lostcarnival | ⇨ POLARIS 3.0

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⇨ POLARIS 3.0

Who: Everyone!
When: Day 115
Where: Polaris
What: On the morning of day 115, a couple hours before the technicians would come to pick up the test subjects, the escape plan will officially come into effect. If your character has been left out of the loop up till this point, feel free that someone hastily explains the plan during the initial phase! The meat of everything else will be played out via megathreads and any private toplevels people want to make.
Warnings: Probably violence.

PEER REVIEW↴

The plan starts with getting everyone out of their cells. Childermass is going to be using his Gilded Mark to enhance his shadow movement abilities, unabling him to teleport himself and other people out of containment. If your character has other ways of escaping they are free to pursue that, but on a base level, it can be assumed that everyone gets out thanks to Childermass. (Thanks Childermass!) Once everyone has been removed from their cells by some means or another, they will be forced to split into teams as swiftly as possible, as the moment people start breaking out, negative attention from the staff will start building. The area is poorly guarded at first, but as people become aware of the breakout, more will arrive.

Gild, speaking on behalf of her inside plant, will say that those that 1) want to get their stuff back, 2) want to find Ignatius, should get the assistance of their allied Deltas to access sector A5. From there, they will have to access Polaris's storage in A3, a neighbouring sector, and find access to C2, the station where Ignatius is being held. They should expect to be met with armed resistance, but with any luck allies will be there to assist them.

In general, characters will be most effective if they back one of these major objectives:

► TEAM LOOT: This team is trying to get back the items and pets that were confiscated when the group was brought into Polaris. Their objective, according to their allies on the inside, is to get to A5, and then make their way to A3. The important thing is being able to locate their stuff among a sea of other items, and to make it through security in order to reclaim it. Gild's plant has said that they will assist with this. After getting these items, Team Loot may wish to merge with Team Rescue.

► TEAM RESCUE: This team's primary focus is to get to A5 and then make their way to C2. If desired, they may wait for or join with Team Loot, or they may strike out ahead in order to take advantage of the element of surprise. The key factors are obtaining a way to access C2, as well as being prepared for armed conflict with the technicians guarding it, as well as possibly the Mother of Invention herself. Though, the ideal is that Gild will be distracting here at that time.

► TEAM DISTRACTION: This team can do their thing wherever they please, as their main intent is to sew general discord and distract the staff from the teams doing more important things. They should be prepared for armed resistance, but what tactics they pursue beyond that point are highly variable.

► TEAM FORTRESS: This team is attempting to set up a protective base of operations in the original sector in order to survive the conflict and protect their noncombatant comrades. How they accomplish this is also highly variable.

Other objectives may exist, of course, and can be made with their own separate top levels. Chunks of these megathreads will have to be played out in summary form, so when characters are simply trying to get from place to place and specifics aren't necessary, feel free to stick to that format. Assume that everyone is already out of their cells for the purpose of the megathreads.

Here is a shitty map of how the sectors connect, from a side view of the central Polaris hub.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It takes a few minutes, but he'll soon see Rita step into his line of sight, entering the shop and, after glancing around, approaching. "Good, you're awake," she comments, then opts to sit down next to him, cross-legged on the floor. "How're you feeling?"

One of her wings remains bent in a painful-looking angle, and she's suffered quite a few scrapes and bruises, but all in all, Rita doesn't look too worse for wear.

Yuya's eyes widen, and he almost moves to sit up again when he sees Rita--but his body quickly reminds him why that's a bad idea.

"Rita," he starts, his voice a little faded. "What happened...?"

Rita holds out a hand to push him back down, but it turns out to be unnecessary, so she lets it fall to her lap instead.

"We won," she says simply. "The Mother of Invention's dead. I don't know what happens next, exactly, but it looks like we've got some time to breathe easy, for now." She can't guess at how long that'll last, but she assumes it's good news.

"That was a pretty stupid stunt you pulled back there, by the way," she adds.

So they did win. Yuya's head flops a little as relief sinks in his chest, and he starts to blink back tears. Good ones, this time. "Thank goodness..."

It's... maybe not an end to the entire nightmare, but it's an end to this. If they've got time, he'll trust that everything's okay. Or going to be.

A laugh bubbles in his throat, and his gaze flicks to her broken wing. "Yeah. Did it work?"

Rita narrows her eyes at Yuya, leans over him... and flicks him hard in the forehead with her finger.

"Hmph. I'm not as much of a mess as you are, if that's what you're asking."

Yuya twitches when his forehead is flicked. "Hey--"

Not as much of a mess is what he was hoping for, though, so he settles back down. He still worries over his lip slightly. "Your wing looks broken."

"It's no big deal," Rita says with a shrug. A small, slight shrug that doesn't jostle her wings. "I'll get it looked at before I head back out."

"You should get it looked at now," Yuya frowns. "You need to take care of yourself too."

If he's gonna get ragged on for being careless, he's going to expect better of Rita. She's the smart one, here. "We have time now, don't we?"

"We do have time," Herbert abruptly contributes, walking over with a fabric-wrapped makeshift splint and a roll of bandages. "Hold still." Transferring the splint and bandages to his tail (which splits into two sections of tendrils on either side of him to handle this), Herbert reaches out and holds her wing before the break to keep it immobilised.

