//.ghost/ECHO::Murphy_Was_Right:// [ClockworkCadence x Ryees]

[ClockworkCadence]

Her gaze found the gun pointing in her general direction, instinct telling her to phase into plasm to protect herself and to get close enough to retaliate. Had he been waiting all this time just to catch her off guard? Was he really trying to take her out in the middle of a damn mission? The distrust had caused her body to quickly fade, a challenging look in her eyes before she realized it wasn’t pointing at her, but above her, as if he was waiting.

She’d opened her mouth to speak, but that screech had drowned out any desire to voice her confusion—a quick pivot turned her away from him and towards the beast, eyes narrowing to analyze the situation. Dangerously sharp talons. Thick, rough hide, despite being an avian—must have been a mutation. A long, drooping tail—what animal it was corrupted from, she couldn’t say, but it looked strong, spiked, and rather reptilian. Odd, spindly tendrils draped off the edges of the wings—jellyfish, maybe? Something that should definitely be avoided, if at all possible.

But she didn’t have much time to analyze its form further. The bird’s massive, almost skeletal wings gave a single, strong beat, the wind gusting even more than it already was at the force. An odd fog, tinted the slightest bit green, appeared in the disturbed air, crackling with its own bit of electricity-like energy. The bullets speeding towards its feathered flesh found that dense mist, intending to cut right through and find their targets—yet impossibly, they never did. The first bullet disappeared with a small spark of light, the other veering so suddenly off-course, it was hard to remember that its original pathway wasn’t just a figment of the imagination.

.DUALITY’s body tensed, the realization oozing down her back of her mind like polluted slime: this thing was ripping corruptions right into the atmosphere.

The handgun found its way into her grip as she dashed under the beast, drawing its attention as it swooped down towards her. A quick roll to the side saved her from the lashing claws, gentle feathers brushing against her arm as her skin suddenly erupted in what felt like fire. Her pained fist clenched, catching sight of an angry red blossoming across her flesh before she turned her attention back to luring her pursuer. In the depths of her mind, she puzzled together this new development—acid? Poison? Either way, coming into direct contact with this thing would not end well—at least she could phase through it, but she needed to keep this thing away from everyone at all costs. If she could distract it and keep it from ripping distortions to protect itself, maybe .LAPLACE could take it down.

As long as the two useless men didn’t get in the way, that is. “Stay back!” She called to the men from the fort, seeing the excitement of battle and adrenaline start to well up in their straightening postures and fiery eyes. The last thing she needed was a bunch of senseless muscle-heads slinging their dicks around as if they could actually survive more than five seconds against this thing. Meda certainly wouldn’t be happy if they arrived back at the fort sans two of her best operatives, even if “best” was a loose term. They almost looked ready to protest or defy her order, but the deadly look she shot them coupled with another grating screech from the creature seemed to subdue them, at least for now.

Now being only a few seconds, as soon it became clear that the beast had seen them move and deemed them a much easier prey to target. It swerved from its course, giant wings beating with a force that threatened to knock .DUALITY off balance as it sharply descended towards the wall that the men cowered near.

 

[Ryees]

Fuck you, and fuck everything about you.

His feet were moving, but perception did not translate to action until the perception had been obtained. He had been hoping to have his full five seconds of time to think and feel out the rest of the cavern, but his ten-second prediction had been incorrect; the five seconds of his perception that remained cast ahead gave him precious little time to even think, much less act. The action part he had always been strong at; having an extra ten seconds to think, though, had always been a godsend. One that he was sorely missing, now.

.LAPLACE took off towards the men as he foresaw the beast diving towards them. The warning call from .DUALITY came just in time for their meat-brains to comprehend they were about to bite it, but a day's worth of warning would not have prepared them for this. With any fairness, they would survive and go back to .GORGON and demand less bitchmade training so that they might be made less into bitches for future reference, but that was assuming they made it out of this cavern with all their limbs still attached and not eroded into human goop.

It was not an elegant look for the men to go ass-over-teakettle the way they did. .LAPLACE's momentum carried him low, and a thin sheen of plasm that oozed out from his feet saw his soccer-tackle-slide flash him under their legs in a glowing wedge of green. That wedge scooped their legs and sent them face-down into the rock, and the plasm trail .LAPLACE had left acted like the world's angriest slip-and-slide, zooming them off the way .LAPLACE had come.

Two seconds.

The bird-beast barreled down at him, and he had just regained his feet when it impacted. Its claws embedded in the rock and it slid at him, wings spread, beak-jaws-fuck-that extended. The force of its landing threatened to throw .LAPLACE off balance, but the plasm connecting him to the floor saved his footing enough to allow him to kick up and backwards into the wall. After shoving this sidearm in its holster, he locked his hands in a cage of plasm then kicked his legs up and backwards, flipping them above and to the wall behind him. Once they touched the wall above him, he lifted his head, perched on all-fours, and took just a moment to glance at the bird before jettisoning a third of his plasm out through his hands and feet.

