AEDOLIS > Margad

This isn't what I'd call a "team-building exercise" [M] [Draco, Goblin]

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nephero:
   Content warning for (technically) involuntary drugging, intense hallucinations, gross bug imagery, PTSD and Jonesy’s tendency to drop F bombs.

   —

   There was a point, once, where Jonah Cole commanded some measure of respect. It was, perhaps, not the kind of respect that other commanding officers and squad leaders might consider “good” respect, but it had always worked for him. After all, Jonesy wasn’t really capable of achieving the other kind of respect— the kind that had an entire city in mourning when they thought their Commander lost to the perils of the void.

   Someone, somewhere in history, once asked if it was better to be loved or to be feared. A kind of shitty question, if half the options weren’t available to you. Such was Jonesy’s dilemma, because he was already hamstrung as it was, and now he had these new recruits who adamantly refused to fall in line to the only option their Squad Lead had left.

   One was physically incapable of feeling fear. No manner of intimidation, of Jonesy’s natural aura, of threatening swarms of spiders could shake the guy. Ellis was like trying to scare one of those wild, wiggly noodle men one sometimes found outside of a grand opening of some shop or another. Utterly fruitless, and it never dampened that damn smile.

   The other, Joan, Jonesy knew was capable of feeling fear. She just seemed to prefer challenging it. Which wasn’t unheard of. Some people, when pressed far enough, turned violent rather than into a gibbering mess. Fought back. Got tougher. It was a good trait to have, being able to stare fear in the face and tell it to sit down and shut the fuck up. It did, however, make her remarkably difficult to handle. At least Darzi had the decency to pretend to obey him half the time, simpering for Jack’s benefit and digging her heels in all other hours of the day. Joan just dug her heels in. Twenty four hours. Seven days a week. Three hundred and fucking sixty five days a year.

   It was such that Jonesy had found himself acquiescing more than he would have ever done so at any point in his career before now. Where before he could stonewall and glare his way into victory, stonewalling and glaring got him nothing but worse and worse results. So, it took a few compromises. Giving into the little things to keep the big things from becoming a big problem.

   Like the big problem of Ellis dragging every last dingy, dirty piece of equipment into his office to scrape the filth out over his floor. Like the big problem of Joan let loose with neon paint cans, spraying over their helmets and probably the furniture while she was at it.

   So desperate for his company. Which was the most bizarre twist of it all— so his fear tactics didn’t work on them, fine. But he never made himself pleasant to be around. He wasn’t fun. He was allergic to the mere concept of it, if Joan’s implications were anything to go by. And yet she— and Ellis, even more so— absolutely insisted in haranguing him at every spare minute either of them had. Others would have gotten the hint, cut their losses, and given up on a lost cause.

   These two had Jonesy carting his laptop down three levels of the Scorpions HQ, to the equipment room, so he could work on next week’s simulations in one corner while the two young Cardinals did their chores. He could only imagine that, somehow, this made them happy. It didn’t make sense, but it made even less sense without this explanation.

   Sighing as he got settled on a far bench, Jonesy looked over the thin screen at the other Pilots in the room, watching as they began the standard and, admittedly, utterly BORING task of scraping old, faded paint off of helmets, and the grime of buildup off of the gas dispensers. The crust was harmless in this ancient state, of course, but it tended to get into the more delicate portions of the dispensers, and could potentially compromise shutoff valves with very dangerous consequences.

   Jonesy tried to remember who had had this task last, thought it might have been Vijaya, and tried to remember if Jack had been around when he’d given the order or not.

   Ah well. Didn’t matter. What mattered was it got done now, and he got the next drills programmed, and this day ended so he could go home, light up, get high and watch something stupid and brightly colored on television the whole weekend.

   Petulant though they could both be about following orders, Joan and Ellis weren’t idiots. So Jonesy sat back and focused on the coding in front of him, brows knit and a deep scowl on his face as he placed trap after trap. Maybe some live Teinari targets this time, the sooner they all got used to screaming, the better. Simulated screams always had a kind of comforting falseness to them— you couldn’t feel sympathy for a computer program like you could for a person. Nothing ever quite measured the same thing.

