Who: Lina & Agent Washington What: Lina spots and armored Wash by a rift while flying around When: During the Breach Plot Where: Some remote area Rating/Warnings: A little bit of bullets, a little bit of black magic Status: Complete!
There was no immediate danger around her home, thank fuck. Otherwise she would have nailed herself home with all those mama instincts set ablaze to protect her cave and cub despite the fortified wards, but even if nothing was being spat out in her backyard it didn’t change the fact that demons ran amuck elsewhere, from several spiraling rifts providing a gateway to beings that didn’t rightfully exist in this physical plane. It was hard to ignore the magic involved, not when that sort of thing was so ingrained into instinct, bone and blood - it’d gotten her a little restless and itchy, but she told herself the scouting would be brief. Any other day that wasn’t maternity leave, she’d be out in the field since it was sort of her job, but when things like this happened it didn’t matter if you got paid for this or not. All hands on deck to protect their metaphysical circle of hell, as always.
A levitation spell sprung Lina into the air. The view from above was better, the method of transportation quick, and she could at least see any damages from here - or anything wreaking havoc. Slowly but surely there was someone sealing the portals, and every sight that one had been in had signature damage and leftovers. Demonic leftovers of various substances, glowing - sometimes it was a goop, others fangs or teeth, and she’d stumbled upon a disembodied brain or two. Those she’d leave the hell alone, but some she was able to pick up and drop into a container, then safely tucked into the black mantle (most traveling magic users in her dreams did the cape fashion, because pockets) for later.
A couple miles outside of the last location she investigated was where she spotted something bright, something flashing an abnormal green - the crackles of energy pulsed through and the ripples of it were felt in the air, even if unseen. It was the first one her blood-colored eyes saw, and she squinted to see what else she could make out and -
Oh. Hold on a sec, she knew that guy. Wash, what the fuck were you doing?
The heads-up display in Wash’s helmet was unable to distinguish magical entities from normal run-of-the-mill bad guys. It kept wanting to tell him that the demons, vampires and whatever other monster he came across were “unidentified Covenant enemies.” It was kind of funny, actually, considering Wash hadn’t actually come across any of the Covenant threat in his Dreams. Oh, sure, he knew they were out there. The war with the Covenant was the entire reason for Project Freelancer’s existence, however, somewhere along the way The Director became much more interested in committing acts of corporate espionage and terrorism than being involved in the actual war.
The war was over at this point in Wash’s Dreams anyway, which made the fact that his HUD insisted these demons and monsters were Covenant even more hilarious. That is, until his HUD told him it could not identify weak spots or health levels. That was less than helpful. Wash thought he should probably consider having the HUD recalibrated to identify magical enemies. He wondered if that was something that could be done at Stark Tower.
The HUD could pick up a rift as it was about to open. It registered as a strange anomaly and set off a little buzzer in his ear to be sure his attention was drawn to the source. Wash turned towards where the HUD indicated the rift was about to open, raising his battle rifle at the ready to shoot whatever the fuck decided to come through first. As he did, the HUD registered another unidentified individual - this one human (thank god) - above him. What the hell?
There wasn’t anyone else Lina personally knew that’d be decked out in futuristic armor around these parts, that’s for sure, and seeing him in it before tipped her off - unless it was his sister? Same dreamworld, probably similar stuff that’d carry over, but it was one person around a spiraling cloud of demon hoodoo, so.
Citizen duty. Levitation lowered her to the ground, dainty feet dressed in sturdy boots cushioning her land. With the mantle came the appearance of jeweled shoulderguards, a little big on her narrow shoulders but they provided protection and the red orbs in them served as, literal, magic bombs (because why not explosions) if needed to be spared.
“Hey, soldier,” the sorceress grinned and in the moonlight, her teeth looked like glimmering fangs, eyes shining like rubies - very appropriately impish. “I mean, that is you underneath all the padding there. Right, Wash?”
Just to be sure! Otherwise, awkward.
Wash’s HUD was having an absolute field day trying to make out what the hell Lina was. It still indicated that she was human (or at least more human the the other things he’d seen recently), but it couldn’t quite figure out where she had come from or what kind of enhancements she currently had. Every few seconds a new report came cycling through along the side of Wash’s vision as his systems attempted to make some kind of sense of what he was seeing. Yup. Definitely in need of an upgrade.
