UNDERGROUND KINGS ◑ IC Thread ◐ Open

[Forest State]

The mission was chaos, but somehow through all of the chaos the Kings team managed to get Summer back to the van in the middle of the battle. The heroes were too occupied to watch their prisoner, and just like that, someone was able to carry Summer to the van at about the same time that Gabriella got back with Candace. She was still not in much of a state to move, but they could apologize for the gas attack later and get out of here now. Well, there was still the issue of Roxanne, who was at this point high in the sky and in a good position to fall to her death. Havik ignored Scarlett entirely and kept flying upwards, but the amplified scream gave the others a general location to watch.

When Havik shook off the chain finally and allowed the girl to fall, Damage was in the area and used his spatial manipulation to compress the space between her and the ground. She still slammed into the ground at high speed and would suffer from multiple broken bones, but the impact wasn’t fatal, and Damage picked up the injured girl while the others were pulling out. They were the last two inside the vans, as everyone else finished their retreat and Nike pulled away from the area and started towards the pickup zone which was located in the green and empty part of a park. Of course, there were sirens heading towards them by now, but they would reach the pickup point and their helicopter would arrive before they could be caught or surrounded.

Getting away once they were in the air would be harder, but they only had to get over the water and the airship would be there for them, before a proper air response could be assembled to chase down their helicopter. “Too close for comfort with this one, but it looks like we just took a victory in this mission. Good work, most of you. We’ll have some things to talk about when we get back, but we managed to get the goal done. But we have to be more careful. We won’t always have breaks of luck on our side, you know.”

CHAPTER TWO; FIN

[Forest State]

CHAPTER THREE: CHAOS THEORY

TIME SKIP: 3 DAYS

The days after the mission were calmer, and everyone was back on the airship, including Summer. She was a peculiar student because they were keeping her away from the others and housing her in a separate area that was closer to the staff quarters, and even in classes she was sometimes absent or if not, always sitting in the back and not talking to others. She would then leave with guards by her side, returning to some area that was off limits for the ordinary students. But interestingly, they still said that she was a part of the school, and she did attend classes sometimes to indicate that she was an actual student. However, everything wasn’t normal on the airship, especially when Summer was around.

One thing that was strange was the storm clouds that followed them over the North Atlantic, even as they left the Netherlands and headed back to their usual location where they would drift until they decided on a new destination. The North Atlantic wasn’t supposed to suffer from storms at the moment, at least the news wasn’t reporting on it, and yet lightning and thunder seemed to go wherever they want, the dark clouds surrounding the airship until they eventually stopped entirely because of the interference with the radar and other systems that was being generated by the storms. Even as they stopped, the storms continued and seemed to get worse and worse.

Many of the students on board the airship would get little to no sleep because of the constant cracks of lightning outside, and the exterior of the ship was scorched and damaged in some places by the strikes. Radar systems weren’t working at peak efficiency, sometimes they were blacking out entirely, and there had been fires around the propulsion systems that were since put out. When morning actually came, there was an announcement saying that classes were cancelled because of the need to direct staff members towards other tasks on this day. But most of the students were already up and moving, and going about their activities now that classes had been put off.

At least, that was what they were doing until the largest lightning bolt yet struck the airship, causing the place to go pitch black as the reserve engines kicked in, but not the reserve lighting and electronics systems just yet. They were flying blind, quite literally right now.

[Caruolinda]

Vesid "Prion" Bazhunaishvili
Restoration

Ah, a cold, smooth bed, the only thing that awaited Vesid after that chaotic operation. As disorganized as the rescue was, he and his teammates had actually managed to succeed, bringing back the package to the airship. However, it took Prion a couple of days to realize their newly-reacquired asset was being pushed as a normal person, which she clearly wasn't. She was being treated as some sort of infected patient, an individual who had to be quarentined at all times, and a person who sat speechless at the back of most classes. Was she like Jenny? No, she was different. Vesid, however, assumed that, out of all people, she wouldn't want to talk to the guy who literally knocked her out with gas, but it wasn't difficult to link the dots with the strange occurrences on the airship.

Constant lightning, a killer of rest. The ship they were in suddenly became the subject of constant harassment by the very forces of nature in a really strange pattern. By strange, one would assume endless. It felt like a 15th century ship in very rough seas, but somehow even worse. There was obviously something going on, and Vesid knew it. Eventually, he saw the first signs of dawn, having slept with the assistance of some medicine. Then, an announcement came as soon as he'd finished getting ready. Could anything else have worse timing?!