   Jonesy typed in a quick allocations request, and continued formatting the rest of the first room.

   "Make sure you scrape with the grain, Archer. You chip those helmets and you're explaining to Distribution why we need a whole new set."

GoblinFae:
It was moments like this when Joan could almost feel like she was part of one of those warm and bubbly squads. The ones where everyone got along, were friends, maybe even family to each other, and did things on their days off. Not even her Squad Leader's constant scowl or unrelenting stream of doom and gloom was enough to smother her current mood. Maybe it was the effects of having Ellis so close. He really was a sweetie and Joan was grateful every day that she had him as a squadmate and friend.

He made the emotionally oppressive workdays so much more bearable. It was probably wrong to use him as an anchor when she felt like she was going to spin out of control from butting heads on a constant basis with Jonesy, but Joan was grateful all the same that she could. He was the first person to greet and accept her into the squad (and with muffins at that!) He didn't hate her with the first mention of her name, oh yes she had caught all those wary glances between the older scorpions. He didn't get into her face for perceived insults to his precious commander. Ellis was just himself, an innately gentle and caring soul.

Being around him was like her days with her Little Bats, so Joan was determined to make the most of it. They were partners in crime when it came to painting the town green or tormenting playing with GhostBoss. She definitely counted it as a massive victory that he had voluntarily dragged himself downstairs to spend time with his subordinates rather than lock himself up in his office as he usually did.

Because where Ellis was like marshmallows in hot chocolate or kittens just learning to walk or any other thing too cute for words, Jonah Cole, Squad Leader of the Margad Scorpions was a fly in your morning coffee or bills on payday or any other insanely infuriating aggravation on an otherwise good day. Joan despised the way he carried himself as if he was above everything and everyone, that there were no consequences for his actions and that his constant aura of "fuck off" was neither his fault nor his problem.

She begged to differ though.

Jonesy was a challenge that she sure as shit wasn't afraid of. So even if it meant a lifetime of jackhammer migraines just to prove herself to him that not only did she belong but that she wasn't going to back down to him, then Joan damn well was going to keep tightening her bootstraps and barreling into his path headfirst.

He didn't need to be her friend. In fact, the very idea that he ever could be would make her laugh. GhostBoss just didn't do words that started with "F." But, she wasn't dumb enough to believe there wasn't something buried beneath the glares. She wanted to know the truth of the matter. She wanted to know why he hated her so much when in the beginning she had done nothing but her best. She was determined to understand why that chip on his shoulder seemed to always be directed at her because until she had joined the squad, she didn't even know who he was. In her mind, Joan hadn't even earned such ire.

So she butted heads with him, invaded his space, challenged him, questioned him, and pushed when it seemed that others just danced around him. She found triggers and learned to avoid always pushing those. Somewhere under the scowl was a sense of humor that regularly shocked the shit out of her whenever he allowed it to leak out to the surface. He would do things like help Ellis through a moment of panic or drag his laptop down to keep them company and Joan would be completely thrown off kilter because buried deep inside somewhere in there was a heart that still gave a fuck about other people.

Joan grinned as he got himself settled, undeterred by the look he gave them over his screen even as she munched away on a granola bar between resurfacing their helmets. Not even his surely instructions could dampen her mood. She mock-saluted him before pausing to dig in the bag beside her for a moment. Seconds later she hucked a candy bar right onto his keyboard.

"Eat a Sniggers, GhostBoss! You ain't you when you're hungry," she cackled before winking at Ellis and offering him one as well. Maybe today wouldn't be so bad after all.

Draconian:
Oh shit, Candy!

Ellis grinned at Joan before he opened magical flying candybar and popped it in his mouth. He'd finished cleaning two canisters already and was onto the third  As instructed he'd taken the antidote and after finishing off the candybar, returned to work.

Being compared to a happy inflatable tube was accurate. If the motor was on in any capacity, arms were waving and there's a somewhat doofy look on his face. Easy to please and happy to help, Ellis checked over canister three, looking up and over at Jonesy, glancing to the side at Joan.  Ellis smiled to his squadmate before going through the first parts of the safety check.

