In the back of Supernova Arcade, the employee's entrance is fully unguarded. Not even any security cameras protect the back door. The only thing blocking the door from access is a lone card reader and terminal. Hinata with Luna on her winged back land nearby the back entrance. Chandra, Tsukuyomi, Sol, and Rebecca are all waiting in the back as well. They're sorta just off on their own, not exactly minding their business but rather just trying to not make themselves obvious. Rebecca smirks, muttering, "Glad removing the cameras worked so well."
Viper parks her truck far from the arcade and walks to the back of the arcade, wearing casual clothing in order to not arouse suspicion. Patrice pops into a deserted alleyway near the arcade with a small pop of electric blue, and takes a leisurely walk to the back, humming a song to herself the whole way.
Luna is holding onto a familiar duffle bag emblazoned with a moon and rocket logo on it, one that Patrice saw during their Christmas get together. Hinata is quite literally preening, except instead of a beak, she's just using a soft brush on her wings to keep them as neat as possible. Chandra catches himself staring at Hinata’s black wings and before Hinata notices, he turns his head away - though still sneaking peeks at them. Tsukuyomi and January are near the entrance chatting away about this and that.
Patrice waves hello to them all as she gets near. She shakes her head at the lack of security. "Incredible," she mutters in amusement. "Never thought the back door would be this bad."
Rebecca waves, chuckles, and mentions to Patrice, "oh no no, it usually isn't. My boyfriend and I were able to remove a lot of them without arousing suspicion. Helps he's basically an electrician at this point. One of the few perks of not being magical, I suppose."
Viper pats herself down to make sure she's brought everything she needs and mentions, "Clipboard and a high-vis vest gets you anywhere"
Patrice chuckles, "Aside from high society, but anything else, yeah."
Spider strolls in from around the corner casually commenting, "I think even then it could work."
Chandra smiles and walks to the group announcing, "right, everyone is here then. So let's go over the plan. So when we enter the Employee Portal, only the Employee can enter. Viper and I have our cards still and they're working, I can guarantee that. For everyone else, however, Luna! Portal Bag please." Luna walks over and opens her Portal Bag which, if someone were to peer inside, will look like an inky black swirl. "For everyone else, we're going to need you to enter the Portal Bag. I will carry it while we do our thing. Bags of this size have lots of space available for people to wait inside." Luna adds, "Yeah I made sure to put some chairs down in there. It's well ventilated and honestly super comfortable, kind of like an alternate dimension bedroom in a way?"
"Ah so that's why you had me buy those beanbag chairs then?" Hinata asks quizzically
Luna nods excitedly.
"So!" Chandra asks the group, "Does anyone have any objections to this plan or shall we begin? Viper and I will work on getting through security and down to B6. Then you all pop out of the bag, we free the legends, and we skedaddle before shit goes sideways."
Spider grimaces as they eye the bag, "I have a couple."
"What's up Spider?" Luna asks. "The portal bag is completely safe."
Viper adjusts her sleeves as she shakes her head "I don't have any objections"
Chandra nods. "Thank you Viper. This mission is something I could not do without all of you." Rebecca, Sol, and Tsukuyomi all hop into the bag. Where they should've hit ground, they seem to go even deeper into the earth. Rebecca shouts out, "Yoooo sick room Lunes!"
"Thanks!" Luna cheers.
Spider still looks distrustful of the situation but follows the trio into the bag, hesitating slightly before she steps in.
Upon stepping into the bag, Spider disappears. She still is able to hear the conversation happening outside of it. Both the entrance and exit to the bag is available.
Patrice looks at Chandra and Viper, "Well, putting my faith on you two. Just in case, can it be opened from the inside?"
Luna nods, "yeah, the bag barely closes for the most part. If you jump out of the portal, you can be let out at any time. This is why i use it for my extra bedroom, for when I really need to focus on archival."
"Fair enough. Good luck on the outside." Patrice steps into the Portal Bag.
Luna and Hinata also enter. Luna waves with a smile, "See ya in a little bit Alex, Viper."
Now with everyone stashed safely in the bag, Chandra picks it up and pulls out his employee ID card. "Right, Viper, are you ready to begin?"
Viper nods as she turns towards the scanner "Ready as I'll ever be. "When Viper looks at the scanner, she notices the terminal is on, but it's currently on a waiting screen with Nova Heart's logo on it. It appears to be waiting for input. The card reader is the same as she remembers. Chandra is watching over Viper, just as a good boss should.
Viper takes out her badge and scans it in the pattern that unlocks the debug mode "Let's hope they didn't change this, actually knowing them they didn't even think about it for a moment"
[They sure didn't! Upon scanning her card the way as was instructed -- forward, backward, forward, backward in quick succession -- the debug menu opens!]
|
NOVA HEART INCORPORATED [please select an option] |
[Viper taps on TARGET LOCATION SELECT]
|
[Please choose a location. If Desired Location is not on the list, please use CONTEXT SENSITIVE MENU for more options] >NOVA TOWER ENTRANCE HALL |
Chandra tilts his head when seeing the options, "Wait, there's an option that goes directly there??"
Viper looks over at Chandra, "Your call if you want me to select that, it could be a trap as much as it is an actual location" her finger hovers over the option
Chandra sighs, "Yeah I guess we could select it. The other route would be to go to the context sensitive menu and select grand elevator. At least this simplifies the route. I'll trust you on whichever route you pick." He looks just as puzzled as Viper does.
Viper stares at the option for a moment longer then takes a deep breath as she mutters, "Either way we'd be walking into a trap" then taps the option
[With a ping!, the door opens up to a new Portal, one swirling in blue and gold. Above the door, a screen stating: "CLCCC - OPEN" is seen in black text.]
