[center][h3]Film Those Freaks - What the Fac-tory I[/h3]
Blazermate’s [@Archmage MC], Roxas and Captain Falcon’s [@Double], Level 13 Ms Fortune (150/130)
[b]Word Count:[/b] 2849 (+3)[/center]

Blazermate wasn’t sure what to make of the area. She was surprised her helmet was shaped to work with her ponytails, even if she didn’t really need air. Sliding the visor up, she got a look at the area. Something about it was… wrong but considering they were going to find some horrific monsters, that made sense. [color=0072bc]”Tell me about it. But he's enthusiastic and that's fun!”[/color] Blazermate said, giving her input on Nadia’s observation of Ballyhoo.

And while the sudden addition of a helmet didn’t look so strange for Roxas, for the Captain on the other hand? Well, now Falcon was comically wearing [i]two[/i] helmets, since the one from the minigame had formed itself over his F-Zero helmet. So that was certainly a funny thing to look at. Not that the F-Zero Pilot was bothered by it. He was nothing if not able to roll with the punches and take things in stride. [color=1f66b2]"No hard feelings."[/color] Cap said in agreement with Nadia’s comment about them now being on the same team. But he did shoot a look between her and Roxas, [color=1f66b2]"But let’s try to play these games fairly from now on, are we clear?"[/color]

[color=gold]"Hehe… sorry…"[/color] Roxas said sheepishly, knowing good and well that he and Midna were the most disliked team in the previous game due to their frankly underhanded tactics, [color=gold]"But you got it, Captain. Fair and square from now on. I promise."[/color]

Pointing at the bell device, Nadia asked how it worked, with Blazermate scratching her head. [color=0072bc]”It's a minigame, so it should be pretty simple. I’m more worried about the camera.”[/color] Blazermate said, walking over to pick up the camera they had to use. [color=0072bc]”Hope this doesn’t get water logged. Uh…. Who wants to be the camera person? I’ll do it if no one else wants it.”[/color]

Nadia blinked at the medabot who’d just taken the camera out of her hands, then asked if anyone wanted it. It came across as a rather strange behavior, but the feral brushed it aside; at the end of the day, could a machine really understand what constituted normal or abnormal human behavior? “Looks like you just volunteered,” Nadia told her, crossing her arms. “I oughta be the action star anyway. Whatever these monsters are we’re dealing with, they can’t be scarier than the crap we dealt with in the Dead Zone. Those hordes were so big, I couldn’t zom-believe it.” Between that undead nightmare and Blue Team’s horrible night on Carcass Isle, she didn’t know which was worse. Then again, maybe the Maw had been the worst out of all of them, since she couldn’t fight back. As long as she had a fighting chance, there were no horrors she felt like she couldn’t overcome at this point. Of course, Blazermate had been by her side through all of that, and now they stood united once more. 

The cat burglar glanced over at the diving bell. “No time like the purr-esent, right? Last one in’s a rotten egg!” Almost fully recovered, both physically and mentally, from her earlier loss of blood, Nadia took off running toward the vessel that would deliver the team to the darkness. If she noticed the shop board on the way, she gave no sign.

[color=0072bc]”Hey, but what about this uh, kiosk thing with all these weird deals on it? Don’t you wanna purr-ruse this one?”[/color] Blazermate said, trying her attempt at a pun. She hadn’t been around Nadia for a good while nor in a spot to relax, so now was the perfect time to play along. The kiosk Blazermate was pointing at being the sponsor kiosk.

“Huh???” Half-expecting an attempt to sabotage her race results, Nadia glanced over for only a moment, but she did in fact see some sort of standing doohickey. Being from an era long before the information age, she tended to filter stuff like this out, and only after a moment did she realize that yeah, there seemed to be more to that thing than initially met the eye. She slid to a stop in the grass, reasoning that she’d proven herself in one race today already, and trotted over. What she saw didn’t end up exciting her, though, and not just because she couldn’t really intuit what any of the devices were for.. “What, we have to use our rift tokens to get more doodads?” She laughed. “Well, you’ve gotta be doodaddlebrained to think I’d throw ‘em away like that! I earned ‘em fair and square, so I’m gonna get myself some purr-izes.” The feral shrugged, a teasing smirk on her face. “Of course, not everyone’s as slick as I am, so if you wanna shell out, feel free~”

[color=1f66b2]"These, uh, “doodads” look like they could serve as important upgrades for our video equipment."[/color] Cap pointed out and then added. [color=1f66b2]”Then again, there may be something to be said about a deliberately low-quality video too. Could give it a certain vintage horror movie vibe that some viewers might enjoy over all that modern hi-definition gobbledegook."[/color]

[color=gold]"I think I get it."[/color] Roxas commented. [color=gold]"Twilight Town has something like that I think. It’s an outdoor film venue that shows these old-timey looking films, and people seem to love them."[/color]

[color=1f66b2]"Exactly!"[/color] Falcon confirmed. [color=1f66b2]"So let’s ask ourselves: Do we want a hyper-realistic modern HD video or a more old-school vintage horror experience?"[/color]

Nadia stared at him blankly. His words might as well be TV static–not that she’d know what that was. “...Beats me! Movies were like, invented within my lifetime I’m pretty sure. You guys can fritter your tokens away if you want, I’ll be over here!” She turned with a happy-go-lucky wave and resumed her trek toward the diving bell. “Figure it out quick though. There’s no time to waits!”

