomness at the "party"

4) If you have a specific request for a monster, trap, or scenario that fits into this, suggest it and I'll see what we can do, collaboration!

 

 

It had been nearly 6 years in Rapture since they had been in the city. Mogar looked out the viewing port upon his creation. The Big Daddies still apparently were doing their tasks, controlled and fed by the computer system, they'd likely be the only residents able to survive even a nuclear strike upon the city, they went past one working on a collapsed tunnel, apparently repairing the broken glass. There were obvious signs of wear and tear upon everything, buildings were dimmed, the true nature of the city was impossible to determine from the outside, they had continued to try to reach someone on the inside, but there was just static.

 

He turned to Antasija, "Something's definitely wrong, the city is far too dark, it doesnt look like anyone has maintained the place for months, maybe years."

 

"Well, that's not quite a worst case scenario, but it's certainly not a good thing." Antasija says, "What's the suggested course of action and how heavily armed should we be upon our entry into the area?" she asks, checking on her choise of outfit to make sure it was all in the right place, tactically speaking.

 

Shaking his head he quickly retorted, "I suppose you can bring the Thompson. Considering I can't get anyone on the radio, and the computer system is either down or being jammed, I'm thinking we should be prepared for a worst case scenario." putting on the various holsters and spare ammunition he'd potentially require, all able to be worn under his dark grey pinstriped suit, he had to remain a certain level of class after all. A female voice came over the intercom, "Airlock connected, All good things of this earth, flow into Rapture."

 

"I was thinking about something a bit more tactical actually, but if you want me to bring the Thompson I certainly can. It doesn't fit with the present outfit though." she opens a briefcase and produces an AK-12 configured for 9x39mm rounds and grabbed a pair of 95 round drums, "Really, I feel it would be less effective than this."

 

Looking through the armory they had been standing in, he ran his fingertips across the weapons, eventually deciding upon an FN SCAR, "You always have a certain style about you, one of these days we're gong to have to actually try that thing out though, maybe it shoots holy bullets or something." he teased, slinging the weapon onto his shoulder, along with a backpack containing breaching equipment, if the city's computer had been comprimised getting anywhere would require a blowtorch or some C4.

 

Antasija cradled her weapon, the barrel of which was almost as long as her torso, "Do you think so?" she asks, obviously asking about the first thing he'd said rather than anything else; the precise makeup of her outfit was a rather form fitting tactical-grey, lightly padded catsuit with a tactical vest over it and a headset, but that was about it, "I'd not take the chance on the holy bullet thing."

 

"I know so, I must have rubbed off on you." he said sticking out his tongue. "We'll have to try it out next time we have to fight something unnatural, can't hurt to try at least, and if so we'll have a weapon that doesn't involve my own variant of vampness." He said unscrewing the door, the smell of the air was musty as it poured into the cabin, "That's always a good sign..." he said trailing off, the lights powered on as they entered the welcome center, trash laying littered everywhere. There was no sign of life, no noises, just the sound of the air filtration system blowing air that was far too old.

 

Antasija flicks an eyepiece down over her left eye. Her vision was exceptional and she already had a certain amount of nightvision, but having a precise rangefinder and a little bit of thermal capability was nice too, "Smells terrible in here." she kicks a coke can absently.

 

 The nearest terminal was down of course, he walked away from it with a sigh, the giant television screens flickering static above him. Standing in the middle of the place he looked around, "Let's try to rail line first, I suppose, we need to get back to the tower, that's the only way we're gonna actually find out where the $%&@ everyone is."

 

"That sounds like a good enough idea." she keeps the powerful weapon to her shoulder, ready to blow anything that moved too suspiciously away. "I don't like how quiet it is."

 

With her words, she of course cursed them to regret those words, as they moved quietly to the Station, voices could be heard, putting a finger to his lips they stood and listened. A disheveled woman stood over a baby carriage, talking down to it but making little sense. "Momma's gonna take good care of you, not like your old momma, I love my baby, She didn't scream much, she must not have loved you." the woman rambled on and on.

