outsiderslogs | beefin' over turf.

Entry tags:

npc: blood pack

beefin' over turf.

who. The Blood Pack and YOU.
what. This band of mercs is attempting to gain more ground on Omega, and they aren't exactly doing it by asking nicely.
where. Various places around the station.
when. Now.
warnings. Violence. Krogan. Vorcha. You know, the usual.

A lot of things are going to change around here. At least, if the Blood Pack has anything to say about it.

Ever since that whole fiasco with the station's water supplies, the pyjaks and the varren - and especially since those Talons had been murdered - they're thinking that this is their time to start moving in. People are scared, unsure of what to do. And most of these mercenaries are thinking that it's the perfect time to scare them right out of their territory and move right on in.

In this log, any participating characters are going to find themselves accosted by members of the Blood Pack. It's not going to be pretty, and they're most likely not going to give up until your character yields. It doesn't really matter where you are, what you're doing, if you're minding your own business. The point is, they want what you have, and they aren't going to stop until they have what they want.

Whether your characters put up a fight or let the Blood Pack have what they want is up to you - but the point remains that they cannot be allowed to take over the district. That won't end well for anyone.

Note: If you would like any sort of NPC interaction with your characters, please drop us a note, either here or via PM. As mods, we would love to see it played out, but we'd like to plot out what you need to know beforehand in case things get caught up on our end. In addition, if you have an idea you're welcome to NPC the mercs yourself.

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[ Marco opens his mouth to tell Rachel no, this was not anything he had ever heard of outside of fiction, but he starts to recall little bits and pieces of things from his recent encounters that didn't add up at the time, but are starting to click together now.

He keeps his gaze fixed on the back of Rachel's head as he follows her; somehow, even though she's not wearing shoes, he has to work to keep up with her. ]

I know the Yeerks are a bunch of like. Bodysnatching brain slugs or something. I know Cassie is a hallucinating nutjob. I know up up down down left right left right bee aye. Come on, you really just want me to recite all the facts I can think of? [ He shakes his head; this could legitimately take all day. ] How about we work backwards: what's the last thing you remember?

[ Cassie a hallucinating nutjob? Yeah, right. Either Marco's just being...well, Marco, or he comes from some kind of weird bizarro land universe. She hasn't ruled that out, yet.

The question makes her hesitate. What does she remember? Well, Marco's mom being Visser One's host comes to mind. But somehow she doesn't think this Marco believes anything besides the story he'd always been fed: that his mother had died in that boating accident. She swallows that back and tosses her hair again, eyes straight ahead. ]

So...you know basically zilch, then. Well, you were almost right about the Yeerks. Pretty close. The last thing I remember is...getting ready for bed at my mom's house. But a couple days before that, we took out a Yeerk facility. They were trying to modify sharks as hosts. Long story.

[ well, it sounds outrageous at first, but he can almost see some crazy way they might have ended up fighting the yeerks at some point. was rachel just from a future point of his own timeline? maybe one where she lost her memory and just didn't know that they totally hooked up. ] Riiiight. Okay. Well, the last thing I remember is that Tom just found out we found him out and was going to take us in and then you beat him up with a baseball bat, stole his ray gun, and tried to shoot down a spaceship.

[ man, that seemed like forever ago. it had seemed so unbelievably crazy at the time, but it has since been overshadowed by everything else in the past few months. describing life back on earth feels as strange now as describing the plot of a bad scifi channel movie would have been then. ]

[ Rachel's look goes from concerned to alarmed. Okay, okay, at least there's the comforting thought that even wacky alternate timeline Rachel was badass enough to kick some alien butt even without morphing powers. But everything else? It kind of makes her stomach churn, when she thinks too hard about it. ]

Ugh -- wow, no. All of that sounds so unbelievably wrong. And they're not called ray guns, they're Dracon beams. God, I never thought I'd be correcting you on something that nerdy. [ She takes a breath, huffing it out in a sigh. ] Here's what happened, okay? The five of us all decided we were going to take the shortcut through the construction site one night, and we met an alien. A dying warrior who'd been fighting against the Yeerks, him and all the rest of the Andalites. And he gave us the power to morph. It's our only weapon against them.

Wrong or not, that was my life, okay?

[ he's a little testy, but this is all stuff he's put way behind him. as much as he totally didn't mind following rachel home, it almost doesn’t seem worth it. it's making him nervous and grouchy in all the bad ways. ]

Your alien dude. Was he like a weird blue deer thing named Ax?

Yeah, well, you still had it easier.

[ But the truth is, she isn't as confident about that as she sounds. Sure, being an Animorph is a nightmare most of the time -- literally -- but would she really rather have lived in a timeline where that didn't happen? The worst thing is that she already knows the answer to that, and she doesn't know how she feels about it.