“Yeah, it’s me,” Wash answered her. His voice held a distinct tinny quality as if speaking to her through a radio, which, was exactly what he was doing. Without the microphone and the ability to transmit his voice through the helmet itself, he would have sounded incredibly muffled. There had been times in his dreams he wished he could have muted the mics from the sim troopers. Their constant bickering among themselves had gotten on his nerves on more than one occasion and simply added to the reason why he wanted to see them dead. “Know a whole lot of other people out here in full body bioarmor?” He was teasing and would have been surprised if she had said yes. As far as Wash knew Carolina hadn’t gotten her armor yet and York hadn’t even joined the network - and wouldn’t, if luck was on Wash’s side (which it very rarely was when it came to the issue of the Dreams).
More information was pouring out through the helmet’s display. As interesting as Lina was, the rift forming just in front of him demanded more attention. “Watch your back, Lina,” Wash said retaking aim at the clearly visable rift as it swirled into existence. “I have no fucking clue what’s coming out of that. Could be demons, could be vampires. Fuck, for all I know it could be goddamn flying monkeys.”
Ahhh, to see it in action. Lina squared her shoulders, taking a couple steps back to sort of appreciate the entrance to another world - sure, it was spewing loads of things from various dreamscapes, but the magic tickled her senses and curiosity. “You’re the only one I know in a getup that weighs as much as he does,” she snickered, tightening her eyes at the brightness of crackling light. “This is the first one I’ve seen, though. The dude’s making decent progress in closing these, so we’ll see what this one’s got.”
It’d give her an excuse to segue back spell-slinging, the destructive kind - her bread and butter, the specialty she had honed in multiple lifetimes. It was a perfect time to see him in action in his fancy armor, too. Good times to be had.
Green energy twisted and turned, flashed and blinded with what looked like electric shocks bursting out in a display of otherworldly brilliance. Each spark hit the ground, and each spark became something more. Disfigured entities, hooded with black flesh and hunched with talons for hands and glowing holes for eyes. Rumor had it they weren’t too tricky to handle but, well, she wouldn’t tempt their luck.
“Dis Fang,” she murmured under her breath, dragging her fingers through the air like they pulled puppet strings. From the ground with shadows cast came eyes, hellfire red and demonic, and from those very shadows emerged the silhouette of a dragon, threaded in darkness.
Once upon a time, all of this - Surreal entities with glowing hollow eyes, a sorceress summoning a dragon of darkness and a rift in the very fabric of time and space - would have sent Wash packing straight back to the VA hospital in Los Angeles thinking that he really had suffered some form of brain damage causing him to hallucinate and trip all kinds of balls. These days, Wash just took it all in stride.
Ok, well, maybe not in stride. This was all still weird as fuck. When he had joined the Marines he had never once expected to find himself in SoCal fighting all manner of creatures from all manner of worlds both known and not. However, reality for Wash had changed. This was his reality now, for better and for worse. Paranoia and frayed nerves from days of fighting aside, he sort of lived for this shit. Wash was really at his best when the bottom fell out.
His HUD did not like what had come out of the rift (much less the dragon - a monster was a monster as far as it was concerned) and it was giving him all manner of warning alarms, in his ears, in his eyes in the form of red flashes, in his head, prepping him for any counter measures he would have to take. If he had an A.I., these countermeasures would have been a whole lot simplier. It would have handled the calculations needed to run both his armor and the armor’s enhancements as well as calculate all possible outcomes of the battle. Fortunately, Wash had no use for his armor’s specific special ability - an EMP - when fighting what appeared to be flesh and blood creatures (God, he hoped they were flesh and blood. He hadn’t quite mastered the art of fighting things that did not die the traditional way). That cut out a great deal of the calculations he had to make.
He would have liked to have marveled at the dragon like the geek he was - the hellfire made him a little nervy, but at least the damn thing wasn’t exploding - but there was absolutely no time to do so. Wash was on the offensive, shooting the demons being jettisoned from the rift as they appeared with series of three round bursts from the battle rifle. Quick, precise. No muss, no fuss.
It was best she stayed at a distance for this, with Wash being in close proximity - that meant she’d have the eyes around him, and with each gesture of her hand like she was orchestrating an entire symphony of the black arts wove the creature of shadows she conjured. Its maw would open, and those fangless jaws clamped down on a demon’s arm; the power and pressure was enough for a tug to pull it off, clean.
