Atlantis

[Copper]

Re: Atlantis

Immediate thoughts run to another planet or place, since the notion of time-traveling through portals like that isn't high on her list. Taking in the situation, she decides that finding Siphon is more important than not getting caught flat-footed out in the middle of the prairie here. Of course, nightfall would make it hard for her to track him, so it was likely best to double-time it as best she could, while keeping an eye on the only clue she had: the blood trail. While following it, at least initially, she did try to discern the space between the drops and the way they fell, to try and tell if he'd been walking, running, or possibly even carried off.

 

[SiphonTalvesh]

Re: Atlantis

To Sho, it seemed as if he had been booking it away, and possibly that his injuries had begun regenerating already as the blood began to thin out some. Upon reaching the top of the hill though, she saw dozens of creatures, but not of the same type from before.

These seemed more peaceful, perhaps plant eaters. Some seemed to play fight with each other, but for the most part they moved about freely without a care. They were larger than the one she'd escaped from earlier, and though one of them set sights upon her, it acted as if it didn't care she were there, ignoring her. She figured though given it's armor, it was more than capable of defending itself if it felt threatened, but for now, it didn't seem to view her as a threat.

That was when she saw the shallow footprints in the gravel, leading off to what she could only guess was the North. From the way they were staggered out, it seemed whoever left them had intentionally left tracks behind to follow. They led off towards a relatively small but denser patch of trees or plants, whatever they were.



The woman stared at her for a moment before seeming to relax. Her body seemed stiff still though, and a faint light had formed around her. Ariana got the distinct impression the woman was rapidly regenerating something internally, something that the wraith hadn't caused, at least not directly.

At her question, Jacobs shook his head.

"I'm afraid not on us no. Rifles would have been too bulky for fighting wraith, and from the sounds of it, whatever that is, it's definitely NOT a wraith."


With two of the Alverans staying behind, she moved slightly ahead of the others. She wasn't sure how many corridors she'd gone down, but as she came around one bend she saw the likely source of the roars.

It was big, easily triple her size and on all fours. It's skin was a dark brown type color, and it had large teeth that were still dripping blood. As soon as it saw her, it let loose a roar, and proceeded to charge at incredible speed towards her, far faster than anything that damn big had any right to be able to move.

 

[Shrike7]

Re: Atlantis

“Back up, back up!“ Ariana called out when the thing charged them. So much for checking corners to give them time to plan. Ah well.

The woman emptied her pistol at the thing as it charged, not expecting much of an effect, but hopefully giving the Alverans time to find firing positions of their own around the last corner. She backed up herself the entire time, until she was parallel to a side passage she could use herself. There was a flash in her mind as the creature neared, and she threw herself sideways into the passage, narrowly avoiding the thing as it lunged for her, teeth first.

Gathering herself back up quickly, she checked first if the creature was still focused on her, second that she hadn‘t thrown herself into a dead end for it, and third if the alverans had started firing, seeing if they were having any effect.

 

[SiphonTalvesh]

Re: Atlantis

The creature missed, slamming headfirst into the side wall and actually denting it from the force of the impact. It seemed to have little effect on the creature, as it turned it's bulk back around, seeking out it's prey once more. Setting sight on her, it moved, preparing to lunge at her again. It was only now she realized the passage she was in was in fact a dead end, a single set of doors at the end of the short passage the only viable exit. Unfortunately, she didn't think she had time to get through them before it was on her.

Fortunately, the Alverans chose that exact moment to start firing, the beast roaring as several blasts struck it, seeming to hurt it where her own weapon hadn't. Still, it lumbered towards her, intent on ripping her apart. She heard cursing, and then the energy really flew as the four Alverans with her unloaded blast after blast into the thing. Finally, after god only knew how many shots, the thing staggered, getting within ten feet of her before finally collapsing to the ground, letting loose one final growl, and breathing it's last.


Jacobs came up, popping a couple more blasts into it's body at close range for good measure before risking a check on it. After a very long moment, he stood, a look of shock on his face.

"It's dead now but ... that thing took almost a hundred shots to put down. On KILL setting. The hell was that thing?"

 

[Shrike7]

Re: Atlantis

Ariana looked back at the doors for a second before fixing her gaze on the creature again. She had ducked herself into a dead end by all appearances, and despite the fire from the Alverans, it still seemed intent on taking her down. She added another clip worth of fire herself, barely slowing the thing again as she braced herself, a shimmering blue blade appearing in her other hand.