Vesid had prepared as if this was just another morning - and going back to bed was completely out of question. For a reason, his thoughts went back to Jenny. He wondered how she was coping with this whole situation - if at all. You know, it would actually be fun to spend his time teasing her, he assumed, although Vesid still held the legitimate intentions of actually helping her out. Sure, looking for her would be a decent way to pass his tim-

As much as he'd grown accustomed with lightning striking, that one was different. Within moments, everything had gone pitch black...
...
Well, it was only a minor obstacle in his way. Considering his options were still the same, Vesid just decided to turn on his phone's flashlight and move through the hallways of the airship. He surely wouldn't admit the horror vibes the whole thing gave him.

[Calabrana]

Felisa Guevara cursed the sky in Spanish as she had to deal with going through dim hallways and watching out for obstacles. She never tripped though and due to her time spent all her life in cities and in their darkest places, she was used to it. She just didn't like it.

For now, there was no park to retreat to. This wasn't Madrid. This was a large flying machine that housed a school. A fucking school. Like this had to be a joke. Felisa wasn't a student anymore. And she didn't want to study anymore because of her past. She preferred to to her way.

Right now, she looked for anyone to talk to, to discuss things with. She gave in and shouted "Hello?!"

[The Knockout Gun Gals]

Alissa Jackson

Some days, huh. She hadn't been involved much in the stuffs so far, though it's largely because she decided to follow the classes more to further learns about her powers instead of trying to move for a mission's involvement. She's not quite hopeful about succeeding in a mission where she has to work with people. She's distrustful of people, for one. Friendly people tend to have intentions beneath those friendliness, so to speak. She just woke up and went to the shower, just finished the shower when her place went into dark. "Now what!?" she said, irritated. The storm has been heard, and if this is happened because of the storm, well, she's one angry person.

She went outside, and well...it's dark. What she expects? Of course there were "hello" heard here and there.

Right now, she looked for anyone to talk to, to discuss things with. She gave in and shouted "Hello?!"

"Hello!? Anyone there?" she called out. Someone is close to her, also called for "hello" too.

[Tamrida]

Trevor Cadwell
The man known as Redback was sitting in his room examining his equipment for the third time today. His equipment laid out in front of him in his spartan room. It has been a while since he joined the Kings Academy but has preferred to stay out of the hectic fray, simply minding his own business and focusing on his studies, barely communicating with anyone and hoping all the while that he would be given a solo mission to do without the interference of a team. Unfortunately for him, it seems like that opportunity would never come. While checking the mechanics of his two pistols and practicing quick drawing them, he thought that it might be finally time to interact with the other students and try to work with some of them.

Suddenly a crash of thunder sounded out and the lighting on the airship went dark. "Just perfect," he thought aloud to himself. The storm outside had been buffeting the airship for a few days now, its thunder and lightning disturbing his classmate's sleep and its heavy rain and wind rocking the ship. While this didn't mind Trevor as much as the others, the lighting going out definitely posed a problem for his plan to finally interact with his other peers.

Already hearing calls of confusion in the hallways, Trevor puts on his suit and wanders out into the hall. Once there his suit activates his night vision and both of the spider symbols in his helmet and the one on his back start to glow a dim red light, slightly illuminating the hallway around him. He doesn't see anybody immediately near to him so he calls out, with his voice changer turning his voice into an intimidating deep and gravelly tone, "Hello there. If you require some light or some assistance please shout me to your location. I already have night vision so I will be able to see you once I am near enough."

[Union Princes]

Maria Ludwig

Mission was a success for Maria and the last thing she had to do was treating Roxanne's broken bones. It took a half hour to set up Roxanne's braces before injecting her with healing blood vial syringes. Maria didn't bother with anesthesia so she had to deal with Roxanne's vulgar language. Roxanne could already feel the broken bones repair itself at a steady pace.

Maria didn't pay much attention to Summer after they arrive at the airship; sometimes going as afar as overlooking her completely. Other than that, Maria was enthusiastic that her doves Plato, Hippocrates, and Aristotle are still alive and untouched by the rest of the airship personnel.

