Broken Angels, Wingless, Cast from Heaven's Gates

Our slumbering demons awake (open)

The basement of the quarters is a large space spanning nearly the entire area of the building. It features plentiful wooden beams, which were a frequent hazard for people hitting their heads. Used mainly for storage the cold concrete floor is covered in boxes of old holiday decorations, broken furniture, boxes of old files as well as other assorted junk. An entrance to the tunnels can also be found here.
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CondorTalon
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#16

Post by CondorTalon »

Was this Outlast? Was she in a horror game right now? Was she Gawr Gura right now, playing Outlast? Was she going to jump over a table, think she was safe, but then get destroyed because the thing she was running from also knew how to jump over a table?

Or was it a desk?

Given the stress of the situation, you'd forgiven her for not remembering it clearly.

The guy's name was Alex, and he didn't want to hurt anybody. Except, that was clearly... just so obviously not true. Unless someone accidentally tripped into his spear. Nah, she wasn't going to buy that.

Shannon jumped in her skin, just slightly, of course, when the other girl suddenly yelled. The situation was tense, and just a bit terrifying, like that moment in a horror game where you're just waiting for the next jumpscare. But at least with a horror game you would jump, and then laugh with everyone else that was watching, whether it was you that was playing and your friends laughing at your expense, or you were one of hundreds of thousands, watching a vtuber get jumpscared.

Shannon wished this was a horror game, because at least you could turn those off.

Right now, the reality of the situation was emphasized in red, from the tip of a sharp stick. And yeah, Shannon was tense. And tensed. Her hand had settled on the chair that she'd bumped into, ready to...

Ready to what? Throw it? It felt light enough that she could do it... and then what?

Run? Sure.

But what about the other girl? Was she also a good runner? It was thanks to her that Shannon was free, and leaving her behind felt... well it just kinda felt wrong, you know?

And when one is tense and tensed up and feeling like they're in a horror game, even the slightest of sharp sounds can make some do something drastic, like throw a controller, or slam desk-kun. Or...

Crack.

"YEET!" Shannon cried, picking up the chair and throwing it, not at the boy with the spear (the reasonable option), but instead the direction the noise came from.
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Applesintime
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#17

Post by Applesintime »

"It, uh," Alex took another step back, nervously glancing back at the light creeping down from the staircase and then looking down at the glistening red drip, drip, dripping off the spear, a lasting impression of Evie. "It's mine." He decided. In the dim light, his eyes flitted nervously between Shannon and Kelsey. He didn't know their names, but the one who'd asked him the question was certainly, uh, the kinda person you wouldn't miss in a crowd. "I, I, I uh, I rolled into it and stabbed myself when I woke up, but, uh, it's not too deep." The shakiness in his voice betrayed the nerves he felt.

But it wasn't entirely unreasonable, was it? People woke up next to their weapons, so some dude rolling into his and cutting himself wasn't, like, uh, entirely out of the picture. "S-stay back." That axe looked like a shitty draw, but it was sharp enough to bury in a throat or shoulder, enough to kill.

Something happened, something cracked, and the other girl took the opportunity to, uh, kinda throw the chair in the opposite direction from Alex. Dual instincts battled in his mind, to lunge, to run, and so he didn't do anything yet. He just watched, eyes fixed on Kelsey's weapon.
[+] V8
S002: Alex Avanesian - Throwing Spear - is the one who thought he could win. He was proven wrong in I'm the Psycho, You're the Freakshow [93/134]
Main: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Pregame: 1 2 3
Social Media: 1 2 3 4
Homecoming: 1

S056: Madeleine Molliqaj - Macuahuitl - was hunting a beast. She slew it in Carve What You Feel Into Me [59/134]
Main: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Pregame: 1
Homecoming: 1

S078: Matthew Bell - Grand Power K100 - hurts all over in "Man, this SOTF thing sucks."
Main: 1 2 3 4 5 6
Pregame: 1 2 3 4
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Rattlesnake
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#18

Post by Rattlesnake »

Kelsey stood there, letting his explanation—his excuse—roll over her. Which, no, fuck off. You didn't accidentally stab yourself that badly, and you didn't come running here about it if you did. Images flashed through her mind in that funny medieval style. The girl with the axe with arms raised high, the spear through her breast and crimson petals unfolding from the side of the mortal blow. Another page, a middle stance, the hook around the shaft of the spear and the point of it in her throat. Next page. The spear held horizontally, the butt making contact with her temple.

She tried not to strike a stance that painted those same images in mind of the boy facing her.

