LET'S ALL GO TO THE LOBBY

[nightmods]

LET'S ALL GO TO THE LOBBY

For those that arrived early, the fearlings have been dissipated enough for the children to escape and go get help for the bus driver. For those that are just arriving, you arrive to see a crashed bus and a group of battered and exhausted myths, fresh off a fight. Before you have a chance to ask anyone anything there is chaos nearby.

Merely a street over, there's a fight that sprang up at the same time as the fearling attack. It seems chaotic. There's yelling and crashing and the sound of rending metal. A separate fearling cloud is circling above this other fight -

- until a distant figure with a staff rises up in the air to meet it. Energy crackles like electricity but there's no warmth to the color, it's white-cold. The fearling cloud freezes in mid-air and then explodes into something that looks like frozen sand before the frozen fearling particles start trickling off into the distance. The gust of cold is so chilling it can be felt all the way where the group is.

But then something is flung from the ground, knocking the figure out of the air.

For those curious for answers, the answers may lie that way. For those hesitant to go to another conflict (or a new conflict if you just showed up), there is now a whisper in your head that seems to come from above, urging you along. It's pushing into evening and the Moon has risen early, barely visible as the evening light starts to fade.

His name is Jack Frost. Please go to him; he fights the ones that attacked the children, that attacked you. They will hunt you until they kill or imprison you. He can bring you to safety, but only if he lives long enough.

The Moon warns you now because you deserve to be warned, regardless of how much Jack needs help and how true it is that you need Jack to help you:

You'll be walking into a fight but if you don't save him, they will never stop coming for you.

It's not a lie.

ENTER JACK FROST

The fight is taking place on a playground. The children there have long since escaped thanks to their savior, buuuut he's not doing so good.

Jack Frost, the last of the Guardians, had the situation handled - until his enemies told him about the bus, the Jersey Devil, and the cloud of fearlings a few streets over. The problem is that when you're desperate to end one fight and escape to another, you tend to slip up.

And he is so, so tired.

By the time anyone else gets there, he's down and nearly out. He doesn't look like much: a spidery-limbed white-haired teenage boy in a frosted-over blue hoodie, brown tattered pants looking ancient and bound to his legs with leather cords. He's barefoot and pale like someone who's recently died in the snow.

When you arrive, Jack is trying to extricate himself from the twisted wreckage of a metal jungle gym, a broken up geodesic metal cage. He's clearly battered and scraped up, his hoodie clawed and bloody in places, and bleeding profusely from a head injury.

He gets to his feet, sees there are new people and backs away from both you and the figures penning him in, staff held out and ready to fight. The two figures on the ground that were menacing him seem to be backing away slightly at the sight of the group. A terrifying woman with bloody claws, Bloody Mary, and the Trunchbull, a massive vicious-looking woman with a riding crop and stern school-marm-ish outfit that looks like she could bench press a steer, don't like the look of the crowd.

A red-haired man with sunglasses is staring down from above, where he stands on a floating cloud of fearlings. This is Mr. Benedict.

"Aw come on, Benny," Jack calls out. "Do you really need that much extra help to handle lil' ol' me?"

But a ray of moonlight casts down on Jack, and with it comes understanding, in an instant. He looks over at the group and slowly raises his eyebrows at what their existence might mean.

The figure floating above shakes his head. "They're not ours, Mr. Frost," says Benedict, signaling some of the fearlings to quickly swoop down and scoop up Bloody Mary and the Trunchbull before anyone in the group can bring them to harm, shielding them from any possible blows. "But if that means they're possibly fresh faces that might join your side, well then I've clearly got to bring in some of the help to clean this whole mess up, don't I? It's worth the wasted ticket."

Before letting him follow through, Jack Frost blasts ice at the man but some of the fearlings rear up and take the hit instead. The second the wave of ice passes Benedict throws something down, something gold that strikes the ground like a blade and sticks there. It's a large movie ticket, solid like metal and glowing with golden light. In an instant, the ground under the group's feet starts to glow, too late for any of you to escape.

The fearling cloud and its three figures starts to whiz off. Jack fires off a few more blasts but the fearlings block them yet again.

"Ta ta!" Banedict calls out. "Enjoy the show!"

Jack clearly has seen this ticket thing before. And he is waaay past overwhelmed with this crap. In the past, he wasn't the type to curse. Now?

"Son of a biscuit-eating bulldog!"

Okay, so he's kept it kid-friendly but he's definitely expanded his vocabulary and found something he can use as invective.

He holds two fingers to his lips and lets out a very loud whistle. There is the sound of jingling bells coming from the distance, as merry and sweet as a child's laughter. Before Jack can explain what they're from, he's suddenly gone because the area around the group expands and suddenly has walls. Everyone becomes separated.

