middleofsomewhere | The Will to Fight: Ongoing: Blue

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The Will to Fight: Ongoing: Blue

So Far

It's been a hard few days of cajoling the citizens of the Shining City into and through the catacombs. Many still talk about returning to the comforts of the city, scoffing at the idea of danger. But slowly, as they get further away from the city, more and more of them break out of the illusion. Though some remain lost in the illusion still, the majority are clear-minded by Kazoo 9.

Their mission changes from hurrying stubborn people along to comforting them as the truth dawns on them. The atmosphere becomes more desperate, more angry. More driven.

A plan is offered by the citizens: there is a cavern marked on their maps that opens up to the surface. It can be used as a base whilst any that feel able can go out to join the fight against the demons.

New Allies

Not long after breaking camp on the ninth day of the month of Kazoo they reach the cavern. However, it is clear straight away that something is wrong. The cavern is dark with no exits to be seen, and the Voidtreckers will quickly learn they are not alone. There's a small camp in the cavern, all humans, and after a tense moment they will welcome the citizens and their escorts.

Their story is simple: they were outside the city fighting when they got overwhelmed; they took shelter in the cavern but a gate opened nearby on the surface and caused a cave in. None of the scouts they had sent through the tunnels to the city have returned. Their food is running out and they were on the verge of heading to the city regardless of what they might find there when the Voidtreckers arrived.

Breaking Free

The cave-in is a large one, several metres thick at its weakest and blocking the exit to the outside completely. Those trapped here have made some progress but it's going to take a lot of hands, and potentially some magical help, to clear the blockages.

If they can clear it though, it will mean those who can fight, both citizen and Voidtrecker can begin to head back towards the city to fight, without having to re-enter the range of the illusionary Shining City.

The cavern makes a good staging point, and a secure place for those who cannot fight. Even with the blockage clear it is easy to defend, and holds the same sanctified protections as the tunnels themselves.

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Quatre nodded his head. "Take a few moments. Then we can continue again. Do you need some water? I think I have some."

"That sounds like it was quite the difficult life," WangJi remarked. "It is good that you are able to do that here if you so wish."

WangJi was certainly attached to some of these kids and it will be hard to see them leave if that's what should be asked of them. But even so, that was hopefully better because they could go home and be with their families.

This mission gets hectic as the long day goes by. Wangji looks around the cave-in. It's several metres thick and it's blocking the exit to the outside completely and there are so many rocks in the way.

He observes the scene before him. "We're trapped. We have to clear the way. We should try and move a few. I will help."

He's going to use his strength to lift and move the rocks out of the way.

"Nah, that was a long time ago." It's over and the damage is long since done, and as far as he's concerned there's no fixing it. It's left parts of him too malformed. "I'm worried about them turnin' out like me." If they could save them an ounce of that, it's worth it.

Sentiment, he'd told Peter, could rot away your brain like maggots. He didn't think he was wrong, but he felt like his head was festering half the time anymore.

He blinks before accepting the beer with a grin, mentally shrugging his shoulders before tipping his head back and pouring some into his mouth. He manages to mostly make it, too, which is a minor miracle, messy a drinker as he is.

The beer is frankly weird, carbonation being strange for him, but the familiar underlying burn of alcohol down his throat is more than welcome. His nose wrinkles, he licks his lips, and he passes the beer back. It'll do.

"What's that called?" Brave or stupid, who's to say? At least this version of Wei Wuxian looks different from the other two, being taller, more handsome than pretty, and with a different build and facial structure. Then again, unlike the other two, he's never been shoved into another body.

As far as the caverns... he leans back, hands settling in the ground behind him. "Mm, mostly the ones angry about what's going on are figuring out if they can really help with defending the city. 'Slong as the illusion's around, there's a chance of getting caught up in it too long to help, and not all the poor animals they see are demons. Some kind of stock needs to be around for after all this." For the rebuilding, he means, more used to that than he likes to be. "Still getting along down there, though. The kids are taking it hardest, but also adapting fastest."

"Yeah, that's what kids tend to do..."

Both a blessing and a curse. Good for adapting to poor conditions, but too good at accepting poor conditions. That's a thought that their parents will have to deal with, though. Best they can do is fight a bunch of these demons. Give 'em their homes back and let them learn how to handle the truth.

Which, what the hell, there were a lot of demons. People must have been dying all along and no one even realized some of them were dead and not just busy. Some strolled out of the city walls with that heavy cloud over their perception. It confuses him.

"You mean the arrow or the beer? This is a Yaka Arrow-" He holds up the gold-looking weapon, a channel of light passing through a gem in the middle and creating a dull red glow. "This is a beer. Which could be better but it ain't the worst I've finished off by a mile, so I'll take it." He takes another drink before whistling and sending the arrow streaking red like a smoky swirling laser after some more shapes crossing around the corner.

[ Glancing over, Kitty nods. ]

I can, yeah. I'm better at stealth and recon, but I know how to fight.

"Interesting," Alley eyes it in his hand, curious but with full understanding that she's not going to see anything that like, makes sense to her here. But that alone kind of makes sense.

She's no mage, after all. Most magic stuff is way above her pay grade.

"So... you're a magic archer, sort of? At least it looks like you don't have to worry about running out of ammunition."

Mobile cover is sort of Alley's job description, all told.

"Exactly," Alley's quiet for a little while then, keeping watch, but then she glances back into the cavern, "How long you think that's going to take them?"

"Nope. The only thing that's ever been able to break it was a fight with a near god..." And that's the moment Yondu really looks at it.