 

Mogar gave a puzzled look and gestured for her to stay put and keep a bead on the woman, slinging his gun and walked towards the woman, "Hello?" he asked loudly and clearly, wanting to ensure he was not a surprise to the obviously manic woman. she turned and screeched at him, running directly at him with her arms spread, fingernails long and sharp.

 

Antasija, not wasting a moment, put an eight round burst of fire into the woman who was very clearly off her rocker, her weapon's recoil not causing her to waver more than half a foot across her target over the course of the automatic fire. When finished, and sure that the woman was dead, she lowered her weapon, "Cause that wasn't creepy."

 

He quickly went to the baby carriage, filled with empty vials and syringes, "Well, no baby, of course." he said dryly, begining to examine her body, "Gunshot wounds killed her, at least. Obvious signs of severe ADAM usage, mutations within her DNA are likely based upon the condition of her body, someone opened the floodgates of the stuff down here, what she had in the carriage I couldn't use in a year."

 

"Well at least something's alive down here." Antasija says, taking a scan around the area, "Not sure if that's a good thing for us but at least nothing Too catastrophic has taken place."

 

He continued a scan of her body, the amount of ADAM was... incredible to say the least, that she was even able to maintain breathing with that much in her system proved a tolerance could be built up, there was so many unknowns when he had begun the project, it appears he would find one possible scenario, perhaps at too great of a cost.

 

"I don't think that was a good sign at all, the ADAM works like a drug, it does have a certain level of addiction, to have ingested this much and still be alive is impressive, but where there's one drug addict there's plenty more." he said quietly, getting onto the empty looking train, walking through the cabins to check for any unwanted guests before reaching the "engine", and switching the thing on.

 

Antasija dropped the mag and set about replacing the rounds she'd spent and replacing the clip, "Well, do we clear the place out or do we go grab reinforcements?" she asks while she does this.

 

"What reinforcements? You want to travel all the way back to Japan on another Earth to go begging for soldiers from the Empress?" He put on a sarcastic british accent, "Please mam, I want sum soldiers for me city." He shook his head, "We're on our own, maybe we'll find survivors, the city was made up of the best and brightest, someone will have kept themselves alive, and anyone else we can dispatch."

 

"Well I don't $%&@in' know, I figure you've got connections or something." Antasija says, "Where do you want to go from here?" He shrugged, "Fort Frolic is the next stop, and if we don't find anyone there, onward to MoG[Tower], we either find survivors or I figure out what the hell happened." he said, starting the train upon its journey.

 

"Well I think it's obvious what happened, someone got too liberal with the bio-technical gear while you were gone." she says, taking a seat and looking outwards, "Shouldn't be too hard to clear the place."

 

 He laughed coldly, "Two hundred and fifty thousand people were in this city when we left, even if 90% of them died, we're still up against potentially twenty five thousand people, all of whom will likely try to kill me due to my body possessing ADAM, you thankfully don't have any in your system due to your little vacation, but they'll be able to smell me out real quick."

 

"So, bullets for the first couple-hundred and a good thrashing for the rest." she shrugs, "Unless they get too grouped together, I don't see a terrible problem. It might be quite a camping trip though, few weeks at least."

 

 He looked around the cart, "I'm honestly in the mood to drink at this point, I had figured that maybe the signals were just jammed due to the city's defenses, not that my city had turned into a den of monsters." he stared pensively out the window, a school of fish was swimming by as they blew past in the high speed rail. "We're going to find Fontaine, he's the only one who would have done this."

 

"He might be dead." she shrugged and continued to look out the window, "And if he isn't I imagine he's had a difficult time staying alive."

 

He turned to her, appreciating her pale skin in the green glow of the water and it's inhabitants outside, deciding to walk over to her and wrap his arms around her waist, turning her to face him and kissed her forehead lightly, "I appreciate you going along with me through all of this crazy life we have chosen, it's nice to see you'll help me kill a quarter million people if we needed to." he teased, taking the brief lull in action to relax and reflect upon his strange relationship.

 

"Decrease the surplus population." she says in her best Scrooge impression, "Bah, humbug." she kisses him, "You know, the corpse kinda ruins the mood."