She does the slightest of double takes back at Marco when he mentions Ax, as they round a corner into Rachel's neighborhood. ]

Uh -- yeah, he's an Andalite, too. Wait, you know Ax?

No, but he was one of Cassie's crazy hallucinations. See, what would really make this totally batshit crazy is if your world was entirely a figment of her imagination but somehow you managed to pop out of it. I'm pretty sure she was like, weirded out that we were dating or something like that, so if she somehow imagined that didn't happen, that's why you think it never happened.

[ Marco's smirking as if he just figured out the extra credit question on a pop quiz; he needs to make sense of this somehow, so as long as there's some explanation, he'll feel better. ]

[ Rachel frowns at that, falling into contemplative silence until they reach her front door. Marco's Cassie having hallucinations about...what, Rachel's own timeline? Up until now, she'd just written Marco's whole timeline off as some weird alternate reality that had nothing to do with hers, just some random occurrence that he's even on the station with her. But it's starting to sound a little familiar. Like...something the Ellimist might do. Like something the Ellimist could do. ]

No...no, I don't think that's it.

[ But she doesn't know what it is, exactly. She doesn't know nearly enough. She can see there are pieces at play here, but she has no idea how they come together. Ax really would come in handy right about now.

She shakes her head, opening her front door and hurrying inside. Man, her feet are sore. At least it's a lot warmer in here. She rubs her arms for a minute, glancing at Marco. Man, this is weird. ]

You can sit on the couch, if you want. I need to get some clothes.

[ Marco doesn't really need an invitation to flop onto the couch as if he owns the place, but he does it mostly so he gets some sense of normalcy and control for his life. Sure, Rachel contradicting him wasn't anything new, but she's being so half-assed about it, like she wasn't really all there. Like she's just a figment of someone's imagination?

It might have been better if he didn't come up with that train of thought to begin with. ]

Okay, whatever. If you're not back in three minutes, I'm just gonna assume that you like, popped back into imaginary person space and I'll never see you again, kay?

[ Honestly, she's a little tired. The fight hadn't been all that tough, but she's feeling a little drained for it nonetheless. Ugh, is she getting rusty? She sure isn't morphing and fighting all the time living on Omega. If she'd been a little more alert, a little more there, she'd have snapped back at Marco, probably would've felt more hurt for the fact that he keeps insisting she's not a real person. It's not as if she cares what he thinks, right?

She trudges to her room and just sits on the bed for a minute, drawing in a deep breath. Marco's rapid oscillation between taking her seriously and writing her off is seriously starting to mess with her. She feels thrown off balance, somehow. Ugh, whatever. She can just finish this conversation and kick him out.

She emerges not long after in a t-shirt and a pair of gym shorts, a slightly oversized hoodie on top of all of it. Of course, somehow even the lazy ensemble is stupidly flattering on her. It's her other superpower. She looks at Marco, not really sure what to expect from him. ]

So you don't know anything about morphing, do you?

[ It's eerie, even as he's acting dumb as an excuse to not have to acknowledge it; Rachel here is basically just the Rachel he knew. He can imagine a situation that would make his Rachel irrationally pissy and stubborn and this would probably be exactly how she'd act. He's not sure if that makes this easier or worse. ]

Besides the fact that you, and some imaginary version of me, and also Jake and Cassie, can turn into bears or wombats or pigeons or something? No, I don't know anything about morphing. And actually? I don't really wanna know. It's kinda gross. And by that, I mean I swear I'm gonna have nightmares about a bear melting into my ex-girlfriend for at least a week.

[ His response only agitates her more. She crosses her arms, looking not so much intimidating as really severely displeased. And maybe a little hurt. But like Rachel's going to let anyone see that. ]

You asked, okay? You asked me. I'm giving you an answer. I think your problem is you just can't decide whether or not you want to believe I'm real, and you know what? I'm pretty sick of it. I just saved your sorry ass from being vorcha meat. Is that not real enough for you?

[ A real thanks would be nice, too, but mostly, Rachel's just kind of mad. This has been grating on her nerves since day one, and it honestly bothers her more than she wants to admit. That she wants Marco to acknowledge her. She just doesn't want to be here alone. ]

I asked because it's freaking weird, okay, not because I needed all the gritty little details. I get it. You guys all got some weirdo space alien mutant animorping powers from some blue deer named after a garden tool and are trying to single-handedly save the planet from brain slugs.

[ He folds his arms with a petulant huff, as if he just can't believe how stupid all of this is. It's not like he asked her to follow him around and 'save' him from vorcha; she's the one who just spontaneously fell into his life, and not the other way around, so he doesn't think he owes her anything. ]

Okay, fine, you're real because I can like, see you in front of me, and I'm pretty sure I'm not hallucinating. Happy? But you want me to accept that your timeline is a valid reality? Then stop acting like mine is just soooooo wroooong, because as far as I'm concerned, it's my reality, and we're gonna have to deal with both of them existing at the same time.

