revivalproject | A Diving Expedition

Entry tags:

A Diving Expedition

WHO: Cal Kestis, Jonathan Sims and Tony Stark
WHERE: The Flood Plain
WHAT: When one has rebreathers, one does underwater exploration
WHEN: A few days after being freed of Calibration hell
WARNINGS: N/A, will update as necessary

It was decided rather unanimously, and perhaps unsurprising given the time that had been spent in confinement. After being cooped up indoors with little place else to go, the opportunity to finally go elsewhere is a welcome one, and there seems no point in waiting. Besides, Cal can use the distraction. While he's not certain of exactly how many of their number have been sent away, it's difficult to miss at least one presence, strong in the Force as Altair was. Hopefully he would be back where he was meant to be.

Cal's looking forward to the outing, however, eager to be about and exploring with friends. Given the chosen venue, one might never guess from the way he's prepared. He's dressed as he usually is, BD-1 perched on a broken bit of wall, both beside the shallows of the eastern-most inner curve of the large lake that's taken up a good portion of the southwestern corner of the city.

It's a lot of area to cover, and the more he looks at it, the more he wonders just how deep it can be. The couple of times he's gone in probably haven't even covered very much of anything, and with so many places to look, he'd been practical and stuck to where he could make out the remnants of buildings. That seemed to be the most ideal place to find anything, anyway.

Glancing at his droid friend, he tilts his head. "They should be here soon. You ready, BeeDee?" The little droid borbles, wiggling eagerly, making the padawan laugh. "Yeah, it'll be a nice change of pace after all that." He turns, looking out towards the main road again for any signs of Jon and Tony.

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Jon doesn't pay attention to the others at the moment, more focused on digging out what these fish-creatures have directed him to. It turns out to be a large gap in the metal and what he can only described as a longer version of the odd gun Tony has found. It's a sleeker design than its smaller cousin and looks a lot less like looking at a potential tool. Jon runs a hand across its long metal shape when Cal decides to check on him and his finding.

Though the Padawan is met by several of Jon's fish very deliberately blocking his way by swimming between the two men and flaring open what Jon has believed to be their heads, making them look more like jellyfish than more regular fish. Their long tails uncurl from one another towards Cal in a threatening gesture and along with them dozens of those same glowing tendrils from their previous encounter with the large anemone unfurl from where those tails connect to their heads, now glowing and swaying at Cal and increasing the formerly small creature's volume notably. There's at least a dozen of them puffing up like this threateningly before Cal with more beginning to hover behind these and yet more slipping into their found space through the gap Jon has freed up, causing the Archivist to back away from it and looking over in the direction of the others when the combined glow of these unfurling beings starts to cast an entirely new light over their surroundings.

He can't help but think just how beautiful this looks.

That's however when Jon feels the first sting-like bite to the back of his neck, causing Jon to flinch forward with a bubbly yelp of surprise but also pain before kicking his feet to back away, dropping the items he has been holding to reach for the thing latched onto his neck only to find another of these beings wrapping itself around his hand and a second bite is delivered to the palm of his hand, resulting in a similar reaction as the first sting and Jon hits the wall he has been paddling towards with his back harder than expected, stopping his attempted retreat and allowing more of the creatures to go for his arms and legs and he can already feel a numbness spreading across his neck and through his hand. And as Jon tries to cast a wordless plea for help in the direction of Cal and Tony, he can only see both of them now being targeted by their own respective groups of fish-creatures as well.

The buddy system might not have stopped the fish from obsessing over Jon, but Tony was still irritated that it seemed to have broken down enough to get them a wall of menacing tentacles splitting the party. Jon would get into a van with a stranger, officially, he needed close supervision, and if Tony didn't figure out how to punch a school of squid, he wasn't going to be able to snap at Jon like he wanted to.