As for what she was going to do, well... She could run. Scream. Throw something. Play along. Or just keep standing there playing fucking bridge troll for no apparent reason. They should go their separate ways, and he could do whatever it was idiots who stabbed people did (she had a hunch), and she could live another afternoon, huddle up somewhere and find something actually worth fighting over. Someone. A few choice faces came to mind there, none of them currently cowering behind her.

And if he found them first?

"I—" she said, and was interrupted by a yell and a crash that made her start violently. She whipped her head toward the source of the commotion, whipped it back even faster to that sickeningly slick spearpoint. A little smile despite herself, swallowed by her mask.

"Fucking hell," she muttered. "Look. You must be hurt really bad to be bleeding that much." She let the axe thing's head droop, kept her grip on the haft to pretend she could turn aside a jab from the spear if it came to it. "My first-aid kit's back there. Put that thing down and show me where, and I can try to fix it for you."
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PlatFleece
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#19

Post by PlatFleece »

Maya was glad that she was stuck between furniture right now, because the chair would've really did a number on her. She wasn't used to having furniture thrown at her. She wasn't used to having anything thrown at her, in fact. She was already tense enough and too focused on understanding what these people were trying to say (blood? weapons? stabbed!?) that when the chair slammed onto the sofa and she felt the impact jolt her, she couldn't suppress her surprisingly loud yelp anymore.

She was caught. She wasn't sure if that meant she would be killed... but the whole room would've heard her at that point.

Logic knew this made no sense, but her heart was pounding inside her chest and she was relying mostly on blind hope at this point, so she just curled back up and stayed silent. Maybe if she stayed silent... they'll all go away? Even though it was now very clearly obvious there was a girl hiding behind this used sofa.
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CondorTalon
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#20

Post by CondorTalon »

For a brief split second, as the chair was sailing through the air, it felt as though all eyes were on her. Not just in the room, but out there from the sickos who were watching this. This was a clippable moment, something that would go viral on r/hololive.

If, you know, she was a vtuber, and this was a gaming stream instead of... you know, real life. Okay, nevermind, analogy aborted.

The chair contacted the sofa with a loud clunk, and time seem to slow to a crawl. There was loud yelp coming from behind the sofa. Like... they'd all heard that, right? It wasn't just her, right?

Apparently, it was, as the other girl kept talking, her attention focused on the boy with the spear which... you know what? Fair enough. He was, in fact, a boy with a spear. And that just made the fact that she'd just thrown what could have possibly been her only possible line of defense, such as it was, out of her hands. She looked around her vicinity for anything else that she could use instead. Other chairs? Nope, she'd apparently found the one good chair in this corner. Anything else that was sturdy enough to defend her was also too heavy to take. So... uh...

"I, uh... I dropped my, uh... my... chair," Shannon said.

She then began to shuffle her way over to where she'd thrown it. It seemed like the other girl had that whole 'spear' thing under control, and like any 'good' horror game protagonist, she was going to investigate the source of the noise.
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Applesintime
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#21

Post by Applesintime »

Something was happening back there, two voices instead of one. Combined with the girl talking to him, trying to get him to put his spear down so she could do any number of things with her tiny axe, Alex wasn't in control of this situation, and, uh, that was a pretty good part of SOTF, making sure you had control of a situation. He wasn't gonna drop that spear for anything, and, uh, if, if this girl figured out hey, he hadn't stabbed himself, he would be in trouble.

"I, uh," Alex stuttered, before making a break for it up the stairs, pausing for a second to check if anyone was coming up once he'd reached another floor and if so, could he get the drop on them?

The answer didn't seem to be yes, so off he went, looking for better opportunities.

((Alex Avanesian continued in : after story))
[+] V8
S002: Alex Avanesian - Throwing Spear - is the one who thought he could win. He was proven wrong in I'm the Psycho, You're the Freakshow [93/134]
Main: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Pregame: 1 2 3
Social Media: 1 2 3 4
Homecoming: 1

S056: Madeleine Molliqaj - Macuahuitl - was hunting a beast. She slew it in Carve What You Feel Into Me [59/134]
Main: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Pregame: 1
Homecoming: 1

S078: Matthew Bell - Grand Power K100 - hurts all over in "Man, this SOTF thing sucks."
Main: 1 2 3 4 5 6
Pregame: 1 2 3 4
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Rattlesnake
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#22

Post by Rattlesnake »

Kelsey stood basking in the dawning shock of knowing that she was still alive.

