Issue 1 Downtime

When the darkness finally cleared, anyone dragged through the tear would find themselves in a decrepit and abandoned subway platform. In the distance, they could hear voices and trains, but there was nothing in sight.

Regan was just starting to make her way to her feet, rubbing her head.

"Fucking ow."

Haley wiped tears from her eyes and shivered. "Oh for fuck's sake..." she whispered, her throat raw from screaming bloody murder.

"What the fuck did you do to all of us, you dumb dead bitch?"

"Oh what the fuck," Cal said, peeling himself off the ground and looking around. Then he sighed and started taking readings, trying to figure out what was going on.

"Me?" Regan says, sounding annoyed, "It was your freaking boyfriend's fault."

Regan shoves her way past Calvin. Wherever they are, Regan has a physical form here.

"Bullshit. This is all your faul...how'd the fuck you touch him?"

"Where the hell are we?" Christie said "And how do we get back."

Regan stops and looks at Christie a bit awkwardly, "Well...I don't know exactly, but I'm pretty sure this is some part of the afterlife."

"Are you okay?" Regan asks Christie, looking almost concerned but keeping her distance.

"Oh, cut the bullshit," Cal said, rolling his eyes.

"This is some danger room kind of bullshit. I must've triggered it when I tried to turn off the 'ghost' bullshit. We're either supposed to solve something and think we're in mortal danger or they're locking us down while they fix something."

Haley looked at her boyfriend like he was a crazy person.

"....Cal. What the fuck are you talking about?"

"He thinks this is some sort of game." comes a voice from nowhere in particular. Like someone in the group said it and it might take a second or two for them to realize that it wasn't actually anybody of them that said it or that it wasn't anybody's voice in particular.

Cal, meanwhile, didn't look impressed. "All right, fine, it isn't a game. Happy? Fine, let's get on with this."

Haley whipped around, looking for the voice, which didn't sound or feel like it came from anyone that she saw come through the portal with them. She looked back at her boyfriend warily.

Regan's actually a ghost. And now we're either ghosts too or we're like...in a place where we might as well all be ghosts or some shit. Can you call anyone? Get any internet?

"Shit," Regan says, drawing her soulblade, "Everyone stay close."

"Right, because you just make everything better, right?" Cal shot back. All right... let's see. Scanning for dimensional rifts... ambient radiation... any kinds of communication signals...

"Someone with fangs."

"Better watch out."

"Listen to her."

"She certainly seems to know what she's doing."

"How else would she have brought them all down here."

The voices are different but most of them sound like they're the ones of young children or teenagers.

"Fine. I'll laugh when a demon bites your hands off. When we get home I'll make a song about it," Regan says, "The Ballad of Calvin, the Bloody Handed Cyborg."

"It'll go double platinum. But you won't care. Because you'll be dead. And handless."

"I already hate this fucking place, especially because you seem to know what the fuck is going on," she spat at Regan, her eyes darting around.

C'mon Haley...stay strong...you're strong...especially your mind. This is probably like the astral...just be strong. Will it and make it happen...c'mon...

"You know, this bullshit is bad enough without them making us put up with you all through it," Cal shot back at Regan as he kept getting his bearings. He let out a small shock of electricity, aiming it at Regan just for lack of anything else to use it on. "So far so good. Everyone make sure that nothing's keeping your powers from working."

"Ooh, ohh... Aren't you the one who stole one of my faces?"

Something moves and slithers in the shadows of the subway tunnel, then a huge shape rushes down the tracks, skittering up the wall and to the ceiling as it goes before stopping close to the group. Part of the creature leans down, it's segmented body curling as it looks at the group with the face of a young boy stuck on it's huge centipede-like body.

"I see you brought something for me." the boy's face says, the huge body swiveling around to look at the other members of the group before turning back to Regan. "What do you want."

Christie shuddered as the shadow looked at them. Her powers seemed to be working, but she didn't know if she could punch a shadow.

"Is that your face?" Regan says, "I hung it on my wall. Like a trophy."

"I was hoping to collect the whole set."

The creature laughs. A disturbingly child-like laugh for something that is also twitching it's insect legs. The end of the creature slowly coils down behind the group, opening it's huge pincer.

"Not if you had a hundred years, little shade." It's entire front carapace does a strange blinking motion and when it opens again it's wearing the face of a familiar looking old lady. Except appearing much less dead than the last time Regan saw it. "You see, I've had a bit of a head start." It blinks again, this time showing a Inca-looking face, complete with warpaint. "You think you're the first to threaten me, wielding a sharp stick?"

