Taisia Belikova (Calgary Smith) (gummywormvodka) wrote in saveatlantisic, @ 2019-04-14 10:58:00 |
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If she was going to be home in her homeworld, did she really have to go to the freaking prison of doom? Alright, it wasn’t actually called the prison of doom but that’s what Taisia had started to call it in her head. She was sitting in the really fancy private jet with her team as they flew down to Argentina. Ushuaia to be exact, from there they would need to travel by boat to an island in the Beagle Channel where the prison sat during its time down south.9 MARCH
Looking over the plans of the prison she looked up when she saw Logan heading towards her.
“Ever been to Argentina?” She asked as she looked up after scribbling a note.
“Yep,” he said. “Beautiful country.” He added without adding any more details. There was still a lot of Logan’s memories that he didn’t have access to, but missions he had around the world were all too vivid at times. He settled down into the seat across from her, and looked out the window.
“What can you tell me about this world,” he said. “Other than there are vampires and shit?” The brief was a simple overview, but there weren’t details about how to handle enemy combatants. Not that Logan needed much direction. His claws could slice through anything, and vampire or not nothing would survive massive loss of blood or beheading.
“Like most worlds, there is a lot of shit,” she answered with a smirk as she leaned back getting ready to launch into more information. The briefing she and her mother gave everyone was a lot shorter than it should have been but timing.
“There are different kinds of vampires, which is probably the key thing to do know. There are ones called Strigoi which are more like the evil heartless soulless things you see in bad horror movies, they even sometimes go for the attempt at supper villain kind of stuff. Live forever, if they aren’t killed, and not mortal. Humans, dhampirs or Moroi can be turned into a forcibly.” Taisia tilted her head looking at her team. “I don’t know if you or Solaire would be in danger of it though,” she looked back to Logan. “But, the point is, any of those can be forced to turn into one by having their blood drained and drinking strigoi blood. Sometimes it’s willing, but not always. For Moroi if they drink the life out of someone they become one, and some do that.” She cringed quickly continuing, but the people locked in the prison are mostly all Moroi or like me dhampirs, half human, half Moroi.” She paused to take a sip of water and see if he was following along.
“Well I ain’t really susceptible to blood draining,” he said to her. His healing factor worked faster than he could even describe, and he doubted that any vampire would be able to continuously drink from him. Beside, he planned on killing any of them before they even had the chance.
“And what about spirit users? I thought I heard someone mentioning them. They vampires, too?”
“Good to know,” Taisia nodded, it did add something to the teams advantage that Logan probably, most likely, wouldn’t be drained. “I wouldn’t want to see you as a Strigoi anyways, you have the scary thing down already.” She said lightly.
Nodding to answer his question she took a second before speaking. “Yup, all Moroi vampires specialize in an element, kind of like magical powers that tie them to the living world, so to speak. Air, fire, earth, water, and spirit. Spirit users draw their magic, powers, from their spirits and while it is rare, it’s not as rare as it was once thought to be. When Alex, my sister, or Lissa use their power to heal, that power comes from them, where as if Uncle Christian wanted to start a fire, that power came from outside of him.” She wasn’t sure if she was doing a good job explaining.
Matt, who had been sitting quietly on the plane, piped up from the row ahead of Taisia and Logan. “How do Spirit Users and Moroi interact with one another?”
“That was going to be my next question,” Logan said with a grin. “Beat me to it.”
Taisia looked over at Matt and nodded, "Nothing crazy, I mean, there are some things that are infused with Moroi magic and if a spirit user infuses it too it is more powerful, like the stakes that we use to kill Strigoi, and if a spirit user infuses it with magic too and stabs a Strigoi in the heart they can restore them to their original form rather than just killing them." Taisia shrugged.
"Spirit users are just Moroi with a little something extra in the magic department, they can compel people a hell of a lot better than other Moroi too."
“Not sure if that would work with me. Got telepaths in my world that have a hard time getting into this head of mine so I ain’t too worried.” Though to be fair Logan was worried about the other people in his group. He didn’t know them well, and it occurred to him that they could be compelled and that would be a problem.
“And they can be killed like normal, right?”
Taisia shrugged. “Some can be really strong, but I hope you’re right.” She did like the idea that someone on the team wouldn’t possibly get compelled, but Taisia had learned the hard way a few times that things changed across worlds sometimes.
“Moroi can die just like the rest of us,” she tilted her head looking at Logan. “Well, most of us.”
If it wasn’t for the prison, and the creepy compelled thing going on, Taisia would say the island was beautiful. She knew the insane amount of sunlight would be hard for the prisoners, which is why it was here during this time of year, but the whole thing felt off.11(?) MARCH
She was in the warden's office after the team had done a sweep of the place to figure out what was going on.
“Where the fuck are all the spirit users.” She whispered as she looked through the list of prisoners that were supposed to be there. Looking up to the other person in the room she frowned. “If someone is stealing spirit users and using them, that could be really bad.”
