lucetilogs | TERRACE Draft

Entry tags:

TERRACE Draft - Remaining Days

Who: All Draftees
What: All hell breaks loose
When: From the 27th to the 1st.
Where: TERRACE!
Summary: Information post here
Rating: Varies on thread, please mark explicit material.

This post covers the second to sixth day! Be sure to check the info post on the timeline to know what's up. At 2AM on the 27th, the attack will break out while most people are sleeping. Be sure to use the above info post for any plotting needs you might have. Enjoy!

Some random NPC quotes about the island itself.

Be sure to tag this post appropriately: [canon] character name

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[They have to be getting closer, judging by the surge of activity the animal takes him through. Droids here, the cultists ahead. But which one...?

Darting past an alley, he suddenly stops and twists back catching sight of a blonde ponytail. Ino?

Second glance makes that big fat no, but an ally is an ally even if they haven't met. Kneeling, he barks at the shift hunter before it can get too far ahead of him.] Stay!

[That was probably loud enough to get the attention of the droids too.]

[She hears a voice, but can't spare the attention to look for the source. She ducks, putting her weight behind the move as she flips the droid that had just tried to grab her over one shoulder. She lifts and shoves, using its momentum to her advantage, and sends it crashing into two others closing in, sending all three crashing down in a metal heap.

Another one's already there to take their place however and she's not fast enough to block the blow that crashes down on her shoulders from behind, sending her sprawling to hands and knees and knocking the wind from her lungs. Damn, the things packed a punch.]

[He got maybe two with that shout, and even with shadow at the ready he's not fast enough. Shit that looked like it hurt.

He's faster this time.]

Kage Mane no Jutsu.

[Hands positioned oddly together, Shikamaru's shadow splits in several directions and stretches out from under him to connect with the shadows of the droids. When connected, they'll be frozen and unable to move of their own power.

Given how many there are, he won't be able to catch all of them at once. He focuses on the ones coming straight at him and those surrounding Artemis to start, but several of the bots outside that group manage to evade his shadow and will soon be back on the attack. But it's a reprieve.]

[She scrambles back to her feet with enough time to realize that even though she's got help, they're still badly outnumbered. There's just too many of the droids and they're too hard to take down like this. She doesn't know who the other fighter is, but she lunges at one of the droids aiming for him now and climbs it. A yank on the wiring just barely visible at the base of its skull has the power going out and it drops.

She manages to call a warning, even as she goes for the next one.] We need to find the Shifter controlling them!

[For the ones Shikamaru has trapped, the shadows holding them jut up from off the ground in sharp tendrils, stabbing through the mechanisms keeping their metal feet together so they can't follow.]

I have a shift hunter tracking it down around the corner! Can you outrun the rest of these guys?

[It'll be suspicious if they take them all offline.]

[She manages to topple the Droid, but its a temporary delay at best. However, that's all she needs at the moment, since that was the closest to him and she vaults herself over it to dash in his direction.]

I can, now that there's a clear path. Thanks for that.

Oh, don't thank me yet. We still got a lot of running to do.

[Once she's past him, he takes something out of his vest pocket that she might recognize as a smoke bomb. Do smoke bombs even work on droids?? Time to find out, he supposes. He throws at his feet and releases the droids in the same instant, springing up on the balls of his feet to take back off in a run.]

I can handle a little running without a cultists tripping me up every other step.

[She takes off with him, flashing a glance over her shoulder as the smoke bomb goes off, giving them cover, although she's as unsure about how well that will work against droids as he is]

Huh. That's a handy trick.

Got a handier one ahead.

[If uglier. But there the shift hunter's waiting, tongue lolling out and ready to go. It doesn't need to be told, seeing the two of them running towards it, and breaks into a run on the trail once again. Shikamaru follows.]

[Artemis had been out in the midst of the fighting most of the day, sticking to rooftops and picking off patrols where she could. The sight of the creature waiting for them has her eyes widening and her pace faltering a moment in surprise]

What the hell is that??

Basker. [It's the term he hears people use over shift hunter, anyways. Think Hounds of Baskerville.] They're less troublesome tame like this. He's smelling out the Shifts the Shifter is us--

[Behind them, the droids come out of the smoke cloud. Shikamaru curses, hearing them coming, and picks up the pace.]