When he joined the Scorpions they were as cold and as distant as their tactics. Further even. The only time he saw them was drills. There wasn't much in the way of team building beyond knowing a name and a face. Ellis glanced at Jonesy, frowning at the Lead curiously, ignoring the gentle hiss his cloth made against the canister in his lap.

It had been a spur of the moment. One second Ellis is bad mouthing his squad and then there was the familiar unfamiliar name in the chat. And then it was over for Jonesy. Joan and Ellis on the case, annoy Ghostboss until he liked them. Ellis turned his head down, still smiling, though it quickly and suddenly went away.

The hissing wasn't from the cloth.

"Fu-!" Ellis yelped loudly and tried to jolt away, which he'd managed to do for the most part. There would be a bruise on his arm, later. The hissing was a leak from a container and a metal seem violently exploded out. At least aside from his bruised forearm he was fine. Ellis frowned and crawled over to the destroyed peice of equipment.

"Well shit," Ellis picked it up and shook it. Not super keen on what would it be like if he hadn't taken the anti-thingy-ma-bob. Ellis sighed and stood up, rubbing his sore forearm and rotating his shoulder.

Going to Joansy seemed like the logical choice - Its unlikely a container like this has exploded for Joan. "JonesyBoss?" Ellis started, holding the broken pack in his arms, "How exactly do we write this off? Also this wasn't my fault, I was totally paying attention to what I was doing." He paused and smiled hesitantly, like he was waiting to be called out for somenthing.

nephero:
   His only warning was a soft hiss. He'd been so wrapped up in unwrapping his Sniggers (as much as he wanted and did glare at Joan for the mild insult), he'd almost not realized what that kind of hiss in this kind of room might mean.

   Before Jonesy could so much as shout, the soft hiss became a deafening crack. The canister in front of Ellis exploded open, burying the young Pilot in a malevolent cloud of highlighter-yellow gas. Jonesy shot to his feet, his laptop clattering to the floor as he yanked his shirt collar up and over his mouth and nose. As if that would actually do anything.

   But, survival instincts didn’t always care for logic.

   Luckily, the room’s sensor’s seemed to understand the situation with total clarity. Unluckily, this meant there was the rattling thunk-thunk-thunk as the locking mechanism rolled into place at the sliding doors, emergency sirens blaring intermittently between a robotic— if painfully informative— voice detailing,

   “Contaminant breach. Warning. Contaminant breach. Warning. Lockdown measures in effect. Warning. Please wait for decontamination protocols. Warning. Contaminant breach.”

   O2 masks. He needed to get to the O2 masks. The gas had completely filled the room, a putrid-colored fog that rendered visibility next to zero. It was designed that way— the less you could see, the more alone you felt, and there was something about that sickly yellow that set off all the little animal alarm bells in your head.

   The emergency masks were tucked away inside a false-wall compartment, helpfully outlined and labelled ‘In Case of Emergency, Press Here’. He just needed to get to them, get some airflow while he waited for the decon fans to kick on, and—

   There was a horrible, jarring juttering screech of metal on metal overhead, followed by a rapid-fire click-click-clicking. The telltale whoosh of the fans sucking out the tainted air never came. Shit. SHIT.

   Without the fans, the masks would only do so much. It was an insidious little gas, specially designed for ruthless efficacy courtesy of the most sadistic minds R&D had to offer. It found its way in however it could— the respiratory system was, of course, the quickest. In close confines like this, even the filters of gas masks wouldn’t hold up for very long. He had a better chance with an alternate source of oxygen of course, but…

   Left in close confines like this, with the whole room saturated, dermal absorption was also inevitable.

   He needed to get to the O2 masks.

   “Contaminant breach. Warning. Contaminant breach. Warning. Lockdown measures in effect. Warning. Please wait for decontamination protocols. Warning. Contaminant breach.”

   Jonesy felt along the wall, trying to keep his breaths as short as possible, squinting against the gas for the telltale shapes of his squadmembers. Had they taken the antidote like he’d told them to? Why the fuck hadn’t he himself remembered his own warning? Too late it remembered the series of vials he kept in his desk, his own extra stash tucked away for emergencies. Emergencies like this.

