bigapplesauce | We Care for Your Safety

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We Care for Your Safety

Protecting the city from the rifties -- and the rifties from the city -- is a full time job. That's never been more true than it is today, when there are metaphorical (and sometimes physical) fires to put out all over Manhattan. It's been a rough time at ROMAC in general; most of the organization's people are unfamiliar with the specifics of the recent animal attack, but even those who don't know that a number of ~~prisoners~~ guests of ROMAC have gone missing in the last few days (or that the computer system is still compromised) know that something has thrown the organization into disarray.

Unfortunately for ROMAC and fortunately for certain other people, ROMAC's resources are spread thin by whatever's put the Rift in a tizzy. As large as the organization is, though, there's surely nothing to worry about from the handful of malcontents at large in the city.

Surely.

[OOC: And here's the thread for taking down ROMAC! There will be a couple of player characters on ROMAC's side (check to see whether their threads are open to all before tagging in, as they may have limited availability due to prior plans), and anyone in need of 'enemies' to tag against can request an NPC from the mods. Have at!]

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Everything is chaos.

Everything is chaos.

As much as Rashad is capable of alarm, he is alarmed. It would be more accurate to state that he is experiencing a heightened state of urgency as he observes ROMAC rapidly falling into disorder all around him. It began with a general alarm -- that is, alarm in the audible sense, klaxons blaring as the offices and cubicles were plunged into as much darkness as they could be on a sunny day -- and a sudden failure on the part of his computerized work station. What might have been a mere technological malfunction is more, though; everywhere he turns there is something else or someone else not functioning as intended, orderly systems of data and behavior disintegrating around him. No one with authority knows what is happening, much less what is to be done about it. Fring is absent, no, missing when he is needed most, and Rashad does not know how to fix this but fix it he will.

There is nothing he can do for the offices upstairs; he can navigate the computer system well enough to perform his duties but he does not understand its reassuringly orderly not-mind well enough to bring it back from apparent death. The source of the problem is not upstairs, and he knows enough of what is downstairs to intuit that the source may be in the basement, to even guess ~~what~~ who that source might possibly be.

He will venture to the basement, he will find a figure of authority if he can, and he will set things right so that the alarms can be silenced and the building put back to rights. It is easy -- far too easy -- to make his way to the subterranean levels, unimpeded by the locks and guards that formerly demanded stealth and secrecy, and far too easy to walk in and out of the labs and other formerly safe, secret places as he searches for someone or something he can use (or that he can allow to use him) as the tool that will put this broken machine to rights. He pushes open door after door, peering into rooms full of equipment he can barely begin to understand, his exterior calm and cool despite his rapid progression.

Once again, Daine finds herself deep within ROMAC and causing a ruction.

There was even less of a plan this time than the last. The People had told her of the alarms, and she, already in crow shape, had come to investigate. Folk had been pouring out of the building as if there was a fire, though there hadn't been any scent of one. Then she'd overheard a few ROMAC employees talking of 'security breaches' and 'system failures' and other fancy words for 'everything is falling to pieces,' and had decided to go in with the intention of either helping folk who needed it or wrecking things that also needed it. She might not get a chance like this again, and if she and her friends can make a big enough mess, maybe ROMAC will be too busy cleaning it up to cause any trouble for the next several months.

She's done some strategic window-breaking on the upper levels, allowing her friends access to the offices. They won't harm any two-leggers they come across, but computers and other delicate equipment won't be left in working order.

Then she heads down, not so far as she went with Iman, but to the labs. Some part of her wonders if she ought to not ruin anything they're doing regarding the rift itself, in case any of it's actually useful... but that sort of information might be stored in places she can't get to, anyway. She knows enough about how computers work to know she doesn't know how to destroy all of it, even if she wanted to.

So she settles for destroying the things she can get her paws on.

Anyone who would have been down here has fled, as far as she can tell, so she has free reign. At the moment, she's standing on a long table in tiger shape and knocking things to the floor, methodical and without discretion. If it can be knocked over, it will be. A monitor lands on the tile with a satisfying crash, and then she places her paw on a large, glass beaker and starts to shove it towards the edge.