 

He chuckled, "I wasn't planning on going much further than this, we have a city to save, or burn down and recreate, I dunno." Turning her in his arms, he rested his head upon her shoulder as Fort Frolic grew larger. Nipping at her ear he whispered, "Besides, I happen to love when you get that lustful look of battle in your eyes. Talk about turn ons my little vampsicle."

 

"Burning it down would be a terrible waste of resources." she kisses him again, "Personally I'm not a big fan of the times I get that way."

 

Checking his weapon as they entered the tunnel into Fort Frolic, he smiled at her, "Well, I'm thinking you're going to have to learn to enjoy it for the next few days."

Edited October 27, 2014 by Mogar

[Mogar]

There were other survivors of course, Katelin had done her best to maintain the city for a time, but it was soon obvious to her that she had lost control to Fontaine. Actually stopping him was another story, she had the highest access to the city's computer system and had managed to keep the most potentially destructive projects within the Tower, but there was no stopping his stranglehold upon the ADAM. Safety had gone out the window within three years, having produced enough additional little sisters to provide for the insatiable appetite of Rapture. at least Fontaine believed so anyway.

 

The addictive qualities were obvious, but Fontaine didn't care about it, considering it to simply be beneficial to promote the products and ensure he had even more customers. Long term of course this would prove to be a very big mistake. Splicers, as they were nicknamed by the remaining sane residents of Rapture had begun sprouting up, attacking those who had not fallen fully into the addiction, almost like vampires, their goal was to drain the ADAM from anyone they could find it on, having lost their ability to continue functioning and actually working to afford the ADAM, the price having been gradually raised as the addiction spread, netting Fontaine a healthy profit at the cost of the city's security.

 

Katelin remained in MoG[Tower], the building was able to provide sustenance for at least the next three decades, though it wouldn't be tasty, it'd keep her alive. The facility had a dozen security rooms, and once the Splicers had spread through the city she had put the building on lockdown, there were less than a dozen of them in the Tower, but they'd be safe for now at least.

[hr]

Across the City, Fontaine was in a similar situation, he had realized there was some flaws with the ADAM, but after reading over what the research actually suggested, he realized his poor choice had likely ensured he would not be leaving the Fontaine Futuristics building alive.

[Mogar]

Several hours and hundreds of rounds of ammunition later, they had made their way into Arcadia, the closest thing to a rainforest you'd find five miles below the ocean. Rapture's oxygen supply had remained for the most part untouched, and all was quiet as they made their way through the forested rooms. the brief lull in combat made for a good time to converse. "You know I've been thinking, what if none of this had to happen?" He asked, sitting down on a bench, gesturing to her to sit next to him,

 

 "We've gone over this before." she said, "Or at least I think we have. What do you mean exactly?" she takes a seat, resolving to take a brief break, if only because ammunition was starting to become a concern and she didn't want to continue on and use the rest quite yet.

 

He leaned back, running his hand across his face, thinking of how exactly to even explain his theory. "Alright, this... second world, whatever you want to call it, it was created thanks to my dabbling with time travel, so what if we just do it again? restart the whole shebang, you don't get kidnapped, Rapture doesn't collapse under its own weight because I wasn't here to hold it up, we go back to square one, maybe that first trip to Vietnam as a breakaway point."

 

"I don't think it would work out well." she says, moving over to him and cuddling up to him, "It didn't work out so well with this one in case you hadn't noticed." Clicking his tongue he looked around, "I dunno, besides the drug addict monster people Rapture seems to have held up well." he said dryly. "We can learn from our mistakes, start over again with our current knowledge and not make the same decisions, I can't accept that every world we reach is going to die, there has to be one in which life can thrive, where we can thrive."

 

"You don't know that." she says, disproportionately cheerfully, "We could just be doomed to a grim, dark, semi-appocalyptic world no matter which ones we go to."

 

He shrugged, enjoying the sounds of birds, artificial of course, just recordings to give the feelings of being a real forest, the ceilings were painted with a starry night as well, so when the pretend sunlight lamps were off it appeared to be night. "So long as you're willing to come along with me, lets see how many grimdark worlds we can see then darling." he said while pulling the magazine out of his rifle. "There should be ammunition supplies in the next building, at least I hope so, otherwise we may have to start clubbing the freaks."