The thunderstorms were benign at first as Maria continued her operation of blood letting, but it was a nuisance when she had to sleep. She had thought of cutting off her ears in order to make her deaf to the thunder, but the prospect of them just healing during her sleep discouraged her to do just that.

As awful as that was, nothing caught Maria off guard when peculiar lightning bolt struck the ship causing a blackout. It was at that moment Maria went into full panic mode. The sudden darkness reminded the terrified medic girl of her father locking her up an a trunk full of diseased corpses as punishment for disobeying him. Her blood began to boil underneath her skin as Maria was frantically opening the cabinets and lockers for any flashlights or electric lanterns. She found one lantern at least and immediately turned it on. The medbay was practically unrecognizable in the dark: jars of blood in refrigeration, empty beds for patients, and her dirty operating table that have yet to be cleaned.

The doves did not abandon Maria during the blackout, but they were spooked nonetheless. With Plato on her left shoulder, Hippocrates on her right, and Aristotle clinging to the top of her head, Maria took up arms with her smg, boltgun, scalpel knives, and syringes and made her way back to her room. Thankfully, the lantern was bright enough to show the way into the dark hallway. Maria wondered if her father had to deal with this during the night of finding new "patients".

[Tamrida]

Trevor Cadwell
Down the hallway, Trevor hears a large cacophony, seemingly originating from the medbay, which continues for quite a while until it suddenly goes silent. Disturbed by this, Trevor draws one of his combat knives and slowly approaches the area of the sound. Once there, he sees the door to the medbay sitting ajar. With his open hand, he draws one of his pistols and slowly enters the room.

Once inside, he scans the room with both his night vision and thermal vision lenses, once he determines that he is alone in the room he switches back to the night vision and starts to look around the room. There is always something about the medbay that he always find creepy, mostly it has to do with the German, or maybe it was Austrian or Bavarian, girl who runs the place, who is named Mariah or Mary or something like that. From the idea of being injected with her acidic blood to the brutal medical operations that she is known for, with him hearing through the grapevine that she doesn't use anesthesia. For a second he feels a bit guilty for not knowing her real name and nationality and feeling creeped out by her, wondering that if he didn't act as a recluse when he first got here if he would feel more comfortable with his meta-human peers. That thought is quickly pushed down as he is currently not creeped out by the medbay from the German girl right now, but rather what condition it is in. Most of the doors in the cabinets and cupboards appear thrown open, with materials and vials scattered around them, the operating table is still dirtied and covered in what seems to be blood, and there are jars containing a strange liquid with expiration dates on them sitting in a seemingly unoperational refrigeration device due to the power shortage. Suddenly, he begins to panic and wonders whether it is important for this liquid to be kept refrigerated and decides to leave the medbay to go track down the medic to see if something bad would happen if they aren't being refrigerated and to see if they know what happened in mess in the room.

Quickly leaving the room with his combat knife and pistol being put away, he tries to figure out where the medic went. He suddenly has the idea to turn on his thermal lenses and sees a shape that looks like a human walking through the hallway with a small light source in front of them but also having a shape of what appears to be a bird resting on top of their head. Determining that that is his best bet for finding the person, he moves quickly to try to reach what he hopes is the German medic.

[Lunas Legion]

Gabriella Sara Bianchi-Costa

Things had been, well, tense since they'd gotten back from the mission. Candace had shut in on herself and had ignored her for two days or so until the whole incident with Nike and Zara had ended that. The entire situation had cleaned up rather nicely, although she'd never say so. Nike was effectively out of the picture, and so now things were, well, how they should have been since day one in her eyes.

Of course, there were other things. Summer was apparently a student now, although she didn't seem like much of a student, being kept isolated from everyone else and never talking to anyone. Not to mention looking at her mind was like what Gabriella imagined an LSD trip to be like, bright psychedelic colours in constantly-shifting kaleidoscopic patterns. Oddly beautiful, so beautiful, in fact, she'd spent a solid ten minutes of her first class with Summer just watching the fascinating, meaningless patterns of her thoughts until a stammering Candace had brought her back to reality. She'd seen more of Alessia in the past three days or so than she had for all the time before that, courtesy of their little arrangement whereby she used her post-cog on Alessia, which involved them snuggling together on Gabriella's bed for hours at a time while Candace insisted on staying to watch for some strange reason.