[ Rachel's mouth tightens at that, because she's not sure his reality is real. There's a lot they don't know about the Ellimist and whatever else might be out there. But there's no use telling him that, is there? Ugh, no. It's Marco. He's like the walking definition of pigheaded. Emphasis on pig.

But it's still Marco. The only tenuous connection she has to her own world here. And whether he likes it or not, she's the same for him. Which means that her reality is just as valid. She sucks in a breath, closing her eyes for a moment, just gathering her composure. She doesn't like feeling this terse. ]

Okay, yes. You're right. You're real, and so is the reality you came from. It's weird, but it's real. And so is mine. Which is why you have to know about it.

[ She looks uncomfortable, somehow, but she's covering it up with the hard set of her jaw and the stony look in her eyes. She rubs one arm, squeezing it. ]

You have to know, Marco. About morphing and the invasion and everything. Because back home, nobody knows. Nobody but us. And nobody does here, either. So you have to. And...I should know more about what happened in your timeline. It's just -- it's important, okay?

[ She doesn't know if she can articulate why, but it is. It's important because somewhere, even in this Marco's timeline, his mom has a slug in her head. And she doesn't think she can handle being the only one who knows it. Who knows about all of it. That's not a weight she's prepared to bear. ]

Actually, you know what? I think you're wrong. I don't think I need to know any of that. Because guess what? The invasion happened in my world, too, and I'm not actually a part of that world anymore. You're not a part of your world anymore, either. You think we're ever going home? Not only are we in the wrong part of the solar system, we're totally in the wrong dimension. Crazy space future weirdo dimension X crap. No one here knows how we got here and no one knows how to send us back.

[ He's worked up way more about this than Rachel seems to be, but he's had a lot more time on Omega to think about this, and he's already accepted his fate here. It's the only way he can ever move on with anything, and the fact that she's even trying to push him back to thinking about things other than surviving on Omega is seriously harshing his mellow.

It's growing increasingly apparent to him that it's not actually possible to just ignore Rachel forever, but she's a constant reminder of something he wants to forget. ]

[ Rachel is all too prepared to be angry at him. She can't stand that about him, that part of him that so readily steps back from his attachments when they become too heavy to bear. She's ready to get mad, to yell, to tell him off for running and hiding from all of this, but she can't. Because his words sink in a few seconds too soon, and Rachel's chest gets too tight to really get any words out right away.

You think we're ever going home?

This far, she's gotten by just not thinking about the family and friends she's left behind. God knows she's had enough to deal with since she got here. But now, with Marco laying it out all in front of her, she can't ignore the possibility that she'll never go home. What's supposed to happen to her friends, the Animorphs that actually existed, if she's not there? To Jordan and Sara? Who's going to take care of her little sisters when her mom works late and forgets to order dinner?

For the first time, Rachel realizes she's homesick. She can't avoid it -- it comes straight on like a truck barreling into her chest. She can't do this. But she refuses to show Marco any weakness. She wouldn't dare cry in front of him.

So she seethes instead. She gives him a hard look, the hard set of her jaw and her flared nostrils meant to distract from the fact that her face is already getting a little red, that her eyes are already threatening to drop water. She glares at him with all the force of a hurt and angry fourteen-year-old girl. ]

Get out.

Okay, that's cool, Rachel. Invite me over so you can scream at me for thirty seconds and then throw me out.

[ Marco doesn't want to admit that this hurts, so he forces an eyeroll in response to that glare. As far as he's concerned, Rachel's the one with the problem here, not him. He's got his own life about as under control as he thinks is possible, anyway, so who does she think she is by trying to dump her crap all over him?

Don't worry, Rachel. He's leaving. ]

And here I was thinking you wanted to be friends. [ The muttered comment is not quite under his breath while he peels himself off the couch. ]

[ She turns away from him, just so he won't see her. Like hell she'll let Marco see her cry. Especially not this Marco. He'd just taunt her, she's sure of it, and that's the last thing she needs right now, not when her chest is already so full of the sinking feeling that she'll never see her little sisters again.

She keeps her voice as rough as possible, as mean as possible, to cover up the thickness in her throat. How dare he tell her to give up on going home. How dare he suggest that there's anything here even remotely worth fighting for, more worth it than her own family and friends. Than saving the world. Than crushing as many Yeerks under her heel as possible. ]

Just -- go, okay?

Yeah. I'm outta here.

[ No smartass comment, no witty retort. She's got his back turned, anyway, so she doesn't notice that he lets his gaze linger on the back of her head for a tiny moment, and then he's punching the door open. A second later, he's gone. ]

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beefin' over turf.

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BACKTAGS THIS SHIT INTO OBLIVION

i love hating these kids

me too. god. ME TOO

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