[IC] Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

[Flood]

Cobalt sighed as Emerald attempted to slip by everyone, just because they didnt have the hearing of a Faunus didn't mean they couldn't hear at all. "Hey Diamond, could you go after her?" Before he had even finished the sentence she was already gone, pursuing the runaway neko. Cobalt sighed and looked at Oswald. "I think I might be getting out today. Any news for you?"

His scroll suddenly beeped as he received a message from Diamond.

To: Take aim first ask later
You look like you'll be the first one out, assuming Emerald doesn't sneak off again. Come find me when you do,
I want to talk about something. Alone.

Cobalt frowned and began typing a quick response.

To: Hat Aficionado 
No problem, I should be out by the end of the day. Make sure to tell Emerald not to get out of bed till she's fully healed. I'll buy a bribe if I have to.
I'll text you once I get out.

Cobalt put his scroll into sleep mode and set it down. "Sorry, had to take that." Cobalt explained to Oswald quickly.
@Forsythe@MULTI_MEDIA_MAN

[Plank Sinatra]

Whaaaat the shiiiiit is he talking about?

She didn't like the way that both Ben and Amy had gained consciousness so quickly, or how alert they both looked. If she didn't know better, Lauren would almost begin to think that they were expecting forward inertia out of her. Well, her sculpted black ass was not so easily budged, team. Before she was roped into doing anything for these slave masters, she would need to...

growl

"...eaaaaaaat."

Luckily, after twelve years fighting on the front lines of the struggle, she had prepared for just kind of this Saturday morning eventuality. The hand that clutched her phone dropped down to check on the location of a bag she'd left between Amy's bed and her own, which Cap must have crashed in the night before. Sure enough, there it was - a few burgers and some fries (Vacuan seasoned) that she had brought home for the team from the night before. To keep them fresh and unsquished, Lauren, in her drunken wisdom, had made sure to leave them nestled close to the space heater that was built into the wall so that they were kept constantly toasty throughout the night. She was just too fucking good.

Lauren's head tilted down to face the bag of food directly, but her chin got stuck and dug into the barrel of something that made her blink. Lawnslot. The bet. More of the evening flooded back to the carjacker as she grinned.

"I'll tell ya later, Desire. It was pretty much a failure doe. The girls who came near Cap kept losing hands in freak...hand loss accidents." She winked at her best friend and produced the tonfa from her bra, holding it to the back of her neck and cracking it once each way. Then she stood - long ebony legs slunk out from underneath Amy's (lack of) covers and bent so that she could jut her chin out and rest it on one knee. She spun her hemp anklet idly by one of its charm - a little Vacuan amethyst in the shape of a sports car, and a birthday present from her mother this past year - before she slowly scooched over and stood at the foot of Amy's bed.

And, without a hint of modesty, the underwear-clad girl bent over backwards with several cracks that seemed to intensify. In pitch and in sensation.

"Ah-ahh-uungh-ahhhhhh~"

As quickly as she had contorted herself, she stood upright again, hair a mess, muscles in her chest and core relaxing, and teeth chewing the end of her lip in wicked amusement. Both her teammates looked at her like she was a succubus or something.

"Sooo..." she drawled, starting to sound more awake now that she'd violently loosened up, "what are you cuties so awake for this ayy-emm?"

[Suku]

It was interesting to say the least to see just how far a animal can understand human emotions and so forth. If anything Scoot's story showed how rare it's ability was if the scientific study was anything to go by. While it was someone what simple minded she would put it had a good heart it seems and knew what it wanted. With a smirk Cian continued to think on how far Aura can take people and apparently she could add animals to that list. Scoot was definately the fist aura using animale she seen and she was pretty sure she wasn't going to run into another anytime soon. "Quite interesting" she muttered to herelf while taking off her jacket due to feeling hot while tying it to her waist.
@Lucius Cypher@Sho Minazuki

[MULTI_MEDIA_MAN]

Oswald Connoly- Infirmary

Welp, so much for dodging that question. Fucking...what do you think Diamond?! Oswald had to pause to compose himself. "Nothing short of getting shot by the damned machine cannon would keep me from tearing those assholes limb from limb if I saw one of them again, so let's go with yes. Lots of unyielding desire for vengeance. Fuck, I don't even think we learned their names, Cobalt. Just their fucking callsigns."