Logan frowned in suit. “How bad are you thinking,” he asked looking up from the file cabinet. He had an idea, of course, after what she told him on the plane, but he wanted her to verify it. This wasn’t his world, and while he understood the basics of it all he didn’t want to jump to any conclusions. He was there as muscle and nothing more.
“Spirit users can compel better than any other Moroi,” she answered. “And their power can be really dangerous if used wrong,” she thought back to the stories she heard of what one user had done to Lissa when they were still in school. “Spirit, not treated right, can mess with the mind, it could kill all of them if they do something too drastic.” She frowned again. “It could be, but how would it be amplified?” She looked up not really expecting an answer. “We need to find them.”
“ … what would happen if you put several Spirit users in the same room?” Matt said, his arms crossed. Inasmuch as he wanted to make those specific inferences, he knew that their prime objective was much more logistical. He had an idea about that too. But …
“We could infiltrate the prison and find out what’s happening.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time I was in prison,” Logan said with a toothy smirk. He liked the idea of getting into trouble, and getting his hands dirty.
“I can do stealth, but it probably ain’t the best solution for this. What’re you thinking?”
"If they were there to have a party, nothing. They aren't ticking time bombs, and they're still mortal too." Taisia didn't mean to come off as defensive as she did, it was just her sister was a spirit user. It just comes out. "I think if a bunch of them were in a room working on a common goal, yeah, they could do some serious damage, but figuring out how to get a bunch of them to do something, well, that's another question."
Taisia looked between the two of them thinking for a moment. "Pose as prisoners, get into that way," Taisia said looking between the two of them, she knew Matt couldn't see her looking, but she still looked at him as she spoke. "Your idea Matt, you want to go under?" Glancing back to Logan she nodded. "With experience of prison, want to be the other one?" She paused. "I don't want more than two under though."
“I don’t mind going in,” he said. “Perps are more likely to talk to one of their own. We can probably get some information out of them.” At least he hoped so. For all of his experience in combat, Logan wasn’t one-hundred sure about this entire world. He wanted to help, and the best way he knew how was to just jump in, claws blazing.
“Good,” she paused looking around for a second. “Let’s get you some prison clothing and lock you both up,” Taisia didn’t mean to sound as excited as she probably did, she just liked doing rather than standing around and talking.
Somehow, in the beginning, it had made the most sense for Matt and Logan to pose as the prisoners, but as Logan sat in the cell with the blind lawyer in the cell next to him he was beginning to doubt the plan. The prisoners were all but useless, mumbling as they staggered about, mentioning ghosts and seeing things that Logan could only assume were hallucinations. Sometimes, the prisoners were lucid and that usually happened after they fed, but it didn’t take long for them to go back into their trancelike state.13 MARCH
Logan glanced over at Matt in the adjacent cell, wondering how much longer they’d have to stay in there before they figured out what was going on. He wandered over to the bars that separated them and settled onto the floor.
“Did you get anything outta your guy yet,” he asked in a low voice.
The prison muddied Matt’s senses, causing him to retreat into a corner so that instead of moving he could hear; hear the Moroi mutter, move in patterns, slow and then … it interested him. Every time he could taste the alkalinity of blood in the air, he noticed that the grumbling became more forceful. In all cases, though, they all too often died away after an hour and began their shuffling again. One of the prisoners closest to him and, at the very least, taken to telling his story to the wall, to the prisoner who grasped his ears desperately, to himself. There was clearly something that needed to be said and couldn’t be said.
When Logan sat close, he hooked his palm into a bar and slid closer to his compatriot.
“My guy gets a little more clear after he eats,” Matt whispered. “He’s talking about missing someone, how he could go for fire … but.” A frown. “Then he just starts talking about a hole in the ground again. What about your side?”
Logan made a grunting sound of agreement. “Same for mine,” he said. “Don’t make much sense, though.” He grumbled lowly as his cellmate had begun to shuffle back and forth along the opposite wall. ”You gotta… hole… help…” he kept saying over and over again. At least the stories were consistent for the moment, but Logan would much rather have been out actively searching other than sitting in here… waiting. Logan was impressed, however, with Matt’s ability to observe and glean information without his sight. His senses were almost as keen as Logan’s, and it surprised him. Wasn’t often a blind man could keep up with him.
“We need to find out more about this hole they both mentioned.”
The intelligence gleaned from the prison had been useful enough to suggest to Matt that they didn’t have to go far from the prison. Stepping along carefully, he listened intently for any sign of the embattled Spirit users. At last, he heard something and began moving more quickly. He tilted his head and pointed down.
“There.”
Logan smelled them at the same time that Matt heard them. “Well whaddya know, they are all in a fucking hole.” For a while, Logan had thought it was a figure of speech, but there they were all huddled together. They looked worse for wear, and it was clear to Logan they were being beaten.
“We need to get them out of there.”