[ PRP ] Goliaths (Rep, the crew)

[Zoobey]

At around five in the morning Rep would get a series of texts that became increasingly louder and more urgent.

Text from Sam

Hey buddy, if you're not busy you're being summoned.

Text from Sam

We've got a small situation in our hands

Text from Sam

You're part of team first responders

Text from Sam

Bring everything you have, meet us at the lighthouse

And five minutes later:

Text from Mark

b

Text from Mark

sry typo

 

[Baneful]

Rep was busy watching a movie when the texts came in, but he knew the drill and was getting dressed even as the follow ups came in. He donned his clothes, grabbed his things and headed out the door in the direction of the lighthouse. He'd learned all the shortcuts to get there with his years in Death and arrived not too long afterwards. The only part that took any amount of time in any of it was fastening the ******** bra.

"What's happening?" he asked grimly.

 

[Zoobey]

Samuel and Mark were arguing loudly when Rep arrived at the lighthouse, and the place looked like it was being prepared for something quite serious, tech and available runic weapons scattered all over the available desks.

A portal was already active, and Sam stopped just enough to briefly wave at Rep. "Hey, Agent 007. Got an assignment." He looked a little grim. "The Sun lead's MIA. His last signal is tracked at the Sahara with his group - nobody made it back."

"Or they could be like, holed up somewhere watching anime again," Mark argued. He was busy checking and doublechecking something on his computer screen. "Look, we go in, do the scan, come back. I'm sure it's fine."

Samuel shook his head, rechecking his own runics before looking at Rep. "You got everything you need?"

Baneful

 

[Baneful]

"I keep runics on charge a lot of the time" he said grimly. "Because you know, the boss."

He kept his tone light and didn't give away the heavy sense of dread that he felt about Allan being missing. He always felt worried that one day it would happen and to this day had nightmares about the time when he thought it had. He was ready to risk whatever it took to bring Allan back.

"When are things ever fine?" he said grimly to Sam. He didn't understand optimists.

 

[Zoobey]

"Good," interrupted the Death lead smoothly from nowhere because that was what he did, "We're going now."

Mark scrambled to chase behind his lead, tech in tow, while Sam gave Rep an equally reproachful expression and shrugged. "Well, we can at least hope that things don't get worse."

They arrived surprisingly mild conditions, mostly just sun that started off lukewarm and then became stiflingly hot within seconds. If there were any indications of a scuffle or mess, the sand and wind had taken away all evidence, leaving only smooth, rolling dunes.

While Mark took the time to set up his work, Caelius wandered off, still visible in the mostly flat landscape. Within minutes he was standing about a hundred feet off on the edge of a rolling dune who's summit stretched just beyond the limits of sand-vision. He stood there just gazing at something, and then Sam followed, and also stopped short at the top, suddenly backing away a few steps and then gesturing for Rep to follow too.

Baneful

 

[Baneful]

Rep resented the Sahara, treating it as possibly the most dangerous location in the whole world. Every single mission he'd ever been on there had ended horribly, and he expected this to be no different. Just to be sure if anything happened to him out here that Harrison was aware he sent him a text letting him know that it was one of /those/ missions and reminding him the truly obvious fact that he loved him.

Spotting Cael out on a dune, followed by Sam, he followed after them both, reminded straight away how much energy it took to walk on soft and shifting ******** it's hot." he said grimly, but gave Cael a curious look anyway.

 

[Zoobey]

Beneath them on the other side, instead of sand, was what looked a melted black bowl of an expanse, surface shining opaque obsidian. Mark had caught up with everyone else, clutching his laptop before looking down. "What- what is that?"

Apparently nobody else knew, and the Death lead moved first, half sliding down the sand until he hit the unforgiving surface. Closer towards the bowl, there were obvious bits of shapes fused into the mess, though nothing was too obvious of any shape.

"I got nothing," Mark said, checking his laptop again. "No actual Fear, just whatever this is, maybe some sort of residue-"

-"Here," Sam waved them over. He grunted, and finally managed to extract a weapons tablet that was half-fused into the obsidian. "They were here."

"Search for survivors," Caelius said, tossing the weapons tablet towards Mark. "Report anything unusual."

The bowl was much, much larger than it looked from above, and the further they stretched out, the longer the obsidian glass-like surface seemed to go. If Rep moved a little further from the direction he had picked, he might have been able to see the faintest of white against the black, and then further down, what looked like a recently deceased Hunter, spear still lodged between their chest. They smelled terrible.

Baneful

 

[Baneful]

Rep looked over the strange landscape with a dazed expression at first, reminded very strongly of the bomb he'd dropped on the beach when trying to save Mark's servers. The strange almost glassy and blackened surface of the sand spoke of something huge and significant. "An explosion I think." he said. "Like one of O's bombs."

The weapon tablet Sam pointed out made him feel queasy and the remains of the dead hunter even more so. He had been walking without direction or real purpose and he had a feeling they wouldn't find any survivors up here.

He couldn't look at the hunter too long, finding himself wondering who their family had been, who they'd cared about and the hole they'd leave in the lives of others when they didn't come back. "Well horsemen killed this poor ******** too." he said, heading on further.

 

[Zoobey]

And then there was a jangling noise from behind Rep as he turned to leave. It sounded like footsteps from behind him, and when he turned around, the deceased Hunter was nowhere to be seen.

"Where's the body?" Sam had jogged over, having heard the news on the headset. "Just wanted to see if he was part of Allan's team, did you catch his appearance?"