 

"I did propose that at one point as the solution for when we run out of ammunition, didn't I?" she says, checking the amount she had in her drum, "Anyways, I do hope you're right."  Their conversation had of course unintended consequences, notably drawing the attention of several of the splicers, and of course the smell of Mogar's ADAM filled bloodstream was like a flame to moths, shoving the magazine back in the gun, he remarked, "I guess our heart to heart is over." raising the gun and firing a single shot into the first to turn the corner into the room they were standing in.

[Mogar]

They had spent the next several hours fighting from room to room, he felt pity dispatching the people who once worked for him, but such was the situation they were in. Eventually they had crossed through one of the many tunnels that connected the buildings, shutting the hate behind him he sighed, they were finally in MoG[Tower]. "What do you think the odds of the elevator working are?" he asked her sarcastically.
 

"About one to four I'd say." she said, rolling her eyes and walking towards the stairs, holding her weapon by the barrel now that she'd spent essentially all of the ammunition in it, her incredible strength more than enough to propel it at speeds to smash a skull like a pumpkin, "You know I can't really knock the atmosphere. Maybe we should convert the place into like, a haunted house." He had stood for a moment, having been here before with this exact look, before making his way to check, of course there was no mechanical noise when he had tried to call the elevator. "Maybe that rubber band effect we experienced a few years ago was trying to tell us something, it turns out we ended up in that future after all." he said darkly, checking his weapon, now down to a clip and a half. "Looks like we're taking the stairs, after you my dear Antasija." opening the door to the stairwell for her,  crushing a fellow's skull who was standing just on the other side of it.

 

 "You just want to watch my ass climb some stairs don't you." she says seriously as she looks over her shoulder at him and twirls her AK-12 a little in her fingers, "You naughty fellow you." she continued dryly, rolling her eyes and walked past him. "Perhaps, it at least provides a change of scenery rather than the death and..." noticing the blood begining to seep under the door and under his boot, "gore, that apparently surrounds us." The stairs were quiet, though he didn't expect many of them to be left in the tower, security was the highest here and he had noticed the security drones were still active.

 

 "Could be worse." she says nonchalantly as she continues forward, beginning to climb the stairs, "They could be literally rotting. Then they would smell worse than they already do." she sighs, "I don't expect we should meet much resistence here correct?"  He shrugged, "The bots usually do a good job, it's what I programmed them for after all, any of the humans you should be able to handle."

 

 She continued up, shrugging her own shoulders, "Fair enough, though I'd prefer if I didn't have to use Bethany for anything less than her intended purpose for too long." she said, referring to the weapon she carried. They continued in circles, endlessly climbing, He stopped at the 67th floor, "Only about 50 more to go.." He said, out of breath, he sat upon the stairs to the next floor and looked up at her. "I certainly have made a mess of things haven't I?"

 

 "It's not your fault hon, I blame Tahiti." she says brightly down at him, offering him a hand to hold while they climbed, "Though you do seem to have gotten out of shape since then. Shame on you for that." He stuck his tongue out at her after drinking from his canteen, "We can't all have been given a brand new body in perfect condition, besides it isn't like I had my daily exercise routine with you missing." he teased, grabbing her hand and pulling her onto his lap.

 

She sat in his lap and put an arm around his neck, holding her weapon in her own lap and giving him a kiss, "I'm always in perfect condition, new body or no." she says, "Comes with the territory." He bit upon her lower lip gently, "Yeah, yeah, being immortal and all that." he sighed and pushed her off gently, standing and continuing up the stairs, "So, I decided we're just going to see if the gate is still operational, the city is not salvageable right now, but perhaps I can make things right."

 

"Salvagability is what you make of it." she says, standing and following him, "Anything can be salvaged if you work hard enough at it, it's just whether the effort used to do so would be less than the effort of making a whole new one." His anxiety grew with every step, if the gate was damaged or missing, they may end up stuck in Rapture for quite some time, or have to outsource the clean up. "Who said I planned on making a new one? We've altered timelines before, why not do it again?"

