Fall Arc: Resonance

[Kai]

However, as Lutz walked further into the pool, his light disappeared much too quickly, even for the fog and all. Darkness enveloped him and soon he was gone, none of the others could see him.

In fact, the room itself seemed to be getting smaller to the others, the walls themselves now seemingly made of darkness, pressing in closer as time went on, despite whatever technology to dispel darkness the Terrans might have.

************
Lutz, as he waded through the pool, would notice that his world shrank down to maybe a Meter or two. Around him, the air seemed to swirl and teem with something, and the very darkness itself seemed almost alive for a few moments.

[Mr. Blackbird Lore]

"I agree," was P2C Hillman's response to the raging medic. "I merely wished to emphasize our need to find a safer, brighter place." Irvine no longer felt safe near the door and moved toward the center of the room. Despite having several feet of open space in all directions, he was starting to feel mildly claustrophobic. The desire- no the instinct to leave this place was becoming all the more urgent in his mind with every passing second. "If she can't be found in the next few minutes, we must leave," he declared. "We need to restore power to this place, and alert intelligence of all we've found." And lost, he added silently to himself.

[Phe0n1x]

"Being the scout, I feel it is my duty to appoint someone else for the job of searching around in the creepy darkness," shudder John, "Lolita's brave, strong, and not afraid of anything. She should go!" Mentally he added and she's mean so I won't feel bad if she's gone. "Now I'm going to go hide in a corner so I don't get munched by zombies, cockroaches, or space amoebas made from leftovers from a forgotten refrigerator. That happened in a show I watched once."

[CadetNewb]

Lolita had been silently at the ready ever since the other private came barging in, slamming the door behind him to hold off the giant roach. As fun as Sarah was to tease, the woman had already stopped with the hijinks and kept silent. There was a time and place for everything after all, and this wasn't the time for any of this anymore! "Hotaru, please, just get back into your suit! They're practically right ou -" As the smaller marine vanished in the darkness, leaving Lolita holding up the articles of clothing, she felt a heavy lump in her chest form as old feelings and memories came back to her. Hotaru was gone. An inevitability of the job, yes, but something Lolita promised to herself that she'd do everything to prevent from happening again.

The big marine silently tied up Hotaru's belongings into an easy to carry bundle as the others talked, her face inscrutable due to the visor. When she finished, Lolita slung her own weapon and grabbed 'Mr. Fwooshy' before coming up to the now panicking Sarah. She laid a hand on the shorter woman's shoulder, visor going transparent again for the moment. "Hush. We'll find her." She spoke firmly, ignoring the other marine's more cautious words of retreat. "We'll find her no matter what." The big woman turned and lifted the incendiary device up into the air, letting out a puff of fire to test it's function and effect on the strange darkness. "Sarah, will you take it?" she asked, gesturing towards the flamethrower she now held. It didn't really matter what Sarah's say was though, Lolita handed it and the spare canisters to her anyways. "I think Hotaru would appreciate you keeping her important other company."

Just as she was ready to embark into the unknown though, her lips grimly set, the mute marine couldn't help but do a double take at what she heard.

Lolita lumbered over to John, heavy set with her oversized weapon of choice and power pack. She quickly reached her fingers right under his combat harness and lifted the scout right off his feet until he was eye level with her. "Grow the **** up you little ********. Hotaru's gone, and all you can do is act like a little kid." She spoke, calm with menace. The tall, buxom blonde pulled him in closer, their helmets now touching.

"Do your ******* job, or grab yourself a place in the Chair Force. What did you think scouting was, a game?" She paused. "The hell? Where'd the other go?!" Lolita's voice boomed, finally rising.

[Kokuten]

"Wait-wha-- God damn it!" growled Sarah as she was made to carry Hotaru's things. If it were anyone other than Lolita giving her the equipment, Sarah would have thrown the bulky weapon and ammo into the water. Yet, the tall marine was the one who garnered the most respect from her at the moment, at least with making the most agreeable to decisions. Though, the urge to rid herself of such a disdainful and tasteless weapon was more than just tempting. She looked over at the water, not making her fight to rid herself of such a load any easier. At that, Lolita brought Lutz M.I.A. status into the light, which made her realize that the pool was indeed empty.

"Oh, that's just great, just fucking great." grumbled the Medic, she quickly scooted across the floor, bumping up next to the tall blonde marine taking charge, "Whatever the fuck happens, I'm not ending up alone, so I'm staying next to you for the remainder of whatever bullshit is going on."

[Straken]

Lutz waded through the waist high water as he continued to scan the waters. After he had been walking for longer than he should have, he looked up and scanned for an opposing wall. None could be found in any direction.

“What the hell?” Lutz mumbled as he reached up with his hand and rubbed the back of his helmet in bewilderment. “The room wasn’t really this big before, was it? Hmm, Well I just need to get to the edge then work my way...” momentary pause as he noticed the wall of black that had encroached upon him, “back.”