His bluff was called, apparently. And she'd avoided getting stabbed to death by... banking on the fact that he'd probably stabbed someone to death?

Christ.

She kept that moment in her mind. The angle of the spear, the viscosity of the blood, the stretch and sway of his limbs, the anxious shifting of her face. It certainly was a moment. One of the moments of all time, in fact. An inflection point, where things going one way converted into things going another. Maybe it would make it into an article someone wrote about her someday.

People were watching, or going to watch, or however that worked. A few, at least. It was a bit gauche to, you know, kick back and watch the terrorist attack unfold. But the cameras did exist for a purpose. How funny that people out there, a thousand miles or more away, would know exactly whose fucking blood that was. But they could never know the cool of the room and the heat of the sweat down the back of her neck, of lungfuls of frigid air each teasing the possibility of being the last unimpeded by a sudden impalement. Just as she, in that very room, may never know the answer to her own question. They said they'd keep everyone updated on the progress of whoever fell to murder, of course. But maybe it wasn't fatal. Maybe he really did just stab himself. Maybe he'd pass unnoticed amidst the fallen dozens as things fell to pieces. Maybe her own name would bookend the revelation in an announcement she'd never get to hear.

She did know for certain that there was a sudden exhausting creeping through her limbs, though. And, anyway, what the fuck was going on back there?

"What the fuck is going on back there?" she said cleverly, and turned back toward the rest of the room. There was no bite to it, no energy. Bold words delivered as indistinctly as the puffs of crystallized breath that seeped through her mask. She took a step and nearly lost her footing on the treacherous hard level floor. Her legs were shaking. Her arms were shaking. Her chest was shaking. Call it trembling, really, that seemed to encapsulate the trills running up and down her front, though it didn't make as nice of a construction.

The answer didn't really concern her. She strode forward as if in a trance, back to the meager assembly of the last things she owned. Collapsed onto the couch next to it, still dragging that weird axe along. Not for a long time, or so she hoped. Just enough to work through the adrenaline hangover. After that, who knew?
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PlatFleece
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#23

Post by PlatFleece »

Don't see me, don't see me, don't see me.

Maya opened her eyes and dared to look behind her. There was another girl there, a girl Maya remembered. She played some Magic with her once or twice, so Maya didn't think she was going to check in to kill her. At least, she hoped not. Maya let out another yelp when the girl peered around the couch and locked eyes with Maya, who was very obviously curled up behind the couch.

She needed to calm down. Half of this was adrenaline (but the other half was legitimate fear. There was talk about weapons earlier, and blood).

Within a few seconds of her discovery, Maya had considered the good news, and the bad news:

The bad news is that she was caught.

The good news is it was by MTG girl (and didn't she talk about vtubers too at school or something?) so she had to be harmless, right?

Maya coughed. Her throat had been dry the entire time. Logically she knew that a sense of pressure can cause the throat to dry up, an obvious sign of someone who was nervous. Practically, she still coughed, both from nerves and the dust she was surrounded by.

Slowly, she stood up.

"Uh... h-hi..." she looked around as she placed her hand by the couch for support. Someone else was there. "...guys. Look, I didn't want to surprise you. It's dark, and I woke up behind a couch and-wait, is that an axe?"

Maya only then just noticed the absurdity of this girl who she once played cards with now carrying an axe like she was a slasher villain. She'd laugh if it wasn't such a scary thought. Her brain knew that she (probably) didn't want to kill her outright, but another small, more primal part of her brain screamed: That is an axe!

This of course, caused Maya to stumble backwards, trip on some boxes, and land squarely on her back. "AH! O-Ow..."

At least she wasn't behind the couch anymore.
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CondorTalon
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#24

Post by CondorTalon »

"Oh, you know... stuff," Shannon said, while peering over the couch and locking eyes with the person that was definitely real and how long had she been there?

Actually, Shannon recognized her. Possibly. It was hard to tell but this girl played Magic didn't she? And now she was hiding behind a couch and no seriously how long had she been there?

"Uh, yeah..." she continued. "There was a guy here with a spear, but... ah... he's gone? Apparently?"

She looked around the room just to double check, and yeah. It was just her and the other girl and the other girl.

So now what? Shannon was free, the Magic girl was free... well, she didn't actually seem like she was trapped in the first place, and the girl with axe-like thing was... you know, maybe Shannon should ask for a name or two.

She turned back as the Magic girl suddenly stumbled and fell.

"Hey, are you alright?"
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Rattlesnake
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#25

Post by Rattlesnake »

"Yeah, he's gone."