When Emerald ran out, though, Oswald was paralyzed with conflicting emotions. Empathy for the presumably scared girl trying to run away from her problems, anger for not trying to address the source of the problem, and worry for how she'd handle it when- if- one of them got killed on a mission.

All he could do was sigh and shake his head as Diamond ran off after their Faunus teammate. He barely registered Cobalt's question, and took a few seconds to answer. "A little light exercise- guided by the nurses, of course- just to make sure I didn't get too fucked up. Broken bones are bad enough, but if any of my muscles got torn or something, that's another few days to a week out of commission to make sure I don't end up with a hernia."

He was so looking forward to that.

[Lucius Cypher]

Air Docks
Ready for adventure

Things were starting to get a bit out of hand, but it wasn’t anything unusual for Gren. Seemed like a lot of things he gets involved in tends to get blown out of proportions. If any more people showed up Gren would be legitimately concerned about trying to feed and entertain all of them. Ironically enough, it wasn’t until Shiro came dashing in that the situation could be more controllable. The white tiger came in fast as he crashed into Gren, but as he was already in a low seated position he only slightly tilted forward. Looking over at Shiro, Gren picked his friend up and dusted him off. Then Gren handed a Shiro a skewer before he started packing up his grill.

”About time you showed up. I thought me and Sangue were going to have to hunt you down! Well, the gang’s all here then.” Gren looked over to Skyra and Emerald, who was now joined by Sepia and Diamond. Sepia wanted to know about their birthdays out of the blue, but Gren obliged her request. ”July fourth.” It also seemed that Emerald was skipping out of a very important healing process called resting. Gren gave Emerald a sympathetic smile and spoke. ”You should head back with Diamond and rest up Emerald. We can play together once you’re feeling better. Anyways, me, Shiro and Sangue are going to head to Forever Fall’s to pick up some raw materials for upgrades. If you have any request, come find me!”

It was then that their airship had arrived. Once Gren had all this things put away he walked into the airship bound for Forever Fall, hopefully with Shiro and Sangue in tow. He still had the scent of his kebabs fresh on his person, though he intended to get some alone time to rid himself of the stretch. As delicious as it smelled, it was a bit awkward to smell like BBQ. ”You two make yourself comfortable, we’ll be at Forever Fall’s in no time.”

@Forsythe@NarayanK@harinezumikouken@SevenStormStyle@Abillioncats@PyroDash888

[Krayzikk]

@Plank Sinatra @Kaithas @NarayanK

Woooo-sah.

Ben didn't miss a beat, drinking in the hot, black c o f f e e he needed to keep his wits about him. Coffee. Bitter. Bitter coffee. Fixate on that. The coffee.

"It was pretty... Chaotic. And Lauren and I have a very different definition of 'accident'." The brown-haired boy commented, taking another drink of the coffee and casting a glance Amy's way. He held up his closed notebook towards Lauren by way of answer, then elaborated; "I woke up early, decided to get some work done instead of going back to sleep. It's a Saturday, so I haven't got much else to do."

"I'll swing by the armory later, see about getting acquainted. And you and I have a date with a new tonfa."

[Sho Minazuki]

Jack Orpheus

@Lucius Cypher@Suku

Jack froze completely as he listened to the ferret's story, holding his sandwich mid-bite before lowering it around the end of the story. So it's been through a lot, he never thought he'd hear it from its own mouth. It seems Scoot belongs to Team Swansong, pet-wise, technically, even if it didn't feel that way it was a much more convenient term. Between experiments and the regular meeting someone nice and now it's good times, what were those experiments all about...? Scoot was probably not the right one to ask about that, but he felt he didn't want to know anyways.

"Mhm, mhm, sounds good for you now... Cian why were you following it around? And where's Gren and all?", he spoke in-between his bites.

[Ookawa]

@Lucius Cypher@Abillioncats@SevenStormStyle

Skyra poked Emerald's nose before moving onto the meal. "Follow your team leader's advice, Emmy! You're still sick!"
She took a plate and two steaks and proceeded to munch on them. On the steak, not the plate, that is.