He had lagged behind Cal as they approached, but the transforming fish had him kicking up close to Cal's back, cautioning hand on his shoulder. The slow unfurling of the group kept Tony watchful over them, feeling intimidated but not immediately threatened, not sure if they kept their heads down they could maybe avoid whatever this confrontation was, and he didn't notice they had been flanked by more of the transparent little bastards until the first one spilled its glowing tentacles to catch his eye over his shoulder. Reacting in surprise, he snatched for it instinctively to squeeze in his gauntlet, but its jelly body compressed easily to pop out from under his crushing thumb and dart away, flaring up again like a static field. Another had wrapped itself around Tony's ankle in the meantime, and he could feel it trying to bite through the nanoweb, a slim enough sting that Tony had to try to kick it away as he spun back on Cal with concern. He didn't have a suit at all, and Jon-- panic, mounting panic again. With a flick of his wrist, Tony added another light to the growing glow at the bottom of the lake; a bright burst of fire from his palm that was supposed to cut through anything in their way, and with a quick sweep, seemed to work for calamari, too.

Jon's new friends are awfully overprotective. Cal swims back as he finds them moving to block off his path, and as they begin to show their true colors, he looks anxiously towards Jon. He feels Tony come up behind him, nodding at the unspoken warning, but his eyes flick towards the creatures as they move in to surround them.

BD-1 beeps an alarm as he spies Jon having his own problems with the fishy things, his light narrowing into that scanner beam as he uses the thing to fan across the amassing creatures, trying to help disperse them.

Cal sees what's happening, senses the growing panic. These things aren't harmless after all. He brings up his hands as BD-1 shifts to cling to his belt again, and he sweeps his arms outward, using the Force to push the creatures away. He knows it won't be for long, but as soon as a path is cleared, he propels himself towards Jon to grab him, just as Tony's flare washes behind him. Hopefully it will do the job.

The padawan grabs at Jon once he's within reach, wincing at the stinging sensation in his foot, looking alarmed at the fleeing fish and the numbness he can feel creeping after the burn. Shaking his head, he forces himself to keep moving, drawing them closer to where Tony is so they can maybe make a break for it.

Edited 2020-07-15 18:59 (UTC)

Now Jon really wishes he had brought some sort of weapon. Preferably one he knows to use, which limits his options notably. It’s getting increasingly difficult to fend the odd squids off and he can feel more of them on his arms, legs and back.

Then one of them pulls him away from where he has been stuck struggling and Jon looks up, baffled despite his own increasing fear and flailing, which pauses when he recognizes Cal being the one to pull him away. For a moment, Jon is simply grateful for the help. But he also is quick to realize that they still have to get away properly. So ignoring the pain and growing numbness of his legs, he kicks his feet and flippers behind him to give them a little bit of an extra push - as maybe slap an alien squid or two in the process.

They need to get out of this handy trap they maneuvered themselves into. And back to the surface.

Their approach was waved away with a rushed flailing from Tony, and he gestured for them to go up, up!, out of the dark depths where these things were spawning. He was following, kicking at and scorching the fish that darted too close and slipped their creepy little arms around him, trying to stay behind the pair to take the brunt of the attacks until-- he bolted upward, heart pounding with the effort to reach out and grab at the first ankle he could find in the gnashing disturbance of the water to drag them back down to a halt as the jellyfish kept rushing up around them. With his other hand, he flicked the torch back off, throwing up the display instead, hoping one of them could read through the churning water.

2:59-
58-
57...

Despite the growing numbness in one leg, Cal kept kicking. He began to maneuver towards the exit with Jon at Tony's gesturing, one hand still grasping Jon's arm, the other tightening around the broken projection base he'd been grasping, wielding it like a paddle and to fend off other creatures that still tried to dart after them.

Small waves of them would be momentarily turned away by BD-1's scanning beam but it seems to last less and less as long. It's more by sense than by sight that Cal manages to get them to the opening they'd initially come through. The numbness has started to tingle over his right forearm, and barely realizes his leg's been caught ahold of. BD-1 bleeps, and Cal looks as Tony joins them again, blinking as he tries to make out what the man's got planned.

With them still being swarmed, Cal doesn't feel at ease waiting without doing something. He tries to focus, drawing in deeply from his rebreather before he pushes outward from their little quartet with the Force. It's different using such an ability underwater, especially against something that can swim, but he puts more into it than the first time when he'd cleared a path to Jon. All he can do is buy them some space, maybe a little time.

The sudden stop in their escape earns a brief frown from Jon at first and he manages to turn his head enough to look down towards Tony, only to catch sight of the glowing display and the numbers. And he understands perfectly what these mean. Just another of those little things his body has decided to have no need of any longer. Just like eating or sleeping.... Christ, he wouldn’t have needed this rebreather in the first place. Now if only he could find himself to be useful with these fish... He has been the one attracting them in the first place.