   Ellis might be okay. He didn’t feel fear, not the way this gas was meant to make a person feel fear. He might just imagine his Lobster Husband and a thousand spider wives, and be in utterly insensible maniac for a time. The canister had gone off as he was working on it, though. Had it burst and hurt him? Where was Joan—

   Joan.

   “Archer!” He shouted, as much as he dared with as much breath as he dared, “Archer, masks, get your masks on!”

   She didn’t have Ellis’ talent for shrugging off fear. If she hadn’t had her dose, there was no telling what would happen— victims of the hallucinogenic were never meant to recover—

   A shadow moved in the gas, just as Jonesy’s hand hit the panel, and the wall split open with a soft hydraulic hiss. A set of small oxygen masks and accompanying canisters waited there, nestled in soft fluorescent lighting with helpful instructions spelled out in helpful images. Breathable, uncontaminated air.

   “Get it on, quick— grab another, ELLIS, stay where you are!” Jonesy was already pulling a set free, and turned to shove the equipment into Joan’s waiting hands when the gas thinned just long enough for Jonesy to see—

   calloused hands scarred knuckles a grip too strong to break but never strong enough to bruise the telltale glint of a ring gifted on graduation black steel set with violent vibrant garnet pride and joy and somehow always burning ice cold despite never having been removed once

   Jonesy’s heart stopped.

   A cold sweat broke over him in waves, like how the arctic ocean might have felt if he’d had any concept of what the arctic ocean could feel like. His neurons screamed with misfire after misfire, and Jonesy jerked back as the hands, those telltale hands, turned into the rest: a razorblade grin and the kind of self-assured swagger that told him there was nowhere to run.

   The sudden motion backwards was too much for the sudden jelly of his legs to handle. Jonesy stumbled back against the wall, and on some base, stupid, animal instinct he thrust the oxygen tank at Ruslan as if that bit of defense would help. It clattered, useless, to the floor, and Jonesy soon followed, slipping to the ground as every muscle in him failed.

   “Well, well, well, look who it is—”

   “Get the FUCK away from me!” Jonesy lashed out, but the hand with the ring shot forward like a viper, gripping his jaw and squeezing until Jonesy was sure the bones would break. He kicked out, but Ruslan didn’t seem to even feel it.

   “Our… very… own…”

   Jonesy shrieked against the hand that gripped him, scratched at whatever part of this tormenting apparition he could reach— something, anything, but like a true nightmare the man somehow remained completely out of reach, a mere inch beyond every raking swipe—

   “moaning Joan.” Ruslan began to laugh, a horrible, bubbling laugh. He loomed over Jonesy, the laughter turning to wretched hacking as piles of black maggots erupted from his grinning mouth. The entire mass of vileness spewed out and over Jonesy’s chest, his stomach, his flailing arms— they bit and burrowed, and no manner of clawing seemed to deter them in their quest to get at every scrap of skin left bare to the world— and all the while he kept screaming. Screaming and wailing a harmony with the sirens overhead, but neither they nor Jonesy’s voice nor the roar of the fans overhead were enough to drown out the ragged breathing above him.

GoblinFae:
Too focused on the crunch of granola in her ears and the scrape of the knife against thick layers of paint--this HAD to be Laszlo's helmet with this much paint and crap on it--Joan stood no chance at ever catching the hiss. It was the sudden bang that had her jumping in action though.

"Fuck!," she spat emphatically as she jammed the helmet over her own head. It was a bit too big and without an oxygen hook up was essentially useless at filtering out the majority of the gas. However, it did provide her with a much needed ability to see through the dense haze before the air filters were able to kick in.

She was on her feet in an instant then, already bolting for the oxygen before her name was being belted out to do so. While both she and Ellis had followed Jonesy's directions--she could butt heads with him all day, everyday but that only ever came second to doing her job to the best of her ability--the antidotes would only prevent the majority of the hallucinogenic properties. The gas was not meant to be ingested in any shape or form, no one needed that crap in their lungs unless they were the scum of the earth. In that case Joan would gladly invite them to take a deep breath before taking a long walk off a short cliff.