In the middle of a chewing on a piece of roasted meat, Skyra noticed a bit too late what Gren had said.
"Ah, you're going to get stuff, I nee..." aaaand that was when the doors to the airship closed and it lifted off. Skyra stood there, staring at the airship taking off into the distance, her mouth covered with a few spots of barbecue sauce. "Shit..."

Instead of continuing to eat, Skyra pulled out a handkerchief, cleaned her head, her mouth and anything else dirty before moving on to turn on her scroll and starting up the messaging application.

To: The Grim One
Uh, I didn't manage to tell you. I plan to modify/create a new weapon.
A bow that converts into two blades with a quiver armed with dust tipped arrows. 
If you manage to find some materials for that on your excursion, 
I'd be happy to take them from you, even buy them from you, if you need me to.

~Skyra

She pressed "send" and put her scroll away and turned to Sepia. "May fifth. My birthday." She grinned and went back to her steaks waiting for a response.

[Abillioncats]

@PyroDash888@Kaithas@MULTI_MEDIA_MAN@Forsythe@floodtalon

Emerald's tail fluffed up a bit when she heard Diamond's scolding voice. She'd been hoping it would have taken longer for Diamond to find her. Her facial expression was like one of a child who had been caught with her hand in the cookie jar.

"My...my mom?" Emerald almost rolled her eyes, her mom was about as gentle and softhearted as they could get. Diamond's threat wasn't scary to her at all. "The worst she'd do is sent me a get well soon card with a lot of hearts on it." Her dad on the other hand well...she wasn't gonna think about that.

Gren told her she should get some rest, and even Skyra said about the same as she poked her nose. Maybe...maybe it would be better to just go back with Diamond, she was feeling more than a little tired, all the walking she had done just to get to the hanger had been more exhausting than she wanted to admit.

Wait no! She didn't want to go back there, she hated being stuck in there! All it did was remind her what had happened to her and her team. And...and she was afraid, afraid of a repeat of her latest nightmare. She used to love sleeping and having dreams, but now she was terrified of the idea.

She looked at Diamond, her body a bit shaky as she steadied herself. She felt sick with dread and combining that with her weakened, dizzy body was making it difficult to even stand there. _{"I...I don't want to go back...please..."} She said, barely audible as she found herself leaning against a wall. Her vision blurred as she found it more difficult to focus, her heart pumping loudly as she felt more and more panicked.

[harinezumikouken]

Kuhaku Shiro

"I'm okay!"

The world in his vision spun. Round and round endlessly making him feel queasy as he swore he heard the annoying twitter of circling birds flying overhead, though he couldn't see them. From just below the very border of his vision, he saw Sangue's face pop up offering her one and only hand to help him up after his little...'mishap'. Smiling, just about to reach for her offered hand to help himself up, Gren beat her to the punch and scooped him up.

Like a kitten being grabbed by its scruff, Shiro's body stiffened until he was set back onto his feet. Blinking, he did a quick self check. Still had feeling in his toes. Still had feeling in his hands. He could see, hear, and smell everything okay. He didn't feel like he was going to immediately die and didn't sense any feeling of danger. So, he was okay. Smiling with ears twitching happily, he lived through another one of his 'moments'. Speaking of smell Gren handed him a kebab of meat, to which he stared at for a moment before realizing that was what smelled so good. What was with Gren constantly cooking anyways? He could never understand his friend's obsession with it, but everyone had their hobbies so he just shrugged and bit into his gifted snack. As he ate, airship just off in the distance, he turned his attention to the others in the group and saw that quite a little crowd had gathered. Was it because of Gren's cooking or was everyone going to Forever Falls for different reasons?

Nomming away, he saw a particular faunus girl that he knew a bit better than the rest. That...canine faunus. Sepia. She was apparently going around asking others for their birthdays for one reason or another. Hearing each of them list off the days and months they were born, Shiro's chewing slowed as his expression sobered up.

...
He didn't know his birthday.
Truth be told, he hadn't known his birthday for as far as memory would allow.