No thanks to you.

Which was a rather uncharitable line of thought, Kelsey had to admit. Sure, she had been the one to grab the weird axe thing and face the guy down, and she'd come out alive. What else did she want for it, a fucking cookie? Well, no, that would go right to her waist. But deliberately putting yourself first in line before some unhinged weirdo and their bloodstained weapon sort of come loaded with the implication that you were fine having someone else be second. That's what capital-J Justice meant, after all.

She wondered for a moment whether that attitude would perish before she would.

At any rate, things seemed to be going fine for the their little gathering now. As much as they could expect for this moment, and possibly for every other moment that remained to them. Kelsey's limbs seemed to be trembling less violently now, for her own part. And for once, she realized, she wanted to be alone. Well, kind of. A nice pair of arms around her back, a warm chest to melt against while she sorted things out, those weren't things she'd ever deny. But they sure weren't to be found in any surplus here. To slip away, secretly, anonymously, with only about a million pairs of eyes scrutinizing her every move in audience of course...well, she wasn't going to let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

So she finished sorting everything into her bag, shouldered it and rose to her feet again. Axe in hand. She looked between the other girls, into the various points of egress from the little scene. Out into the open, or further into the recesses of some dark basement in an active terrorist attack.

"Hey," she called out, perhaps to put off the moment of that decision by some meaningless fraction, or perhaps to drag out a different sort of dilemma into the daylight for proper closure, "this is technically yours." She raised the axe in evidence, and then let it droop in her grip so a corner of the head touched the floor.

"It came with your bag, not mine. I'm gonna go find someone, so..."

She shrugged.

"If you think you can use it?"
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PlatFleece
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#26

Post by PlatFleece »

Maya stood up. The least she could do was not embarrass herself further.

She hadn't even begun to process what happened. The fear was just starting to ease off of her system. Well, not really. It would never really leave. Not while she was here, but she could at least be at ease around these two, she hoped. Especially because she remembered one of their faces. Vtubing/Magic girl. What was her name? Maya thought hard. It wasn't like it was difficult to remember names, but she was so full of stress that she didn't even know where to begin. There were a thousand other things vying for her attention right now.

Nonetheless, she remembered.

"Shannon, right? And, uh..."

The other girl, she didn't really know. The other girl hadn't really heard her either, probably, because the next thing she did was offer the axe to Shannon. Maya wasn't going to jump, even though she had really wanted to. Composure was one of the most important things right now. But the axe made her realize something else.

She still didn't know what her weapon was. Or really, what she actually had.

But more importantly.

"...You're leaving?" she asked.

Alone? she wanted to add, but the words didn't leave her mouth.
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CondorTalon
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#27

Post by CondorTalon »

Okay, yeah, the girl was fine. And she knew her name! Bonus!

Well, kind of. Shannon knew for a fact that she'd seen the other girl around before, but couldn't for the life of her figure out what her name was supposed to be. So she settled for a non-committal "ehh, yeah..." and left it at that.

And then the other girl packed up all of her stuff and called out to her.

Hers? The axe-thing was technically hers. That was good to know. What was she supposed to do with this information.

Shannon opened her mouth to speak, before closing it again as she realized that she didn't have an answer for the girl.

Did she think she could use it? Well, that was a question to ask, wasn't it? Use it to... what? What was she expected to use it for? She didn't want an answer to that question. But if she said she didn't need it, then the girl would take it, wouldn't she?

Use it to what?

"I..." Shannon started.

In a way, the girl had already used it, as an intimidation tactic, to stop that duder with the spear from... doing... something. Maybe she could use it for the same purpose? But Shannon wasn't like her. She probably wouldn't even have the guts to do that.

She finally settled on an answer, one that she all but knew she would regret as soon as the tool left her sight.

"Nah."
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Rattlesnake
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#28

Post by Rattlesnake »

"Kelsey," she said to the girl's question. A name on the wind. Catch it, if you will, before the storm sweeps it all away.

"—Brewer," she added after a short pause. If they didn't know her, they might know her parents. And Kelsey couldn't help the feeling that they should know them. Like objectively there was a decent chance that Dr. Brewer helped their grandma walk or Dr. Brewer figured out what was wrong with their brother when the other doctors they'd seen couldn't or whatever.

The girl continued on, and Kelsey nodded at her question, whether she really meant to leave. Excuse though it was, her bit about going to find people was true enough. The more she thought about it, the more she dreaded the prospect of simply staying put and giving up the chance to stumble across a close friend, or someone who could point her in their general direction. That she'd already seen the person foremost in her mind, smeared over the tip of that spear, didn't even begin to cross her mind.