Jonah thrust the mask into her hands which she was quick to accept. The helmet was ripped off and discarded with a dull clunk before the new mask was fitted in its place. Straps tightened and a press of a button on the side and blessed filtered air was filling her lungs again. Joan grabbed a second one, turning towards where she had last seen Ellis.

"You alright, Ellis? Still with us?"

The fans kicked on overhead, rapidly filtering out the smog and revealing a somewhat dazed looking Ellis but at least he was on his feet. Joan was just moving to step towards him when there was a sharp bang by the heel of her boot. She glanced down to find a third oxygen mask on the ground and Jonesy staring at her without seeing. The whites of his eyes were clearly visible on three sides and his nostrils were flaring sharply as he slumped against the wall. Someone had forgotten to heed his own advice and take his medicine.

She cursed angrily under her breath and turned back to face her other squadmate. "Ellis! Catch!" She tossed the facemask to him once she was sure she had his attention, then scooped up the other one and hurried to approach dear, old GhostBoss. Joan crouched over him, fighting to get the mask on him even as he howled and clawed at monsters she could not see.

"I'm trying to help you," she bit back, tugging his straps tighter and releasing oxygen into his face. It was too little too late but at least he wouldn't be continuing to breathe more of that poison into his system.

"Our...very...own...Moaning Joan"

Her eyes bulged as a wave of suggestion and words brushed against her so strongly she flinched away as if physically touched. It was hard for an empath to truly describe all the things they felt when filtering the emotions of others to someone who was not like them. Of course there was the general recognition that 'Karl is angry so I feel angry.' But what most people failed to comprehend were all the nuances and flavours of that emotion. There was an intimacy and depth of emotion that there really wasn't any words for.

But, when those words echoed from Johan Cole's psyche to her own, it took her very breath away. There was just so many layers to it all. There was revulsion, terror, trepidation, the primal beast set loose to rule in fight or flight. Even further below that blistering wave of emotion though was guilt, arousal, self-loathing, pain, and wrath. It rattled her to her core, sending a slimy, icy sweat down her spine and bile into her throat.

Joan felt like she had just been doused in a thick, vile, oily tar that clung to her, seeping into every pore until it drowned her. She couldn't breathe as it overwhelmed her. Flashes of her own memories mixed and drowned with these new sensation. But that was the problem, wasn't it? This wasn't new. She was well acquainted with villains that laid in her bed.

A flailing kick from Johan caught her in the ribs and knocked her clean on her ass. It was a different tormentor she was caught thinking about though. Clammy touches and searing burns ghosted through her mind. If it weren't for the oxygen mask, Joan would have sworn she could smell burnt hair and stagnant water again. 'That's my good girl...so flexible...' She clapped her hands to her ears suddenly and curled forward into a tight ball. "SHUT UP!" she screamed suddenly. "Shut up, SHUT UP, SHUT UP!!!"

'HE isn't here. This isn't real. This is just a panic attack. Jonesy isn't like him. Right? No, this can't be happening. Not again. Not again, not again, not again. Make it stop! FOCUS! We've had been gassed. This is HIS emotions not mine. I'm not the victim here. I'm not the problem. Moaning Joan. What the fuck does that even MEAN? I thought he was gay! Oh gods it's happening again. It's just like before. It's nothing like before. It's always the ones you trust. It's always the ones you trust. Not again! Why this? I thought this was over. How can he feel that way? How can there be two of them? Why can't they leave me alone? How long...all this time? It hurts so much. It's getting worse. I can't breathe.'

Joan clawed at the back of her neck trying to scrape away the viscera that was mentally assaulting her. She was trapped, caught between two sets of emotions and memories as trauma triggered trauma. Where every day since joining the Scorpions had been a constant, painful wall of pain from to drown out Jonesy's projections, this, the unfettered release of his capabilities was like the rail blasting through wet tissue paper and she was the paper plastered hot metal. He was so much stronger than her, so much stronger than she ever imagined and he was dragging her down a deep, dark hole of horror that had the potential to trap her within her own mind if she couldn't claw her way back out soon. For the life of her though, she couldn't remember how to do it.

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