 

 "True enough." she shrugged again, "But our capacity to do that might be limited right now, at east in a willing sense." she slowed her pace to keep from having to take a break again on his account, "But let's not think about that." Floor 87, they were getting there. "I have bungled this one thanks to wallowing in misery while searching for you, I owe it to all of these people to at least try, the greatest creative and intellectual minds I could gather, and when I return there's nothing left but animals? That isn't the world i envisioned, not to mention it may buy us more time to actually do that whole, save or destroy the world thing we're supposed to be doing."

 

 "Don't worry about it hon, that's why Time Machines were invented regardless. You've got all kinds of time you can $%&@ up in, just like I do." she said, smiling warmly at him, "You're beating yourself up too much about that." He kept walking in silence until they reached the next floor, lowering his gun to his side he looked into her eyes, "I keep forgetting, you've never really been a leader, have you?"

 

"I tried it once." she said, "A long time ago, but it was brief and I was quickly relieved, why?" He paused, "Tell me your story and then I'll answer your question, you might answer your own question."

 

"Well ya know, back in the civil war when I was pretending to be a man and shooting at Unionists I was one of the few survivors of a couple engagements that wiped out whole units. 27th Virginia, not pretty stuff, they promoted me a couple of times and I ended up leading a few ranks at one point but I botched an order and instead of a fighting retreat I initiated a rout. They didn't trust me with a unit after that."

 

Mogar bit his lip, "Less terrible than I expected, but you did provide exactly what I figured. The lives of those under you are the most valuable possession you can have in a leadership role, your every mistake costs lives, and humans aren't as strong as you are babe."

 

"It wasn't too bad of a mix up, we needed to not be in that engagement anyways..." she says nervously, scratching the back of her head, "But I know what you mean." They continued up the stairs, "If I don't try, then why did I even make this place? It's supposed to be a lighthouse in the darkness, not a funeral pyre." he said, just before a loud crash came from above them. "Oh good, company." she says with a sigh, continuing at the same pace and hefting her weapon.

 

He shrugged, doing the same, "Looks like it isn't going to be so easy to get to where we need to." he said quietly, continued up, floor 107, there was still several more to their bedroom but they weren't in the tower for that, though he did look back at her briefly and considered the option. Smiling as he turned back, he looked through the small window, moving to the side of the door her looked back at her, "So... you know how I made those things to defend the little ones? It looks like one of them is not happy about that decision,"

 

 She looks at her glorified club for a moment and sighs once again, "I don't know if we can expect to beat one of them." she said, "They're tailor-made to be badass right? I'm good but I'm not that good." He looked down at his weapon and then at her, "You are fast though, go play bait, we can juggle who he's mad at, on the back of their necks they have an off switch, I'll try to shoot it, you try to punch it, one of us has to succeed, or we'll get horribly mangled and then Tera or your Angel !@#$%* friend will come down and be pissed off at us, sound like a plan?"

 

 "Sounds good, though she prefers to be called Sarah." she comments before doing a few stretches, "Is that all the plan we're coming up with?" He shrugged, "You got a better idea? I'm working with what I got, I doubt they're still programmed to remain friendly to me, and it ain't like I had lots of time to have a heart to heart with your angel friends."

 

"Some unfortunate corruptions in the software perhaps." she said, continuing to stretch before shaking her arms out a little, "Well, you ready?" He nodded, "Apologies in advance if I shoot you." he said sarcastically before kicking the door open, letting her run past him as he took aim. She burst past him in a flash, straight towards the giant, lumbering bodyguard, leaping forward and rolling under it before rising to her feet, ensuring that she still had the thing's attention before doing anything else.

 

It turned slowly to face her, he looked down the iron sights of his rifle and then... "!@#$." there were modifications, apparently someone designed a metallic cover for the location where the button was supposed to be. "We probably should have came up with a backup plan!" he shouted, firing a burst at the metallic shell. She backed up, having noticed the plate herself before it'd turned on her. She took a couple steps back, being completely devoid of ideas at that very moment except to get out of its immediate range.

Edited December 12, 2014 by Mogar