When he was discovered, found, rescued, whatever you want to call it. They just assumed his age or so he thought. Whenever he attempted to ask the adults responsible for overseeing him and the other orphans, they simply told him "You're [blank] age now." Without ever giving a specific year, month, or day. It made a few things difficult in his life, but for simplicity's sake, he always figured that whenever the new year rolled around that he had also aged a year. So, on all official documents with his personal information, he always put January 1st and counted back the years appropriately for his birth year.

He could've been either much older or younger than he thought, but without any information, family, relatives to refer to, there was no telling. As with many things in his life, they were all lies, made up, or assumed. Information filled into blank, empty space to simply fill in a box on a form.

So, he slowly turned away from Sepia and the others. Acting as if he hadn't heard the question posed to them all and looked up to see the airship coming and quickly finished off his kebab. Pulling his hood over his head and ears, Shiro slipped out his Scroll and resumed his work on the finer details of Sangue's future arm. Intent on staying as under the radar as he could all of a sudden, after his ...energetic entrance.

[Suku]

Cian Kuze

@Lucius Cypher@Sho Minazuki
"Mhm, mhm, sounds good for you now... Cian why were you following it around? And where's Gren and all?"

"Unsure and curious never seen something quite like it before." Cian replied it was true she hadn't seen Gren and to be honest the animal known as Scoot interested her she never seen a animal capable of using aura or doing what it does. So to be honest the sheer spectacle of what it was made her curious. Sure she was mainly one to experiment on dust on how it can affect ammo but she couldn't help but wonder at the animal.

[Awesomoman64]

Infirmary

Walking to the infirmary Trad felt his scroll go off again, most likely Diamond replying to his text. He made a note to check it later but for now he wanted to focus on his current task. Pushing past the infirmary doors Trad located a member of the staff and asked about Robert’s condition. ”Excuse me I’m looking for Robert Fallson. Would you happen to know where he is and how he’s doing?”

“Sure one second.” The nurse pulled out her scroll and began looking through all the names of those checked in. Theirs must not have been the only mission to go South because Trad had never heard of so many being admitted at once. “Here he is, Robert Fallson. Looks like he sustained some nasty injuries and just got out of surgery, but he is awake and fully responsive. I can take you to him if you’d like?”

”Thank you, I would much appreciate that.” He said before following the nurse to Robert. Once he was located the nurse excused herself needing to attend to other matters.

Robert sat in his bed staring out the window, completely unaware of Trad’s presence. ”Robert… Trad said hoping to gain his attention. Nothing. Perhaps there was something outside of greater interest? Trad glanced through the window but saw nothing notable. ”You doing alright?” He asked. Still no response.

Finally Trad put his hand on Robert’s shoulder and shook him a bit finally snapping him from his daydreams. ”Hey. Just came down to see how you’re holding up. Considering only a few hours ago you were unconscious and strapped to a stretcher I’d say you’re looking much better.”

Before they could converse for long, Professor Ozpin appeared no doubt wanting to talk to Robert about the mission. ”Hello again Professor. I just came down to see how he was doing. I can step out if you need to talk in private?”

@Guess Who@Lugubrious

[Guess Who]

"Yeah, I guess all I needed was a few pain meds and some good ol' fashion bandages and I'd be right as rain," Robert said, his enthusiastic tone coming off as very disingenuous. "Though, the doctors told me I'm not allowed to leave this room for at least a day so I guess I don't look as good as I feel."

At that moment, the school headmaster, Ozpin himself, stepped into the room. The boy couldn't help but wonder what reason someone as important as the man who ran all of Beacon would ever want to come to his room. He was just a lowly student, another face among the masses with no skill or talent to speak of. Did he do this every time a hunter-in-training was in as bad a condition as Robert was in or was he here for something else? He had been the team leader on a mission that went completely FUBAR and they had lost Delta. No, he had lost Delta. It was his responsibility to make sure everyone came home in one piece, and just like with his old team, he had failed. That was it. It had to be. Ozpin was here to send him away. He had screwed up one too many times and the school had finally decided that enough was enough.

"Um... Hello, sir," the red haired hunter said, doing his best to try and look the headmaster in the face. It was no easy task though. After all, this was the boy's dream. To succeed where his father had failed and make his family proud. And now those dreams were about to be quickly dashed. The best he could do was to face his punishment like a man and accept the school's decision. Closing his eyes, Robert held his head high as he waited for the impending bad news.