YOU'RE GONNA NEED A BIGGER BOAT

Mr. Benedict's tickets can do several different things involving the movies, and fortunately take time to form, slowly growing in Kuk's base. That means he uses them sparingly. Buuut you've had the misfortune of this being one of those times.

You are now trapped in the Multiplex. It seems almost like a normal movie theater, but it's not formed right, with each of the rooms connected in odd ways, sometimes to each other, sometimes to hallways. It's almost as if a computer procedurally-generated its own twisted idea of a movie theater layout. There are nearly countless theaters, hallways, and concession stands - all of them dark, lit only by the dimmest of floor lights and the light of the movie screens, which are currently flickering with nothing on them.

Jack Frost's voice suddenly comes over the intercom - he knows where it is because of the last time he and the Guardians found themselves in here.

"I don't have much time to talk, but my name is Jack Frost and yes, those people were exactly as mustache-twirlingly evil as they seemed. Benedict's tickets create a magical pocket dimension. I've been trapped here before and things are about to get rough."

Hooray, sounds fun, right? (God he wishes he could do that "fun" thing instead of this.)

"Stay away from the screens and get out of the theater through any exit you can find! The exit signs are mostly real." Just...rare. "You're about to be surrounded. Don't try to stop your attackers, just fight your way through, because they'll just keep coming. And don't bother trying to get into the projectors, it's a waste of time. I'll try to help you all get out. Once you're out, I swear, I'll get you somewhere safe, and figure out how you're even here."

The intercom cuts out. The nonexistent movie projectors can be heard in their closed off rooms, starting to whir. They project onto the screens with a light that can't be physically blocked - it just goes through whatever's in its way. The screens themselves are also indestructible.

Movies start to play, usually cutting right into the middle of the action. The characters on screen can be seen doing whatever it is they're doing in the movie...and then looking right at the viewer. Then they walk towards the screen - and out of it, slowly passing into the theater aisles and becoming three-dimensional. This wouldn't be a problem if these were good characters, but no. No no no, the group is not so lucky as that.

They're all villains, every single one.

"Hi, I'm Chucky, wanna play?"

"Ba-ba-dooook."

"We all float down here."

"Heeeere's Johnny!"

And hidden in the theater among all these movie monsters is a surprise for everyone - one of Benedict's sentient allies, a follower of Kuk, slithering between the seats and taking advantage of the chaos. Kaa is Benedict's secret weapon.

PROMPTS

a) HORROR
Hell is empty and all the devils are here. Countless horror movie villains are stalking the aisles now, ranging from classics like old school Dracula to modern slashers like the Scream guy. Some are fortunately not that powerful, like a certain axe-wielding inn caretaker who likes to shove his face through gaps in doors and talk about how all work and no play makes him a dull boy. All he's got is an axe and a bad attitude.

But others are nearly unstoppable. Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers just won't stay down, regardless of how much damage they soak up, and even worse: they've apparently struck up some kind of mutual non-aggression pact and are hunting in a pair.

But the worst one is a little bastard that keeps going around and stabbing ankles. Chucky is absolutely taking advantage of the darkness of the theater to try to take out some Achilles tendons and hit some arteries with a knife.

Only rarely can they be reasoned with, typically only in cases where their on-screen situation is truly tragic, like the blood-soaked teenage girl in her prom dress. Only then can someone perhaps talk their way out of a situation by offering kindness and de-escalation. And even then, they might only spare that person and who they're with before turning to attack others once more.

Mostly, though, they're all just being pretty stabby right now.

b) ACTION
Some of these villains are fortunately a little less of a handful. Hans Gruber and his armed thieves are at least just like...guys. They have guns but not much else. But they sure do seem to be taking things personally, calling out to you as if you've really ruined their day, and are really laying down some gunfire in your direction. No matter how many times they're corrected, they also keep calling you "cowboy." Hans seems to just never shut up, either, taunting you the entire time.

Some are a little less chatty. The T1000 mostly just keeps pursuing people in a standard Terminator-like fashion, transforming its arms into blades and trying to stab you. Or, worse, it imitates someone you know, even taking on their voice. Its smart enough to not chase everyone, observing some people in secret while transformed as objects to later morph into them and imitate their appearance and voice. Only a warning from the real thing might be able to save you if it dopplegangers to get in close.

And nothing seems to be able to damage it, just slow it down.

One of the most dangerous one of all at least has a musical cue to warn you it's coming.

DUUUN DUN. DUUUUN DUN.

Yes, that is a fucking Great White shark swimming through the air of the theater like its water. And it's a man-eater.

c) SCI FI
The xenomorphs are some of the most dangerous of the sci fi bunch, slinking through the shadows and hiding in the rafters or between rows of seats, making it so you only see the occasional glimpse of shining black carapace.

They're definitely a handful. Their tails can spear people, their inner jaws can break through skin and bone, they can spit acid, and they spray acid when their exoskeleton is pierced - they also can sponge up quite a bit of damage, needing heavy gunfire or equivalent force to take down.