Like a cannon had launched him, he soared away from the wall, wishing he had been able to have his sidearm in hand to attempt some way-too-Matrix aerial gunplay to see how impermeable this thing's acid field really was. Seeing it from above, though, he came to what he believed to be a much more logical conclusion.

Nah, FUCK that.

He cleared the beast and did his best to right himself as he landed, taking the brunt of the thunk on his plasm-covered feet and rolling. As soon as he landed, he planted himself on his behind, spinning to face the bird. His jump had not simply been a dramatic show of his Soul mod that he had just now decided to reveal. In truth, he wish he had not had to at all, but the ends justified the means. The path he had traveled had left an arc of his plasm trailing over it. Across the ground, up the wall, and through the air to where he landed, a thin band of plasm lingered. He gripped the end of that tendril that ended just at his feet, and fueled it; an iridescent band of energy lit up like a digitized rainbow, arcing high over Not-Ridley's head. .LAPLACE gripped the end of that band and yanked. Like a snapping rubber band, the arc pulled towards the ground. It would hardly be enough force to sever anything, with its length and width, but a plasm-fueled mouse trap was not out of the question.

In his focus of his action, he had lost track of his future sight. Now, though, it did not much matter: If he was successful here, he would buy them time to move on. If he was not—

Nope, don't think about it. His voice was loud, commanding, and oddly sharp, a complete departure from his normal quiet, somewhat melancholic murmuring. “Alright, boys and girls, it's time to MOVE!”

 

[ClockworkCadence]

At the sight of the beast's sudden shift in direction, .DUALITY cursed under her breath, feeling the tension grip her chest as she realized she might not be able to make it over to the men in time before they would be unceremoniously impaled by a sharp spear of a beak. Sure, they would be a welcome distraction that she could use to possibly land a few good blows on the damn bird thing, but they'd only live to fulfill that purpose for a few seconds at best, and despite her hardened exterior, she was never too fond of someone dying under her watch. It was one of the many reasons she preferred to travel alone, and one of the many reasons this mission was so gruelingly tedious.

Her form began to shift, ready to dart through the air until a long flash of plasm quickly toppled the men off to the side, .LAPLACE suddenly in her vision until large wings blocked her view of him. A sickening crash cut through the sound of rain as its claws dug into the stone wall, rocks tumbling to the wet ground below as she shifted into plasm, darting impossibly fast through the air as her weightless form shifted back a few feet from the raiders, her sudden appearance spooking the men as they tried to scramble to their feet after their graceless slide.

"Just get out of here. Go!" Her arms shot out to haul the two to their feet, plasm radiating from her hands as she touched them, slowly enveloping their bodies even as she backed away from them. With some luck, she could keep them phased for a good while despite them moving further away from her, hopefully enough time to find them safety and to kill this thing once and for all. This sort of thing was a serious drain on her plasm reserve, but maybe with .LAPLACE's help, she could—

Her thoughts cut short as she noticed the bright line of energy cascading across the bleak atmosphere, the colors and light wavering in the downpour. At the end of this pixelated rainbow was none other than .LAPLACE, a deft moment snapping the energy down towards the bird and pinning it against the cave floor, its wings beating madly in an attempt to escape. For a moment, .DUALITY couldn't help but marvel at his strength in the back of her mind—she'd figured his soul mod was strong, especially to be a formidable enough foe that could hold his own against her, but to actually see what he was really capable was quite a sight to behold.

At least, until his voice snapped her out of her thoughts, surprisingly harsh compared to the more mild and neutral tone she'd grown used to hearing these past few weeks. Her palm outstretched towards his figure in the distance, a faint glow enveloping his body as she faded his form to plasm and promptly jerked her hand back, his formless energy whizzing through the rain towards her until she allowed him to regain his physicality by her side. "The entrance." A curt statement, but it was all she needed to convey her plans as she turned her attention to the dark crevice in the wall, ready to—

"Shit."

Her mind backtracked to the burden they'd brought with them, sharp green gaze locking on to the fleeing raiders, the sight suddenly vanishing as their forms vanished into a gaping .ECHO in the floor. Of all the ways they could have escaped, she should have warned them that jumping into a random .ECHO was probably the worst thing they could ever do. For a moment, she contemplating just abandoning them, but her feet were already carrying her across the rocks, nearly screaming at herself for being ridiculous enough to jump into a suicide mission for them. Yet that something welling in her chest kept driving her forward, turning back to shoot .LAPLACE a determined and calm look that remained a solid fixture on her face, even as she dived into the dark unknown.