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(no subject)

Who: Alisaie Leveilleur (

adelphoi) & Prompto Argentum (

punshots)
What: Blinded with science pt. 2!
When: nowish
Where: The Institute in Olympia
Warning(s): None yet? Some disturbing ideas probably, given the quest..

[ alisaie had hoped to never find herself back in this awful place again, and yet here they are - she cannot very well pass up an attempt to shine a light on whatever myriad horrifying things evras is up to, even if it means sticking out her neck, or uncovering anything.. unsavory. what they found last time was unnerving, and this time they have been asked to go even deeper still, to dig right into the heart of this place, but honestly, she worries more for prompto than for herself. what they found last time had been.. upsetting to him, and no doubt they will find more evidence still.

but he's strong, and he's made his choice; if he were not able to handle the possibility of what they might face here, he would not have come. he's come a long way. she trusts him to get the job done.

they slip in the same way they did the last time, all those moons ago, and it is easier still with only the two of them, they are able to move quickly and reach the archives twice as fast. but it is here that they part ways; it will be far easier to cover more ground if they split off momentarily. alisaie touches his elbow, speaking quietly, ducked behind a row of filing cabinets. ]

I shall take the west, and you the east - whoever finishes their sweep first will seek out the other. No more than an hour.

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[ Of course he's wearing his stealth beanie, his hair is way to ostentatious otherwise. So, if he dies here tonight, at least he'll look cute while doing it.

He squeezes her hand in return, with a quick, but intent nod. ] You, too.

[ And then she's gone, slipping off into the shadows, and he's on his own. He can't help but worry, but Alisaie can handle herself much better than he can, honestly. He should be more worried about tripping up and getting caught in a situation that forces her to abort her own mission.

But his is straightforward enough. Find the three keycards, get access to the secure room, dig up as much information as he can. Easy peasy, right?

The lab is mostly inhabited by the time he sneaks inside, ducking behind a long, shiny cabinet that holds gods knows what. He has seen the likes of what Evras may be cooking up in here before. For better or for worse, he knows what he's looking for. He can hear two of the technicians talking to each other - arguing? that's helpful - but only two. Are there others that aren't speaking? He needs a better vantage point, to see without being seen, so he continues to move around the room. ]

[ ostentatious is a word for it, for sure..

but much as she might want to stick by his side, they have work to do here; this is no pleasure stroll. she has faith in his abilities, and should she need to intervene she will not be far, and neither will he be far from her. and so it is time to set to work.

subtlety is not necessarily alisaie's strong point, but at least she's very small, which means it's quite easy for her to hide when she hears approaching footsteps. more than once she is nearly caught, but she slips between the shelves just in time, and thankfully so, for she's even worse at bluffing than she is at sneaking. alisaie is the straightforward stabby type before all else.

and so she knows what she must do once she reaches the final door, deep in the heart of the archives, where the folders and tomes on tech and artificial intelligence give way to biological texts. one archivist stands in her way, and while she has managed to avoid all the others to this point, this one must needs be dealt with, as he stands right between her and her goal, and after witnessing a conversation between him and one of his fellow researchers, she's quite sure he will not allow her to pass.

right. she draws her rapier, but before she is able to ready a single spell she is spotted. the archivist attacks swiftly and suddenly, and she has only a moment to fling an arm over her eyes to shield from the blinding flash of light he conjures. the battle is on. ]

[ He can feel the shift in his necklace when Alisaie draws her blade. Her heartrate picks up, and there's a spike of adrenaline, and he knows what it means. She's been spotted, and it takes all of his strength of will not to dash out of his hiding spot then and there to fly to her side.

But they both knew combat was a very real possibility, and Alisaie is more than capable. Really, Prompto feels sorry for the other guys who will meet the sharp end of her rapier. Still, he gives his pendant a little squeeze, lifting it to his lips to kiss it gently, and mouths the words please be safe to it before returning his attention to the task at hand.

He's surveyed the room now and found that there are three archivists inside, one working at his desk while the other to argue. He can't quite follow what they're arguing about, but they keep drawing what seem to be mangled body parts out of drawers to make their points. It's...ghastly, honestly, and part of him is sorely tempted to jump right up and ask them just who the hell they think they are, working on subjects like that, but he refrains. He hasn't been discovered yet, though every second he hides here puts him more at risk. He needs to act.

