[Plot] Any Moment 'Till the Day Breaks

[Narrator]

Sam, Haley and Tosh hurry out of the lab and make their way to the sky-bridge connecting the hospital and research complex to the squat circular building that makes up the above ground portion of the prison. Rain is streaming down the windows of the connector and even when the occasional lightning illuminates the outside world it's distorted and warbled by the rivulets of water. They finally reach the other side and the automatic door hisses open in front of them. In the middle of the room the large elevator that leads down into the prison proper is yawning open to a yawning shaft illuminated by red emergency lights. The rest of the room is trashed. The visitor and personnel checkpoint is smashed to pieces, bars and reinforced glass shattered by god knows what combination of powers and brute force.

Guards are lieing on the floor and inside the checkpoint, some bleeding from their eyes and mouth, others with a thin stream of smoke rising from what used to be a communicator piece. On every single screen and monitor around the room a pink image is flickering through a couple of frames of animation. A crude yellow cartoon drawing of a short-haired girl with glowing eyes, one of which winks closed over and over while sticking out her tongue. It'd almost be cute if half the screen weren't cracked or had blood splatters on them.

As if their entrance triggered something a leg of scrap-metal grabs the edge of the elevator shaft and pulls itself into view. A robot kludged together from scraps of blast door, cables, cell bars, security cameras and who knows what else jerkily scrambles out onto the floor, a good 5 or 6 feet of animated scrap, here and there glowing with the same yellow colors as the 2-frame animation on the monitors.




At the same time Will makes his way through support tunnels, squeezing through places no one was really supposed to go until he gets to a particularly annoying barrier of reinforced steel. But it's no longer entirely flush against it's neighboring sheets of metal and it's just a matter of wriggling his clay through the gap to get to the other side, finding himself in a shaft barely illuminated by red lights, far up and below him the glimpse of regular lightning shining into the elevator shaft.

[Toshiro Narumi]

"Is it wrong that I'm starting to hate that little girl?" Tosh asked with a groan. He stepped forward into a protective position and, deciding to give his new shape another spin, shifted again into the hulking stone beetle.

"Face justice, you mechanical malcontent!"

[Haley Crusek]

Haley, who had managed to at least secure a pair of scrub pants from the medical lab so she wasn’t running headlong into danger bare-assed grimaced at the sight of a lot of presumably dead guards, but she didn’t have long to dwell on them before the monstrosity lurched into the room.

“Oh *hell* no. Get the fuck out of here you janky ass murder machine,” she quipped as she tried to just slam the thing back into the back wall of the elevator shaft with a burst of TK.

[Conduit]

Haley's blast hits the robot but instead of hurling the whole thing backwards it tears a chunk out of it that clangs off the backwall and disappears down the elevator shaft as the machine finishes pulling itself up. Scrambling forward it raises one of it's legs and strikes at Tosh, metal appendage slamming into his rock-insect frame and being sheared off against the immovable stone. Tilting it adjusts it's position to maintain it's balance and brings about a different appendage. It looks strange, cobbled together from weird high-tech half-circles kind of strung together haphazardly and it takes Tosh a moment to realize what they are. Inhibitor collars, tied and strung together and before he has a chance to act on that realization the arm strikes him and like brushing away cobwebs his immovable shape falters and a very human-shaped Tosh is knocked across the room.

"Ha. Ha. Ha." the monitors around them chime, repeating a single pre-recorded syllable.

[Will Stanton]

At the same time Will makes his way through support tunnels, squeezing through places no one was really supposed to go until he gets to a particularly annoying barrier of reinforced steel. But it's no longer entirely flush against it's neighboring sheets of metal and it's just a matter of wriggling his clay through the gap to get to the other side, finding himself in a shaft barely illuminated by red lights, far up and below him the glimpse of regular lightning shining into the elevator shaft.

The way up is the way through.

Will bulked up as he entered the shaft, filling it until he felt his side hit the guiderail on the other side. Connecting to the hoisting ropes above, the new elevator began to slowly rise up the shaft.

[Toshiro Narumi]

Tosh banged his head as he hit the floor many feet away. He groaned, too busy seeing stars to get up. Human Tosh was a lot more fragile than his elemental beasts. Than even Ennio.