Viper shakes her head at the acronym then takes a hesitant step through the portal Viper disappears upon stepping through. Chandra does the same, scanning the card, then selecting the CLCCC. He goes through the same portal.
When Viper and Chandra step out of the Portal, they find themselves in a massive underground armory, about the size of two football pitches with rather tall ceilings, at least 40 or 50 feet tall. It's a wonder that this is still part of Nova Tower. Before you lies a series of differently sized prison cells, all with name tags above each one. All of them are locked with some sort of a translucent blue forcefield covering them. Past that, no windows, no doors, and nothing else of note is seen. Throughout this floor, you see 20 cells each with a forcefield, some much larger than others, and some very very small. There appears to be something in the very center of this room. Viper glares at the screen and at Spark then looks below it.
[On a large screen near the center of the armory, a live feed of Spark Estelle’s presentation is seen. Absolutely nobody in the crowd is reacting to anything happening. They’re just there. They’re forced to be there. No one is clapping, no one is cheering.]
Chandra sets down the Portal Bag containing the rest of The Gang and puts his hand through it, giving them all the signal to step out. Everyone steps out of the Portal Bag while Viper and Chandra are working together to proceed. She slowly approaches the terminal though taking extra care to not trigger any alarms or traps. That said, she doesn’t sense anything blocking access outside of a familiar card scanner
[You notice a computer terminal at the very center of the room. It something similar in design to the terminal outside of the Employee's Entrance back in Fairview. Nothing really pops out at Viper. She passes by a few locked cells before reaching the terminal. Much like the terminal outside of the Employee Entrance, this one also houses a card scanner and a screen and keyboard with Nova Heart's logo. It seems to be waiting for input.]
Luna and Hinata are both looking at the different cells. They've spotted ones belonging to Wish Giver, Shambling Heap, and Silence, though Silence's is open and empty. Chandra is over on the other end of the complex, noticing two much larger cells than the others. One is for "FIRESTARTER" and the other is for "DUST DEVIL" Phoebe is standing near the Portal Bag, unsure what she can do to help at the very moment. January is doing some internal chanting, as if preparing to cast his own magicks on the area. Rebecca is over at Shambling Heap's cell, muttering to herself as if trying to speak to the Creature housed inside.
Spider shudders as they glance around the cells before going over to join Chandra at the end of the complex keeping her voice low as she asks them, "I get we're here to rescue them but how safe is this going to be?" Patrice gravitates to the nearest cells to see the Creatures inside, in a mix of curiosity and wonder.
Chandra nods towards Spider while inspecting some of the doors, "Considering Spark is outside speaking to the entire city, every single ADMIN is out there as well providing him security, and that he hasn't caught onto me modifying the Portkey system to allow Viper and I access despite us being 'banished' from Nova Heart, I would say it's a rather safe operation for us. I've also taken the liberty of disabling all cameras in here. And on top of that, since we released Moon Mantle from his grasp, he even lost a lot of his Control Magic. In other words, this plan has a very low failure rate, but we still must be careful and quick."
[Despite the forcefields being rather translucent, Patrice is able to vaguely see into some of the cells. In one nearest to the Portal Bag, she sees what looks like a rather chubby white bearded male secured by some kind of mundane restraint to a bench and fast asleep. In another, she sees what appears to be a 2ft tall brown-furred rat just laying down and knocked out. It appears to be furred everywhere except for its head. A shining jeweled crown is off to the side a couple feet away from it. One other shows her a massive polar bear sleeping while the rest of the cell is absolutely covered in snow. The plaques above these doors call them "Wish Giver" for the first, "Squeaky Fiend" for the second, and "Freeze Ursa" for the third. The vague scent of sweetness fills the air. A scent that Viper is keenly aware of. For everyone else, it's just sweet. Luna and Hinata look a little tired despite not doing much of anything yet.]
Viper's face shifts from staring at the panel and being cautious and curious to sheer panic as she runs over to Luna and Hinata, calling out, "Stardust, fucking stardust" she reaches into her pocket and pulls out a vial of black soot looking powder with a label on it that reads "Antidote"
They both walk over eyeing the soot. "Yeah, what's up?" Luna asks. Hinata is quiet.
Viper pops the top off of the vial and extends it to Luna, "If you take a whiff of this it should counteract the effects, hopefully" she still looks panicked, her breathing is racing
"Uhm, okay. I trust you Viper." Luna smiles and takes a whiff of the powder. For the first time ever, as far as Viper is aware, Luna looks actually awake. Hinata notices the change and takes a whiff herself, feeling that same level of awake. It's odd, but for Viper, she can actually feel the mana on them. It's almost like this 'antidote' unlocked something in them.
Luna, who's now hopping and stretching, asks, "whoa. What is that? That smelled amazing!!"
"I feel so strong now!" Hinata giggles.
Viper puts the top back on and puts the vial in her pocket, "It's the opposite of Stardust, I can explain the details later" she breathes a sigh of relief as she starts to calm down
[The group now hears more talking from the livestream. It seems someone introduced Spark on stage and he's begun speaking to the crowd. "Hello! Welcome to the Nova Rebirth Festival! I'm your commander, Spark Estelle, and I am happy to see all of my citizens and family members here!" A loud applause is heard with lots of cheering.]
Chandra sighs and shakes his head, "Right, his speech started. We should start on our mission now. Patrice! I need you to break through the cells. Viper, come here, I'm working through the Terminal to turn off the Stardust. I could use your help. Jan, get your Portable Portals ready. When the first cell is open, we need to release them." Everyone else, keep an eye on the area in case of issues."
[20 CELLS REMAIN. 20 CREATURES ARE LOCKED AWAY. ZERO RELEASED. THE SPEECH JUST STARTED. GAME START!]