Even worse, they somehow found time to lay a few eggs...and the facehuggers are starting to hatch.

One of the other enemies from the world of science fiction is slower but unfortunately has strength in numbers. Figures appear in the humid fog spilling through one of the screens, from what looks like the twisted interior of a space ship. They're from one of the cinematic offerings in their particular franchise. Their voices sound out in unison from the fog as the red laser lights from their eyepieces pierce the fog in rapid arcs.


"We are the Borg. You will be assimilated. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Resistance is futile."

The Borg are slower and less cunning than the xenomorphs, but they have great numbers. They seem to never stop pouring through their screen, as if the entire ship's worth of them on the other side is invading, slowly and ponderously through the Multiplex. They are extremely strong, difficult to damage, and worst of all, have personal forcefields that slowly adapt to attacks over time, gradually becoming immune to some of them. The best tactic is retreat and laying down fire with different types of attacks each time they adapt.

If they successfully get their hands on someone, they're massively strong, with a strength many times that of a human. And that means it's a struggle to stop them from assimilating someone, piercing their neck with two nanotubules that puncture skin and pump nanites into the bloodstream that will eventually take over someone's mind and start to changing their body into something mechanical.

If they're not stopped, they'll try to drag an assimilated individual back into the screen to their ship for further augmentation - where they'll be forever lost, with no hope of a cure.

d) FANTASY
Maleficent seems to be making the most trouble today, trying to blast at you with magical fire. If she's particularly pissed, she may turn into a dragon that fills up one of the theaters. Her fire may not burn the Multiplex itself but it will burn you.

Gollum, on the other hand, is a much smaller threat - but good at attacking with surprise. The wiry creature may hop out from behind something and try to strangle you to death, screaming about getting back his Precious.

e) KAA

Kaa is Benedict's little surprise, originally intended to be left for Jack himself, but now a useful tool to kill some of them. The snake is able to split himself into many smaller snakes that slither and slink around the multiplex. A single one of them slithers to an exit to meet up with his allies outside. Back in the safety of Kuk's abode, that snake will regrow to full size. The others try to find good places to hide - and then strike, regardless of whether or not this leads to their deaths.

Though he was not venomous before, he is now, and his poison? Deadly to a myth in a way many normal poisons are not. Those that get bitten will start hallucinating wildly, either seeing frightening surreal visions, reminders of past regrets, or the embodiment of their fears. Slowly, the venom will kill them.

There is a cure, but it's back at the Pole, and you have to get there alive first.

f) WILD CARD
Not interested in one of the movie villains listed? Pick another one! Use a movie villain from absolutely anything, whether it's horror, sci fi, action, or fantasy. Have multiple ones appear in a thread.

You can even have non-npc threats from movies start to appear for your characters the longer they're there. They may turn a corner and find the temple traps from Indiana Jones, for instance, or a marshy area from the Swamps of Sadness in Never-ending Story, threatening to suck your character down if they let their sadness consume them. Some of these hurdles may be in the way of the only exit they can see.

OOC DETAILS
❅ NPCing: The mods won't be npcing but players are free to npc any villains from movies they want. They will be exclusively from movies, though these can be movies that are part of larger franchises based on shows, books, etc. Other events over time may deal with villains from other mediums so we're playing with just movies for now. Players can have them speak, with their best approximation of their dialogue. It is okay if this is slightly ooc if someone is mostly working off some basic perceptions and catchphrases of a character. These constructs are not sentient and therefore won't always be the most accurate to the characters. It is more like they are just animating as puppets. This means you can npc them without concern for being slightly off on IC-ness.

❅ Jack Frost: So that he can earn their trust Jack Frost may be popping in for the occasional save and extra bit of directions towards an exit. The mod will tap people in a thread to ask if it's a good place for it or you can request him for a brief interaction in the mod question comment.

❅ Enemy damage: Players can have their characters successfully kill the villain npcs. The problem is...they just keep coming. Every time they successfully kill one of the solo villains a new iteration will walk out from their screen. This means that players can at least successfully finish off a villain in their thread to get clear without ruining the timeline of other characters facing that villain too. You can even have a character kill a villain and have the same villain walk out of the screen and come after them again to make their day even worse.

❅ Status effects: Any injuries or damage that happens to a character will stick when they leave the Multiplex. That means that someone that gets facehugged by a facehugger will have an alien larva problem that may be causing some serious indigestion soon. Anyone that gets Borg-nanited through the neck will start having the nanites take over them. However the myth healing will slow these processes down until they can get to the Pole, and there are magical means at the Pole to help the characters survive this. For instance, the larvae can be poofed away before they cause any chest issues, Kaa's poison has a cure with some plants growing at the Pole, and the Borg nanites can be fought off by just the base myth healing, even if it takes time and is an unpleasant process of a character having a fever and being very ill until the nanite infection clears.