Right. Ego broke this, didn't he? But it was fine when he got here. It wasn't responding. But it was fine when he showed up, just like he wasn't covered in ice.

"Sort of, I reckon. It's not so much magic but it might as well be for how well I explain it. The metal only comes from my homeworld and it 'listens'."

[ Alleyana nods in turn, taking that in stride. Stealth and recon but also a combatant, the stranger is categorized in the back of her head as a rogue. ]

Well, if shit comes calling and you need cover, I'm good for it.

[ Alley taps the shield with her singular, gloved hand. ]

Kinda my job in a fight.

"...Ah, been there."

No, really, that's not even a joke, the Inquisitor is perfectly serious there.

Everything tends to break when you fight that kind of power. Like the fucking orb, which she'd felt terrible about somehow breaking until she'd, you know, found out that Solas had intended to immediately use it to end the world if it hadn't been broken.

So.

Sometimes shit breaking worked out.

"So the whole thing is that metal, that your kind usually just make the tips out of?"

"The outside parts are. Buncha little fiddly parts are inside."

He hears more scrabbling over rocks around the corner, calls out a, "Who's there!?" And when there's no human kinda answer he throws the arrow and whistles. Mid-air it streaks away, leaving it's smoky laser trail as it chases something he can't rightly see. He moves his eyes like he's watching through the rocks, though.

After there's an unhappy roar, he calls it back, the glow on his head fin dying down.

When he'd been down in the catacombs, he'd been using whatever artificial sense that gave him to look ahead. He'd been using keeping it active as a way for people to keep following him.

"I...yes please." Yoite said with a little nod. He could use the water, admitedly, because he was already coughing again, a surefire sign he was overexerting himself.

Quatre nodded his head, surveying the cave-in. It was not a good situation, but it could be worse in his opinion.

"If we move those first," Quatre said, pulling himself up onto some of the rocks, confident that he was safe on the ones he had picked. "The others will be easier. It will also mean that others won't fall."

WangJi nodded his head. He had made mistakes in his life, had had issues as well which some of which had not been caused by him, but by others. He didn't want others to turn out like him as well, being limited on expressing emotions, having people automatically assuming that he was mad at them when he was not.

"I'm sure that just being around them will help since they will know that it is okay." His own son was better off than he was so maybe it was similar.

Since always... at least for him. All those one-armed handstands really had a way of making someone rather strong. But maybe that was just in his version of the world.

WangJi knelt to put the large rock down and then turned to WuXian. "Gusu Lan trains its disciples very hard. Most of us are very strong."

Too bad you haven't seen him break a bathtub with his bare hands.

"Of course." Quatre dug through the bag he had brought with him and produced a bottle of water, offering it to Yoite.

"Thank you." Yoite said with a relieved sigh and he sipped at it gingerly.

"I'm sorry, I...wish I was stronger."

Yondu was happy that Quill turned out better than him, and had a better life too. But he also knows that 'better than him' doesn't mean 'good'. Yondu wasn't a great father. He's pretty sure Peter would want to kick his ass for the simple fact he's been considerably better to these kids than he was allowed to be with his son.

All that aside, he does remember their previous conversation, even if it had been cut short by emergency and he'd just never properly followed up.

"You said you raised a youngin'?"

They might have to get to know each other - Ple Two is just a young human, after all, but she's a very good shot. "I'm not sure what rate they're progressing at..."

"Right, let's pick up and move these rocks. Just lift up one at a time." Lan Wangji begins to roll the rocks away and picks them up to clear the way.

"Just be careful when you lift. It's easier to push them away and roll them."

"A... a what?" A box that makes food from nothing? Is that what she's saying? Something like that existing could solve so many problems, even if it only made the same types of food over and over again. That would still be better than starving.

"He has that? H-How does it work? Where did he get it?" Did the train make it? Was it powerful enough to create such a thing? It shouldn't be too surprising, given everything else. It had brought them all into this world and other worlds. Why wouldn't it be able to make a lunch box that could refill itself?

"Can it do this endlessly? It doesn't run out of magic?" They still shouldn't take their time clearing this cave-in, but now their deadline can be a little more relaxed.

Why would he break a bathtub, bare hands or no?!

"Yes, yes, we all know Gusu Lan trains you hard, that's never a question. Do all Lans do this? The, ah, the impressive arm strength?" It's not as if the Lans he knows are weak, far from it, but there's a touch of the endearingly absurd here that he's genuinely interested in.

He's also fairly stir crazy being in the catacombs, which have no sky, after being on the train for weeks on end, which also has no sky. The only reason he doesn't complain (or at least one reason) is morale; even finding the group of survivors down here already didn't absolve those down here now of the fears associated with how their city has been infiltrated without them having even seen it start to fall.

He hums an affirmative note to the statement about children. They do adapt, faster and to a degree of acceptance that throws teenagers and adults off stride.

"Might like the Yaka Arrow better," he says, offering a lopsided grin, but he doesn't really mind the strangeness of the beer after the fact. "The beer's not bad. Why's it so... bubbly?"

Given it wasn't remarked on, he has to assume that must be something normal to beer.

It also isn't important, but while he's watching the figures that appear (or don't, really, but the suggestion of them), his new friend has it as handled as he did before Wei Wuxian invited himself along.

"Seems like there's going to be some kind of final push soon. All this is so rushed... being dropped into a war one side doesn't realise is as bad as it is, with no time for real planning, and no thought for the aftermath. We're supposed to tip the scales in all this?"

He flicks his fingers out into the space before them, resting his weight now on just one hand.

"Seems conceited, in its way."

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The Will to Fight: Ongoing: Blue

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Breaking free

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I'm so sorry for my slowness

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