Which was pretty much the situation they were in when suddenly the lights died. Candace was standing next to the door, leaning against the wall watching her and Alessia intently while they were snuggled together on Gabriella's bed, arms wrapped around each other. Gabriella's face was covered with a blush from seeing the thoughts of the room's other two occupants, and so she'd buried her face in Alessia's shoulder to hide it.

And then the lights died, and the room plunged into darkness. Gabriella bolted upright, ending the progress on her post-cog with Alessia for now. "So, uh, either of you have any bright ideas of what we do now?" She winced at the terrible, unintentional pun.

---

Nike ‘Nika’ Mezerova

Nike, meanwhile, had decided to use the fact that classes were off to fine-tune her bike more. It wasn't that it wasn't already tuned to perfection, but rather that perfection required a little bit of time to be devoted to it to be maintained. And so when the lights died she was in the hanger bay, crouched over her bike, having pretty much finished. Or, well, as finished as she was going to get. Working on a bike in pitch black darkness was, well, impossible. And she didn't have her phone for light either, so that left one option. Fortunately, it was an easy option. She turned the key on her bike, the engine warbling into life and the headlights casting a beam of light across the hanger.

Hah. She was a genius. She wasn't about to waste good petrol on actually riding her bike, however, since she needed the engine to power the headlights until she ran out of petrol and then she could sacrifice the battery, and so she wheeled her bike and it's blessedly bright headlights away from the hanger. She should probably find Zara or the bridge or something. They'd need a competent pilot for this.

[Dyelli Beybi]

Scarlett had been trying to read a book when the lights abruptly went out. She sighed, setting the book aside, reaching for her phone to get some light. For a moment she was tempted to keep on reading... until it dawned on her that she was somewhere in the air in a balloon, in a storm. She didn't know exactly how this airship functioned but she guessed there was a pretty strong chance they needed the power to steer which was pretty important if they wanted to avoid a Hindenburg situation...

On top of which she had no idea how the stealth systems worked. There was a pretty strong chance they needed power as well.

Was anyone checking? She had no idea about that either, but she didn't want to be lying on her bunk if there was a chance they were about to plummet to their doom into the ocean.

Using her phone to light the way Scarlett set off in search of one of the staff. If there was something that needed doing she was ready to volunteer.

[The Cyberiad Council]

Marco Jacobs, Aka Revenant

"Damn darkness." It felt like he was back in the coffin he first woke up in. His hand emitted a dull red glow as did his eyes as he collected ambient heat energy from the ship. He was just walking the halls, bored when he wasnt in class. Now the lights were out and for all he knew they were seconds from plummeting to thier deaths, and marco's third or fourth. He really didnt' want to die again. He didn't want to see the other side again. A light was coming from up ahead, probably hand-held judging from the way it jumped around.

The person with the light rounded the corner, and the light was now shining directly in the Revenant's eyes. His free hand sheilded his eyes. "Do you mind?" he ased Scarlett in a bit of a peeved voice.

[Haedros 92712]

Kane Albrich



“Alright, what the hell?” The lights had died. He sighed, and stood up from his bed. He had been planning to relax and maybe take a short nap before he ate, but now the lights were off, and he didn’t intend to sit there in the dark. Kane put in his earbuds and opened the door, intending to take a walk. He stumbled around blindly for at least ten minutes, and after running into no one, he reached out with his mind, hoping to find somebody. But nope, no trace of a mind anywhere. “What am I going to about this?” Kane thought to himself as he wandered around the darkened hallways of the airship. Then he felt someone nearby. Kane took out his earbuds and began reaching out with his mind, hoping to make contact, but as soon as he did, the feeling was gone. Whoever had been there had obviously been pretty far away for them to have gotten out of range of his mind so quickly. “Damn.” Kane murmured out loud. And with that, he continued wandering.

[Forest State]

The lights went out, and Candace quickly went on her guard and reached for her pistol. Well, she did until she calmed down a bit, and forced herself to take a few deep breaths. She was jumpy lately. Still on edge, both when it came to Gabriella and life in general. She was reverting to some of her original instincts from her upbringing in a crime family, reaching for her gun at the slightest threat and always being ready to look over her shoulder if she heard anything. It reflected the overall state of anxiety that was following her recently, and while she and Gabriella were on speaking terms again, their relationship wasn’t helping her with that, as she constantly told herself that she needed to do better. Even as she tried to find a way to stay with Nike, at the same time.