❅ Healing: Characters will lose Kaa's poison effect the second they get the cure but the bite will need to heal. They will have to rest for several days without putting stress on the bitten area to keep their bites from bleeding too much. Characters with no myth healing will heal from Kaa's bite in about 1 week. Characters with myth healing will heal in 2-3 days.

❅ Long-term effects: Players who go with some kind of status effect for a character can optionally have long-term consequences from it if they like, whether it's a curse, enchantment, or something else. The Borg assimilation, for instance, can be fought off but may leave characters with some mechanical body parts like reinforced spines, small mechanical growths on their faces, or permanent scarring in the shape of mechanical parts. (Normally myths don't scar but it can be permanent due to the sinister magic of the Multiplex.)

❅ Environment: Feel free to manipulate the environment. There are lots of rooms to work with, curtains that can be pulled down (and set on fire, even if the whole building won't take), concession stands that have things that can be thrown at villains, butter substitute that can be poured on floors to make villains slip, etc. Chairs can even be ripped out and thrown at villains or used to barricade doors if someone is strong enough to do it.

❅ Experimentation: We'd like to encourage people to experiment! Obviously ask other players if they're down first, but it could be fun to do something other than 2 person threads, like maybe 2 PCs banding together to rescue an overwhelmed 3rd.

❅ Follow-up: There will be posts for escaping to the sleigh for characters to care for each other during the escape, and arriving/recovery at the Pole. After everyone has been healed and comms have been distributed, and after briefly conferring with some allies to get more info, Jack will talk to the group about what's going on. From that time forward, the standard welcome/intro will be fully in place where Manny is the one that infodumps the situation in new characters' heads. But for game start everyone gets to work through the confusion together.

Comments

BRADWARD BOIMLER

[antigravboy]

c) Sci Fi - The Borg - LOCKED TO NOG AND MARINER - set last timewise

[antigravboy]

[This has to be Q shit. This has to be Q shit. Either that or they're very much trapped in a holo-simulation. There is no other reasonable scientific explanation for what seems to be an archaic movie theater suddenly appearing around them.]

[Boimler has a very bad time in the Multiplex, running away from quite a few things. But he helps where he can.]

[He doesn't try to leave yet, not until he's sure Mariner and the liuetenant get out. There are times in Starfleet where someone has to be left behind, but this doesn't have to be one of them and protocol dictates he try to meet up with them unless conditions become too untenable to stay.]

[He doesn't consider any of the threats bad enough to abandon his search until he gets to the room filled with fog. There's the vaguest sense of motion in the darkness. His phaser had already been in his hand but he holds it out, trying to still the way his hand wants to tremble. He feels cold sweat roll down his spine under his uniform.]

[Then the red lights of many Borg eyepieces pierce through the fog. It feels like his heart stops.]

No. Nononono.

["We are the Borg. You will be assimilated. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Resistance is futile."]

[He wants to run. Even temporarily being fake-assimilated in a simulation had felt awful. He hadn't told his friends but it'd prompted a few visits to Dr. Migleemo for some awkward conversations involving fruit metaphors, until he could push past like it was just a bad dream.]

[But he can't run. Most of the other people in here won't understand the level of the threat in front of him and how desperately it needs to stay contained. As one of the only people familiar with the Borg and the tactics needed to fight them, it's his responsibility as a Starfleet officer to try to keep them from assimilating anyone and from escaping.]

[That responsibility suuuucks.]

[And he really doesn't want to have to do it alone.]

[He's avoided screaming until now, not wanting to attract the attention of some of the monsters, mostly hissing out Mariner and Nog's names as he's looked for them.]

[That stealth gets thrown out the window. The Borg see him. He's already marked. And even if he wasn't, it's his responsibility to confront them.]

[He starts firing his phaser, trying to take down as many as possible in a short time until they adapt their shielding, then flipping to a new frequency and firing again. They advance. He backs away, occasionally casting glances behind him to make sure they're not forming a pincer movement.]

[His voice is very shrill and very loud as he calls out:]

MARINER! LIEUTENANT NOG! I HOPE YOU GUYS CAN HEAR ME BECAUSE WE HAVE A PROBLEM!

Re: c) Sci Fi - The Borg - LOCKED TO NOG AND MARINER - set last timewise

[ferengineer]

[Lieutenant Nog does hear him. Mostly because Lieutenant Nog has huge ears]

[He breaks into a run when he first hears Boimler. The telltale sounds of Borg, though Nog has only ever encountered them in simulations, has him moving even faster.]

[His rifle is up, aimed, and firing at one of the Borg before he's even fully through the door.]

Problem is definitely an understatement.