The Alveran's fire brought it down before it reached her, thankfully. She let out a sigh, slumping a bit as the blade disappeared. By the time Jacobs walked up, she was reloading her gun with a third clip, keeping half an eye on the thing in case it still had one more lunge left in it. "I was hoping you'd tell me." She answered him, shrugging. "I've never seen anything like it before. Didn't seem very intelligent, maybe is was some sort of attack pet for the wraith that got loose?"

 

[SiphonTalvesh]

Re: Atlantis

Jacobs shook his head as he pulled out a small scanning device.

"No, the Ancients didn't keep things like that, if anything we would have seen some kind of automated firing defense, not a creature. I'm hoping this scanner will come up with something useful, but I ..."


He trailed off as it let loose a beep, and information sprawled across the screen in the Alveran language. His eyes went from curious to wide eyed surprise as he looked back at the creature with a newfound respect.


"Well ... that answers that. Now the question is, how did you get here buddy, and have we messed up the timeline. This creature ... according to our database, which covers hundreds of species across four galaxies, is a Gorgonopsid. It's from Earth, the human home planet. Except one small added detail. It's been extinct for over two hundred million years. A life sign would have been detected by the Tokra when they found this place, and by our initial probe when Siphon first came through. Which means it arrived after he did. Wait, it's teeth had blood on it ... that means there should be a recent kill somewhere around past where it came from."

 

[Copper]

Re: Atlantis

Hearing, and then spotting, the creatures, Sho pauses, making certain that they aren't threats and that she's not going to spook them into a stampede if she moves around them. Despite a desire to study them a little longer, her main goal was to find Siphon and figure out why the hells he hadn't just come back through in the first place.

Well, if he'd given her a trail to follow, that was the plan. Though she had to keep looking down and ahead to keep track of the footprints, she still glanced around, making certain nothing was going to come charging at her, or, for that matter, swoop down on her from above. One of the advantages of being able to fly. You tend to think in three dimensions.

 

[Shrike7]

Re: Atlantis

"I was suggesting the wraith brought it with." Ariana clarified. "It looked like it was hanging around where we spotted it, instead of wandering around. This way." She said, stepping around the dead beast and heading back towards where they had come across the thing.

 

[SiphonTalvesh]

Re: Atlantis

Jacobs shrugged.

"Doesn't fit their style. Let's move."


They walked for a few minutes, following blood splatters until the first of the wraith bodies was visible. Jacobs though was more interested in what turned out to be just up the bend from that, letting loose a whistle.

"Hey Ariana, you might want to see this."


When she came around the bend, she saw the anomaly. A golden light with what seemed like swirling glass inside of it, and visible on the wall near it was what seemed to be writing left behind by someone.


"Something tells me that shouldn't be here, and that is where our big friend back there came from. Which means ... christ that means this is a rip in time!"




Sho found tracking fairly easy, it seemed Siphon, or whoever had made the tracks was trying to be found. Suddenly though, they seemed to stop near a small opening in the ground, what seemed like it might be a sinkhole. Flitting about some, she'd realize the tracks clearly stopped here, and it began to sink into her that he might very well be down in the dark hole in the ground.

 

[Copper]

Re: Atlantis

She'll take a minute to study the hole, trying to determine if it was something that had been there or if, perhaps, the ground suddenly gave way. If it looked ragged enough, she'd try to pry a stone or something loose to drop down and gauge distance. Yes, she could fly, but falling was an entirely different manner.

After determining depth, not to mention how close the walls were, she went for the pocket of her coat, interior this time, and came up with a small mag-light. Granted, it probably wouldn't reach all the way to the bottom, but she'd be damned if she stuck her feet in there only to get her toes bit off by one of those big and nasties. It might give her away, but so would calling down to Siphon, not to mention dropping down and stumbling around blind. If it looked clear enough, she'd sit on the edge, dangle her feet, and...

Freeze.

Being thousands of feet underwater had been bad enough. This was an entirely different animal. Even just thinking about dropping into the hole was making her heart race and the breaths she was taking were not helping her to calm down in the least.

"If he's down there, he's probably stuck. And if he's stuck, I can get him out. And then, I'm going to kill him. Twice." Covering her face with her hands, she muttered over and over to herself, "You can do this, Shoni. You can do this." A few more deep breaths that were borderline hyperventilation and she picked her head up. "Okay, go."