“We can, um… Stay here and sit in bed and wait it out,” she stated, still stuttering slightly like she did these days. “And we can, uh, talk. Or not,” she added, and then she standed up and tried to feel her way to the door, looking out and seeing that the rest of the area was just as dark. And all of the electronics seemed to be not working at the moment, at least if they needed to be plugged in. “Yeah, it’s dark out there, I don’t think we can really do anything other than… Sit here and talk about your findings.”

[Haedros 92712]

After about 20 more minutes of wandering Kane felt a mind again. This time it felt close, close enough that he could pick up snippets of information from it. “Trevor Cadwell huh?” Kane reached out with his mind, and entered the consciousness of Trevor. “Hey Trevor, where are you? I can’t see for shit, and I can’t find anybody. Do you know where anyone else is?” He spoke into Trevor’s mind, and hoped that Trevor wouldn’t be too freaked out by a voice inside his head.

[Stattr]

Jenny
Before the time skip

Jenny and the others had either watched or helped as the blob was eventually contained. She was glad it was. God forbid that creature got away or out of the ship. Jay was to blame for it but she doesn't believe anyone told anyone it was him. She had left to go to the cafeteria to grab a decent amount of food for her and Gabriel and went back to her room. She ate with Gabriel and played with him for a few hours, in private smiling as she did. He loved making her smile and would peck at her fingers and ear playing with her. His little bites tickled her. After she was done she cleared the bed and fell to sleep.

---

A few days had gone by and she noticed there was a new student, the rescued person, apparently her name was Summer. She was quiet and was always guarded. But she seemed quiet because she looked drugged up to be totally honest. Jenny had seen people like that before. People who were tortured and given medicine to stay like that. She was very uncomfortable with it but she was sure Kings had there reasoning.

She would go to the gym now and then and workout, Gabriel would help by sitting on her or cawing obnoxiously into her ear. Even though he was annoying.

On the third day there was a nasty storm that had managed to form and hit the ship. Jenny wasn't concerned until the lights went out and she could feel Gabriel snuggling under her hoodie and staying on her shoulder. She pet the lump and stayed close to the wall.

After a while of walking around she saw a light from the hallway and want towards it before running, literally, into Vesid. “Ahh~” she made a small sound and stood back.

[Haedros 92712]

After a solid block of time with no response from Trevor, Kane decided he better continue searching for other students, so he kept walking, hoping that eventually he would encounter someone. Five more minutes of walking and he began to hear the surge of thoughts that typically accompanied one or two people being nearby, then he sensed another mind. This one felt... odd, almost cold and empty. The feeling that came from probing this mind was similar to being splashed with freezing cold water. He could barely even sense a name coming from this person, though what he could pick up was almost too difficult to decipher. Marc... something. Of all the students he had met so far, none of their names had been Marc. Kane tried to communicate with this mind, but it felt like trying to talk underwater. No discernible noise could be heard in the void of this guys head, and it felt like Kane was suffocating so long as he was within the confines of this persons minds. Kane attempted to send one more message, as simple “Hello” and then he began following the mind to its origin, hoping to find something alive on the flying hunk of metal that was the airship.

[Forest State]

The airship was on a crash course, and Lana was standing in the front and was powerless as it happened, and the large metal beast ripped through the clouds and headed on a crash course with the nearest city on land. Which just happened to be one of the most populated cities in the world, New York City. It was flying at a rapid speed but the engines weren’t working properly and that was the reason they were losing altitude. The ship had been damaged as the storm grew worse, and they were no longer flying through intense lightning, but through a hurricane that had category five winds and everything else that went along with it. And the hurricane was stuck to the airship, following its every move even as they lost altitude. It wasn’t a natural one.

The airship grew closer and closer to the city and Lana couldn’t move, she could only stand in place and observe without actually acting. She watched people in the bridge panic and try to figure out a route where they wouldn’t slam into the buildings, but that wasn’t possible under these circumstances. The ship was being moved by both the hurricane and the engine failures more than it was by the engines that were still active, and she could count down the seconds until they would get low enough that they would hit a building… Ten… Nine… Eight… Seven.. Six… Five… Her count was wrong, and they hit the building early and tore through the glass and concrete without scratching the outer hull. It would take more than concrete to put a dent in this aircraft carrier sized airship.