[starfleetashell]

[Oh hell no. Mariner books it when she hears Boimler yelp, and for half a second, she falters. She remembers Wolf 359. She remembers seeing Picard, the captain of the ship she'd grown up on, assimilated, turned into a mouthpiece for the Collective. She remembers every horror story she's ever heard about the Borg, and honestly, for all of the fucked-up shit from the Dominion War that she had to go through, she'd go through it all over and over and over again if it meant that she could avoid the Borg. The Dominion were an understandable evil. They could be grasped, their motivations understood. The Borg were a plague, marching constantly along and overwhelming everything in their path.

She shakes it off and swings her bat'leth at the nearest drone. They could adapt to phasers, sure, but it was significantly harder for them to adapt to getting dismembered. Once that drone is down, she takes out her phaser. Close-quarters combat with the Borg is playing with fire, but she'll do it if she has to.]

We can take 'em! [she says with bravado she is desperately trying to feel.]

[antigravboy]

[A door to another nearby theater is shoved open, making Boimler shriek, and even more of them start to pour into the hall. This is... this is getting bad.]

[His voice is shrill.]

Okay, but all of them?!

[He and Nog notably do not have anything other than phasers and the more crowded this gets, the less room she has to swing.]

[Boimler looks to Nog to figure out what to do because he is kind of too terrified to dig deep on this one. (Yet, at least.) His time in the Borg simulation had taken the shine off this kind of scenario. Especially when it was actually real.]

[And he's honestly stumped on what to do with so few resources. He'd killed it in the Borg cube simulation because there was just so much to work with. If you knew things about their ships, their systems, the drones and their implants, their organizational structures, there was a lot of damage you could do. There were ships to use to escape and teleporters to try to beam out with and computers to find backdoors into.]

[What are they going to do here? Throw popcorn at them?]

Sir?

[ferengineer]

[Nog takes a couple more shots before changing to a new frequency. And then Boimler asks him for a plan.]

[Nog isn't used to being in command of other officers. He'd only just been promoted back home. But, he thinks, his entire career so far had been one long trial by fire. Why would that change now?]

We can't stay here. We'll get overwhelmed sooner or later. At this rate probably sooner.

We need to take this to the hallways. Force them into a bottleneck.

[starfleetashell]

[Crap. More of them. A lot more. And they're in pretty close quarters.

Nog had come up with a plan of action, and never let it be said that Beckett Mariner dawdles when there are things to be done. (Actual things, not ensign busywork.) She hefts her bat'leth, winks, and hollers at the Borg:]

Hey! C'mon, you low-baud bastards, come and get me! This way, idiots!

[And she steps backwards from her ready stance like a fencer feinting, not turning her back on the Borg, but moving back towards the hallway all the same.]

You two, run. I'll hold 'em back long enough for you to cover me.

[antigravboy]

[Boimler keeps moving, changing frequencies when needed and firing as he goes. They have to run it and gun it right now.]

We're still going to run out of phaser frequencies eventually. We need some way of hurting them with something else or trapping them somehow?

[Wait wait wait. There are theaters with multiple exits around them.]

[Nog was right to funnel them in the hall but there might be a way to keep them there. Now that they have something to start with, Boimler is able to shove the fear aside for a second and work the problem.]

They're just moving in a straight line in the hallway and not bothering with the theater doors. We can't just block off one section of the hall behind us or other people might be trapped in with them. But we can use the doors of the theaters to bypass them and collapse the ceiling both behind and ahead of them with our phasers.

Other people would still be able move through the theater doors to get past this section, too, so they're not trapped on one side.

[ferengineer]

[Nog thinks it over and doesn't see any glaring issues.]

There's a chance some of them might survive and get loose, but that should still keep them busy long enough for everyone to get out of here.

Nice thinking Boimler.

[He might not be Boimler's biggest fan at the moment, but Nog could definitely give credit where it was due.]

[starfleetashell]

Yeah, Boims, good thinking, [Mariner says.] Now we just have to find the perfect spot for it. And we can definitely pick off any stragglers once the rest of them have been hit by the ceiling, help keep everyone else safe.

[She joins up with them properly, switching from bat'leth to phaser.]

a) DEADITE - OTA

[antigravboy]

cw: zombie-ness, possession, rot/bug grossness, nail grossness, talk of dead kids, contorting limbs, mention of aliens laying eggs in bad places, general crude language, because Deadites are awful

[He almost runs into her, as she whips around a corner in a sprint. The only thing that prevents it is that she's screaming out names as she runs and it causes him to stop short. "Danny! Bridget! Kassie! Kassie, baby, where are you?!"]

[She's not a big hulking monster guy, she's not a shark, she's not a bunch of weird gremlin creatures. She just looks like a terrified woman. Hysterical even! Tears are streaming down her face. She sees Boimler, in his uniform, looking like someone from some kind of official group.]

