After a request from Luna to have both eyes on the ground in Capital City and a realization that her trusty flying whale, Nautilus, couldn’t be sensed, Spider and Patrice made their way to Australis District. What they find there, however, is something truly unbelievable.
Spider appears in a shower of green sparks, Error in hand they're wearing a casual faded green shirt and black jeans, under a leather jacket that's definitely seen better days. One of the more noticeable marks being a bullet hole through the shoulder. Scuffing a boot against the floor she looks around curious about the silence that was mentioned.
With a small pop of electric blue, Patrice appears, wearing a dark blue jacket, light blue shirt, and a white pair of trousers. Her blue-rimmed glasses are hanging from the collar of the shirt, and her blue sneakers scraped against the ground as she makes her way towards Spider, her right hand in the jacket pocket.
The usual bustle of the district has been reduced to nothingness. You see no one on the streets, no one out or anyone walking. The silence in the area is deafening. Not even birds or wildlife can be heard for some unknown reason. Many of the shops near the Guild are closed and shuttered. The pop of blue is possibly the first sound the District's heard in over a day. Nobody seems to come out to inspect it, however. It's quiet. It's much too quiet. Something in the air stinks.
Spider gives Patrice a quick nod then goes back to frowning at her surroundings, her ears twitching as she strains to hear anything though obviously it's no use.
Patrice nods back. She takes a quick sniff, then grimaces.
Looking around the surroundings, you notice all of the doors on the road are closed except for one. The Guild at the very end, is open somehow. Perhaps Tina forgot to close it? No sounds though. It's completely silent aside from the sounds of breathing the two of you are making. The scent in the air smells really weird. It's got a hint of the cotton candy Stardust scent to it except it smells like it went bad. A bit of a vague moldy scent to it. It doesn't hurt to smell, it doesn't even affect either Spider nor Patrice, but it's apparent that something isn't right.
Spotting the door Spider tilts her head and starts towards it figuring it's their only choice.
Patrice follows Spider, pulling out a gun from the jacket pocket. She looks around at the shuttered shops, unnerved by the sheer quietness.
Walking down the road, Spider notices they walk past Sandra McCormack's house, the one they fought Sabertail in months ago. On the side of the road, face down and barely breathing is Sabertail, the two and a half foot tall brown bipedal rat with a crown covering its bald spot. Near it, especially by the basement window are other mice, raccoons, hamsters, and assorted vermin also passed out. It begins to sprinkle ever so slightly in the District. Error hasn't been active at all.
Spider spares a glance at Sabertail and walks on unable to bring herself to bother with that at the moment. Instead she keeps walking pulling her jacket closer over herself to keep out the rain. Patrice keeps on walking, unbothered by the rain.
They eventually arrive at Australis Guild, with the only sound being the light rain. The door is wide open, but as far as the two of them can tell, it's deserted. Absolutely no one, or even any sign of life, is felt.
"..where is everyone?" Spider murmurs as she enters the guild. After glancing around they make a beeline for Tina's office. Patrice enters the guild, and stays in the foyer, looking every which way for any sign of recent activity.
Much like the rest of the District, the Guild is also empty save for one person Spider finds in her office. Tina is found slumped on her desk sleeping soundly. She's not dead by any stretch as Spider can see her breathing softly. Patrice's investigation yields her not much though she does hear something strange coming from the lounge area in the back. Some kind of noise?
Spider breathes a small relieved sigh upon seeing Tina and almost hesitantly walks up to the desk and glances over it looking for anything that might explain what's going on.
Patrice pricks up her ear at the noise, and walks over to the lounge.
Spider route: She sees on her desk something she was beginning to write, seemingly rather quickly considering how messy it is. It's hard to read, but the gist of the note is:
i don't know what nova's doing, but i dont like it. why is antares doing this? i thought we were fami-
And then it stops. You also notice a smidge of saliva at the very bottom. The paper is under Tina's sleeping head. The pen she was holding rolled out of her hands.
Patrice route: Upon reaching the lounge, she notices the sounds in the room become a bit more intense. It almost sounds like soft music combined with binaural beats and... something else in the audio. It's familiar almost? It doesn't seem to affect Patrice, however.