Without giving herself more time to second guess what she was doing, she slid in. If the walls were close enough, she'd "walk" her way down with her back pressed against the one side, feet to the other, or try and shimmy her way down with hands and feet planted on either side. If neither of those options was going to work, it was the tried and true method of using her winds to slow her descent and help cushion her fall.

 

[SiphonTalvesh]

Re: Atlantis

Sho probably wouldn't be surprised to see the hole went down almost fifty feet, and she barely could make out the bottom of it. Upon reaching the bottom, she discovered another one of the creatures she'd escaped from earlier, though this one was very clearly dead, bone sticking out of it's back where it's spine had appeared to have broken in a fall.

The bottom opened up into a sort of chamber, large and with several natural formations that seemed almost like pillars. Suddenly, she heard movement off to her left, and she caught the briefest hint of something glowing out of the corner of her eye before she suddenly heard an exhale of breath.

"Sho? Did you seriously follow me through that damn thing?"


When she turned to him and shined her light on him, she'd see his left arm was pretty well gashed open, still oozing some blood from it. For the moment, it seemed the left arm was completely dead for him from the way he had it.

 

[Copper]

Re: Atlantis

Seeing the creature still startles her and she lets out a little noise that's not a squeak of terror, dammit. Hearing more noise nearby, he might get an eyeful of flashlight beam before he starts talking and she lowers it away from his face.

"Well, it was either that or go all the way the hell around to get to the control room. Besides, I figured there had to be a reason you didn't come right back through and I thought maybe you might be in trouble." She gestures around to the cavern as if to say "Tell me I'm wrong." Instead, what comes out is "You're still bleeding. That new?" She'll head over and do her best to help him get something on it. Anything to keep her mind off of being underground.

 

[Shrike7]

Re: Atlantis

"Well, isn't that just pleasant." Was Ariana's only comment as they rounded a corner and found the worst of the massacre.

She was looking over the torn bodies, considering whether or not there was anything worth policing among the group, when her attention was called a bit farther on, to the odd shimmering effect hanging in the air. "A rip in time, eh? She said softly, walking over to read the message on the wall carefully, taking pains to not make contact with said rip. She had dealt with a different kind of rift before, she knew not to mess with them.

 

[SiphonTalvesh]

Re: Atlantis

He nodded.

"Yeah, got gashed up pretty good by the one over there, it was hunting the other creatures about, stalking them. Soon as I landed it was charging me, barely managed to get away with the little cut. Which wasn't so little a few minutes ago. Talvesh and I are working on it, but it's slow going considering my ankle got wrenched pretty bad in the fall, and pretty sure I have two or three bruised ribs. Remind me to have a word with Julia when we get back about the supposed 'relaxing quick job' not being what it was advertised to be."

He shifted some, trickles of fresh blood seeping out of the roughly four and a half inch long shred taken out of his arm, then shook his head.

"My best guess, based on what I have seen and how I feel, is that we're definitely not on the same planet anymore. And something about these creatures seems oddly familiar, but I can't place why. Wait, you said the thing was blocking your way? It wasn't that big when I got knocked through was it?"



Jacobs nodded.

"It makes sense, that creature is supposed to have been extinct for hundreds of millions of years, suddenly it's here, and this thing is too. If I'm right ... Then that would mean this portal leads back to Earth, but to the Permian Era. Based on the size of that creature, probably late Permian so ... roughly three hundred million years into the past?"

He checked the writing Ariana was looking at, frowning.

"Well if she went through after him, she's not been gone long. Technically we could still catch up to them but ..."


He trailed as his sensor device went off.

"Hmm, strange. It has a high magnetic field to it, and I mean really high. I'm surprised it hasn't started yanking anything metallic that isn't nailed down through. Though the field seems to be gradually fading even as I speak. Assuming that's any indicator, this thing could be getting ready to close at any moment."

 

[Copper]

Re: Atlantis

"Trust you to get the attention of the biggest, nastiest motherfucker around and then have it try to eat you." She shakes her head, pulling out a handkerchief from her pants pocket this time and cinching it above the wound to try and staunch the bleeding some. "Can you walk? Or a least hobble?" By all accounts, she could get them back up. Probably wouldn't be pretty and would be dusty as all hell, but she could at least get them out. "What do you mean 'wasn't that big?' I couldn't get around the damn portal, so I opted to go through instead. Good thing I did."

As he remarks about the creatures seeming familiar, she shrugs. "They remind me of dinosaurs. Big ugly there strikes me as a stunted T-rex and I saw some other ones that could've been...ankyleosaurs isn't right. I'd know 'em if I saw 'em."