["Look, I don't know if you're some kind of - some kind of law enforcement or something where you're from but please! Please help me, I can't find my kids! We were at home, and then suddenly in the street with that guy with the sunglasses and those monsters, and now we're here and I can't find them!" She sobs. "I need to find them! Oh god! Oh god!"]

[It's a completely normal reaction for a normal person who's been displaced, possibly with her children, and now in a waking nightmare. She seems completely unprepared for this; she's not even wearing shoes. It looks all the world like she's someone that got teleported there straight from home, and he hadn't gotten a great look, but he remembers seeing some shorter people in the crowd right before the theater sprang up, people that might have been teens or children.]

[It's all enough to be disarming.]

Hey, hey, it's okay. [He forces the nervousness out of his voice.] I'm not law enforcement but I'm Starfleet. I'll definitely help you look for them, okay?

["Thank you!" she sobs. "Thank you! Can you go ahead of me, since I'm unarmed? I can watch your back."]

[In the past that wouldn't have set off alarm bells. He'd have just stepped forward and felt heroic for doing his heroic Starfleet duty. But his instincts have gotten sharper over time, in no small part because of Mariner dragging him into all kinds of crazy situations that tested them, and teaching him when to have his guard up. The last time he listened to his instincts, they told him not to trust Agimus and they were right.]

[...He hadn't told her the phaser was a weapon and it looks nothing like weapons of the era. For all she knew it was just some kind of sensor device. It could've had any other purpose.]

[He plays along, facial expression not changing.]

Makes sense, since I'm the one with the weapon.

[She places a hand on his shoulder, delicately, invitingly, all doe eyes and gratitude. "Thank you. I'll have to find some way to repay you later."]

[Oooh this is absolutely a trap. Completely like the thing with the Anabaj trying to lay eggs down his throat on Tulgana IV by pretending she was interested in a little, ahem, jamaharon. Without skipping a beat, he pretends to look a little bashful.]

No thanks necessary, ma'am, just doing my duty as a Starfleet officer. Helping the public when they need it is one of our responsibilities.

[He turns his back, glancing up at the reflective glass cover of a movie poster on the wall, using it to keep eyes on her. Fortunately, there's a long row of them back to back.]

What's your name?

["Ellie."]

Ellie, tell me about your kids. What do they look like?

["Well, Kassie's a little angel. She's the youngest. She's got blonde hair and a smile like a ray of sunshine. Bridget and Danny, on the other hand, aren't looking so good these days." In the reflection, Boimler sees her transforming into something that looks terrible and pale and dead, her lips full of sores, blood dripping from the corners of her mouth, her irises unnaturally light. She tilts her head and raises her hand, the nails now sharp, jagged and bloody. "On account of the maggots."]

[She's expecting shock at her words to freeze him up but he's ready for her. Boimler twirls and crouches at the same time. The swipe of pseudo-claws goes high. He fires his phaser on stun and she's rocked back...but doesn't go down.]

["Ooh, that tickles." Boimler bounces back up to his feet, yelping as he narrowly avoids another swipe towards his stomach. He keeps increasing settings as he moves backwards, but nothing is stunning her. She not even reacting to the fact he's causing visible phaser burns. "You really know how to show a girl a good time, so I'll show you a good time, too, Bradward. I'll even take you all the way home. And after I carve you open and devour your soul, your corpse is going to shrivel up like a raisin in the sun. Then you'll get to become one with the vineyard flies."]

Okay, okay okay okay, nope nope nope.

[He's tried every other setting so he sets his phaser to kill and fires. It causes more burns but doesn't vaporize her. His eyes widen and his hand starts to shake.]

["That was the kill setting wasn't it." Her body starts to contort in completely unnatural ways, with disturbing cracking of different joints. She suddenly leaps up to grip the ceiling, her head twisting completely around backwards so she can still look down at him face to face. Her voice drops to something deep and discordant and utterly demonic.]

["T͉͕̦͕̯̳̻o̟ͅͅo̻͈̪̺͖̠ b̝̮̭a͎̪̺̺̘d̤ ̠͚̙̻̼̜y͈o͔̫̺̜̫̻̟u͈̳̬̭̠͈ ̭͔̦c̜̲̬̦̭̟ḁ͍n͚̩̜͚'̻̩̮͕ͅt̮̞̙̼ ͈̪k̩̞͇̱il̲̪l̮̺̼̗ ̰̟̩s͔͓̣̠͈̲̜o̬̩m͓̦͉̖̺͈ͅe̠̮̞̩t̲̰͎̪̮h̬͈i̝n̪̻͉̮͎̺g̲̞ ̱̼̥̜t͎͖̭̖̦̥̺hḁ͓͙͍t̲̤'̫̜̱͓s̘̻̳̗͖̦͎ ̗̺̘͚a̞͉̤͈̹̳l̟̮re̹̩a̰̝dy̹̝̜̺̹̰͎ ͔̳͓̜̭d̤̳͔͖̫̜e͚͔a̮͍̻͈d͇͇̘͖̣̫̝."]