Spider frowns in thought as she reads the note. Was it just Tina or did the other ADMINS know about this? Perching against the desk Spider pulls her phone out and messages Luna's server.
----
Spider - So anyone know who Antares is?
Luna - Antares? Dunno that name
Tsukuyomi - Antares? That's the leader of Nova Heart
Spider - Well apparently he's behind this, we're in australis and the place is dead. Just found Tina asleep as well.
Tsukuyomi - Tina? Oh you mean Cassiopeia right? She's a really nice girl Be careful. I don't like anything having to do with Spark.
Spider - Will do I'm not sure where Patrice went so you'll hear from me at some point
Tsukuyomi - Understood. Please keep us updated.
---
Patrice looks around. She takes a deep breath, closes her eyes, and listen to the sounds. With some luck and focus on her side, Patrice is able to realize there's some speech in a very soothing and deep voice mixed in with the Binaurals and music. It's a bit hard to hear, but the gist of it is:
Sleep well my family and pleasant dreams. When you next wake up, the world will be renewed.
She also hears what sounds like the vague jingling of bells, but they're very hard to hear.
Back in Tina's office, she continues to sleep soundly.
No matter where Patrice or Spider are, they hear something come from the entrance foyer. Sounds like people walking around. Considering the amount of boots you hear, it seems to be a few people.
Spider puts her phone away as she notices the footsteps her ears prick up and she adjusts her grip on Error. Cautiously Spider makes her way to stand behind the door listening in. Patrice opens her eyes. Having heard the sound of walking, she moves to the left side, where she is not visible from the entrance, and trains her gun on the entrance.
[BGM - Immediate Danger - uXfC_Y8WnHI]
Spider is able to hear two people talking. Their voices sound muffled, perhaps from wearing a respirator of some kind? Despite that, Spider can easily tell they're two men. One is older, the other younger, both adults. Patrice is able to hear this as well, but it’ll sound a lot more muffled to her.
Younger: "So we just need to grab her and go right?"
Older: "Yeah, then we get back to Nova."
Younger: "Are we sure this is the right thing to do? Is it right for Antares to have this much control?"
Older: "Yes. Just trust in the process. Soon we'll have our new world, just a bit more to go. She's sleeping, so it'll be easy."
The younger one sighs and heads towards Tina's office. The older one stays put in the foyer.
Swallowing her growl Spider readies her stance and waits for them to enter the room. Patrice aims at the older one, and waits for the younger one to leave. No need to rush. Just keep calm and steady.
The younger one had left down the hall headed towards an office. He eventually arrives at Tina's office and steps inside. The older one is now alone in the foyer waiting for his comrade to return.
In a flash of green sparks Spider appears behind them aiming a strike with the knife handle at the side of their head. Patrice aims at the shoulder, releases her breath, and pulls the trigger.
Upon pulling the trigger, the older male collapses to the ground from the sheer shock and intense pain, confusion as well. He yells out into lapel, "ADMIN DOWN, GUNMAN IN THE BUILDING! UNKNOWN LOCATION." At the same time, the younger admin looks disoriented from the sudden loud noise echoing inside of the otherwise fully silent Guild, then he collapses under the weight of his own body after feeling the butt of a bowie knife knock him unconscious. On his person, someone feminine and seeming familiar calls out, "ADMIN Leonidas, COME IN. DO YOU READ ME ADMIN Leonidas?" It's definitely a voice Spider recognizes as Ashley Andromeda.
Ears ringing from the gunshot, a snarl bubbles up at Ashley's muffled voice and Spider searches the now unconscious Admin for the source. Patrice quietly makes her way over to the downed target, making well sure he doesn't see her coming.
Just as Patrice goes to expose her location, everyone hears more footsteps entering the Guild. People fully decked out in Nova Heart logo hazmat gear, boots, and respirators enter the Guild in search of their enemies. In their hands, they hold wands, and on the tip of many of them, a weird energy seems to be emanating. Magic most likely. Two of the guards kneel next to the downed ADMIN in the foyer and drag his body out.