 

[SiphonTalvesh]

Re: Atlantis

Siphon nodded.

"I think I can manage to move once we get to the surface again, it won't be fast, but I can manage, and I still have one good arm. Oh yeah, the pistols barely slowed that thing down, probably take a lot of firepower to drop on of them. Strange though, I definitely remember the anomaly being smaller than that corridor, which means it expanded. That isn't a good thing."


His head snapped up at her mention of a stunted T-Rex, and she could half see a light bulb go off in his head.

"Oh christ, of course... It was staring me right in the face, it was just too convenient to seem likely. The terrain, the creatures ... I think your part right about these things being pre-historic, but you aren't going back far enough. I think that might have been a Gorgonopsid ... which means ... oh carry the one, oh I don't know, about three hundred million years or so into Earth's past? Which mean, if we're right, then that anomaly is a doorway through space and time and ..."


He trailed off, eyes going wide.

"And didn't the hologram say something about mysterious doorways like this going through time? I think we might have just seen first hand the kind of thing that led to the Ancients abandoning the city."

 

[Copper]

Re: Atlantis

"Good. Let's get the hell out of here." If his ankle's still bad, she'll duck under said good arm and give him a shoulder while she walks him back to the spot on the ground just beneath the opening. Hopefully, they'd both fit. Otherwise one of them was going to get a really nasty headache.

"You're saying it's a time portal? To the...before the dinosaurs?" Her hand comes up, covering about half of her face. "Only you. And I blame you. Because you have this thing with time-travel! Pick an era, dammit!" Her hand drops, shaking a bit as she stresses her words. She's not really upset with him, just going off on a rant because, well, stress. And she can. And from the glimmer in her eye, she's also amusing herself.

Once she's calmed down, which takes all of about three seconds, she'll shift around to wrap her arms around his waist, prompting him to do his best to hug her back so that she can use a vortex to raise the two of them up out of the hole. He gets a "Don't bleed on my coat, either," from her, it coming out in a playful growl.

After they're safely out of the hole in the ground, she'll pick the conversation back up in a serious manner. Or as serious as she gets. "Well, if those portals were opening up and things like the...gorgon-what's-it were coming through, small wonder they decided to leave. What I want to know is why isn't the city overrun with them, then? Or just more pre-prehistoric critters."

 

[Shrike7]

Re: Atlantis

"Space -and- time, then? I've seen jump holes before, it was a natural occurance where I'm from. there were unstable ones about, nobody ever came back from them. If they went to another time instead of just another place, that would make a lot of sense." She explained, watching the rift intently. "I've never seen one this small, though. Or this colour, come to think of it."

 

[SiphonTalvesh]

Re: Atlantis

Jacobs shook his head.

"I don't think anyone has. I've seen a lot of strange things in my time, but this takes the prize. Obviously it's stable enough or that creature wouldn't have lived to come through, which begs a serious question. What in the hell, naturally or otherwise, has the power to shred the barriers of time and space like this?"




Siphon half shrugged, then replied, "I'll do my best not to."


Once they were topside, he stood, shakily at first, but then more sturdy.

"I think I'll be alright, it's a little wobbly and I'll probably be limping, but I'll manage. I don't know why, maybe these things haven't opened since the Ancients abandoned the city. Maybe it's just been luck. Maybe this is the first time one has opened inside the city itself, the hologram said nothing about that every happening on their planet, only others. What I want to know is, what the hell can do this? I mean, we've managed time travel before, but that was always with some kind of power explosion or contained field. This ... this is something completely different, it's like something has physically gone and ripped open the very fabric of the universe itself, shredding the boundaries between our time and others. Strangest of all though, I can't shake the feeling that I've done this before. That all of this should be more familiar to me yet ... I don't know why. Anyway, we should get going, I don't think we have much time before the sun sets, and when it does, god only knows if we can find the damn thing again in the dark with all these rolling hills."

 

[Shrike7]

Re: Atlantis

"You're asking that while standing in a shielded city miles underwater, having walked here from more or less a galaxy away?" Ariana asks, chuckling. "Well, what's the plan, then? The note says to wait for an hour, look like we still have most of that left." She said, bending down and finding a piece of equipment from the dead wraiths and tossing it at the rift. "I say we wait, then try it ourselves. send someone in, tell them to return immediately just to see if we can. 'Less we have a robot with a camera, or something."