Edited 2015-05-02 18:57 (UTC)

He was not expecting to find a tiger. As far as Rashad is aware, none of the people he has identified as direct threats to ROMAC are tigers, or own tigers. Rashad pauses in the doorway of this lab and quietly notes to himself that this explains the specifics of the pattern of destruction he has witnessed in a few key areas along the way to where he now finds himself.

"Do not do that," he commands the animal, stepping through the doorway and holding out a hand. Likely it cannot understand him, but he will give it the benefit of the doubt before he takes stronger measures. Clearly and firmly, he enunciates, "No. Bad tiger."

Daine freezes, the beaker still an inch or so from the edge of the table, and looks up at the intruder in surprise. She'd expect anyone who saw her to run for it, not try to command her like a dog. 'Bad tiger,' indeed. She flicks her ears back, unimpressed. Then, without breaking eye contact, she gives the beaker a gentle, deliberate shove, until it topples to the floor and shatters. As if any self-respecting cat would take orders from a two-legger.

She might be someone's trained animal. It was worth the chance, at least, that she might listen and not have to be dealt with so severely as it now appears is required.

He steps further in, drawing himself up to his full height (which is regrettably not so very large even for a human male), and allows flames to spurt from his palms and lick up his forearms. "I told you to stop that," he repeats, mostly trying to intimidate the animal so he can herd it out of the room. He will destroy it if necessary, but it would be preferable not to end a life needlessly.

Oh, bother. It seems he's going to be difficult. Daine snarls at the appearance of the flames, wishing she had her bow on her. The weapons she currently has at her disposal only work in close quarters, and she doesn't want to burn her paws on someone who's on fire.

But she's hardly helpless. Hooking her paw beneath a microscope, she swats it in the intruder's general direction.

Rashad's response to the snarl is to draw himself up onto the balls of his feet and spread his arms, attempting to appear yet larger still. Unfortunately he mostly manages to present a yet larger target, and the microscope that comes winging his way scores a glancing blow against his shin that makes him stagger for a moment.

She will not be intimidated or herded, then. So be it. "OUT," he commands, voice booming, and he rushes at her, lobbing a smallish fireball at her hindquarters to drive the point home, still working under the assumption that she's an unruly animal to be removed from the premises rather than a sapient foe.

If Rashad had hoped to avoid further chaos, he's taking the wrong approach. Daine leaps forward to avoid the fireball, and in the process, sends several more (doubtless expensive) things crashing to the floor. The table wobbles beneath her weight as she turns about to swat a few more objects in the flaming two-legger's direction: another beaker, an abandoned coffee mug, and a centrifuge in that order.

This cat's behavior is entirely unacceptable. It's almost as though the feline doesn't understand that her actions have consequences for ~~other people~~ the metaphysical stability of the universe. The collateral damage is of course not his fault; he has limited options available to him and what is of most importance is that he herd this tiger out of the lab and into a holding cell.

Regardless, intimidation does not seem to be working. Rashad knocks the beaker out of the air, but the mug and centrifuge strike him and give him brief pause.

Another method, then. The flames dim without going out, and Rashad focuses his energy instead on a gesture that finds sympathetic motion in the cords and wires attached to the computers and devices around the tiger. Several pull free of their machines to whip toward her legs, trying to twine around them and tie her paws together.

Odd's bobs. He's some sort of mage, then. She's not about to let him hog-tie her, which doesn't leave her with much choice but to change shape. Quick as blinking, she's shrunk into crow shape, black wings pulling her aloft as she lets out a string of curses in a crow's rich vocabulary. She swoops past him, out the door and down the hall, and silently calls to her friends in the building. More crows swoop down the stairwell, the flock gathering around her, safety in numbers.

Rashad blinks, reaction delayed by the unexpectedness of her response to his attempt to tie her. Not a tiger, he notes to himself. Still, his primary goal is accomplished: he has vacated the tiger from the lab. A flick of his wrists drops the wires, and he turns and hurries out into the hall to face the whirlwind of birds.