And on to the question of the axe. Kelsey resigned herself to... keeping it? Rarely had she felt such surprise and disappointment to someone granting her request. She did want to keep it. Was going to keep it. But someone was going to walk away unarmed, and for whatever reason, it just felt a little better if it was going to be herself? Maybe it was just a trolley problem sort of thing, except here nobody was going to reblog it with 'Multi-track drifting!' or whatever. If she were to be deprived of it, tough shit, what could she do? Well, menace them with the axe probably, seeing as how she had it and they didn't. But, ignoring that, it would be them doing it to her and not her doing it to them. Not her fault, essentially. This way, on the other hand... well, she told herself, Spearbro McDickhead would likely have ownership of it without her in the equation anyway, so fair's fair?

"I...thanks," she said and turned toward the staircase up to surface level. She took a step and paused. There was at least something she could do. Kneeling, she unzipped her bag and grabbed a ration bar—two ration bars. They probably tasted bad anyway.

"Here." she tossed them to the closer of the two. "Take care of each other, alright?"

She took another look at them, tried not to think of it as the last, as a a broad, sad smile cowered behind the grinning teeth of her mask. Another moment's pause and she turned and ascended, axe in hand, bracing herself to meet whatever and whoever the island threw at her.

((Kelsey Brewer continued in Monochrome Memories))
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PlatFleece
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#29

Post by PlatFleece »

"Hey, wait, don't you think it's better if we stick—"

And then Kelsey left, leaving Maya with Shannon, who had let Kelsey keep the axe.

"Okay, then."

She supposed that alone, the axe would be more useful to Kelsey, but as Maya adjusted her dust-covered glasses, she only just realized—by ruffling through her bag very quickly—that she felt nothing sharp or metallic, or anything really weapon-like. She thought better than to announce this out loud, obviously, but still, it was not a good start when in a life-or-death situation. Forget other classmates that may or may not kill them, accident or not, what if there were animals in the forest? Or whoever kidnapped them wanted to go after them. Maya wasn't any good at weapons, but she'd rather have some kind of protection over none.

Barring weaponry, the best other kind of protection was...

...She looked over at Shannon. Did she even know her name?

"Hey, so, I know we got off on the wrong foot, but..." with her composure slowly coming back to her, she straightened herself, and took a deep breath. "I'm Maya. I don't know if you remember me from school, Shannon, but I think it's better if we don't all split up. Don't you agree? And by the way, where are we?"

Honestly, Maya wanted to get out of this place, but not alone. She'd prefer to be with a group. It was up to Shannon if she agreed or not. Once everything's more stable, Maya could work out a plan. She was better with that, working out plans and thinking.
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CondorTalon
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#30

Post by CondorTalon »

And then she left, after some vague platitude about taking care of each other. It was nice, but too non-specific to really be useful, so... yeah. That was something to think about, she supposed, as the ration bars she'd suddenly found in her hands went into her pockets. She'd put them with her other stuff... uh, later.

Shannon turned to the remaining girl, who's name was Maya, as it turned out. Oh good, she didn't have to do the awkward social shuffle of referring to her exclusively as 'you' or 'buddy' or 'oomfie', hoping desperately that someone else would mention her name in passing.

Especially if it gets to the point where she's using 'oomfie' unironically.

So, was it a good idea to stick together? Probably. Maya didn't seem like the kind of person to go off, oomfie (STOP doing that), so... having another person to back her up and to socialize with to keep herself from going insane would be a good idea. Probably.

Maya then asked her where they were, and Shannon bit back the urge to reply with, "That's a good question. Anyway..."

...Mainly because she already made that joke.

Instead, Shannon shrugged, moving over to where her bags were. She shouldered her bag, and slung the daypack around her arm.

"I dunno, but I feel like not being here anymore. You'll welcome to come with me, but uh... I don't exactly have any destination in mind, so..." she said. She looked up to the stairs that the other girl had ascended, then over to the hallway that the boy with the spear had come from. Well, she knew which option to leave this place she was choosing!

Shannon moved over to the stairs and looked up, half-expecting the girl to still be standing up there, but nah. Shannon shook her head.

She looked back to Maya, tried to give her a reassuring smile, before stepping up.

((Shannon Choi continued in Your Honor, Survival of the Fittest.))

...Aw, fuck! They fucking took her headphones!
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