[thread] Let's go rescue Shelke!

[tinymakoaddict.livejournal.com]

Characters: Shelke, Cloud, Tifa, Celes, Red XIII....if anyone else wants to be involved, you can! Just...say you came along.
Progress: Ongoing
Summary: rescuing Shelke from the Bowls of Midgar!
Location: Ruins of Midgar
Date: November 23rd, 1803
Warnings: A bit of injury?

It had been about four days since Shelke found herself in the dark, cold emptiness that was the ruins of the Deepground tunnels. She'd woken up laying in front of what was left of Reactor Zero, the primary reactor for Deepground itself and the place where Weiss had ruled them from during his...lapse in life. It was a mess now, and she would've assumed it was just from the damage between Vincent's battle with him and then Omega bursting out of the room, but...everything seemed so old. The damage wasn't from fighting, it was from age...which made no sense.

Luckily her suits mako supply was at full, so she'd been able to use one of her blades as a flash light to explore the area around the reactor. She knew that Vincent had killed many, many Deepground soldiers, but there weren't any bodies, only a few bleached bones. Whatever was going on here, it wasn't just that she'd somehow wound up back in Deepground.

So with a bit of searching she'd managed to get a mako-battery she'd found working long enough to activate a nearby terminal and talk to the people outside. Tifa and Cloud and Naniki were all out there, though what they said didn't make much sense. Another world? It was...nonsensical. But she had to believe them, at least for now. But that had been days ago, and she hadn't managed to get the machine working again. In fact, other than a bit of water, she'd found nothing that would help her survive down here. But getting out was a problem. All the Mako-batteries in Midgar couldn't power the grand elevator that stretched between the Shinra building and Deepground itself. And even if there was some theortical 'find this many and the elevator will go!', well, she was almost certain she couldn't find that many. Finding just the one had been a huge pain.

But her careful checking of the tower that connected Deepground with the Shinra building had found that there wasn't any other way. The stairs were long gone, and the access ladder had broken into hundreds of little pieces...Which meant it was time to climb.

The elevator shaft was huge, and climbing it would've been foolish. Luckily, next to the massive round area there was a smaller elevator, an old access one that was designed for bringing down individuals, and that none of the Deepground soldiers had been able to access while Shinra was still running the show. The doors to it were open now, revealing a uselessly empty elevator. Shelke hauled herself up through the ceiling vent and into the small shaft itself. It was maybe five feet across, and made up mostly of metal girders with spaces between them. It was going to be rough, but she could climb it.

Using her sword as a flashlight, the going was slow, but she began making her way up the shaft, one rung at a time. Her training was rather useful, since she was agile enough to leap from one to the next and deft enough to grab what she needed to, so that things didn't seem quite as awful as she climbed. In fact, she made it almost two thirds of the way up (over the course of most of a day) before something went wrong.

A leap onto what looked like a secure piece of metal that broke away the second her weight touched it, followed by a desperate grab for another nearby that missed by a hair before she went tumbling down, bouncing hard off another ledge and then landing on her stomach maybe twenty meters below where she had fallen. The lucky part was that her weight on both sides of the metal bar meant she didn't slip off...the bad part was hitting it that hard meant she was completely unconscious, just...dangling there like a broken doll...

Comments

[flameguardian.livejournal.com]

Cloud keeping close was to be expected, and Nanaki had actually been counting on it -- the blond man would make sure the others weren't left behind. Taking a few sharp turns and shortcuts through ruined buildings, the red guardian was able to get to the Shinra building quickly (and without startling too many passing moogles). Jumping up onto what appeared to be an old car just outside the building, Red XIII looked back to make sure the others were there before turning back toward the building.

"Strange, how it always comes back to this place." Hopping down, he began to pick his way over the rubble to the doors, tail flaring brightly as he stepped into the shadows of the ground floor. "Stick close; there's rubble everywhere, and likely holes as well. Wouldn't want you all falling into Deepground." If he was correct, the elevator shaft would be close by.

[heartofheaven.livejournal.com]

Tifa slowed down as they stepped into the building, carefully negotiating the ruined floor. She agreed with Red's sentiment, though she hadn't explored the Shinra building yet. This was supposed to be the moogles' headquarters. But looking at this dank ground floor, Tifa thought it likely that the moogles had chosen to make their centre of operations higher up.

She hoped they didn't mind the intrusion.

Stepping aside to avoid a fallen girder, Tifa nearly walked into the elevator shaft. She stopped just in time, her heart beating fast.

"I think I found it..."