He should have closed the door to the stairwell behind him. He does so now, reaching out through the ether to yank doors shut up and down the hall. "Cease this disorder!" he demands.

He's shut the doors - all the doors - and Daine's anger spikes. Who is he to try and cage her? Not only her, but her friends, the rest of the flock? She hears his order and feels only disgust; even if they were inclined to listen, he's trapped them, so there's no leaving and no chance of him getting the order he apparently wants so gods-cursed much.

Fine.

Daine lands on the floor, talons skittering against the smooth tile, wheeling about to face the enemy mage. The hall isn't quite large enough for the shape she's going to take, but that's precisely the point. Daine explodes into the shape of a t-rex, fiber tiles falling to the floor and florescent lights swinging down from their moorings as her head crashes through the ceiling and smashes into the freshly exposed ductwork. She seizes a mouthful of whatever is in reach and tears it down, making room for herself, making a mess. Then she fixes her gaze on the mage and lets out an ear-splitting roar.

"You have had your chance." Fire licks back up his arms as Rashad draws himself to his full, far less impressive height. He is utterly undaunted by the emergence of a dinosaur from what was a mere bird, familiar enough now with the creature's abilities not to be taken off guard by the transformation.

And yet.

And yet, that is a very large animal. He meets her challenge with one of his own, stepping forward and hurling a handful of flames straight at her open maw. Even as he does it an alternate plan is forming; he likely cannot face this foe directly without being severely injured, but he possesses another trick she hasn't seen yet.

Daine dodges to the side as best she can, which isn't much. The wall cracks and buckles beneath her weight, and while she manages to avoid a direct hit to the face, the fireball strikes a glancing blow along her side. The smell of burning feathers inundates the hall, and Daine snarls.

She can't let him do that again, which limits her choices. Then again, perhaps a direct charge is the best move. She'd survive a brief mouthful of flames far better than he'd survive being a mouthful, after all. Lowering her head so the ceiling won't slow her, she lumbers forward, her spine still catching the tiles and scattering them to the floor behind her.

The great beast is nearly on him already, her enormous strides covering the short distance in nearly the blink of an eye. Rashad briefly considers his options, but there really is no choice -- he might yet triumph in a head-on battle, but the cost would be far too high. Just as she closes the gap, her breath hot on his face, he wills himself intangible and allows himself to fall through the floor.

He solidifies in midair and hits the floor below running, sprinting back toward the stair well. Ideally he would have removed the now-dinosaur from the building entirely, but at the least he can still limit the damage she does by confining her to a single basement level. It will simply take getting back to the door to her hallway and melting it shut before she gets there.

... Well, that's just cheating. Daine lets out a grunt of surprise as the two-legger suddenly drops out of sight. She half-expects to feel herself treading on him (her momentum is too great for her to stop on a dime), but the crows confirm that he's gone through the floor, as if it - or he - was no more than smoke.

Odd's bobs, she says, punctuating it with a frustrated growl. Maybe it's just as well. Now she can focus on making her friends and herself a path out of here, and she's done with anything so easily blocked as a door. Oblivious to whatever intentions the mage might have, she shifts her focus to the ceiling, tearing down tiles and whatever piping she can as she works her way up.

He bursts through the door at the end of this new hallway and sprints up the stairs to slam burning fists into the metal frame of the door separating himself from the dinosaur. To exit this way she will have to take a smaller form, and perhaps the door will be enough to hold her in once he has melded it with its frame.

There. Surely that will be sufficient for the time being. He stands back and surveys the solid (and solidly disabled) door, then turns to move along up the stairs. While it is possible he may yet need to go deeper to find a superior to whom to report, the brief scuffle has taken enough out of him to send him sniffing after the general panic he can feel far above him. Fear will not be the most useful emotion under these circumstances, but if he is to defend ROMAC he will need to refuel one way or another.

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We Care for Your Safety

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