[Boimler shrieks and bolts. This is why he comes barrelling around a corner in sight of one of the others, nearly skidding on the rug, running like his ass is one fire. Occasionally he turns back to fire his phaser because it at least slows her down a little.]

[When he sees he's not alone, he starts shrieking shrilly:]

RUN! RUN RUN RUN RUN!

[The cause of his panic is the horrific creature crawling along the walls and ceilings behind him, that once was a mother of three. "I'LL SWALLOW YOUR SOUL!" ]

[bestbrotherever]

[Loki had heard the sounds of conversation that, while somewhat stressed, didn't sound like anyone was in imminent danger, and been heading that way, hoping to find a couple other new arrivals who'd banded together.

[Then the yelping and shrieking starts and he breaks into a run. He manages to not run into the panicky Starfleet officer, but his eyes go wide when he sees the monster chasing him. He quickly throws a bolt of magic at it as he turns on his heel.]

What in Hel- Were you alone? Are there any others? [...not that there's much they can do about someone who was left behind.]

[antigravboy]

[The thing skitters out of the way of the bolt of magic by leaping from the ceiling to a wall. It is unnaturally fast.]

Just me! RUN!

["Oh, hey, Loki, sweetie. You know I'm dead, right? So I know dead people stuff. Including what's to come. You're the reason mommy will be burning. Along with all of Asgard."]

[bestbrotherever]

[Loki stiffens and pales, and seemingly stops his turn.]

No. I will not run.

[He throws another bolt at the creatures and creates a magic shield that blocks as much of the hallway as he can manage, then settles into a combat stance.

[Or so it looks. In actuality he's turned himself invisible and caught up to Boimler. He whispers "illusion" to the man, hoping that he'll understand and won't stop and go back for the decoy.]

[antigravboy]

[Boimler nearly jumps out of his skin but manages to not scream and give things away, but he's definitely clutching at his chest as he turns and runs again.]

[Because yes, he was turning back to try to get Loki, rather than letting him face the thing alone.]

[He hisses in response.]

Okay, not a bad approach. I read that Picard used a holodeck like that against the Borg once.

[It's absolutely the kind of thing one might do when they're running from something and can run into a holodeck.]

[They're able to run freely for a while, no more signs of the Deadite following. Boimler keeps running well past the time other people might stop, only finally slowly down and stopping when he really needs a breather.]

[He still holds his phaser in his hand and looks around.]

Do you think we lost her?

[There's the sound of something moving somewhere. A strange thudding. Slight metallic noises.]

What is that? Where's that coming from?

[bestbrotherever]

[The ensign might be jumpy, but he's Starfleet, through and through. At least he didn't slow down much before Loki clued him in to the gambit, and he wasn't as startled as he could be. Loki had considered patting him on the shoulder or just running past him, but the odds of that going worse would have been too high.]

Yes, in First Contact. Though my illusions are not solid; they will not kill, and they only delay by distraction.

[Loki stops when Boimler does, but he's not nearly as winded. He quickly sets about moving standees to block where they'd just come from.]

What was she? She knew me. The other monsters here have not. You were talking to her before she attacked, were you not? Did she appear harmless at first to trick you?

[The implications of that are- very alarming. It means they can't really trust anyone, even someone they recognize, until they're out of this cursed theater.

[He looks up, wary, trying to place the direction of the new sounds.]

Something large and armored, perhaps. Nothing good, I would bet.

[antigravboy]

What does a first contact have to do with - you know what, tabling that.

And I don't know what she is. First, she pretended to be a mother looking for her kids but something seemed off so I kept an eye on her and then she turned into that.

She just knew things. Some kind of telepathy maybe?

[More clanking. What was that?]

[Boimler moves along a wall slowly, carefully peering around the corner to see if it's something coming their way down a hallway, walking past a very easy to miss vent partially hidden by a fake potted plant.]

[The grating suddenly shoots off, kicked with massive strength, so hard it slams into the opposite hallway wall. The fake plant goes flying. Two pale, strong, grasping hands grab his ankles and tug]

[He screams a shrill scream as he goes down face first and hits the floor hard enough to both have the wind knocked out of him and temporarily lose his grip on his phaser. She suddenly yanks him back towards the vent at unnatural speed, quickly dragging him out of reach so he can't grab it to try to shoot her again. The stiffness of his uniform is the only reason that she doesn't manage to gouge up his legs with her nails as she drags him by his lower legs.]

[The vent is barely big enough for a person to fit. It's only through the unnatural contortions of the Deadite's body that she's managed to cram herself into the small space. In fact, the opening is small enough that even with Boimler's relatively skinny frame, the only way for him to fit might be by breaking his body and dragging him through it in a particularly gruesome fashion.]