As for Spider, she quickly finds the microphone embedded in his lapel and Ashley's voice continues to yell out, "What happened to him? Did a NORMIE get to him first!?" Another voice, much deeper, growly, and also somewhat familiar responds, "Impossible! They should've all been affected! Find the interlopers and remove them!"
Adrenaline starting to flow from the events that are only half heard thanks to her ringing ears Spider makes a fast decision and crosses the room. After grabbing Tinas upper arm they shout, "Patrice we're leaving."
Patrice silently shakes her head. Not time nor place. She makes her way towards the office, hoping that she's not spotted. With everyone in the foyer and many of them grumbling about their ears hurting from the yelling into their earpieces, Patrice is able to do so easily. When she arrives, she sees Spider holding a pink-haired unconscious woman. They then begin to hear footsteps going down the hallway towards the office.
Spider looks at Patrice, "you can handle yourself yeah?"
Patrice nods, "Yeah. Split and sked?"
The grunts are checking every office for interlopers and throwing in a container of something awful smelling in each one, probably to triple check to make sure no one is invisible. It burns your nostrils if you have sensitive senses of smell.
Grimacing from the smell Spider nods and in a flash of green sparks her and Tina disappear.
In a pop of electric blue, Patrice disappears.
That pop alerts the grunts as they see 'something' in electric blue vanish. One of the grunts, a female one speaks, "we lost them. Something blue. Cassiopeia escaped." They seem to have snapped a photo of the interloper.
-------
In a flash of usual sparks Spider appears holding up an unconscious Tina by her arm. She slings Tina onto her armchair and starts pacing her ears twitching every now and then. After what seemed like ages but was actually closer to a half hour or so, Tina sleepily mumbles "oh so thats what the candyland tastes like... schnozberry..."
The mumbles distract Spider from her task of wearing a hole in the floor and she leans against the wall responding, "didn't realise that was a thing."
"hh?" Tina slowly wakes up in a place completely unknown to her, "Wh-- what happ-- WHERE AM I???" She's terrified, not realizing anything that happened. Luna and HInata, who were sleeping on the couch together, yelp from Tina's shouting, "What the fuck is happening???" Luna yells out. Dusk, their plush cat, hops off of the two. Hinata is trying to stay calm, but the yelling and shouting is making her mad.
Spider winces bringing a hand up to paw at their ear. They kick off the wall taking a few steps closer, "you're fine and it was us or Nova and I didn't really have that long to make the choice soo."
"Huh? Bu--" Tina rubs her eyes and notices Spider and Luna in the same room, "wait... what? I'm-- I'm confused."
Luna tilts her head, "Wait, you brought Tee here??? What the hell happened?"
"Well, we got a lot of explaining to do, don't we." Hinata sighs and disappears momentarily to grab Tina a bottled water. Tina opens it up and chugs.
Ignoring the pair, Spider keeps her focus on Tina, "that note you wrote, I found you unconscious on top of it and five minutes later nova was trying to abduct you."
"Note? I don't remember writing a note... Honestly I don't remember much at all. The past like few days have been a blur, and now I'm in some weird house." Tina mutters, still seeming tired.
Spider tilts her head questioningly, "so the silence dun't ring a bell?
"Silence?" Tina strains herself to try and remember anything along those lines, but after a few moments she shakes her head, "no i.. I don't remember that. I'm sure I would've remembered an odd silence. It's... not something that ever happens in Capital City. It's always loud there, cars going down the street, people out and about doing stuff. Stores rarely close except on Holidays or late at night. It's... kind of why I love living there. I-- where am I right now? This doesn't feel like Capital City."
Luna is busy taking notes on her laptop. "Erm, sorry Tee, I need to archive this."
Tina smiles, "you're fine Lu. Please, if it helps you, I'll tell you everything I know."
Spider shakes her head, "that's cause it's not, but when I got to Australis it was silent, everything was closed except the guild."
"That's... impossible. Unless, something else happened that caused everyone to close? Do we know if everyone else is okay? I-- I'm worried for my citizens, I'm basically the community leader in Australis. People come to me with problems and I'm usually the one to help them out. It's exhausting, it really is, but I really love helping them. I-- wait.. I don't smell it here."
