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[cmdr_renegade]

Who: Commander Shepard and anyone/thing who happens to be lurking around, searching for weird shit in the memory-buildings.
What: Let's be stuck in a holographic maze together. Btw. It's full of corpses and disembodied voices.
Where: Probably Kurzweil.
When: About 4:50 PMish.
Warning(s): Bloody things and creepiness? Also swearing.

Comments

[arbitrating]

Fortunately, the sound of gunfire made no difference to the holograms and whatever intelligent design was behind them. It did, however, attract the attention of someone else.

Human corpses were not precisely disconcerting or unfamiliar to the Arbiter, not after his own efforts in the war, but it did not put him at ease. Humans found the presence of their dead horrifying, as he understood it, and the new decor would only heighten tensions on the station. If nothing else it would remind the SPARTANs of the war they'd left. The one they didn't know was over.

And the one he had slaughtered millions of their species in, before being presented with the truth about his righteous cause.

He picked his way carefully around the holograms anyway, stepping as softly as a seven foot Sangheili in full armor could, though the bodies were neither real nor deserving the deference of death rituals. Corpses would never again be simple husks of matter to him. Not after the Flood, where the dead walked and bit and struck with their misshapen limbs. He had not forgotten the depths of that ship, and would never. Something skittered through the shadows behind him and he twisted his neck, mandibles flared in a threat snarl.

Nothing. Shadows and sounds. Nothing real, although he had been obliged to start treating the walls and doors as 'real,' and had activated an avatar at the prompting of his network device just to get himself out of a room that had locked him in.

The moment he heard gunfire, his first instinct was to spring away from the nearest body, expecting the bloody thing to suddenly come alive with Flood mutation. When it didn't move he stepped past it slowly, and stalked through the hallways looking for the source of the noise.

A brighter decision would have been to leave and avoid contact, just in case what he found was not a new hologram but a SPARTAN soldier. Avoiding confrontations, however, had gotten very old over the past month. If the SPARTANs could not appreciate his restraint after all these weeks, they would not appreciate it at all, and a confrontation was inevitable.

[cmdr_renegade]

The layout of the building hadn't changed much, but the holographic walls had cut off several established exits, shifted and blocked paths she would have preferred to take. Shepard didn't like it much, but that didn't mean she had much of a choice. She was a rat in a maze, at the moment, and there was very little she could do about it. If she deactivated her avatar, she could cut through the walls, but that didn't help if she couldn't open the doors without it, so she hadn't bothered to try.

Her hand dropped away from her pistol as she rounded a corner to, yet another, empty, skinned hallway. She'd already managed to waste a clip because some creative hologram had startled her, she really didn't need to waste another if the darting shadows decided to sprint across her vision. The carnage in the hall prior wasn't the norm, but it was nowhere near unique. Most of the walls were smattered with hand-shaped smudges of blood. Deep, long, nail marks followed the floor, skipping and jogging intermittently. The occasional corpses she passed were less damaged, but no less gruesome.

A voice in the wall, somewhere, was chattering indistinctly. It wasn't the first one she'd heard, wandering through the skinned areas, so she hardly paid it attention. It was like the decor: disturbing, but ultimately a holographic simulation.

The footsteps were new, though, and Shepard slowed as she approached the end of the hall. So far, the only holographic footsteps she'd heard were sprinting. These didn't seem to be going much faster than an amble, and they were much more...delicate? Deliberate?

Perhaps it was a new simulation.

Shepard's expression flattened and she paused briefly before stepping out into the intersecting corridor. Whatever it was, it was bound to be interesting.

[arbitrating]

Human. He scented it clearly, and quickly activated his armor's invisibility. Even if it gave him only a few moments before shorting out, as was inevitable given how old it was, he wanted a clear look at what was waiting for him up ahead...

Not a SPARTAN. Human, certainly, and armored, but not nearly tall enough to be anyone he knew. He hesitated, wondering whether to simply turn around and vanish back the way he'd come, avoid any unwanted confrontations. He had no obligation to reveal himself, after all, if the female was lost she would surely be able to find her own way out, and the holograms were not actually dangerous, so--

--and his armor shorted out, right on cue, leaving him in plain view as the invisibility dropped.

[cmdr_renegade]

For about half a minute, Shepard was staring at nothing but an empty hallway with bad lighting. She was ready to turn, ignore the recently halted sound of footsteps, and continue on her less-than-merry way, when the air flickered and, with a mechanical sizzle, gave way to a tall, dark shadowy thing. Shepard recoiled slightly, her hand going reflexively to her sidearm, and she had to force herself to keep from drawing it.

Whatever it was wavered into existence and just...was for a moment. It wasn't really moving, and Shepard kept still as she surveyed it. It was tall enough that if it stood up straight, it'd punch a hole in the bulkhead behind the holographic skin. Double her size in bulk, if not in height, and armored like it was going out of fashion. It was a species she'd never seen, but that was less surprising than it should have been.

"Damn," Shepard said aloud and drummed her fingers against the grip of her pistol, eager to draw it despite the fact that the creature before her was almost certainly fictitious. She was tempted to activate her omnitool, or her visor, just to catalogue it, but neither would be worth the headache. "Apparently the hanging corpses weren't creepy enough, now the holograms have to look like giant goddamn aliens."

[arbitrating]

...ah.

An unworthy part of him wanted to seize that opportunity and run with it. If he stood still, or simply turned around, perhaps she would not even notice the difference.

But he could not very well continue avoiding every single lifeform on this station. She had not immediately recognized his species and opened fire, which meant, perhaps, that she would have no quarrel with him.

"I'm afraid you are mistaken," he said finally, lifting his head and watching her warily, tensed to dodge or rush her if she pulled her weapon.

"I am no hologram."

[cmdr_renegade]

It answered her...and fairly politely, given the circumstances. Shepard's hand tensed around the grip of her pistol but she didn't draw it, not just yet. That creature was big enough that if it decided to attack, even with her biotics up, it'd feel like getting plowed by a cargo freighter. That armor probably wasn't ornamental.

If it wanted to have a polite conversation, well, she could do polite. Probably.

"The fact that you materialized out of thin air, notwithstanding," Shepard replied casually. Tactical cloaks weren't uncommon, but she'd seen precious few occupants of the station with the kind of tech required. She was suddenly rather grateful that she'd reloaded not five minutes ago.

"You enjoying a stroll back here, or did you get locked in by the holograms?" Shepard prompted after a brief pause.