Yeah, I don't know what this little show is, but they need to keep the writing more consistent, Cal thought, setting the staff's sensors toward the obvious villian of the scenario, setting it to analyze its energy signature, or its physical structure, whatever it had. Has to be something to exploit.

It has a physical structure alright. It's very much right there. It's energy readings are all over the place though and seem to make very little sense.

Haley swallowed, grabbing onto Cal's hand, but trying not to look as terrified as she was. This was straight up nightmare shit.

She tried focusing on keeping mental shields up, not wanting wherever they were to get to her more than it already had. And if they were someplace like the Astral, maybe she'd have a chance to make herself some of that cool Astral armor shit.

Can you hear me, babe? he thought, trying to modulate the energy readings, anything to make them make sense so he could use the staff to force them to disperse.

Yes. she managed to direct just to Cal, gripping his hand tightly--which may have helped direct her mindspeak.

Haley could feel something responding to her mental projections. It didn't quite manifest a physical armor like it would in a mindscape but she certainly felt a little more protected.

Regan tried to position herself so she's standing between the creature and everyone else, keeping the soulblade ready.

Well, we're fucked.

"Listen up, you ugly bitch," Regan says, "I'm a Lady of Belasco's Court and a Knight of Limbo and each of these three are equal to me in power. You don't want this sort of trouble."

Regan tried not to think too hard about why the thing had the old lady's face. That was a question to figure out later.

"You're adorable." it says, spreading the legs (or are they claws?) around it's face wide, trying to strike at Regan to get everyone's attention while it's back stabs down, grabbing Haley around her waist with it's pincer and trying to lift her up.

...I really hate this magical bullshit.

Haley poured every ounce of her concentration into her mental armor--it felt much better being behind that, even if it didn't seem to be physically there.

She didn't have terribly long to dwell on the fact before she was picked up by the creature, its pincers seeming to grasp at air around her rather than her body itself. She grit her teeth and sent a lance of telekinetic energy at the arm of the pincer holding her.

Regan swung the blade wildly, one of the leg-claws cutting her face, right above the eye.

"Lame!"

I really hate this demonic bullshit!

Christie grabbed onto the leg that was holding Haley and pulled on it as hard as she could.

Regan's swinging actually manages to hit one of the claws and while it doesn't quite slice through it there's an audible crack as the carapace gives and the leg dangles down, black blood oozing out of the wound. The creature jerks back a bit but keeps stabbing it's legs at Regan, one of them aiming at her hand to make her drop the sword.

Haley isn't doing much better. Her telekinetic blast hits and for a moment the pincer twitches open, allowing Christie to get a grip on it and wrench it back towards the ground. It's still clamped around Haley and fighting against her invisible armor though. And judging by how much it's pulling against Christie's super-strength if it wasn't for her holding on to it it probably would have snapped Haley like a twig.

Cal frowned, scowling at his staffs inability to mess this thing up like it'd messed up the program in the common room. So lacking that, he moved in, aiming a blast of lightning toward the rear of the centipede thing.

Caught staggering and off-guard, the creature landed a nasty blow to Regan's hand, causing her to drop the soulblade on the floor.

"Fuck witch!" Regan hisses, holding her hand in pain. She was not used to this whole "actual body" thing.

Haley broke into a sweat, simultaneously trying to reinforce her armor and help Christie yank at the arm rather than try to shear it off with force--she clearly didn't have the control for that, but she had a hell of a lot of power behind her if she could get a good grip.

Christie kept pulling as hard as she could on the thing's arm, determined to get Haley loose.

The pincer twitches and loses some of it's grip as Cal blasts it, giving Christie the chance to violently twist it open, making it crunch faintly in it's socket, letting Haley slip free.

Meanwhile though the creature seems relatively unconcerned about that. Seeing the soul blade fall to the floor a grin spreads on it's face and the carapace blinks shut. But when it opens again this time there's nothing there. Not a hole or a blank area. Just a bottomless void, filled with the faintest glimpses of sickly glowing lights deep within. And it looks endlessly fascinating to Regan. Like she could just close her eyes and drift into it...

With the girls free, Cal turned his attention to the front of the critter, sending a more powerful blast of lightning to its more vital areas now that he didn't have to worry about electrocuting Christie or Haley.