Between Tony’s torch, BD’s Scanner and Cal plain shoving them away with his mind Jon feels remarkably useless, glaring past Tony grimly and setting his stare on one of the fish dashing forward again. Can he maybe access their minds? Force them to stop what they are doing, perhaps? They can’t be entirely primitive by how they have gradually followed their group until they were basically trapped. There must be some consciousness presence. Some sort of...

And Jon finds it. Finds the creature’s mind and digs into it, causing the fish to freeze, then drop away. Right. This may be tedious and not as efficient as Cal’s approach, but Jon takes to pointedly pick out the closest attacking fishes one by one. Which is... something?

They didn't seem happy about the delay, but it wasn't like Tony was thrilled about it, either. He hadn't built the decompression table into the gauntlet's programming just in case, though-- that kind of risk didn't sound like the sort of test he should be putting his freshly scarred heart through, a third heart failure in a quarter was pretty dramatic even for him. He'd rather take his chances with these stinging stalkers.

Cal's pushing them into their own clear bubble gave Tony a moment to consider their options, gaze darting around the glowing school to try to assess the biggest bang for his buck, and it was the random fish dropping out of the regular formation that had him spinning to look questioningly between the pair to figure out where that was coming from. Jon might have been feeling the odd one out, but it was Tony that was feeling underprepared for this telekinesis party--that was the problem, that was why it was feeling so tedious and overwhelming. The fish had coordinated attacks, and the three of them weren't working as a team yet. Tony waved for their attention again and signed for 'gather', the opposite of whatever either was doing by pushing and scattering the fish. He did this insistently a few times before sending another jet of oxygen to his torch to blast through them all at once.

At least one of them was familiar with diving and its effects. It's not something that Cal had thought of, and at the moment there are other things he's concerned about.

He's taking care not to overdo it. They've been swimming for some time, and being underwater adds an entirely different level of things to be aware of. But he notices the strange behavior of some of the fish. He knows who's responsible for it. And right now, it's not something to wonder about for too long.

He can barely feel his fingers, but he can see his arm and knows its moving. Likewise with his leg, one definitely moving more awkwardly than the other for the lack of feeling, the growing stiffness. Tony signals them, and Cal gets it after the second gesture. He gathers himself, and then he pulls once the creatures have started to close in again, bringing them into a more focused bunch for Tony to blast.

Jon on his end can't do much to direct the fish or gather them together. But he does learn an awful lot about these creatures. How they work, how they react, and most importantly... What they fear. And that's what worries him as he watches Tony blasts an entire group of them at once.

There are worse creatures down here than these fish.

He watches the remaining fish scatter in the dark water, their bright displays of color fading away as they finally give up on their attempt to turn the group of invaders into a meal. But their retreat isn't a reason for Jon to relax. He looks from Cal back to Tony and then around them, the water now darkening again and leaving them with only BD's light to work with. Jon reaches the arm that has for the most part been spared by the fish down to pull Tony up towards them, eyes flicking to the counter nervously.

That wasn't so bad. Tony was still hyper alert, twitching around in place to watch the fish retreat while their scorched brethren floated to the surface, not entirely trusting that this wasn't some kind of coordinated feint to be on high alert for until Jon was pulling him up. Looking briefly anxious until Jon's expression seemed to confirm for him that they were in the clear, whatever his link to his little entourage was, Tony then drew his arm away to wrap around Jon's waist instead and butt his head against Jon's chest with a sigh of fluttering bubbles streaming up passed their heads. It was brief relief, a better view of Cal's limping swimming from there making Tony raise his head again then trade his hug to Cal, signing vaguely 'where?', then 'ok?', then offering the display counter again as the final question-- was Cal going to give out in the next minute? Tony could text Billy, and surely the kid could teleport right above them over the lake if it was a dire hospital emergency. Where the fish had gotten their little stinging bites under Tony's undersuit, he did feel a little cold. Cal was really going to need a suit.

Cal's movements are slower, but controlled as he tries to conserve his strength. It's a little harder when he can't make full use of one arm and one leg, but as the affected are on opposite sides of each other, it balances out in some weird way.