Blazermate looked at the stuff the sponsors were offering as she scrolled through the list, seeing a couple already taken. Still, seeing what these sponsors gave and what the rules were, Blazermate got an idea. [color=0072bc]”Hey guys, I can fly, and I can keep my hand steady like these drone and tripod upgrades here, so we don’t need them. Seems that these sponsors offer better rewards but you gotta fill a condition. Like this soda company offering extra stuff for showing their product, or this weird one where we gotta dance with the monsters and such? Anyone see anything they wanna do? Otherwise I think we’ll have a leg up. We only have 1 medabot on the team after all.”[/color] Blazermate said, making a sound like she was sticking out her tongue, even though she had no mouth.

[color=1f66b2]"Sounds like you can already do most of the things the sponsors are offering."[/color] Falcon concurred. [color=1f66b2]"I suppose we can’t really know what style to go for until we actually see what it is we have to work with."[/color]

[color=gold]"Yeah, let's at least go have a peek at what it looks like down there."[/color] Roxas agreed, [color=gold]"Otherwise we’ll waste too much time overthinking it."[/color] Both of them in agreement, they went to join Nadia in the bell.

As they approached, though, they didn’t see the team’s resident thief inside the diving bell. Only once Blazermate, Roxas, and Falcon stepped inside did a noise bring their attention to the crank by the door, where Nadia’s detached arms were spinning the wheel with jets of blood. “Welcome aboard everyone!” The next moment Nadia herself dropped down from above, landing right on the big lever on the terminal at the diving bell’s back. Immediately the whole bell jerked, then began to descend. On the screen, her selected destination flashed: the Factory. “Let’s get this show on the road!” she roared over the rattling tumult.

[color=gold]"Bwah!"[/color] Roxas yelped. The last time he’d seen Nadia’s disembodied arms it nearly resulted in a tumble down a mountain, not to mention the grossness of them grabbing onto him. Falcon, on the other hand, was less surprised. But this did give him an idea.

[color=1f66b2]"You know, this could be a great way for us to get some realistic bloody effects in our little movie."[/color] Cap suggested thoughtfully.

[hr]

After about forty seconds, during which the excitement from Nadia’s surprise wore off and left her to sheepishly recollect her arms, the diving bell began to slow down. Then it stopped with a sudden jerk, suggesting that the vessel had come to rest. With no windows or portholes of any kind, the passengers could only wonder at what dark depths lay on the other side of that door, their expectations colored by what little they’d heard and inferred about it so far. No sounds whatsoever penetrated the steel hull to reach them from outside.

“Well, I never heard or felt a splash,” Nadia reasoned. “Here’s hoping we’re not underwater. Still, what an ‘immersive’ experience, nyeheh.” She rubbed her hands together, laid them on the crank, and gave it a creaky spin. Then the diving bell’s door swung open, revealing the Old World.

Most of it was pitch-black, a pure void even darker than a starless night sky. Warm light flooded out from within the diving bell, but it only got so far, illuminating a junkyard full of scrap metal strewn all over. Beyond, illuminated only by an inexplicable, dim, stark white glow, the four could see the titular Factory, a huge, dilapidated block of a building. It made for an ominous sight, made all the stranger by the fact that everything, from the smallest cog to the walls of the Factory to the ground itself, appeared to be completely grayscale, cross-hatched in black as if eroded by the darkness itself. For now, though, Nadia couldn’t see any monsters. Just a sprawling ruin, perfectly quiet and perfectly still.

[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/Npn3yYD.png[/img][/center]

The feral whistled. “Whew, spooky.” Though she’d reflexively flattened her ears in alarm, the big grin on her face suggested an excitement for the thrills ahead. “I can’t wait!”

[color=1f66b2]"Hmm."[/color] Falcon hummed thoughtfully as he glanced around at the area, [color=1f66b2]"Dark lighting… pretty good atmosphere…"[/color] he commented and then gave a thumbs up. [color=1f66b2]"Perfect, but I wonder what this place’d look like through a grainy black-and-white filter?"[/color] he rubbed his chin and then shrugged. [color=1f66b2]"Well, either way we’ve got our set. Now we just need our monsters…"[/color]

[color=gold]"Are those monsters supposed to be, like, real or something?"[/color] Roxas wondered, [color=gold]"Will we have to actually defend ourselves on film or whatever?"[/color]

[color=1f66b2]"Excellent question."[/color] Cap replied. [color=1f66b2]"I have no idea. We’ll just have to cross that bridge when we get to it."[/color]

“Filter? This place is already black and white, just like the movies I’ve seen. Pretty grainy too…” Though her eyes were keener than most, Nadia couldn’t detect any movement among the assorted odds and ends of the junkyard. Of course, that didn’t mean that nothing lurked in the darkness–just that its denizens were hidden. Or waiting deeper inside. After scanning the area, Nadia focused on the decrepit, boxy structure up ahead. “The creeps in question must be in there. Let’s take a looksie.” With her oxygen already starting to tick down, Nadia couldn’t afford to wait. Still, even if this was just a game, Nadia instinctively kept her voice down and her footsteps light.