"Gah!!"

Sorry Herbert, but that sudden appearance just startled the hell out of Rita. She jerks away and whirls around to look at him, which ends up jostling her broken wing and causing her to wince.

Frowning, she looks between Yuya and Herbert, and relents. "Fine. Go ahead." With a huff, she slowly turns back to Yuya, straightening her back into a posture that's easier to hold still for Herbert.

Yuya smiles, glad that Herbert's already got an ear out. He doesn't find this any more fun, but... he doesn't want anyone to stay hurt more.

His fingers curl absently, and then he remembers something. "Oh--Rita. I have your texting ring."

He should return it to her, now that he remembers. It's on his good hand, though, and the brief attempt at fumbling it off fails.

Herbert's just...making sure the bone is as lined up as it can be without immediate surgical intervention or x-rays and then applying the splint to keep the bone in line and wrapping the entire wing up to keep it still. It takes a little while to do, so it probably takes place for a decent amount of future conversation.

Rita's eyes widen slightly. "You found it? I thought it was gone."

She'd noticed it vibrate back during the fight, but since the rings aren't that distinct, she didn't realize it was her own. Yuya seems to be struggling to get it off, though. "I'll get it," she offers as she reaches out to pull it off his finger and examine it before placing it back on her own.

A moment later, she'll give another wince and a shudder as Herbert attends to her injured wing, setting the bone into place.

"It was with all the stuff they took from us." But Lambert wanted him to use it, and then they got distracted with Steven and the Mother of Invention came on so quickly he didn't have the chance to return it.

But it worked out in the end. His expression drops a little as Rita shudders in pain. "Did a lot of people get hurt?"

There was a lot of lasers and violence, it stands to reason.

Well, there's no point in downplaying it. "Yeah. It was pretty rough out there."

She tilts her head slightly, as if to gesture to Herbert. "They must be in stable condition, though, if the Doctor's got time to bother with something this small." For something small, though, it sure hurts like hell. In between speaking, Rita goes back to clenching her teeth and holding her body rigid.

"Broken bones aren't small, Rita." He's familiar with the whole downplaying injuries thing, but insisting you can cope is different than insisting it isn't serious to begin with.

"Gild was fighting the Mother of Invention before she came after us... has anyone heard from her?" He's a little worried after those explosions, and the eerie silence when they were retrieving their things.

Rita considers arguing some more, but seems to decide against it.

“Gild’s here. She showed up right about as the fighting stopped. Ignatius took off like a coward as soon as he saw her, though.” Rita folds her arms and gives a slight shrug. “I don’t know much about their relationship, but apparently, she’s his sister.”

Yuya's brows raise when Rita mentions he ran off, and then his expression twists somewhere between wry and amused.

"Yeah, it's--complicated between them?" It's probably not his place to tell Rita the details, although she can put them together herself. And he's sure Igantius would tell her if she asked.

"She's probably not who he thought was coming to save him." Or would. "Where'd he go?"

Rita didn't exactly see where Ignatius went, but she takes a moment to focus on her heart, on that connection between them.

"Not far," she says with certainty. "He probably just needs some time."

Yuya stares as she focuses like that.

"... It's a big change." That's putting it lightly. "And they haven't seen each other in a while. Are you... you can feel him, right?"

Yuya taps his own chest. "In here."

"...Yeah."

Rita holds a hand over her own chest, the red glow still visible through the opening in her Delta uniform. Her gaze turns distant, uncertain.

"Seems like my body was able to adapt to this thing after all. It's weird... I used to have nothing but hatred for Ignatius, and the idea of being bound to him like this would have been sickening... but right now, I just feel... okay with it, I guess."

Yuya looks up at ceiling thoughtfully.

"I thought he was pretty scary at first, too. But getting to know him means we've seen a different side to him now, right?" He looks back to Rita, expression full of curiosity. She was the one hurt the most by him, technically. "What do you think of him now?

"I don't know..." Rita lays her hands down in her lap and fidgets idly with her fingers. "I don't regret anything we did to him. He deserved all of it. But at the same time... there's a limit to how much you can hate and punish someone until it stops being satisfying. And when he had a chance to prove he could be trusted... he proved it."

If that battle in Shabon could be considered a test of Ignatius's character, then he passed with flying colors.

"Then, when we tried communicating with our thoughts, I could feel what he was feeling, and..." She seems to struggle to find a way to describe it, and sighs. "We've got more in common than I thought, is all."

Yuya smiles softly as Rita goes on. She and Ignatius both have this view of punishment Yuya, that Yuya would rather see second chances in. But, if that's how they cope with the injustice and regret...

He nods, pausing as he considers the question he knows he wants to ask, but isn't sure if it's the right time. But will there ever be a better time?

"Are you starting to forgive him?"

"I haven't really thought of it as forgiveness. I'll never be okay with everything that happened in the past, I think. But..." Rita frowns deeply as she considers her thoughts. These aren't feelings she's had to try and put into words before.

"I don't hate him anymore. And whatever this connection between us is, I'm... glad we have it, in a way."

⇨ POLARIS 3.0

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