No blood, no flesh - but they fell against the round of bullets cut from Wash’s rifle too. Lina wanted clean cut efficiency when it came to this as well, which meant no point in playing with the vermin. Their power wasn’t all that high-level but there were a lot to deal with.
The summoned dragon picked a couple off, devouring darkness within darkness.
“I’ve got your back!” she called out, shooting an arm out so the draconic silhouette would strike left, to the next shade for dismembering. “Don’t stall on them too much, they’ve got this…thing about them.”
Very reminiscent to the demons in her world, like it was trying to propel ribbons of fear and dread into them. Even through the madness she could sense it thick in the air. A reek of terror they were trying to instill in their pores and in that, Lina did detect danger.
Wash wasted no time. It seemed as though each creature didn’t need more than one or two shots to put it down, which was actually rather convenient. Wash only had so much ammunition tucked away in specialized compartments in his armor. The less time he had to spend to reload the better.
“Thing?” He called back towards Lina, the onboard radio magnifying his voice to be heard above the sound of gunfire and demon howls. “Kinda vague, Lina. What ‘thing?”
Even as Wash spoke he started feeling as though something wasn’t quite right. He couldn’t really describe what it was, just that something felt …off. A chill ran up Wash’s spine. The former marine had been in countless combat situations during his time of service and this certainly wasn’t his first go during an Orange County Event of Weirdness, and yet he could feel a tightness in his chest that caused his heart to beat faster, the air in his lungs to become thick. The air scrubbers and rebreathers in his armor were working fine, and yet Wash was breathing hard, panting. Epsilon, ever present, was murmuring at him, louder than usual. Wash tried to shove it back where it belonged. This was not the time for that kind of shit.
“Lina!” He snapped a little more tensely than he intended. “What thing?”
Oh, for fuck’s sake - “Less talk, more kill!” she barked, because more action meant less of being in your own head; stay a little idle while those things ran amuck and they’d sink their teeth into the psyche. Lina didn’t have the time for the mindrapey games, and the next wave of the summoned shadow dragon swallowing its prey came with a ferocity that the beast rumbled, a cold growl from the depth of its throat, and its fangs crunched onto one of the very last ones - the demon split in half, otherworldly ooze and wispy essence pouring out.
All the remains left behind looked radioactive, piles of death on the floor, and once she deemed it alright to ease her guard down, the invoked savage withdrew back into the shadows, back into her shadow, and the redhead let her arm drop with a heavy exhale.
Welp, that was fun.
“I take it your head’s never been fucked with by a demon?” Lina rubbed the back of her neck. “I’ve had some feed off fears and doubts, kind of warp your mind and evoke feelings they can suck you dry with - these had the same kind of feel to them.”
“Can’t say as though I have.” Wash answered truthfully. Tired of his HUD trying and failing to make sense of what was going on over and over, he finally deactivated it. If it couldn’t give him reliable information than he didn’t need it. “We have aliens in my Dream world, not demons. At least that’s what I’ve been lead to believe, not as though I’ve actually seen any.”
He looked at the pools of remains left behind. A frown pulled the corners of his mouth down within his helmet. That had been the first wave, another would be coming shortly to be sure and Wash wasn’t keen on another attempt at mindrapey games. “I don’t suppose you can get rid of that thing?” He pointed the muzzle of his battle rifle towards the rift.
“That’s a negative,” she confirmed, squinting her eyes up at the menacing gateway to that particular spirit world. Not much to see from her end. It looked more like a cluster of onyx with scintillating energy emitting from it. “Looks like someone’s on it, though. Dream thing. Belongs to a specific someone who's got the very specific power of closing something like this - guess it’s just the waiting game?”
Last Lina heard good progress was being made, so it was only a matter of time before this one was shut for good.
While the rift was dormant for the time being, she squatted to level with the remains. “I’ve actually been out collecting some of these things, what’s left of the corpses. I’m guessing you’ve made yourself guardian of this hole in the sky until the mage pops up and does his thing?”
With the rift dormant and no future Monsters of the Day pouring out of it, Wash reached up and pulled his helmet off. “I guess you could say that,” he answered. “I’ve already dealt with one at a local shopping center and another at Stark Tower.” He sighed tiredly. “I was really hoping you’d be able to pull out some magic and close this one down so I could move on to the next, but…” he shrugged as best he could in his armor, “I guess I’m stuck here until The Inquisitor shows up. Jesus, he is a guy I do not envy right now. I’ve been seeing reports of these things popping up all over the county.”