["Oh, come on, Brad, stop fussing. I promise if you come in here with me you'll get to see your twin again."]

[Clearly that has some kind of terrible implication for him because it makes him look even more horrified to hear it.]

[Wheezing because he doesn't have enough breath to scream, he kicks desperately as he's dragged but it's useless, even when he gets a foot slightly free she just grabs it again, and there's nothing to hold onto to try to hold himself back.]

[Loki is his only chance.]

[bestbrotherever]

Wonderful. Just what we don't need-

[Loki's reply is cut off by the monster woman's new attack. Her initial grab happens too fast for him to react, then he takes a second to assess the situation. Boimler's helpless, but the monster has her hands full attacking him- literally. The two are too close together for a bolt of magic at range, but close... and he has another option.

[He scoops up the phaser and moves close to the vent so Boimler can grab his legs. He's a sturdy Asgardian, he doubts the human can knock him off-balance. At the same time he takes careful aim at the monster, and when he has a clear point-blank shot, he shoots her with the phaser, aiming for the largest part of the body that's showing.]

deadite shenaniganry

[ninjavampire]

[ here he was, minding his own business when he turns the corner and finds something horrible running down the hallway. ]

Por supuesto. Never a boring shocking second in here.

[ Okay. Rescue first, then fighting. He flexes his wrist and shoots out a line of lightweb from the top of his forearm, sticking to Boimler’s chest.

With a good yank, he will pull the guy forward and catch him in his arms. Time to be bridal carried by an enormous masked man today, buddy.

Miguel turns around and starts running. He will need to circle back to the previous room he was in. ]

(( ^*translation: Of coooourse. ))

[antigravboy]

[It is very fortunate that Boimler doesn't have an itchy trigger finger or else this situation could've gotten worse very quickly, what with the spider webs and horrifying mask.]

[Still, Boimler shrieks.]

[But the other guy sounds like he's had a very long day, which is not the way one of the monsters would talk.]

Please tell me you're not carrying me off so you can kill me instead.

[At least the guy is ridiculously fast. This is way faster than he could run.]

[ninjavampire]

[ The mask-eyes narrow at him. ]

I'm rescuing you! I'm a good guy!

[ Okay, intense reaction. But why did he always have to explain this?! Was it the suit mask? How much further must he stylize the skull-spider so it doesn't frighten people? He's gone through so many iterations!

Miguel's heels skid across the floor to drift-run around a sharp corner before booking it to an open door at the end of the hallway. It was supposed to be a cleared out theater, but now it had turned into an enormous bathroom with over a dozen stalls. Oh boy. ]

[antigravboy]

Your costume is terrifying! Don't judge me for judging you!

[Oh this bathroom doesn't look like the place with an exit.]

[He squirms out of Miguel's arms and phasers at the parts of a stall attached to the wall, shoving it over in front of the door and jamming it in longways so its pressed between the door handle and the first set of stalls.]

Help me barricade the door!

[At the very least, it'll slow her down. Even if there's no other exit, if she breaks in they can try to sneak out past her while she's looking for them.]

[The Deadite slams against the door so hard it almost opens anyway but Boimler throws his body back against it to slam it shut.]

[She tsks on the other side.]

["Oh, Miguel, you don't always have a great track record with carrying people away to safety, do you? You've done it plenty of times but the one time it mattered most, it wasn't enough, was it. Not for her."]

[ninjavampire]

[ in reality, what Miguel wants to do is swing it open and maul her face off for that one, but with the enclosed environment and Boimler right there…

Well, protecting people was always his first onus. He stickies up the door with some lines of light-web and pins it shut with a satisfying slam of his hands. ]

I’ve got the door. You go look around and see if there’s an exit, or anything else we can use.

[ He can handle some painful comments, it isn’t the first time some monster has used his family against him. So he thinks. Being able to hold on to business mode makes tampering all the repressed rage a little easier. ]

[antigravboy]

[Boimler nods and starts canvassing the bathroom, systematically checking the outer perimeter, where there's more likely to be a door to somewhere else.]

[At the door, the Deadite doesn't keep banging. She uses her words instead.]

["You know, as one parent that murdered her children to another, I have to say I'm impressed. My little babies are just burning in hell right now, but yours? No heaven, no hell, just a little blip and then she was stomped down under the floorboards of the universe until nothing was left. Not even a soul."]

[ninjavampire]

[ The talons puncture through the door, leaving little dots of red on the other end. ]

You talk too much. Maybe you should hurry the hell up and join them.

[ While Miguel usually did a good job about being polite with all his sharp ends, he still had built in Knives in his hands. This left him with a lot less steps between playing nice and deciding he is going for the Throat Rip. The scurrying of the second party in the room keeps him rooted in place.

This Deadite wasn't telling him anything his own self-loathing didn't whisper into his ear, but how the hell did she know so many details about him? The implications left him with a cold pit in his stomach. ]