Chronicles of Gaia (RP)

Ama had to admit, she was surprised by Aislin's plan having actually worked, no ID was needed and she was able to effectively intimidate the receptionist into handing over a temporary ID card, some excuse about how 'You know how damned flimsy these things are, and you know what's going on outside!' being spat at them, in regards to Kudret, well, she had to metaphorically swallow back bile as she mentioned Hojo being interested in another 'Specimen Thirteen'. The Elevator Ride didn't raise any problems, though both she and the Half-Saiyan were tense, unable to get a breather in, they were either expecting something, or could sense something the others could not, when it came to an end on the fifty-ninth floor, a small scuffle broke out with some of the poor guards, and another Keycard was obtained, Floor Sixty Two however, was where problems arose, "Ah, the Library of Falsified Documents, poor sod Domino is probably around here, find him and see if you can't sweet-talk the next Card out of him, I... I need a rest real quick."

Aislin's eyes practically sparkled at the sight of the biggest library she had ever seen. Even if the name left something to be desired, the sight was treasured all the same. ...A closer look at the books nearby had them waver gently around the solid walls; evidently the data contained in the books here were different than in the original dimension. "Aislin?" the girl broke out of her thoughts and looked over at Kudret. "Where to?" In response, she craned her head to make sure she knew where the touring floor had ended, and then set off. Thankfully she recognized the short yet thick book needed to access the hidden elevator and pushed. In minutes, the three were on the second floor, where a large wooden door could be seen.

---

Kahlua had looked back after Aislin began walking away, seeing Rikazu subtly shake his head in answer. Nodding in return, it took but a moment to catch up. He stared out over the railing for a bit once the trio had exited the small elevator, but when Kudret called his name he walked over to the two. "Waiting long?" he tried to tease, rewarded by a smile and a knowing glint in Aislin's eyes while she pulled out a silvery strand from her head and exclaimed, "You've given me gray hairs from waiting!" Kahlua gave her a chuckle and replied, "I'm here now at least." Kudret cut in with a smile, "Alright you two, let's head in. I'm sure he's wondering why we're all standing outside his door." Aislin proceeded to open the door, and then whispered, "If he follows the script, he'll give us a keycard for the next floor and a passcode for the guy who can get us to the 64th." With that, the three strode inside to the office, with Aislin calling out softly, "Mayor Domino, are you here?"

Ama leaned against one of the few bare patches of wall in this part of the building, fingers rubbing her right temple, she'd retreated back into her mind to once again debate this other version of herself trying to seize control. there had to be away to split in the physical sense, not end up with a bloody war going on in her own head for the rest of her life, as her eyes closed, the world around her faded away, replaced by her own mindscape where a black haired woman, far less muscular than her, instantly screamed at her, the Behemoth left behind merging once more with the human that appeared. Toré on the other hand, wasn't that many floors above the rest of the group, it was only thanks to his going on ahead that he'd escaped the odd distortion that would have otherwise slowed his ascent, somewhere along the way the Lab Coat had been ditched as he wandered around, looking for something that the voice had told him to... 'Excise like one would a particularly large zit' before going silent, "Aight, where is this thing..." he was unsually hushed, security had already found him twice and disposing of the bodies was a time consuming task, something in his soul was telling him he had to get this task done before the others reached this floor too, ducking behind another door as more security thundered past, he lamented the fact he couldn't shortcut around here, it would make things so much easier.