Wash took stock in how much ammo he had left in reserve. He could last another round, maybe two before he ran out completely. If Lina could find it in her fiery heart to hang out there with him, he could probably push that to four. Any feeling of panic and desires to run away had mostly left him now that the demons were gone, however, Wash was not looking forward to reliving them when the next wave came.
He watched as Lina did her collecting. “What are you going to do with them?” He asked. “Study them?”
A couple things were pulled from the depths of her cape - bottles and tweezers, since she didn’t feel like sacrificing the tongs in the kitchen for this. Note to self: invest in some for times like these, though handling demon corpses wasn’t high on her list nowadays. “Study them, yep,” she nodded, harvesting some bits and pieces here and there. Talons that took more of a hardy yank, a couple of loosen fangs, fabric that wasn’t from this world but had a zing to it - a vibration of energy that hummed through you upon contact. “Opportunities are everywhere in every situation if you look hard enough. I honed my talisman crafting during my preggo months - had to find something to occupy my time that wasn’t creating new craters for this place. These make good supplies to combine into them once I know what the properties are.”
In the midst of scraping things and looting them for her own research, she let her eyes flicker at Wash and his armor. Looked complicated with all sorts of functions that put mundane technology to shame, probably. “How do you even handle bathroom breaks in that thing?”
It was an honest, practical question. They all had basic functional needs, and if she were to hang around a demon portal for awhile the first thing she’d worry about was where do I relieve myself potty-wise and where’s the closest place to get a burger.
“There are waste disposal systems in the suits,” Wash told her. “Except for some reason the vomit removal system never came out of alpha testing…” Wash frowned slightly remembering a certain conversation during a particularly bumpy ride in a Pelican, in which York had once tried telling him he should try throwing-up in his helmet and Delta saying - in the usual nonplussed casual way Delta always spoke - that if Wash tried, he’d probably drown. Gross.
“It’s not like we can just call timeout in the middle of a fight to take a piss,” he gave Lina a kind of half smirk. “Though, to be honest, the idea of bathroom breaks during combat doesn’t usually come up.”
Wash tilted his head back at Lina. Outside what comic books and video games taught him (which weren’t exactly the most reliable sources), he knew very little about magic. Only that it had probably saved his life a couple of times now. “What kind of talismans can you make with those?”
Lina’s face scrunched in a hilarious display of disgust - but that’s what she got for asking, wasn’t it? “I’m just sayin’, it’s something to think about if you’ve got plans to stick around one area without much at your disposal,” she snickered, and while she dreamt of a medieval world that lacked every imaginable convenience (they didn’t even have zippers), she still very much preferred every single one of those conveniences.
But, ah. That was enough scavenging the bodies of demons. Anything else would hopefully decompose into oblivion, left for no unsuspecting random citizen to poke and prod. Everything put away, she wiped her hands against her knee and stood.
“Depends what they can do,” she answered with a shrug, crossing her arms, and cast a last look at the piles left behind. “I know it’s from another medieval world with magic, but I’d be a pompous to assume some things hold the same properties from my world - better ask before I go ‘mad sorceress’ make a monster of a creation. But once I figure it out, I can make rings, necklaces, bracelets. Something usually wearable. Pete’s engagement ring?” Because she did propose too, no shame there. “It’s made from this material called orihalcon in my dreams. Legend has it its made of the leftover blood, nails and skin from the dragon god overseeing our world. It’s amplified with a recovery spell for healing if he gets injured. At least that way I know if he’s out and about without someone to patch him up right then and there, he’d be alright.”
“Which is why we have the waste disposal systems,” Wash nodded. The waste disposal systems weren’t bad, a little uncomfortable at first, but Wash had quickly gotten used to them. They took care of everything without Wash even having to think about it or realizing he had to use a restroom. “A lot of battles that happen in my Dreams take place in space. Not a lot of amenities out there. Or in ruins in some distant far off planet. Or while you’re out trying to track down a bunch of backstabbing sons of bitches”
Not to say that Lina’s question wasn’t a good question. Wash basically lived in his armor in the Dreams (for some reason), so it was just something he was used to. He was more interested in what Lina was telling him about using the demon leftovers to make talismans. Particularly the part about making a ring for Pete. “I didn’t know you two got engaged. Congratulations.” Was congratulating someone on their engagement while waiting for a rift into another dimension to open weird? Yeah...probably was.