[Lugubrious]

Infirmary

@Awesomoman64@Guess Who

Ozpin's eyes narrowed when Robert failed to answer his question. All the same, the act of evasion confirmed what Beacon's headmaster needed to know. Not only was the boy capable of intelligent speech, but more likely than not he acutely remembered the dire turn of events that led up to the current situation. Their weight on his conscience, implied by the obvious difficulty Robert encountered when attempting to make eye contact, hinted that his part in the woeful proceedings might be just as extensive as Grane indicated. Eventually, Robert closed his eyes with his head held up, perhaps waiting to be struck by whatever Ozpin had to say. No matter how pitiable a profile the boy made, though, the silver-haired scholar would not pull his punches. This was a matter of life and death that commanded utmost seriousness, and should all allegations be accurate, due punishment.

“On your watch, your teammate Delta was lost. Based on the testimony of your teammates, your actions played a substantial part in this horrific event. As such, you have been temporarily stripped of your title as team leader. I am here to hear from you every detail you can recall about the incident, and once your story is told, I will judge whether or not you are to be expelled from Beacon Academy.” Ozpin let that linger for a moment so that the weight of his words might sink in. “Of course, that's not the end of it. If I determined that your actions did directly lead to Delta's presumed death, you will be handed over to Vale's authorities for an official trial and perhaps incarceration. Needless to say, I expect you to be completely honest with me, Mr. Fallson.” He turned his gaze to Trad. “Mr. Oak, I would like you to remain here during the proceedings so that you may affirm the truth or weed out the falsehood in what your teammate has to say.”

With that, Ozpin's steely eyes returned to Robert. No softness or humility remained in him; with his hands clasped in front of him upon his cane, and a frown on his face, he bore the countenance of a judge. Of course, in this situation, a judge he was.

[Lady Seraphina]

Sapphire Rode and Geni Hung - Into the Woods

Into the Woods Collab

[Kaithas]

@Plank Sinatra, @Krayzikk

On the one hand, it wasn’t like she hadn’t done that exact same thing before.

On the other… Daaaaaaamn.

Amy raised her eyebrows at Lauren and winked, communicating her appreciation, then stretched herself, though she didn’t exactly put the same emphasis on it that her teammate did. One obnoxiously hot woman flaunting it was probably all Ben could handle on a single morning, and to be entirely honest she’d probably flaunted it a little too much in her time.

“I think I may make a trip to the armory as well. I’m tossing around an idea in my head to modify the Fury somewhat, or maybe do something new entirely. Don’t know yet. As for later, it is Saturday, so… Maybe I’ll go out.”

Her shoulders rolled once, the left one popping from where she’d slept on it. She could always ask Lauren after she and Ben did whatever they were going to do. It was something of a role reversal for her, being the one doing the asking, but… She was sure she could get over it.

[Write]

@Silvan Haven, @Crimmy, @Plank Sinatra, @HereComesTheSnow

Float on

I felt a smile creep up on my lips before I could stop it. Gratia had a point. Even if nothing changed by the end of this cruise, my life could only improve if I stood my ground, accepted what had happened to me and put in the time to heal. That’s what this cruise was supposed to be about. It felt like the past day had been an eternity. But I finally felt ready to accept my life as it was. At least I had a peaceful environment with which to do that in.

I smiled warmly at Gratia, the tears in my eyes seemed to be stopping finally. I wrapped my arms around my friend and squeezed tightly. People always looked at us in wonderment, as if, how could I possibly know that Gratia actually likes me. How could she enjoy spending time with me?

It was simple really. When one saw how much she went through for my sake, and how open she was about what a pain in the ass it is. Clearly, she’d put herself through a lot for me. I was the luckiest girl in the world to have a best friend like her.

“Thank you for coming, I’m okay now and I’ll be better tomorrow. Can I walk you out?” I said, standing up beside the bed and absentmindedly fixing my hair into a neat little side ponytail, and then another on the other side. Estelle always sucked and fixing her hair without a mirror which was bad when it was her main form of fidgeting. Mine always looked perfect. I stepped into the slippers that came complimentary with the room and straightened out my clothes since I had been laying down before.

God I hope I can repay Gratia one day.