But the airship continued moving forwards, crashing through more than one building and pushing forward even after it was lodged in between two, and the sound of scraping became unbearable as metal struck metal and the airship went right through lower Manhattan like a wrecking ball. The airship was starting to take damage of its own now and they were getting closer to the ground, where they would surely be smashed when they made impact. And once again, Lana couldn’t move, but only watch as it all happened around her. It was incredibly frustrating to say the least, and she couldn’t even move to wipe the sweat off of her forehead now that it was starting to soak her body because of the tension at this time.

And then they crashed into the ground, and everything went dark.

***

Lana awoke from the vision, snapping up and looking around her room. It was dark, but she was able to see everything perfectly because of the nature of her powers. But still, she wondered why it was dark exactly. All of the lights were off and anything plugged into the wall seemed to not be working right now. She slid out of bed and threw her clothes on quickly, starting to wander the hallway. And then she heard the sound of thunder and lightning and she stopped and froze, temporarily shocked. The thunder and lightning sounded the same as it did in the dream that she had just woken up from. She quickly turned and started running to the bridge.

[Lunas Legion]

Gabriella Sara Bianchi-Costa

"I'm fine with just waiting this out and talking." Gabriella shrugged, invisible in the darkness. There wasn't any need to move yet, and it wasn't like any of the three of them would be all that helpful in solving whatever had caused the lights to die, so they would be fine just staying here and talking about whatever.

"It's not anything particularly relevant to what Alessia wants to know, but since it's something to talk about, I'll say anyways. I'm back to her high school years, which are rather..." She glared in the vague direction of Alessia. "Distasteful, to say the least. I don't exactly know why it was necessary to pimp out your classmates to others while taking a seriously large cut off of them, especially not after you'd set up that whole drug-resale racket of yours. I may not like either of them in terms of methods, but the second was smart at the very least which I can appreciate, even if I'm not the world's greatest supporter of either of those markets."

She fell back into a brief silence before continuing. "But anyways, given how far I've gotten already and doing some quick maths based off of that, I should be back to your birth and thus your parents in around a week or so, give or take a day or two depending on how long per day we do this for. Lights might be off, but we can probably keep going until the manual labour fixes the electrics if you want to."

[Haedros 92712]

Kane lurched forward, a sharp pain racing through his body. His skull felt as if it would shatter, and his body pounded to the beat of his heart. “Damn it... not now!” Kane had no clue what had triggered this particular headache, but the pain was intense, and his thoughts were beginning to cloud over. “I can’t be crapping out now...” Kane murmured to himself as he forced his hands beneath himself, and with a major effort, pushed himself up into his feet. Something was seriously wrong. For the whole time he had been on this airship, the crew had always been bustling about the ship. He needed to get to the bridge. He began walking forward, stumbled, then continued walking after steadying himself. “I’m going to figure out what the hell is going on here, even with this pain . It’ll pass... I hope.”

[The Cyberiad Council]

Marco Jacobs, Aka Revenant

A strange presence blew through Marco's mind, and seemed to try and form a word, but it was muffled and jumbled. "Who the HELL is messing with my head?" The Revenant shouted through the halls of the ship. He looked at Scarlett accusingly. "No..." he muttered. "It wasn't you." Marco heard struggling footsteps off in the distance and brushed past Scarlett, breaking into a run. His heavy footsteps thundered through the ship as he caught up to Kane. He could barely see the other guy in the dim light coming from his eyes, but he grabbed him by his shirt and shoved him against the wall, and spinning him around. He grabbed Kane's shirt with both hands and lifted him off the ground.

"Were you the one messing with my mind?" He shouted at the pinned boy.

[Haedros 92712]

“OW! Son of a bitch!” Kane yelled out as Marco lifted him off his feet. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing asshat?! I was trying to communicate with you through your mind, by it felt like here was nothing in there. Judging from the way you’re acting, it’s quite the possibility that that’s the case!” Kane was in absolute agony, with Marco lifting him off the ground only exacerbating his headache.