BD-1 switches back over to his ambient light, looking at the others from where he still clings to the padawan's belt. Both are more than relieved to see that the squid-fish things have finally taken the hint, but Cal knows they can't let their guard down here.

The brief but abrupt stream of bubbles betrays his surprise when Tony moves from checking on Jon to check on Cal. He gives him an awkward pat with his good hand, still clinging to the thing he'd found, mostly out of reflex at this point as he'd largely forgotten about it. He does his best to indicate his own injuries, not that it's not obvious already given his labored movements. Nodding wearily, he tries to assure he's all right and ready to go when they are, or at least not going to be a complete dead weight. Not until they try to get out of the water, anyway.

They will worry about mobility on land once they get there. Jon's attention is primarily on Tony's counter and the hand he has used to pull up Tony giving the man a pat to his shoulder and then lets that limb rest there while he also looks over to Cal and holds out his other arm towards the Padawan. This one is only numb from the elbow down, but should suffice for Cal to hold on to when they make their combined way back up. Between the three of them they still have enough leg functionality to reach the surface reasonably.

Then they will have to head to the hospital to have those stings checked. All of them. Even though Jon expects to be the least affected of their group despite having received a decent share of bites in unhappy places.

Their ascent was slow, with Tony mostly circling around the pair to keep them measured while they navigated their impairments and trusting Jon's flippers to power them through any stumbles, growing slowly more anxious to get this done as the water lightened around them and they could see the sun start to flicker through the weedy surface above. They were still feet away from fresh air when Tony impatiently tore away his rebreather, like that would make the process any faster, and kicked ahead.

The lake had been peacefully still since the team took their dive in, far enough away from the core of the city that the only disturbance was the occasional lizard splashing into the shallows and the chatting of relaxed birds, mostly dozing in the warm sun. A flock that had gathered to peck at the free meal of jellyfish floating bountifully on the water burst away with panicked squawking, a flurry of flapping and surprised complaining, as Tony's head appeared between them, a pile of the floating weeds clinging to his hair. He wrinkled his nose to discover the dead fish, and spun around, looking for the closest path to shore before diving down again and leading the way to the bank.

Where the rocky shore started its upward slope and Tony could kneel with his head above the water, he waited breathlessly and reached out as Cal approached to check him over again and get a better report now that they could talk. Most of his own bites were still compressed under the suit, but one that had gotten very close to the seam along his neck had turned in the air from cold to an itchy burn where the venom had spread, and Tony wasn't sure if that was a good or bad sign. That was what healing could feel like, right?

Edited 2020-07-16 17:35 (UTC)

Having to be in constant motion probably isn't helping with slowing the spread of the venom, but it doesn't seem to be spreading too fast either, thankfully. They're probably fortunate that they're bigger and of more complex make-up than whatever the creatures usually had to fend against.

Cal accepts Jon's assistance, and as they gradually reach the shallows he just focuses on keeping his strokes as even as possible to make it a smooth ascent. He watched Tony go on ahead, relieved to see that they're nearly to the surface.

Finally they break through, and with the fingers of his right hand feeling like rubber, it takes a few tries to remove the rebreather so he can have a gulp of fresh air. He drags himself alongside of Tony, forcing himself upright with his left arm so he can sit, as much as he'd like to lie down. Exhausted mentally as much as physically, he looks between him and Jon, making sure they're all right.

"....you...you two okay?" he asks once he feels he can spare a few breaths to speak.

With Tony having moved on ahead, Jon sticks with Cal until the Padawan is out there with Tony. Jon doesn’t join them right away, but uses the bit of extra mobility the flippers allow him to round up and push a decent amount of the des fish towards the shore for him to pick up and take back to the library.

“I... Will survive.” The Archivist responds once he finally drags himself out of the water as well, positively certain that he will be feeling this trip for the next couple of days. His frown, however, flicks between Cal and Tony “I’m more worried about you two.” Which is his own clue to pull the flippers from his feet with one hand and toss them towards his stuff before tossing about half a dozen dead fish the same way. Is he looking forward to cut these apart? Certainly not.

He flings one more fish away, then pauses, and exhales, refraining from looking at either of the others directly. “I’m sorry.” A lot of this was his fault, wasn’t it...