[Crimmy]

@Plank Sinatra@Write@Silvan Haven@HereComesTheSnow

Gratia didn't say anything as her compatriot chose to embrace her. It was a sudden course of action, but it was not unexpected in the least. Nuit was an excessively tactile person, and while it could be too fucking much in numerous situations, she was not bothered at all by it in the current one. Not when the other Mistralese girl had decided that throwing a tarp over all her shit was no longer the correct way to proceed. Bianca Nuit was willing to face her problems head-on, and if she needed some outlet for her emotions, Gratia couldn't give a single shit about how she proceeded to do so as long as she stopped pretending that running away was good for her mental health.

A hug was utterly harmless.

"You're still not fine," she said flatly, voice tightly controlled even as Nuit pulled away. "Not yet."

The path Nuit would need to take was an arduous one. She could ask Gratia to leave all she wanted, but she wouldn't comply until she was entirely sure that the idiot birdbrain was safely on her way out of the bullshit. It was foolishly naive to believe that a little fucking pep talk could solve everything. This type of work needed ass-pounding amounts of effort, effort that she was deigning to expend on her former teammate.

"I'll stay and admire your new choice in hairstyles," Gratia Mindaro continued, onyx eyes glancing up at the modifications Bianca was making to her hair. "You'll look like a fucking child with those pigtails."

[Plank Sinatra]

For anyone who had grown up with the horrifyingly-pastel CGI recreation of Alice in Wonderland, or perhaps the lovably murderous shark from Finding Nemo, Lauren Negasi's luminescent grin would be instantly recognizable. The look on her face grew positively gleeful as the last remaining member of Bastille agreed to tag along to the armory.

"Fuuuuck yeaaaaah, team bonding!" she crowed, balling her hands into fists and pumping them downwards. "I'm not gonna be satisfied until we're all combined at the cellular level! Complete with fusion dances and funky earrings, nig-gaaaaa!"

...

She gassed herself out quickly as something struck her.

"But we should leave a note for Sangue, in case, like," Lauren thought aloud, "she comes back or something. And then she can come hang with us and--"

A deeper, more sinister thought crept into mind as the meaning of a team trip to the Armory - specifically, one fronted by their team leader, made itself clear to the lion-hearted car thief.

"Deeeesiiiiireeee," Lauren stretched out, famously ramrod pasture slacking as she began to pout, "tell Cap we don't wanna work on a Saturday!"

I could still dive overboard.

Of course, he couldn't - a mission depended on Jericho, and Jericho alone, to stand his ground and keep an eagle eye out for any signs of trouble for the weekend...until this lazy Atlesian ambassador he was guarding had gotten tired of endless massages...a complimentary minibar...DJ KHALED'S KEYS FOR SUCCESS night every Thursday...

...

If he's not off the boat by Sunday, both of us are going overboard.

Man, I sound like such a Berserk fan right now.

The low rings of a Scroll notification began to drone in his years, forcefully pausing the Lightnin' Hopkins standard he'd been playing to mellow out after his tense encounter with that girl at the piano. A well of displeasure bubbled up inside his chest at the stop to his music, and the Atlesian student let out an unbidden hiss like a cat being thrown into a tub. The displeasure must have shown on his face when he chose to answer the call with video, because Sleipnir's head chef - his "boss" - visibly blinked in confusion at his gaze. Quickly, Jericho tried to reassert his normal composure.

"Easy, tiger," the chef said, "you asked me to let you know on the chateaubriand for room 1001. It's done. Did you want the blackberry sauce?"

Riiight, the blackberry sauce. The blackberry sauce for Bianca, the blackberry sauce chosen especially to kill Bianca, Bianca's blackberry sauce, that...

"Blackberry sauce?"

It would mean one less headache for him either way, but if he were just being paranoid...if she was just some girl...

...

You're a knight, dickhead.

"No, man. Read the menu. Chateaubriand with Hollandaise, white wine with blackberries. I want Hollandaise."

This was going to suck.

JEEEEEER! No guy that's ever tried to poison me has backed out of it at the last second before! You must think we're soulmates too! Je t'aime je t'aime je t'aime~!

His gloved hand twitched on the railing.

"I'll be by to deliver it in a minute," Jericho said, stomaching his irritation. "I'm only on the pool deck getting some air."