The first thing Kahlua noticed were the screens. Taking up most of the wall in front of them and to the side, it showed several different locations at once. Kahlua was rather intrigued; if they could do it here, perhaps that whole 'electricity' thing replacing crystals back home wasn't so far-fetched after all... A thin shriek had him whirl, instinctively going for the daggers at his sides. It took him a moment to register the words being spoken by the older man across the desk. "Y-You! You shouldn't be here! They said you died over thirty years ago!" Kahlua didn't miss a beat as he replied, "It's Shinra; lying is a favored past time here." That was when Aislin jumped in, as if waiting for an opportunity to spread some chaos. "My mother has been friends with this guy for like, before I was born. When he heard about me wanting to come to Midgar, he insisted on coming with." She leaned forward, planting her hands on her thighs and gave an almost excited/gleeful expression. "Did you know him before he left? What was he like? I-" The mayor put his hands up, his face taking on a weary expression. "Hold on now! I don't know him personally, but I was around long enough to know about him." When nothing else happened other than Kahlua lowering the twin daggers from a readied defense , the man sighed heavily and explained, primarily facing Aislin. Kahlua did not miss the subtle cut of the humming in the room; it seems he had effectively cloaked the room from outside sources. "About thirty-four years ago, there were a lot of projects in our 'research department' pertaining to immortality. Among them was 'Project B', an experiment pertaining to DNA mixing to lengthen lives. It turned out that only certain species could even attempt to mix without either taking over completely and transforming them, or just flat out react to the compound needed to ensure the mix happened and kill the subject in question. Are you following this, young lady?" Aislin nodded eagerly. "Yes I am, please continue." Kahlua cut in with a snap, "Tammi!" Aislin almost seemed to pout then and mutter, "but I do understand it, it's not that hard..." Mayor Domino cleared his throat and continued, "I'm sorry to say young Tammi, but Wesser here is one of the few successes of the project. He was mixed with a... well, the reports no longer say, but I believe it was a cat of some kind." '... The person I look like is named Wesser, and is mixed with a cat. Irony is there today...' Something of Kahlua's thoughts must have shown on his face, for Domino gulped audibly and almost stammered, "Now, what can I do for the two of you?"

---

Once again, this world was a delight. She never would have guessed this much fun would be had in such a tense scenario. Aislin answered, "We need to get up to the next few floors. Think you can update the keycard for us?" She pulled it out, having been the one to safeguard it during the trip up, and Domino nodded rapidly. While he did so, she looked over at Kahlua and commented, "You never told me about this stuff, Wesser." Kahlua still didn't miss a beat and replied calmly, "You never needed to know, and I didn't want to talk about it." His voice had dropped in pitch during the second part of the sentence, to which she responded with an eye-roll and, "Yeah, yeah, I won't spread it around, sheesh."

---

A beep came and Aislin walked over to retrieve the key card, Domino stating, "This will take you to the next floor; I don't have the authority," he spat out the word, "to get up there. One of my guys can get you up to the 64th with their keycard; it should be rather simple for you, Wesser, as he would recognize your weapons, the aficionado that he is." "Thank you!" Aislin almost sang merrily, heading for the door. Kudret, having been a silent shadow thus far, followed her. Kahlua sheathed his daggers and made to follow, only to be halted by a "Wait!" The male turned to see Domino dare to come close enough to reach out and grasp his hand, pushing something into it. "These are hard to come by these days," he whispered, "I think it will serve you well; one of the reports mentioned you liked enchanting your blades." Kahlua gave him a small smile at the notion and replied, "That part remains true. Thank you." The mayor nodded and immediately retreated behind his desk, Kahlua slipping the glowing Materia into a pocket before exiting the room.

Toré found his target, the soul that he now recognised splitting off and apparently possessing the leader of a security detail, brushing his hand against the containment unit where his target was, thinking to himself before what he could only describe as a 'blip' happened and his surroundings changed drastically, no longer was he in the building but rather what he could only describe as a system of caves and winding natural tunnels, "Defense Mechanism... might take a while." it did, but he returned to the tower with a burning head grasped in a hand barely a few seconds later, placing the head into the ruins of the containment unit, he leapt upwards, aiming his weapon at it even as it was reforming the body, tossing it down and setting the immediate surroundings utterly ablaze, "Moving on up, you coming or not?"