The German man squinted his eyes and upped the intensity of his flashlight, but he still could not see through the shroud. “That Sarah’ll be mad, but it is no use getting lost myself,” he rationalized as he turned to go back, another pause, then realized that he had gotten his headway mixed up from when he was searching for a wall. “Don’t even hear the squad, figures they would be quiet when I actually could use some noise. Hey guys! Sound off, where are ya!?”

[Kai]

Nobody would hear Lutz' yell. whatever the encroaching darkness was, it seemed to swallow up sound, light, and even the radio waves and other transmissions from his suit. Even a quick search through the options on Lutz' HUD would garner no results. It was the same for the others- even if they tried, unless they could see someone else, there was no way to contact them.

For the group at large- the door that Irvine had just left no longer seemed to exist. In fact, aside from the edge of the pool and the floor, there were no longer any notable features in the room- no more large moss-covered fake plants, no more rocks or boulders. Just an increasingly nearby wall of impenetrable blackness.

The one thing that did do anything, was when Lolita had fired the Plasma thrower in a short burst- it had lit up what appeared to be a sphere of darkness surrounding them, if only for a fraction of a second, before being similarly absorbed.

****************

Hotaru blubbered and sputtered as she surfaced from the water, but she could tell something was different. She had gotten turned around as she slipped and fell, it seemed, as the edge of the pool was on her opposite side- except that now there was nobody there.

"Uhh... Guys?" she questioned, though there was no answer, not even an echo, however muffled it would have been from the moss-covered landscape. Not even the water made any noise as Hotaru climbed her way out of the pool to stand on the edge of it, looking around in wonder.
"Hello?" the Japanese woman ventured, reaching a hand out to try and part the ever-encroaching darkness.

Suddenly, a pair of glowing, blue circles appeared in her vision, floating a little bit above her line of sight. she looked up at them, and they seemed oddly unformed, almost as if somebody had scribbled them into the blackness. They blinked, and it was obvious that it was a pair of eyes. Hotaru stood stock still as, slowly, a misshapen form manifested itself from the darkness, reaching toward Hotaru's outstretched hand.

[CadetNewb]

Lolita still hadn't dropped the childish marine back onto the ground. In fact, she went on as though forgetting she held him.

"Damnit. Not again." she murmured, testing her suit's various comm systems and sensors. Nothing. Nada. Zip. Just like last time. "Ok guys, unless someone's got a better idea, lets get real close together. Sarah's got the right idea already I think." the marine vaguely teased. With her heavy machinegun hanging from its strap, Lolita reached around and pulled out a bundle of cable she always kept with her; whether it be tying things down, pulling things out of the muck or lassoing the occasional Drathonian too dumb to live, it had always served her well. "Here, clip the metal cable to your vest, and whoever is at the end, use the small loop there." she explained. "Guessing from the little bit with the flamethrower, there's a set distance we can go before we...vanish. It's like we're in a bubble or something. This'll keep us together, and if something tries to snatch us, we should at least feel a tug."

"I always thought the part where a person vanishes from the line without so much a hint in movies as a load of bull you know." Lolita spoke, finally turning her attention to the marine she was holding. Her hand moved deftly to clip the end of the cable onto John's tactical vest before clipping herself on as well. She dropped him.

"Now, off you go scouting!~"

[Phe0n1x]

Not at all phased by Lolita's bullying (negatively at least), at the words "Hotaru is gone", John snapped into "sniper mode". Some people thought he was bipolar because he had two different modes. But was he bipolar? Nah, he was biwinning. He won at being an idiot and as a hotshot sniper.

As Lolita put him down, he didn't say a word. John glanced around for anything within visual range that could give him clues to the whereabouts of their two missing squad mates. The only clues he was able to surmise in this short period of time was that they both entered the water and the disappeared. "The water is a trap...." John murmured to himself, though probably loud enough for Lolita to hear. He kept looking and thinking.

[Straken]

“Absolutely nothing,” Lutz commented out loud as he surfed through his suit’s various communication functions. “It is like they just fell of the grid, or rather, I did.” The German rifleman shrugged it off and just started walking again, if only to get out of the water. He once again began to trudge through the water as he focused on moving in a straight line through the pool.

At long last Lutz found the edge of the pool and lost no time hoisting himself out. “About damn time I get out of there,” he said as he shook the water out of the crevasses of his armor. Once most of the water was shaken off he surveyed what he could of the room, but the impenetrable darkness had only grown denser. With a dejected sigh the German recon soldier resituated his rifle and walked over to the wall.

“Just need to keep the wall on my right and I should be fine,” Lutz strategized with himself as he rested a hand against the smooth wall and began to walk forward. “Hey squad, where are ya guys?!”