The archivists don't appear to be armed, but that doesn't tell him much. They could easily be magic-wielders, which puts him at a distinct disadvantage if he can't get the jump on them. He can shoot fast and take out two of them at once, if he has to. But he'd rather avoid killing anyone if he can, so...a surprise attack would suit best.

Right, so.

He calls a handgun into his grip, aims it at the large, overhead lamp in the room, and fires at it, shattering the bulb. The technicians only have the sound of him cocking his weapon to alert them before the room is washed in darkness. ]

[ thankfully, he need not worry about her well being. her foe is fast and clever, but she's taken down stronger, and more, than him. she'll definitely need to watch out for those blinding effects..

it's a hard fight, but a quick one, at least. alisaie attacks relentlessly, flinging spells and dashing in to strike with her rapier, hard and brutal and ceaseless. she takes a few hits here and there, but nothing terribly alarming or worrisome, and soon enough her rapier finds its mark, piercing the heart of the archivist, and he falls at her feet.

at last, alisaie steps back to catch her breath, her heart pounding and her blood singing - she's a bit out of shape, those weeks spent convalescing have not done her well. she's done her best to practice and exercise but gods, she'll have to work harder, it seems..

nevertheless, it seems she kept their engagement short enough that they were not noticed, for after standing in silence for several long moments, alisaie sees nor hears the sound of any others approaching. still, to be safe, she pulls the body of her unwitting enemy behind a dusty shelf, out of sight for the moment, and then at last she is able to slip past that final door, closing it quietly behind her. ]

[ The room is pitch black and the archivists alarmed and scattering in the darkness. Prompto has sharp eyes, but even he cannot see in the dark. For the moment, though, he doesn't need to. He lets his ears guide him as he dashes out from his hiding spot, tapping into his Crownsguard techniques for the first time in quite awhile. He activates Starshell, a flare firing from his gun that lights up the whole room in an instant. He's prepared for it, and covers his eyes, but his opponents, on the other hand, are not quite so lucky.

Prompto uses the fading like to knock the two that were arguing down with the butt of his gun, knocking them unconscious. The third, though -

The third has hidden by the time Prompto turns around to find him. The light fades entirely, and all he can do is wait, tense in the darkness, listening. ]

[ once she's behind the door and in relative satefy, alisaie stops to catch her breath, and to touch the pendant at her collar; no doubt prompto is in a predicament similar to her own, given the ferocity of his heartbeat and the way his blood sings. it's so very tempting to abandon her station immediately to go to him - so much can happen so quickly, and she's still so high strung from these past months - but no. she has to trust him. this is nothing he cannot handle, surely.

so with a deep inhale, alisaie begins her search.

admittedly she does not know where to start, but she supposes the biological texts are as good a place as any. as quickly as she can she begins rifling through tomes and papers and folders, drawers and cabinets and desks, all the while monitoring the response through her pendant. ]

[ The next few minutes for Prompto are long and tense. He can't hear the technician still in the room at all - had he slipped out while Prompto took the other two out? Was he raising the alarm right now? Surely he would have heard the door, but shit, he should have been more careful with the light situation. He can't see a damned thing.

But after those few minutes tick by, at last back-up power kicks in, bathing the lab in dim, ethereal light. Prompto, still out in the middle of the area, ducks down for cover immediately, but he doesn't hear anything else. Maybe the other archivist really had slipped out, but somehow...he doubts it. He would've returned by now with reinforcements by now. He's in here...

He can't stand to wait for the other to act, so instead he dares to peek out from behind the table he's hidden behind. Still, he sees nothing.

Is the air getting a little...thin, in here? ]

[ it isn't easy to track down specific information in a place like this - only marginally better than finding a needle in a haystack. she's pinpointed where in the haystack the needle is roughly located, but it is nevertheless difficult to find the precise location. there's simply so much - they are archives, after all, where information gathers at its thickest.

but soon enough she stumbles across a thick file labeled biological preservation, which she's quick to snag and slap down onto a table to rifle through, skimming quickly for the words she wants to see - dragon heart - because the sooner she leaves this place, the better. ah - there!

.. it does not escape her notice, however, that in all this time prompto has still been agitated. shouldn't he have made it past whatever threatens him by now? alisaie had, and she'd all but ransacked the archives to boot. uncertainty settles into her gut. rather than picking out the notes on the dragon heart specifically, alisaie simply stuffs the entire folder into her coat, unsheathes her rapier, and hurries from the room. ]

[ The third archivist still does not make himself known, and Prompto has no choice but to begin prowling around the room, seeking him out and hoping he can get a jump on the other before he himself can get attacked. His gun remains in hand, the sight trained in front of him, as he stays low, turning corners around tables and benches and equipment, still listening, listening...