It wasn't until they had reunited their group and headed off to the next that Aislin dared to ask, "Wesser?" Kahlua, knowing she meant him, turned his head towards her and uttered, "What?" "Why did you pick Tammi?" Kahlua shrugged, clearly attempting to downplay the significance of the name while replying, "Tammi is the name of a person who helped me out during my adventure. It's not some deep reasoning; just the first girl's name I could think of that didn't sound out of place." Aislin rolled her eyes, smiling. "Well thanks. Aislin's not exactly a common name... well, anywhere really. Not even home. I always wondered why my parents-" "63th floor," Kudret warned as they crested the top of the stairs, Aislin immediately cutting off her sentence. The room was large, with a number of tables and a center area that appeared to be decorative at best with a large tree inside. It didn't take too long to find the one they were looking for either, once Aislin pointed out the VR training system-and then hastily cobbled together an explanation of what VR stood for. "Just think of it as prepared illusions you can touch and fight against." The man had been watching the screen that was set up for spectators and excitedly gabbing about a particular weapon the current group was using. Once again, Aislin proved her strange tendency to be the initiator as she boldly separated from the group, touching the man's shoulder to get his attention and gesturing that she wanted to speak to him back with the group. He nodded and rose, following her lead, only to grow excited upon seeing Kahlua (who had noticed him coming) casually cleaning one of the daggers. "Oh! Could it be, could it really be? Is that truly the Dagger of Cloaking?!" Aislin arched a brow at him, already taking out her notepad. "The what now?" Perhaps noticing she was truly interested, he launched into an explanation that went over just about everyone's heads, but the gist was that the two daggers had been named the Dagger of Cloaking and Dagger of Stealth, mostly due to the fact that Wesser played the equivalent of Dungeons and Dragons when they weren't out on patrol or missions. After getting the comissioned dagger set, they had named them that after a record 7-hour oneshot session while using practically everything in the break room as props at one point or another, including the daggers. Thankfully, after the full explanation he calmed down significantly exclaiming, "Wow, most people cut me off after a while. You guys are really something else! Anything I can do for you, just say the word!" "Word," Aislin playfully joked, eliciting a chuckle from the male while pulling out the keycard. "We need to get up to the next floor. Think you can help us with that?" The man smiled broadly and pulled out his own keycard. "I can easily state that I lost it on this floor; I always come here for break so they all know exactly where to find me." He gave a chuckle at the end of the sentence, handing it over to Kahlua and then walking off with a wave. "...Aislin, why do we always meet the weird ones?" "As they say in my world, the only normal people are the ones you don't know." "Hmm. That's... oddly true." In a short time, they had made it to the 64th floor. Aislin led them straight to a door that would lead them into the labs and halted there, turning to face them. "I think we're going to need those passcodes now, Ama. I can't see any other way in here."

Ama had been walking along subconsciously, not interacting with the rest of her group, at some point in her mindscape she'd gotten her other half to shut up with the truth, "Oh quit yer yelling would you? We both know how this would go if we fought, it's not even a fair fight for you, not that you'd be too capable of it." with silence restored, she sat in front of her other half so to speak, "So, you're me and I'm you, what do you know of the Lifestream?" there was a discussion held between the two, "We'd just need the right timing, force a schism through the Whispers, and then we can go our separate ways upon my return to where I belong at the moment, for now, we share the body, switching back and forth as necessary, I have majority control, you've seen what it's like out there, despite your marksmanship skills, you wouldn't last five minutes." the back and forth finished with a consensus reached, right as Aislin's words reached her ears. The switch was far more obvious and controlled on this occasion, changing from what they knew into some slimmer, straight black-haired. far less muscular woman in a business suit, they said utterly nothing as they pushed someone to the side, one-handedly tapping in a relevant passcode, swapping back the second a familiar 'ding!' sounded out to the one they knew, "Don't worry about that, we've reached an agreement as far as that goes, no Whispers involved in it, just put up with it whenever it happens."