[The Empire of Tau]

Pig, being the man who always needs to eat, carries a plastic bag of foodstuffs in his right hand. Items that range from pizza, bread, apples, pie, two jars of Maria’s blood, etc, can be seen in his plastic bag. Traveling from the kitchen to the medbay to the halls, which Pig is traveling in now, the jolly man smells a certain someone, Maria. Following the smell, Pig takes a short trip towards the female, his footsteps becoming even louder that Maria can hear it near. Soon, Pig arrives only a few yards away from Maria, shortly walking forward to be a few inches apart. Hulking in size and height, the Pig tilts his head downward to see Maria.

[Forest State]

“Gyal does what gyal has to do,” Alessia shrugged at Gabriella’s mention of her criminal activities, dropping her more refined accent and speaking once again like someone fresh off the streets. It wasn’t just for no reason, but to make a point. She was showing that while she looked like a high roller now, she had been on the dangerous streets at one point. Gabriella was already in her head, but the switch in tone was for added effect and it was also for Candace, who didn’t know all the details. “It’s pretty fuckin easy for you to call my methods distasteful. Because you’ve never had to resort to them.”

She changed her position so her head was resting on Gabriella’s chest, with her arms wrapped around her waist rather tightly. But her tone wasn’t so affectionate. “Do you know what it’s like to grow up with nothing? I don’t mean that as a metaphor, I’m talking about actually growing up with nothing. Being born without a single possession to your name. Hell, I didn’t even have a surname. Is everything I did moral? No, it’s not. But what other options did I have coming from nothing? It’s eat or be eaten, and not everyone can get a job or go to college and have a future. I was either going to move dope, or I would end up as one of the ones who had their lives ruined by it. Even if I never fell victim to it, I was surrounded by people who did. I decided that I wanted to be the seller and not the customer, and that shit doesn’t come free.”

She paused, almost sounding a little hurt. But just a little. “For the record, I took care of my girls. Helped out some of them that weren’t in good homes. I don’t know how you can argue that what I did to them is something that I shouldn’t have done. You can never relate. Not to their situation and why they let me do what I did, and you can never relate to what I came from when I went into the business. Don’t ever act like you know where I come from and why I did what I did.”

Candace said something to break the tensions. “So um…” she started, before pausing and looking down even though it was the dark and they couldn’t really see her anyway. “If we’re done arguing… I know something you can do to pass the time until the lights come back on…”

[Lunas Legion]

Gabriella Sara Bianchi-Costa

"I suppose I can't really, can I?" Gabriella shook her head. Morality was, well, always an odd thing. Different people, different places, different circumstances and cultures and all that. But Alessia was right, really, as much as she didn't want to admit it. She didn't know what it was like, never had. The closest that she'd experienced was during her time on the run, and even then she'd only had so little for the sake of speed, not because she didn't have anything. "Different circumstances and all that. Morality and justifications are luxuries for those not under difficult circumstances. Place me under the same circumstances, in the same environment and I'd probably do something similar."

She settled back into a sitting position, leaning against the wall as Candace spoke. She frowned as she realised what Candace was implying, mostly from the thoughts in her head. Alessia seemed to have caught on too, although the change in her mind was less obvious.

"No need for just the two of us to do anything Candace." Gabriella shook her head. Candace was always like this, offering herself up as a bit of a martyr. "You can join too if you want."

[Union Princes]

Pig, being the man who always needs to eat, carries a plastic bag of foodstuffs in his right hand. Items that range from pizza, bread, apples, pie, two jars of Maria’s blood, etc, can be seen in his plastic bag. Traveling from the kitchen to the medbay to the halls, which Pig is traveling in now, the jolly man smells a certain someone, Maria. Following the smell, Pig takes a short trip towards the female, his footsteps becoming even louder that Maria can hear it near. Soon, Pig arrives only a few yards away from Maria, shortly walking forward to be a few inches apart. Hulking in size and height, the Pig tilts his head downward to see Maria.

Maria Ludwig

The hallway was dark, very dark and nothing has prepared Maria to face such suffocating darkness. Imagine her shock when someone come out of nowhere; towering above her like a giant. Maria almost screamed in alarm but quickly gathered her composure. It was Pig, clearly it was Pig, as the jars of Maria's blood could be seen in his plastic bag. Who else raids the medbay for her jars of blood and guzzles it down like soda?

"Oh, it's you." Maria breath a sigh of relief, "Still thirsty, even in a blackout like this?"