Damn. Was hoping for more than a five second lead with that.

Five seconds is better than nothing. [She glances over her shoulder, then puts on a little more speed as well, hands reaching for her crossbow just in case.] It can track the Shifters?

Bingo. That's where he's leading us now.

[They round a corner into another street that leads into an open area. Straight ahead, about two football fields away, there's a group of a dozen or so Cultists that are already engaged with draftees from other enclosures. More droids to boot, too.]

Oh look. Another party.

[Her voice is dry as she readies an arrow, casting a glance over her shoulder to gauge how much time she can take to aim. The answer is not enough, so she aims for the center of the nearest bundle of of cultists and lets loose. It's not one of her trick arrows this time - she doesn't want to risk hurting allies in the chaos - but her aim holds and she sees a cultists fall.

There's too much chaos down here, people everywhere, people that could get in the way of her shots. It would almost be easier if they were all enemies because then it wouldn't matter, but she didn't want to risk that now. Her gaze swiftly skims their surroundings and she finds a half-collapsed building nearby, one she can scale with relative ease and speed.

She veers off towards it, calling over her shoulder to her unexpected rescuer as she goes.] I need a better vantage point.

[And the droids from behind them are incoming.]

How troublesome... [Aaaand there she goes taking off] -oi!

[Building's good enough place to detour from them, so he goes along too. The shift hunter, meanwhile, is nowhere as good at scaling high buildings as they are. It can't climb at all, actually. It gets the idea, though, and slinks off into the rubble.]

[She hops up staggered rubble with relative ease and a determined sort of haste, scrambling to get atop half of what had once been a wall, or so she assumed. It gives a clearer view of the open area where most of the fighting's taking place and where she won't have as much risk of shooting through an ally who got in the way. The draftees seem to be holding their own, outnumbering the cultists, but there are still droids and no sign of a shifter. Did that mean there were two?]

Still no sign of what's controlling them, is there? [There was frustration in her voice as she shot off an arrow, then another, trying to pick off some of the cultists to give the draftees more of an advantage. She flicks a glance to where their pursuers had just appeared, waiting to see if they would keep tracking them or join the fighting in the square.] ...Do you think those robots can climb?

[He whispers, just harsh enough that the words can still be made out.]

Keep low and quiet and we won't have to find out.

[They'll probably go join the fight over there-- oh. That gives him an idea. He angles himself just enough that he can watch them without being spotted.]

Hold off on shooting anything for a second.

[She obeys without question, because he's obviously got an idea, and she can only do so much against about half of their number. She ducks down, hiding behind the cover they have for the moment, her gaze flicking over to where he's watching, waiting.]

[They gave up searching after a bit. Or it'd be more accurate to say that after a moment they go straight with new orders.]

It's like I suspected. They're being called back.

[Still looking serious, he sounds pleased about that. He moves again to watch better, motioning to her. It's probably all right to sit up again so long as they're careful.]

[She shifts, getting a little more comfortable and lifting her head enough that she can peek up over the edge of a broken bit of wall. He's right, the droids that had been tracking them are retreating. Which leaves them with a choice...]

So. Do we help the other draftees or follow those back to the shifter controlling them?

[She picked up half of what he was thinking there. Pretty smart.]

Depends. [He eyes her arrows.] Can you snipe the Shifter from here?

Depends. [She shoots him half a smirk as she flicks a glance sideways at him, then returns her gaze to the retreating patrol.] If he's not out of my range and I can get a clear shot of him? Yes. How close does a Shifter need to be to control a patrol? Any idea?

One hundred meters.

[Right off the top of his head too. His Luceti's memory is getting better...]

When they're halfway there, they'll be in his range again.

A hundred meters still covers a lot of ground. And a lot of places to hide in this mess. [She shifted her gaze from the droids to her quiver momentarily, searching for just the right arrow.]

Shifters are strong. They like to shield themselves with other cultists, but they wouldn't be effective hiding like we are now. He'll probably use the droids.

[The way she's going through arrows implies some are different. He watches, trying to figure out what each might be used for.]

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