Aislin set foot into the place that had caused so much strife to this world, both imagined and real. She did her best to keep alert, even as the back of her mind steadily looped a track with no vocals, only named Impulse. She was beginning to wonder what was happening to her head by this point. Had she finally gone insane? She sure picked a great time for that... Shaking her head a little to gather her thoughts, she focused once more on keeping a wary sight upon anything that might jump out at them. Something did jump out at her, but not quite physical like she had expected. She caught a flicker of movement where there hadn't been any before, arrowing into that spot automatically while widening her eyes in an attempt to see. ...There! White! Wait, white? ...! Hojo! The song in her mind rang louder suddenly, causing her to jerk to a stop in confusion. The others halted with her, Kahlua asking tersely, "Tammi?" "He's here," she said in reply, "Get ready for battle." Aislin went a bit more tense when she heard Hojo chuckle over the loudspeaker. "For an unenhanced human, you certainly have good sight. I don't suppose you'd mind lending yourself to a couple of experiments? I'm certain I can lower the chance of death." Aislin readily shot back, "That depends. What's the chance of being permanently crippled in some way?" "Tammi!" Kahlua hissed, and she muttered, "What, I'm being serious." "That is the problem!" Hojo chuckled again and commented, "Genuine interest, I haven't had that in a long while." He sighed, shaking his head in dismay. "Unfortunately, you're standing right in our test area. If you do survive this, please let me know; I'm sure I'll have something suitable for you and your allies." So saying, a loud click sounded and a black creature with gnarled-root like limbs clambered down, snarling as the pinkish tentacles below its eyes and on the back of the head writhed about. Hojo merely tapped a few keys and stepped into the elevator, going up. Aislin immediately backed away, bringing out her electric spear as she barked out, "No weaknesses to speak of, has a slight resistance to Thunder magic, is immune to Poison Slow and Demi, Gravity, whatever you call it. This thing is highly adaptable, mix up your strategies from time to time. Lots of health, lots of offenaive power!" Kudret urged, "Tammi, you need to get away!" "This thing can spawn little creatures, Kudret," she responded, "I'm not sure anywhere down here is safe..."

Rikazu had been following along, keeping himself focused on their surroundings for the most part. When Aislin stopped and told them to get ready for battle, the mage immediately drew one of his staves. If things were about to get ugly, he would be ready. It wasn't long before the black creature appeared before them; Rikazu listened to Aislin's explanation of the enemy they were facing, and then started casting his magic, soon letting a Mighty Guard drop on everyone. He avoided using it on Kudret though, remembering Diemia's explanation from earlier. "Well, I suppose this means I get to cut loose again", the mage mused. With all the different types of magic he currently had access to, it wouldn't be much a problem to keep changing attacks. "I'll make sure to freeze any little ones that spawn before they get anywhere near you, Tammi."

Ama stood there, eyeing Hojo with what could only be described as absolutely murderous intent, but given the situation, she could just chase after the freak, her eyes caught a spark off to the side, she glanced off and noticed a blur leap out of a crater, vanishing in a similar display of sparks, "Git 'em." stepping forward a switch was decided upon, the new having a hand placed on their shoulder dragging them back, the redhead stepping forward, "Yeah no, gimme a second, this things got a temporal wall around it, don't give me those looks you don't spend nearly a decade working as an effective 'Time Police' and not notice these things." Celere walked forward, a 'blip' similar to a TV screen shutting off indicating she'd walked through something, but with the sudden lack of a feeling, it was clear whatever it was was gone, for now, 'Mercei' as she called herself spoke up, "Ignore the main thing for now, Ranged focus on deleting the small fry, Front Liners take out the tanks! This thing'll just endlessly regenerate if the tanks on the walls are left as a supply for it!" she herself bolted towards a wall, swapping back and forth as a means of slaughtering the aforementioned 'small fry' and cleaving aside any attacks that came it's way, once at the wall, she proceeded to push a panel, a small noise of triumph coming from her, "Moronic Uppers, never bothered checking this place, easy." she walked into a closet, returning seconds later with a few firearms that had a certain... 'Menace' coming off them.