With a breathless laugh, Tony wrapped an arm around Cal's shoulders to give him a firm clap of encouragement, only to drag him over as Tony tipped to the side to shy away from Jon's assault with the dead fish that were perfectly fine floating away from them over there, not touching them. "Of course, I'm great," he replied, and, for once, that might have actually been largely true, most of his anxiety already gone now that they were back in the light and he could talk again, and no one's limbs seemed to be immediately falling off despite the venom still working its dark business; Tony's grin said he basically found the whole venture a success. It only soured as Jon flung his fish bounty, grimacing at the slimy pile so he could respond to Jon's apology, "For your nasty collection? You should be. I'm a little embarrassed for you. I miss Eli's tuna salad, too, but I don't think there was any tuna in it, boss."

Getting responses at all is always a positive thing. Cal nods at Jon, and then nearly tips over as Tony moves to avoid dead fish-things. A laugh escapes him even then, and he's just glad they all made it back.

BD-1 has hopped off and splashes about, helping kick away dead creatures before skittering towards drier ground so he can shake his little legs off.

"We ran into a lot we couldn't have expected, Jon. Most importantly, we made it back." So please don't beat yourself up over it because Cal will just feel bad about bringing up the whole diving idea in the first place. That's not to say he already does, but he still feels that they'd come across something important.

He shakes out his hand, easing his fingers away from the disc-shaped mount thing, flexing appendages to get the blood flowing. The object splashes and sinks to the gravelly floor beside him. At least Cal's not feeling on the verge of freezing now that they can soak in some light. He lifts his right hand, trying to flex his fingers on that side, studying the reddened skin along his arm where he must have been bit.

"We should probably get these bites checked out. Not sure if there'd be any long lasting effects, but leaving them untreated probably isn't a good idea." He tries to test his ability to stand, then decides maybe just a little moment more. "What did you make of any of that wreck we saw?" he asks, frowning a bit. "Although I don't know if wreck is the right word for it." It didn't seem to have been damaged outside of what has happened over time and by water wear.

Tony’s reply only gets a displeased little frown from Jon, but he does look over to Cal at his words and adds a small nod of understanding. “Right... Right.” It’s true. They couldn’t have known.

“Cal is right, though.” Jon then adds and fishes another dead fish-thing out of the water, waving it slightly in the direction of the other men. “Can’t leave these bites untreated. I... ah.... I was in their heads.” And he casts Tony an almost apologetic look. “I know how they work. What they are, how they... Communicate. Larger groups of them can take down some of the much larger predators down there. We were... A snack.” He pauses, now turning his attention to the fish and prying back its head to reveal the tendrils underneath. “But I also know which part of them serves as an antidote to their venom. Should we go down there again.... We can be better prepared.”

Because why wouldn’t they?

Jon's frown only made Tony grin back, and he gave Cal another pat of thanks for saying what he meant more clearly for Jon, not about to accept an apology for what a bunch of alien fish did when they went invading the fish-territory. Besides, if they had just gone down and found some sand and came back up without a scratch, that would have been disappointing.

"Looked like a chop shop to me," he answered, but he wasn't sure if that was any better to designate the site than 'wreck', because there were a lot of parts but not much of the shop. It wasn't like the architecture hadn't survived, plenty of those buildings were still standing down there around the junkyard. He plucked up the one find that any of them appeared to have managed to bring back with them, tipping the water out of Cal's disc-thing as he flipped it around to try to get a read on it or at least how it was made, and came up with 'alien'. Sliding down the gravel, he shifted in front of Cal and gestured silently for him to climb on over his shoulder as he continued, "There's factories down near the forge, I go through them a lot to find stuff to melt, and none of it looks like the stuff down there, but there was definitely some machining--vices and mounts, you know?" He didn't have a better way of explaining that yet, just that it looked like he could use it, and wanted it. Of course they had to go back.

Grimacing again at Jon waving a fish at them now, Tony at least titled his head in appreciation for a partial explanation for what was happening to the creatures down there. "We're always a snack," he smirked, chin up with far too much pride than that warranted, especially with the angry red mark creeping up to his ear, and eyeing Jon pointedly until the expression was entirely gone for a scowl at Jon's fishhandling. "Do that in private at least, geez," he muttered, as though he didn't completely appreciate the quick solution. There was just far too much communing with nature happening today, it was not Tony's style.