Baneful

 

[Baneful]

Rep turned quickly at the sound but was too slow to see where the body had gone. He went a little pale as Sam headed over. "He was right ******** here. Had a spear through him. I didnae recognise him." And there was a brief pang of sadness that if he'd been a sun hunter he wouldn't know them at all these days. It had been a long time since he'd walked out and even longer since he'd lost touch with the comings and goings of the division. Maybe he had been one of Allan's team, he wouldn't know at all.

"Where the ******** did the body go?" he said, suddenly and obviously paranoid. "Something had to have taken him, he seemed ******** fresh. There's something here."

 

[Zoobey]

"That's... alarming," Sam responded, circling the area a few times before noticing what he thought was something, scraping his foot against it for a few seconds. "See anything else over there you guys?"

"Uh, I see like, lots of sand," Mark didn't seem happy to be here either. The sky was darkening, just slightly. "And this black stuff, is it melted sand like so something blew it up?"

"Someone, probably," the former Death Hunter frowned. "Anyone else see any casualties?"

For some reason, the Death lead a hundred yards down or so, seemed to be staring straight at the slowly darkening sun, which seemed like a terrible idea without sunglasses.

Mark looked at his lead, shrugged, and then scanned his computer. "Whatever this stuff is it's really messing with like the satellites and stuff." He backed a few paces and nearly tripped over a larger formation, one that almost looked like half a statue. He squinted at it. "Wait a second."

The sky went completely dark.

"Move," was probably the last thing they heard from their lead-

- before something flickered in this distance, a burst of light-

- And then a low roaring noise and then a stream of sand coming towards them, rolling into a surge and then a tidal wave. The ground began to slowly crackle at first, split, and then streams of red light, red destructive light that immediately dissolved anything it touched began to pour from all directions. Everything rattled loudly and then escalated into a shrill screech-

- As the world around them split into fragments of obsidian floating all directions and the red light consumed them and there was only pain, searing pain, rapidly tearing, depleting through their fear shields as everything else was wiped out almost instantly.

The last thing Rep would hear and feel was red pouring from his ears, searing his eyes, burning him alive-

Silence.

When he woke up, he was still lying on black glass, but it had changed positions. His clothes and skin was singed, and he could see Mark too lying on the ground, practically charred, covered in at least light degree burns. The Death assistant didn't look like he was moving much, and Sam was nowhere to be seen.

Baneful

 

[Baneful]

"No s**t." Rep said, shifting anxiously and picking up on the more serious tone of the rest of the group. Normally there was a bit of light banter, a bit of gallows humour in the face of things, but something felt not right at all to him here. It reminded him of the strange clock face they'd encountered Death on where they'd found themselves witnessing death time and time and time again. It felt like something much bigger than they were.

When he spotted Cael looking up at the sky, he was even more on edge. The things the Death lead did didn't always make sense, but to Rep him doing something unusual was treated with the same gravity as a dog with its ears perked looking at the front door, Cael had a few things they didn't and he was worth paying attention to.

The tech being ******** with made him feel no better.

He was on the brink of asking Mark a question when everything went suddenly dark. There was no time to run, no time to get out of the path of the light, though he turned and tried, hit with whatever it was before he could get even a step away.

Everything went black.

When he woke up there was nothing but pain, coughing as he cleared out his slightly irritated lungs, taking most of the damage on his skin and knowing that after this s**t he would need to do some serious repairs on his coat too. Moving onto his hands and knees he made his way over to Mark across the strange blackened sand and shoved him. "Hey, bro. You all right?"

"I think we need to get off of here, in case that s**t happens again." He was really /really/ dubious his shield could take another hit like that last one.

 

[Zoobey]

Mark coughed violently, and then rolled on all fours, coughing enough to begin sneezing and then gasping for breath. He sat down again, eyes wide open. "What- what- what the heck was that." Apparently he wasn't nearly in as much pain as he looked, as he stared at Rep, quickly scrambled to his feet, and then stared all around them madly. "Where's- where's everyone else?"

The sky was beginning to darken again.

Baneful

 

[Baneful]

Rep couldn't keep the urgency out of his voice as he looked up at the darkening sky. "I dunno where they are but we should also no ******** be here." It was a good bet that if Cael wasn't here that it was probably a place they shouldn't be either.

Pulling himself to his feet finally he stammered. "We should no ******** be here REALLY FAST I think."

 

[Zoobey]

"I kind of RAN OUT OF LAPTOP," Mark yelled back in panic as now Rep could visibly see an enormous shape in the distance covering up the light as a massive shadow began to spread over the sands. "Unless you have the ability to portal us back I-"

- The Death assistant managed a dignified yelp as his lead hauled him through the portal and did the same to Rep just as the ground began to crackle and shake violently.

They didn't arrive back at the lighthouse though, instead, they arrived at some sort of covering that looked clearly still inside the Sahara. From this angle, they could still hear the rumblings of something in the distance and then an explosive flash of red.

"Cool," practically yelled Mark, frothing. He didn't even seem elated to notice Sam was alive, nursing a broken wrist. "Let's just all wait here to be exploded again. Why we we here, why am I here?"

Caelius said nothing for quite a bit, the tips of his coat singed as he began to empty Mark's bag of practically everything, which for some reason were just columns and columns of long white crystals, lying them out all neatly in a long row. "We are going to stop it."

Sam just sighed as well, picking up one of the crystals with his free hand to move it up and down, as if testing the weight, before passing one to Rep to for him to look at. "Hey Mark, you think you can hook me up with one of those bags?"

"Only if you get me out of here."

Baneful