[Haley Crusek]

“Shit! Tosh!” Haley cried out as she sees a very human Tosh slam into the ground. She flung herself across the room with her TK, dropped to the floor into a tumble and skid to a stop in a three point landing standing over her ex-boyfriend protectively, her eyes darting around the room waiting to blast things away from them.

[Samantha McManus]

Given the hazard of the collar-flail, Sam breaks apart into a number of mice, trying to skirt around the robot and get in to gnaw at its cabling.

[Narrator]

The robot seems confused by the sudden swarm of mice and proceeds to ignore them, instead stomping towards Haley and Tosh as Sam swarms it.

Behind the robot in the elevator shaft they can hear the noises of a cabin ascending.

[Will Stanton]

ding
ding
ding
ding

[Haley Crusek]

“Fuck,what else is coming? she telepathically shouted to the team as she heard the elevator approaching.

Haley narrowed her eyes at the incoming monstrosity. “Fuck off, junk pile!” she shouted as she shoved her hands forward and pushed a wave of TK at the thing’s legs to try and shear a few off, or at least knock it off balance.

[Toshiro Narumi]

"Now I get how your headaches must feel..." Tosh groaned as he regained his wits.

[Samantha McManus]

The mice start scurrying where they can up the robot and into any exposed areas. They try to gnaw at the cabling inside it and hamper its functioning.

[Narrator]

The robot braces itself against Haley's TK blast, but one of it's rear legs buckles as pneumatic fluid bursts from tubing gnawed through by rodents, the limb losing all strength and the bulk of the machine hits the floor as it scrapes into the open elevator shaft. It scrabbles with it's remaining limbs but doesn't find enough purchase, falling out of sight.

Only to rise up again a moment later, perched on top of the elevator rising up, bringing up an arm mounted with some kind of energy-weapon, firing shots of super-heated plasma not aiming much but unloading it's energy reserves in rapid succession.

[Will Stanton]

The elevator, for its part...just kept going, up past the top floor, into the emergency space above the floor.

As in, with no space between it and the very roof of the shaft.

Any giant killer robots on top of the thing could deal with that lack of space in a manner of its own choosing.

[Haley Crusek]

Haley telekinetically wrenched section of desk free from the wall with a sharp nod of her head to provide some cover for her and Tosh as the thing started shooting but she wound up not really needing it as the shots landed about as accurately as a Stormtrooper.

She watched it slowly move out of view with some confusion.

"....did we just get helped by the elevator?"

[Narrator]

Haley's question is answered by the sound of the robot getting crushed against the roof of the elevator shaft. THe cabin itself deforms a little bit, the roof buckling in a little but ultimately holding.

[Will Stanton]

*Bing*

The elevator started down again...and then went back up again, just to be on the safe side, giving an extra smash to the robot, before continuing it's path down.

[Haley Crusek]

“...well that answers that, I guess,” she mumbled, unceremoniously dropping the makeshift desk-shield.

“...Wait. Did Will turn himself into an elevator car?”

[Toshiro Narumi]

"What did you think just happened?" Tosh joked as he sat up, checking the back of his head. No blood. That was good.

[Samantha McManus]

The mice are scurrying away from the elevator shaft, converging on one point.

[Narrator]

The elevator sinks back down as everybody sighs a breath of relief. Only for the smashed up piece of cobbled together junk to slide back into view and tumble out of the shaft and onto the floor. It's sparking in places it definitely shouldn't but it still manages to raise it's blaster arm and fire a salvo of energy bolts... up into the shaft? The last of it's weapon energy spent it's gun arm slumps.

And then the emergency measure meant to seal the elevator shaft finally deploys. Much to late to stop the prisoners from escaping a massive chunk of metal is released and plunges into the elevator shaft, shearing off a good third of the robot and slamming into the Willavator and driving him down a hundred feet, two hundred feet, three hundred feet until he's finally squished into a fine paste at the bottom floor where the elevator shaft opens into the prison proper.

[Will Stanton]

Under normal circumstances, this would have taken Will out of action for quite some time -- a huge fall, followed by smashing at high velocity? Even for someone as durable as Will, that's a big ask.