And then he catches it, a slight crunch of glass beneath a boot, and not a moment too soon, really. It's getting really hard to breathe through his nose. Prompto springs around a long silver bench where the archivist hides on the other side, finger threading the trigger and —

All at once, all of the air goes out of him, like an invisible hand has reached inside his lung and squeezed them empty. His gun clatters to the floor as he sinks to his knees, clawing at his neck in some vain attempt to release the invisible fingers there, but it doesn't help. He can't breathe.

Helpless as he struggles for air, the archivist steps towards him, a cool, wicked smile upon his face, as he reaches for Prompto's gun. ]

[ by the time alisaie is reaching his wing of the archives, alisaie is glad that she has made haste - something is wrong, wrong and getting worse. she can feel a tightness in her throat, a burning in her lungs, and it's a good thing that prompto knocked out the two archivists along the way because alisaie abandons any semblance of subtlety and sprints through the dimness, around shelves, following the heat of her ring as she grows closer to him.

the archivist does not see her coming. verthunder arcs from her focus, black and thorny and hissing through the air, catching him hard in the back, prompto's gun dropping from his hand.

but that is not enough - without missing a beat, alisaie follows up with a powerful, brutal verflare, a searing explosion of fire and shadow that consumes the archivist where he stands. he drops to his knees and then, with a shuddering exhale, collapses onto his back, and alisaie rushes forward, dropping to her knees, both hands reaching for prompto's face. ]

Prompto--

[ Prompto can pinpoint the exact moment the archivist dies, as the air immediately flies back into his lungs with a shuddering gasp, the invisible hand pulling away from his throat. Stars swim in his vision as he coughs, coughs, his body still desperate for oxygen, as Alisaie drops down to take hold of him. In spite of himself, a smile breaks over his face at the feeling of her warm fingers on his cold skin. ]

I-I-I'm - [ But he chokes back the forthcoming apology. He knows she won't want to hear it, so he doesn't offer it.

Instead, he drops his face against her touch, nuzzling into her palm, inhaling and exhaling hard. ]

Y-you - you saved - m-me - you're always - saving my s-sorry ass...

[ There's a lightheartedness to his words, but it's...true, for both better and for worse. How many times has Alisaie had to bail him out of danger now? How many times has he been incapable of taking care of himself? ]

[ oh thank the gods he's all right - though he's fighting for air, alisaie cannot help but draw him close, pressing her mouth to his brow in a hard kiss, and inhaling the scent of his hair through his knit cap. ]

There are far better talents in this world than being easily able to destroy your fellow man.

[ she says in a way that brooks no argument. no, prompto may not be as skilled in battle as she is, but is that really such a terrible thing? so she's better at murder than he is. that's hardly something to be terribly proud of. growing up beside a brother so intelligent and popular as alphinaud, alisaie had struggled with
feelings of inadequacy for a very long time, so she knows how he feels, and why he feels it, but she had also learned that not everyone's talents lie in the same areas. prompto absolutely outshines her in his own ways.

ways she should be more than glad to remind him of, once they are out of this place. for now, there's no real time to waste with conversations that can take place later. drawing back, she lifts his face between her hands to look into his eyes, and take the measure of his awareness. ]

Can you walk?

[ Distantly, he knows she's right, perhaps, and regardless, this is not the time or place to be having this conversation. If it even needs to be a conversation. She makes her position perfectly clear, even if he can't really agree with it. It's not about talents. It's about the fact that he keeps almost dying and she's the one who stick her neck out to save him. He should be better than this, but he keeps slipping up.

But the job is not yet done, and that is the imperative thing. Nodding, he allows himself only a moment to tug her close, winding his arms around her and burying his face against her neck before drawing back and up to his feet. ]

J-just need to - c-catch my breath. [ He smiles weakly, before he shambles towards the archivists' workstations to retrieve their keycards. ]

[ it might need revisiting, but alisaie had long since sworn to remind him of his worth, however much and however often he might need. he may have come a long way, but he has further yet to go. they both do. if she must needs beat his self-esteem into him, she will.

but not right now. prompto stands, and alisaie stands with him, gathering up her rapier and focus again and slinging them back into place on her hips, though still ever at the ready to draw them again if need be. but so far there are no impending footsteps, no sounds of an alarm raised or any hint that their intrusion has been noticed. thankfully it is late enough in the night that there is little more than a skeleton crew here, so as long as they do not dawdle overlong, alisaie is not too worried that they will be found, now that their opposition has been attended to.

while prompto works on gathering the cards, alisaie moves toward the door that will require them, waiting for him to finish his work. ]

[ It seems the technicians were not expecting to be ambushed as they were, because Prompto locates the keycards without too much difficulty from their unattended workstations. At least he had taken them by surprise, even if his plan wasn't entirely foolproof.