“It’s not a new development,” she laughed, a sheepish rub of the back of her head. “But thanks! It happened in during Christmas.” Though to be fair, it’s not like she and her husband-to-be-someday made a grand announcement to anyone - Lina wasn’t one to make grand posts about romance and neither was her partner. Then, you know, the baby bomb. They’d get to nuptials. Eventually. No rush.
Anyway, she leaned in to tentatively knock on his getup - curiously. “So this thing’s...what? Synced to you? Does it make sure you’re hydrated or whatever? I can’t imagine that it’s easy walking around in that clunky thing.”
A bit of color rushed up into Wash’s face. God, damn his memory had just really gone to shit, especially for that two to three month time period. He had a fleeting notion that maybe he’d congratulated Lina and Pete before. Or maybe just Pete. Or had he congratulated Pete on his upcoming fatherhood? Fuck. Wash couldn’t remember. He rubbed at the back of his neck. “Well, congratulations anyway,” he said a little awkwardly.
He glanced down when Lina tapped his armor. “It’s really not that heavy,” he said. “At least not as heavy as it looks. At least I don’t think so. And it’s surprisingly agile. It’s bioarmor and, yeah, I guess the best way of putting it is that it’s synced up to me. To my body and my brain. A few of the other Freelancers had A.I. that helped them run the armor more efficiently and whatever enhancements the armors had so we wouldn’t need a direct line back to base. It allowed us to be more effective in the field. Well...most of us.” He couldn’t remember if Lina knew about his own experiences with his A.I. and how it had carried over to this reality. He’d told people...hadn’t he? Or maybe it was just Gale who knew since he had been there for the fallout. Wash couldn’t remember that either. And as it usually did when Wash felt himself start to slip, Epsilon started creeping forward out of the cobwebs, whispering.
“Uh…” Wash tried to focus his wandering mind back to the conversation. “Yeah. It...uhm...handles all that. Hydration, waste removal, monitors our vitals, protects us if we go down. It’s pretty state of the art equipment. Valuable. Though the SPARTAN V is an older version of the armor I currently wear in the Dreams.”
Huh. The redhead looked genuinely impressed - it wasn’t often she got to marvel the wonders of futuristic science thanks to the dreams, and this had been the closest thing since taking a look at Kanan’s lightsaber. Lina’s experiences have been restricted (unsurprisingly) to the splendors of sorcery, but this brand of technology was nifty, and she could definitely appreciate the masterpiece this was. “Science is it own brand of magic,” she hummed, crossing her arms. “I can stay with you here a bit longer if you want - but even if I leave you, looks like the suit’s got you covered?”
Another hour or two was something she could spare. All hands on deck, after all, and their dysfunctional dreaming community often came together in these moments of crisis. The sorceress also knew her family was safe, so she could hang a bit with ease.
“I’d appreciate it if you could,” Wash said, sounding a bit relieved. “The armor is pretty good at keeping me in one piece, but it’s not invulnerable.” As had been demonstrated when Lina had saved Wash from bleeding to death on his bedroom floor. “I have enough ammo for a couple more rounds, but after that? I hope that certain someone’s able to get here soon. I’m loathed to leave this thing wide open for more of those things to come tromping through, but I’d also like to not die out here.”
“No prob, soldier,” Lina playfully saluted, her grin all cheeky. “I’ll send a message to a piratey friend of mine - it’s her dreamworld too, she knows the guy.” That way they’d be notified about this stray one out here, and hopefully get their hinies to this spot for a proper rift closing.
Keeping Wash company was a thing she could easily do. In case more came out in a swarm, christ - these things may not be the most difficult thing to take down but an entire throng of ‘em ganging up on you could be tricky.
Hands to her hips, she stood next to the high-tech armored man, looking up at their current but stable threat. “We’ll keep each other alive, maybe even break out into song.”
“Thanks,” Wash grinned slightly “I appreciate it.” Having the network did have its advantages when it came to stuff like this. With any luck the two of them wouldn’t be stuck out guarding this one for too much longer. It was then that Wash heard an alarm go off in his helmet. With a sigh he put it back on and reactivated the HUD. The rift apparently had decided it wanted to go active again.
“Looks like we’ve got incoming again,” he informed the sorceress as he brought his battle rifle back up to aim at the rift. He spared Lina a sidelong glance. “We’ll keep each other alive, but you really don’t want to hear me sing.”