Under normal circumstances, Will wasn't high enough on MGH to be basically shooting it out of his eyeballs.

After a brief pause, the wreckage of the elevator began to melt, flowing back towards the center of the room and regrouping into one dazed shifter, down in the prison wards.

[Toshiro Narumi]

"Will!" Tosh exclaimed, rocketing to his feet and hurrying to look down the shaft. Unfortunately, he tripped over one of the dead guards whose presence hasn't had a chance to register. He scrambled away from it with a scream of, "Oh fuck!"

[Narrator]

Waaaaaay down in the shaft they can vaguely make out the top of the piston sealing off the prison. But right where it stops they can make out flickering light falling through an open door. The observation and control room! Makes sense they wouldn't want to seal the guards in as well down there.

[Haley Crusek]

Haley followed Tosh over and peered over the edge. “Well...I think I can get us all down there safely....though it might be easier for me to hold on to you if you weren’t an assload of mice, Samantha”

[Toshiro Narumi]

"Which gives me an idea," Tosh said before turning into Ennio.

"Easier to carry, I reckon," nodded the significantly lighter ferret dude.

[Samantha McManus]

"Look," Sam says as she rises from the swarm of mice, "you try reconstituting yourself from a few hundred rodents."

[Haley Crusek]

Haley smirked, “I’d probably wind up with my ass on my forehead.”

She held her hands out in front of her, palms up, and started to lift the three of them into the air and move towards the shaft.

[Narrator]

Floating them down the elevator shaft is refreshingly easy for Haley. Sure, Sam and her Ex are still kinda squishy but she doesn't have to worry about exerting too much force on their surrounding because it's all uniform, equidistant walls she'd have to try really hard to even put a dent in. Not having to struggle with her telekinesis is just kind of... nice.

Less nice is the sight that greets them at the bottom of the shaft. The door is open, slightly askew that way it's withdrawn into the wall and on the other side is a bloodbath. Bullet-holes riddle the consoles, monitors and reinforced glass as well as the slumped over guards. And past the spider-webbed cracks in the glass they can see bright flashes of explosions.

[Toshiro Narumi]

"And I thought upstairs was bad," he said sickly as he looked around. It was a good thing his current self had a stronger stomach.

[Samantha McManus]

"Seems they wanted a war," Sam says, eyes narrowing.

"Bad choice on their part."

[Narrator]

At the very least this battle of the war seems to be over and fairly decisively though. From what screens are still working and providing flickering images they can tell that at least part of the prison remained closed off and one of the remaining inmates they can spot backing away back into the sealed off partition through the hole blasted into it. And moments later a very familiar blob of grey goo schlorps into view on the prison floor, going around sucking up chunks of himself that are splattered all over.

[Toshiro Narumi]

"We gotta get down there," Ennio said before growing into the yet unnamed rock monster and charging the nearest window.

[Narrator]

The glass is reinforced and layered, but enough bullets have punched into it to weaken it severely that Tosh manages to throw his considerable weight through it with a massive crash. The glass shatters, falling away in chunks and for a moment he hangs there, broken glass suspended by criss-crossing wires pressed between panes. He strongly suspects they would slice him to ribbons if he wasn't significantly tougher than normal right now and it's a little terrifying to be somewhat caught in a net of sharp wires in a new shape he hasn't fully explored yet, but it only lasts for a moment before his weight and what remains of the glass tear free from the frame and slam into the floor of the prison.

[Toshiro Narumi]

He de-crystallized and shook away some disorientation as he got to his feet.

"It's okay now my fellow hero! We are here!"

[Will Stanton]

"Fan-fucking-tastic," the blob said, continuing along it's shambling path. "I suppose you're hear to run screaming through the void as well, hrm?

At least there's a way back to the standard floors the way you came."

[Samantha McManus]

"We came down here to get you," Sam says as she jumps down.

"The robot blasted through something important, and that activated the failsafes."

[Will Stanton]

"I haven't even been processed in, yet. I'll find my own way back to the second floor, I am sure," the blob grumbled.

[Toshiro Narumi]

"We're on the same side, Will. Let's work together to figure out what happened here and leave. There's no telling what vile fiends are still free in these halls."