A few seconds later (after he had finished the foot-tapping version of "Baby Please Don't Go" that had been so rudely interrupted by his vidcall) Jericho Piper left the railing he'd perched on at the pool deck. His route took him back to the kitchen, stationed behind the lounge where he'd first met Bianca an hour previously, and then, from the lounge, up to the deck of expensive penthouses that had originally been meant for his mission backup.

Bianca and her fellow pair of peeping Faunus were on the forefront of his mind long enough for him to miss that he'd picked up a tail.

...

A loud clatter, like a china cabinet being flipped over, rang out in the vacant Room 1003 minutes later, loud enough to ring out throughout the penthouse deck. The muffled thuds that succeeded the crash were quieter.

The low groan of pain was even quieter than that.

And the growling noise, similarly pained, from inside the suite would be imperceptible to anyone who wasn't right in the room with it.

...

Something splashed outside Bianca's balcony.

[HereComesTheSnow]

@Silvan Haven@Crimmy@Write@Plank Sinatra

And I think to myself

What a wonderful worl--THUD.

What did he mean by that?

Warily, I clicked off the music and set down the headphones. Lack of sleep had been shoved off away from the forefront of my mind, unfortunately enough. Normally when I want to sleep, I'm about as responsive as a brick, but as my sisters woefully became aware of around my sophomore year of high school, I'm still very receptive to loud thuds in my vicinity.

Or rather, considering I had the music playing and didn't actually hear—

I was still very receptive to tactile impacts.

I felt whatever had just happened rumble through the deck. That, in my experience, means there was a lot of weight being thrown around.

And a lot of weight being thrown around without any warnings or alerts or any sort of notification from the crew meant we hadn't just run into something, either. Not if I'd felt it up here.

I stood up.

Either a bookshelf had just fallen over for no reason, or something was afoot.

Not that bookshelves fall over for no reason in the first place...

Opening the door back to room 1004, I was pleased to note that no such incident had taken place in my room. Nothing fallen or out of place in any way. So, nothing on my end fallen over. No coincidences in my room. It being all that I could check on my own with the ship's keycard system, I had to compensate for breadth with thoroughness.

If there was nothing out of place, touched, or hidden within in my room, then I had indeed eliminated coincidence.

What about enemy action?

This time I opened my front door, feeling not dissimilar to how I'd always imagined the victims of a ding-dong ditching would. Any rowdy kids on my metaphorical lawn would probably have gotten an earful from a responsible guy like me, but that was better than having someone else come after them.

I was a rowdy child once, too.

However, nothing of the sort appeared before me.

An empty hall.

No dents or craters against the wall.

No blood or brain fluid or any other liquid spilled against the wall or carpet.

In fact, there wasn't any sign of anyone having passed through in the last half-hour, really. Even my door wasn't damaged in the slightest, as I deduced after a full swing test. The hinges were even freshly oiled, how nice.

Blinking, I checked down the line to see if that held true for everyone else. After all, the thump didn't feel terribly close by...

I blinked again.

No, yeah.

1003's door wasn't bulging out like that yesterday.

The plot thickens.

Leaving my door unlocked so I could get back in later, I walked over for a closer look. The door hadn't actually broken in any one place, but was in a state that I supposed you could call...

"Barely hanging on" was good. There were definite cracks running along the body, and it'd have taken a significant impact to deform the wood itself like this.

Thus explaining the thud I felt.

I rapped my knuckles against the door twice.

...Nothing.

I did so again.

"Beryl?"

... Still nothing.

So she either wasn't in the room, or whatever had caused this had left her unable to respond.

...Which meant one course of action was left.

I inhaled, and stood sidelong towards the door.

I extended an arm, fingertips just touching the door, and found my range. Even though it was already half-broken and bent out of shape, I was going against the grain...

I would need power, power beyond compare.

Power was speed.

I needed, then, maximum velocity to overcome mechanical disadvantage.

I bounced twice on the balls of my feet.

Front foot twisted in towards me.

My back foot's heel left the ground.

I pumped out every ounce of torque I could muster in one smooth, explosive motion, creating a kinetic chain of raw force that ended in my heel.

And I forced my way in.