Zompania Draft - Draftees only, days 1-3.5

[lucetimods]

Who: All Draftees
What: This is your death. Followed by your time-traveling life and desperate bomb hunting.
When: From May 22 to May 20 to early May 23 (days 1-4)
Where: Zompania
Summary: Information post here
Rating: Varies on thread, please mark explicit material.

This post is for the draftee-only portion of the Zompania draft--the day 3 death, time travel to day 1, and then the events until the arrival of the reinforcements. Be sure to use the above info post for any plotting needs you might have. Enjoy!

Please note that there is a specific top-level comment thread for:

• The day 3 arrival of the draftees and the 6 hours that follow until the bomb is dropped
  
• Death--This thread can be treated as REFERENCE ONLY. Responding to it isn't necessary.
  
• Threads prior to departing for Zompania--post resurrection freak outs, arguments over how to proceed, etc.

All other threading, from day 1 until the reinforcements arrive, should be conducted as normal.

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

Comments

[amonglions]

[If it's possible, Booker goes paler. White as a sheet, he can only watch Elizabeth uncover everything he's kept from her. All his tiptoeing unraveling before him.]

...Elizabeth --

[He starts and stops; quickly thinking that she won't want to hear him try to explain things, that this is only going to result in him being sent away and that she'll never want to see him again.]

[tearmeanewone]

[It's clear from Elizabeth's expressions that the fight is intensifying. Robert and Rosalind are shouting in the background, Booker won't give up but Comstock isn't giving in either. She can tell something horrific is about to happen, something important and key to everything.]

Booker, Booker he's taking her! She's not his! [And she gets it into her head that she's going to prevent this, here and now. Elizabeth opens the tear between her and Booker and makes to charge into it.]

[...except it's not a doorway, and she just bashes right into Booker and bounces off.]

[amonglions]

[He's done a lot to try and forget every moment of that night. But it's obvious by the twist of emotion on his face as she speaks that he sees it just as vividly as she does even without the door opened to him.

He doesn't get a chance to get a word in edgewise as she charges to the tear and....and crashes into him, making them both stumble backwards.

Booker is left standing and watching her with the guilt of his offenses playing out on his face to replace what he just...doesn't know to say.

The silence feels thick -- oppressive with the weight of the coming fight and the new knowledge that Elizabeth is finding on her own.]

[tearmeanewone]

[But while Booker stumbles backwards, Elizabeth goes right down into the mud. Hitting the ground effectively slams the door in her face and she's left panting on the ground.]

...there's no siphon here. [That much is obvious.] Booker... Booker what am I going to do? I can't control it, I never... I never could!

[amonglions]

[Her panic knocks him out of whatever fearful stupor he had retreated into and he hauls her to her feet and out of the mud as quickly as he can without slipping into the filth at their feet himself.]

Yes. You can. I know you can.

[Booker forces conviction into his voice and for now - tries to forget her peeling back the curtain on everything he wanted to keep from her. Right now all she needed was a reminder. Some stability. He could at least give her that before she turned him away couldn't he?]

I've seen you do it before, Elizabeth. You can do it now!

[tearmeanewone]

[Elizabeth comes back up on her feet easily, the worst part is that she just feels damp and disgusting now. But there wasn't time for vanity. She looks into the raging battle that's scarily close to them, then back into Booker's eyes. The door she was looking into wasn't opening now, everything around her was battle after battle, scorched earth and green trees, nothing but Zompania.]

[She takes a breath and nods. And even though she doesn't look totally convinced, she's reassured at least.] Like old times?

[amonglions]

As close as we're gonna get for now.

[He tries smiling but it's watered down from any smirk she might be familiar with. Right now his mind is split between two different things: the battle and what she had seen. It seems like she's....seen the full picture but not realized what it is yet.

The drone of the fight reminds him that this isn't really the time, nor the place to be worrying about this now. As much as he'd like to. Booker grips the shotgun he took with him tightly and readies himself to pull up a fireball the instant he needs to.]

...You ready?

[There was no way to ever be really ready for something like this. But they could try.]

[tearmeanewone]

[Elizabeth, in return, pulls her pistol off her belt and holds it at the ready. It's as ready as she's going to get, but--]

Everyone's going to be shooting at me this time, right? [She gives Booker a wry smile.]

[amonglions]

[Booker frowns, going serious in the face of the fact that Elizabeth isn't considered precious here. It's not going to be easy but the most he can do is try to watch her back.]

Stick to cover and... try not to wander off too far.

[It's about as helpful as he can get. The advice Booker gives is practical at best.]

Try to drop some buildings on them.

[An attempt at levity.]

[tearmeanewone]

[Which works. Elizabeth smirks at him, looks up into the sky and reaches out. There's a white stream of light and a Mosquito appears in the sky. It starts raining down machine gun fire on the field.]

I can drop something on them, at least.

[amonglions]

[Booker had almost forgotten what it was like watching her open a tear, so there's just a hint of shock on his face before it warps into a smirk that mirrors Elizabeth's. ]

'atta girl.

[He stops himself from saying "That's my girl." Given her momentary lapse into the past, he doesn't want to encourage another visit to it.]

[tearmeanewone]

[And for some reason, that praise gives Elizabeth a pleased fluttering in her chest. Whatever the reason, it gives her that extra push to run into battle next to him.]

I'll find what I can, but it looks like there's ammo all over the field! Just let me know what you need!

[amonglions]

[Booker forces himself to be reminded of Columbia instead of South Dakota as they run into the fray, at last he has a memory of something that his mind can idly be reminded of that isn't something so poisonous as Wounded Knee. There's some cover not too far ahead but there's a small flurry of people - enemies and possibly allies swarming around it on the wrong side and Booker would much rather have that than not.]

Got it!

[He hollers over to Elizabeth as he makes use of one of his favorite Vigors and green fog swirls around in the shape of a beautiful woman before vanishing over into the enemy circles and soon there's shouting and gunfire just a ways away from them as Booker squeezes off a round into a crowd and watches a few men and women go down.

It's easy to go into a place when fighting. Of just...going until there's nothing left standing to try and kill you. It's what he does to make himself stop thinking about it. He has time and liquor for that later.]

[tearmeanewone]

[Elizabeth has no such 'place', not yet. Elizabeth runs close to Booker, pistol at the ready, opening tears to low-running lines of sandbags to trip up cultists. But she knows she has to kill them, and she can't just keep tripping them up. At one point, she has to open a turret in front of them and push her back against it while it covers Booker.]