This catches Luna's attention as she perks her head up.
"The stardust? Thankfully there's none here.." Spider trails off rubbing her face, "you were the only person I saw apart from who was sent in, ..I dunno how safe it is for you there at the moment."
"Stardust? Is that what it was? All I know is for the past week or so, I've been getting complaints about a really weird smell in the air from citizens. Australis District is a commonly senior citizen housing area, so a lot of them have been having issues with breathing and I've had to call medics. Thankfully, they were okay just had some issues. To think it was that stuff Antares was going on about.. but I thought it wasn't supposed to affect us? Just the Creatures." Tina explains, her body languages shows exhaustion.
Luna just sighs and shakes her head. "Fucks sake Spark, you didn't even test this shit on people." Then after getting a message from Tsukuyomi, she adds, "Uhhh Tina? Do you want a place to stay until things blow over back home? My mo-- creator lives right by here and is offering you a room."
Spider sighs, "I think they modified it, it smelt different and Andromeda seemed surprised that Patrice and I were awake."
"Andromeda? Wait really? She's always been so kind to me though. She's the reason the Nova Four even exist as a concept. I'm.. did I fuck up?" First time ever, Spider hears Tina swear. "Should I have not taken this job??? And Luna, yeah uh if Phoebe wants me to stay with her, I'll do that. She's nice to me too... clearly much nicer than Ashley anyway. By the way," She pulls out her phone, "mind if I join your... mind? I might be able to assist more that way."
"Sure, go for it Tee." Luna shrugs, “Princess... Pink Sparkle? That's a name. Then again, I was a Rainbow Dash fan back a few years ago, so I can't really judge.”
Tina asks, “What’s a Rainbow Dash?”
"Andromeda's also gone insane." Spider grips Error a bit tighter, "it was strange though, they went after you but already had a couple of admins with them."
Upon gripping it tighter, Error finally recovers from whatever happened back there.
Oh hi :)
I feel like I missed a lot :(
sorry ;-;
"Eh? Other Admins? Did you catch their name?" Tina asks curiously before yawning rather hard.
"Leonidas." Spider offers before turning her attention to Error, "..you did, long story short Nova's modified stardust and I kinda had to rescue admin Cassiopeia."
"Leonidas? Leo. Yeah I recognize that name. They really close friends with an older man who goes by Betelgeuse. There are rumors about them, and frankly, i'm kinda terrified of those two." Tina shudders.
Modified stardust? Are we sure it's modified? :/
Ah, Tina. Luna's good friends with her. :)
When Luna moved in with Krystal about 15 years ago, Tina's family was living in the house next door. Then something happened and Tina had to leave. I'm unsure of what exactly happened. :(
"I'm sure, it knocked everyone out except me and Patrice and it smelt different .. kinda like it had gone off?" Spider shrugs then looks back up to Tina, "really? I mean they didn't put up much of a fight."
"Really? I was warned that they were really bad people. Rumor has it they both performed a massive string of murders, like 50-odd people died to them. I wasn't really told the specifics, but it reminds me of the Flesh Pile Killers a lot." Tina shudders from even thinking about it all, "And it went off? Like... spoiled? That's weird. Maybe it interacted badly with something in the environment?"
"Good job I was there then." Spider gives a wry smile then continues, "I don't think so, considering they were coming after you it feels deliberate."
Tina begins to look very tired and yawns, "I still don't get that.. Look, I need to get some rest, so I'll be back tomorrow. Gonna take Tsukuyomi's offer and sleep at her place. Luna? Could you take me there?"
Luna nods, "Yeah, I can do that. Ready?"
TIna smiles and takes Luna's hand gently, "Yeah."
They disappear, and then a few moments later, Luna returns. "What a goddamn mess." Luna sighs and returns to the couch.
"Tell me about it." Spider grumbles
"Thank you for rescuing her by the way. We're not like super close or anything, but it's nice knowing an old friend of mine is safe." Luna smiles gently.
Spider shrugs going to sit down in her now unoccupied armchair, "I've met her before and she seems nice."