[color=0072bc]”I don’t know… the gray background would make Nadia’s blood pop… that's such a weird sentence to say.”[/color] Blazermate said, shaking her head after having said something that made her out to be a psychopath. [color=0072bc]”Uh…Right. I’ll keep scanning for some monsters. Maybe we’ll find a good one?”[/color]

[color=1f66b2]"If I had to guess…"[/color] Cap mused, [color=1f66b2]"...then I’d say our best bet’s going to be the factory itself."[/color] he said and then added, [color=1f66b2]"I’ll take point."[/color] almost as if instinctively. But after a moment he paused. [color=1f66b2]"Or maybe our resident ‘Action Star’ should…?"[/color] he asked with a gesture in Nadia’s direction. After all, if any of them wanted to be attacked by something, it had to be the one most capable of making it look real. And that was the one who could literally pull her own limbs off.

[color=gold]"Maybe we could scout it out first?"[/color] Roxas suggested with a shrug of his shoulders, [color=gold]"We do wanna save the bloodsplatter for the filming itself, right?"[/color]

[color=1f66b2]"That works, too."[/color] Falcon agreed with a thumbs up. [color=1f66b2]"Let’s just head into the factory for now and get a feel for what we’re up against."[/color] As such, he stuck with his original instinct to take point and head into the factory entrance first, although Roxas wasn’t far behind him.

The structure itself turned out to be smaller than it first appeared, little more than a big, hollow box, with nothing in it but scraps of rubble and machinery. However, a large square opening lay directly in its center, and within stood a large spiral staircase, each step at least a dozen feet long. The entire party could stand shoulder to shoulder and still descend comfortably, but the staircase went a long way down, leading deep into the true Factory–a labyrinthine underground structure.

As much as she wanted to take the plunge, Nadia instead  took off her head and held it by her own hair out over the edge, peering down. “Long drop. Guess we’d better take the safe way down. What’s it they say about ‘stairing’ into the abyss…?”

While the feral spoke, Blazermate’s scanners finally picked up something. A yellowish gelatinous mass shaped somewhat like a tardigrade but as large as a sleeping bag, and moving as fast as a car. However, with no interest in her, it seemed to be zooming toward one of her teammates in particular. It didn’t make much noise, so the others hadn’t noticed it yet thanks to the muffling helmets and Nadia’s chatter. Blazermate found herself with a choice to make.

[color=0072bc]”Uh… hm….”[/color] Blazermate thought to herself as she saw the ooze. Granted she didn’t know how much damage it’d do if it grabbed someone, she was going to get quite the reaction. Flying up, she got a good picture of the ooze sneaking up on one of the party members and getting ready to grab them. If things got bad, she could zoom off and actually help them.

She didn’t have to wait long to get results. Just a couple seconds later, the slime slammed into Captain Falcon. Its gooey body deformed around him, and it got about halfway through before the man got stuck in the living jelly. At that point it shot off like a rocket, zipping down the stairs with such speed that none of the other team members really knew what hit them. The sudden scare made Nadia jump, her hairs standing on end, but the next moment her panicked yowl gave way to helpless laughter. While trapped in the gelatinous beast, Falcon’s voice got distorted in a way that just so happened tickled her funnybone immensely. Of course, she knew that an abduction was no laughing matter, and after taking a moment to compose herself Nadia jumped to bypass the stairs and make up for the slime’s head start.

Cap had gone to punch the gelatinous ooze by pure instinct. Of course, its slimy body made it a poor match for his fist, and the pilot was engulfed in it instead. Remembering that he would be on camera by now, Falcon started flailing his arms and feigning a struggle to escape. At one point he even put his hands on his own neck and gestured as if he was running out of air and on the verge of suffocating, just to ham it up for the video. But when the slime dragged him away and he became certain the camera wasn’t as focused on him, Cap dropped the act somewhat and began to look around for some kind of means to escape.

[color=gold]"Captain, noooo!"[/color] Roxas shouted out, also hamming it up a bit for the camera. Although he was quite a bit more genuinely concerned when the slime suddenly zoomed off with the captive Captain in tow. Looked like they were gonna have to pull a rescue while still selling this as a horror video.

Having got a good shot, Blazermate stopped recording and said. [color=0072bc]”Ok, we’d better go get Capt.”[/color] pointing at which direction he went and zooming off.

“On my way!” Nadia’s voice echoed up from the spiral stairwell below.