With cards in hand, he moves quickly over to the locked door and uses the keycards to unlock it. ]

...Okay. This is it! What they sent me here for...

[ The door clicks open, revealing...

A room with a computer? That's...peculiar. ]

[ alisaie has had plenty of run ins with both allagan and garlean technology, so it's not as if she doesn't know what a computer is - but to know how to work one? that's an entirely different story. she'll leave this to prompto, she did her job, the stabbing thing. that's what she's good at.

anyway, she's careful to shut the door quietly behind them before meandering closer. ]

I suppose whatever you are seeking is on that.. thing, then?

[ Still a bit numb from the events in the previous room, it takes Prompto a moment longer than it should to answer Alisaie, but as he shuffles through the flies next to the desk, he nods slowly. ]

Must be, right? Let's see what we got here...

[ He wakes up the computer, surprised to find no password blocking his entry, but then again, this is pretty advanced technology for this place, anyway. Maybe Evras assumed the three archivists and their keycards would be protection enough.

Evidently, he was wrong, and though after a few moments Prompto doesn't find anything of note on the computer itself, after a quick search he finds the USB stick in desk drawer and plugs it into the computer. The video files begin to play immediately, and it's evident from the first few seconds that this is not going to be pleasant. Prompto has never met S-8, but he remembers hearing about him and his involvement with the plague — and, of course, that he was an android. He had been built by Evras, too?

As Prompto watches the recordings unfold, his grip on the back of the chair tightens, his jaw tense and set. This...this is...

It's horrible. ]

[ at first, she leaves prompto to it. this is his task, after all, and she can use the interim to poke around a bit and see what else she can't uncover, but there's not much to be found in the immediate area, and she does not want to wander too far, lest more archivists arrive, or prompto has need of her.

but soon enough the tension she can see in his body from the corner of her eye becomes all too clear. ]

Prompto?

[ she cannot see the screen from where she stands, and the voices are distant, but nevertheless she draws up to his side, slipping a hand up his arm, to the back of his shoulder, her face tight with concern. ]

[ He jumps lightly at her touch, so absorbed in what he's seeing on the screen that he nearly forgets where he is, or that someone was by his side. Immediately, however, his gaze flickers to her, anxious and pale, as he searches for the words to put what he's seeing into. ]

It's...Evras, he... [ He swallows thickly as the footage of the training scenario cuts out and the recording of Cree begins. How had he not made the connection before? Of course Evras would have made S-8, given what kind of experiments are going on in this lab. And yet he hadn't put it together before now. And the things Evras had done to him, treating him like he was nothing, just a machine...

Well, it hits a little close to home. ]

That...S-8. The one who was involved with the plague. [ A fun subject for all, he knows. ] Evras...made him. And he treated him like, like...

[ She can probably piece it together pretty well. Like how he would have been treated if he'd grown into what he was meant to be. ]

[ it doesn't take her long at all to piece it together, between prompto's explanation and what she now sees on the screen before them, and she knows immediately what the problem is. anger boils in her blood, though more for prompto than for anything else, and her hand on his arm moves to his back, rubbing gently. ]

I see.

[ but she forces herself to keep on track - the sooner they finish this the better, for the sake of the mission, and for prompto. ]

Come, darling. We will take it to Cree.

[ Even after the recording finishes, it continues to pull at his heart in uncomfortable, painful ways, and were Alisaie not at his side, Prompto would need more time to find the courage to leave this place, to move forward with the knowledge he has just acquired. They need to go, and dawdling here will not do them any favors if more archivists show up.

So with a heavy sigh, Prompto pockets the USB and steps away from the computer. However, before he starts for the door, he dips down to find her mouth with his own, an ardent, desperate kiss that conveys more than his words can about how much he appreciates her, how grateful he is for her and the fact that she is here with him at all. It doesn't linger, because he cannot linger here, but it is warm and deep and needy, and when he draws back, finding her hand, it feels far too soon. ]

Yeah. Let's get the hell out of here.

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