[magitekrune.livejournal.com]

Celes wasn't slow by any means, but the others seemed able to keep up with Red as well as she, which was just fine by her. She sped through the streets, not taking the time to look around any more than she needed to be sure she wouldn't trip over something.

Once Red slowed down, Celes did as well, keeping a close eye on what was going on around her. She had no idea what she was looking for, as this city looked nothing like Vector. But then Red and Tifa stopped, causing Celes to dart to the side to avoid them.

She glanced over at Tifa, still feeling the effects of the Haste spell coursing through her veins. Waiting for someone to decide to lead the way down, thinking Red would, she let off a couple of Protect spells to the party. Just in case.

[tinymakoaddict.livejournal.com]

The elevator shaft was nestled into the rear side of the ruined monstrosity that was the Shinra building, and it looked like at one point it might have been hidden by a small building, though only a single wall from that building still remained, and it was bent away from the hole in the almost badly enough to stand on.

Looking in, the shaft goes for about twenty five feet before it hits a large round room. The passage continues down, but there's two shafts here. The small one, and another much, much larger that was probably used for moving large-scale equipment, something on the scale of a helicopter or tank. But neither one has any visible cars.

Below this, the shaft is made up of thick metal girders laced together in a spiderweb formation. It was probably a strong, reliable, long-lasting design five hundred years ago, but now some of the girders seem to be missing, and they're all coated in rust and show obvious signs of wear. There doesn't seem to be another floor between here and the bottom of Deepground, it's just the one long drop to the bottom.

For Red's fancy nose, Shelke definitely seems to be down that worn out, rusted shaft a ways.

[loveandstrife.livejournal.com]

Cloud grasped Tifa's arm, pulling her away from the shaft. The last thing they needed was Tifa falling and getting hurt, or worse. "It comes back here because Shinra is the root of everything sick on The Planet." Perhaps he was bitter but Cloud was certain of that fact.

Kneeling down whilst Tifa stepped aside, Cloud leaned over to get a good look. Thanks to the mako in him, his eyesight was probably the sharpest of all of them. Still, in the darkness, he could hardly make out anything other than the faintest glow of blue from an obvious source of mako.

"I think I see her mako suit..." he murmured, frowning a little. "Do you smell her, Red?" Of course, if Nanaki was seeking the scent of living mako, he'd be highly conflicted with Cloud's scent.

Giving Tifa a look and receiving a nod, Cloud shifted to begin his descent into the elevator shaft. "You guys should stay up topside, to pull her up when I get her." Cloud didn't need a stream of people above him when he was trying to climb and carry, least of all Tifa's backside in his face.

[flameguardian.livejournal.com]

Prowling close to the shaft, Nanaki shivered slightly as Celes's Protect spell washed over him, nodding to her in gratitude. As Cloud peered down into the darkness, he stepped closer, tail twitching. It mostly smelled like moogle and decay, but there was something more, just beyond.

The smell of mako from Cloud was similar to Shelke's, but both of them had their own individual scents as well. Shelke's was there, but it was faint, and it wasn't the only thing he was smelling as he stood right next to the elevator shaft, either. "Yes, but..."

And Cloud was going down. Of course. "She's down quite a bit, Cloud, and I don't think she's alone. I mentioned gargoyles, and they either died out recently or they're still nesting down there." Looking back at Tifa and Celes, he shook his head slightly. "If he's carrying her, and there is something down there, he's not going to be able to fight." They couldn't risk needing to rescue Cloud and Shelke, and Nanaki wouldn't get in the way as much as the other two would, or be very useful when it came to pulling them up. No, Red was going too, whether Cloud liked it or not.

[magitekrune.livejournal.com]

Celes was not amused at being told to stay above. Not at all. However, Cloud's small argument had a point and so, she gave a curt nod in reply, though her expression would tell him just what she thought of this plan. Red's descent would receive another such expression, but Celes turned quickly to watch the area around them just to be sure nothing volatile lived up here.

"Make it quick," she told the boys over her shoulder, voice tight. "If you happen to need magical assistance, I still have a few up my sleeve."

[loveandstrife.livejournal.com]

Clou gave Celes a slight, thankful smile in return for her curt nod, yet he didn't even bother to give her any hard words in reply. He knew how awkward things could turn with that sort of attitude, thus he continued his descent into the elevator shaft, watching both his way down and the four-legged being following him down.

"If there are Gargoyles down there, we'll have to go quick. Don't worry, Red. She's okay. I know it." It was strange that he seemed so sure, but if anything, he needed to reassure himself by using such words. She was, after all, important to him. As much as Marlene and Denzel.