Cal makes a slight face as Jon gives them a quick rundown on fish anatomy. "That's ah...useful. At least we have more than enough samples to pick from if needed," he says, smiling crookedly as he eyes the floating carcasses. "Don't think I want to be around when they start to smell, though."

As Tony moves to offer him some support, Cal shifts his weight to his good leg, bringing up his numb arm up over Tony's shoulder. "Yeah, it did look like some kind of shop. I couldn't begin to tell you what for, except that none of it looks like anything of Agrii design at all, at least so far as I can recognize from the things I've salvaged and what the engineering datapoint's provided."

He frowns a bit, thinking about Tony's observations, nodding. "That piece definitely looks like a mount for something. And...the other things we saw. Weapons? I got a strange feeling from them. Not strong enough to be an echo, but it left an impression. Not a very good one either. Like, a feeling of hopelessness..."

“Lots of fear. Old fear.” Jon chimes in while ignoring Tony’s protest against his handling of the dead fish as he wraps the body’s long tails around his hand to give them a quick tug, basically turning the body inside out with a curious expression.

“But we’re they building weapons, or is that down there a battlefield?” He tosses in further, not yet bothering to try and stand himself. Instead, he plucks a roughly olive-sized black organ from the dead fish and hold it up towards Tony, who seems very eager to leave. The Archivist’s single raised brow may say it all. “You don’t want it to spread to your heart, chew this.”

While Cal was still sorting his balance, he was easy to grab by the weak leg to haul up onto Tony's back, where he could let Tony take his weight or throw them both over back into the water. Cal seemed sensible. They weren't going to get to the hospital very fast if they were dragging half of Cal, and apparently a fishing haul. "You keep doing things," Tony said to him, putting the puzzle together enough to figure Cal's weird reaction to the triggered object Tony found might have been something like an 'echo', but he was also moving things with his mind and hunting down Jon with unsettling accuracy. He could start to explain any time now, they had a walk to keep entertaining, but Tony only prompted him with, "You better not be reading my mind, you need a parent's permission for that show."

Meanwhile, he wasn't nearly steady enough on his feet with his load of Cal for Jon to start thrusting fish guts at him. Tony went, "Eugh," flatly, tongue out for a beat, feeling like he was being punished for not being more encouraging about Jon's weird scavenging. "Don't take this the wrong way, and not to be dramatic, but I would rather die," he responded to the offer lightly, but did bow enough to bring Cal's head closer to Jon's lovely gift, suggesting he could be the guinea pig for Jon's awful experiment.

Not at all expecting a piggyback ride, Cal yelps when he feels his leg being pulled up, giving him no choice but to cling with both arms. He could argue, but of the three of them Tony seemed the least affected, mobility-wise at least. So instead he sighs, resting his chin on his shoulder. At least he'll appreciate the chance to rest.

"I don't think it was a battlefield," he murmurs thoughtfully. "Even with things living below, there would have been more traces of...remains. I didn't get any sense of something violent happening there. Which just makes it more puzzling."

He watches Jon dig through fish organs with disturbed curiosity, blinking as he realizes Tony's addressing him. "I don't read minds," he promises, chuckling weakly. "It's the Force. I don't remember if I explained it last time. But it's like an energy field of sorts. It exists everywhere, and within everything. Where I'm from, some people are sensitive to it, able to tap into it. The Jedi, they'd find those Force sensitives at a young age to make sure they would be trained properly."

From a wince to a half-smothered laugh, that's Cal's reaction when Jon holds out fish guts for Tony's partaking. At least, until Tony seems to be making him take one for the team instead.

"That....is really disgusting," he feels he has to state. He glances down as he notices BD-1's come over, staring up at all of them, probably wondering if they'll really eat the thing. He can get more. There's lots.

Jon takes a while to simply look up at the other two from where he’s still sitting on the ground, holding up whatever piece of the fish’s inner working the Lamellen thing is. After receiving similar reactions from both, he glances over to the small droid. Then he sighs, dropping his shoulders along his his hand and turning his head forward again.

“Fine. Go ahead, then. I’ll... find you in the hospital in a few hours.” Only to offer them the very same thing squished into a mushy paste on a spoon.

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