510/The Midnight Crew

The Midnight Crew
Date of Scene:	26 September 2023
Location:	Dusk Boundary
Synopsis:	CW: Horror. The humble foundations of Midnight Tokyo are finally being built. Everything has to start somewhere, but not everyone is onboard with paving over the Dusk Zone...
Cast of Characters:	Nephrite, Norie Okana, Jadeite, Pyrite, Mamoru Chiba
Tinyplot:	Midnight Tokyo

---

Nephrite has posed:
    The Dusk Zone requires no introduction or description. But what's being done here probably does. There is a very large drill mounted on what looks like a heavily armored train car. Youma mill around, while Obsidian scientists with Veil Sight coordinate from the safety of Earth through the use of beacons that link up with wireless signals, so that screens and radios can be used here. This is the product of Nephrite's R&D department. Human technology that can survive the Dusk Zone and allow a connection between here and Earth. There is definitely magitech involved, with the crystal-based magic of the Dark Kingdom making all of this possible, but the fact that the two can be linked with only a pin-point Gate, as developed with the assistance of Jadeite's space-time powers being allowed to be studied, is a tremendous achievement.

    Huge energy expenditures and massive Gates are no longer necessary for small projects. No one and nothing needs to be able to go through other than a signal. Certainly there's Dark Energy leakage, but it's in a contained, sealed entry chamber with decontamination protocols before anyone can leave it. The Dark Energy will be much less volatile once they have a stable reality bubble to work out of too.

    "I expect there may still be technical difficulties and anomalies," Nephrite says both for the scientists observing and for the benefit of the crew around him. There are haulers full of raw materials, youma with heightened physical abilities, and ones with magic powers needed for this operation. "But we will need to get as far as we can this first time. We are building the future of the Dusk Zone, and a launching point for integrating the Zone on Earth into our domain." 'The Zone' being Tokyo, one of the few places dimensionally coherent enough for the Dark Kingdom to send youma. There's another at the North Pole, and another in England, but that's neither here nor there.

    "What we do here," he gestures around at the swirling darkness and sizzling blackness that eats away at the forceshields (and forceshield emitters for those who don't have that power), "Will determine the reality we are able to work with going forward. If you die fighting for our Kingdom, our Queen, and our God, then you will literally become the foundation of all of our future endeavors. Are you still willing to face the terrors of the Dusk Zone, in order to pursue a future where all of us can walk the Earth freely?"

Norie Okana has posed:
Norie Okana has acquired x1 lab coat. It has a nametag on it labeled 'Norie Okana' on it and a name badge that suggests low level clearance. She has acquired this lab coat because she is a researcher of the creatures and habitat here and also, people might respect her more if she's wearing a lab coat. She's wearing a pair of safety goggles on her head right now.

Underneath she's wearing a simple black T-shirt and jean pants, with simple, brown shoes. Nothing exciting. She also has a black messenger back slung over her shoulder. She taps her foot as Nephrite talks.

"I have extreme reservations about this. What about the natural creatures and beauty here? Will it be damaged or changed too heavily? We can't just...rip beings from their home because you're angry at a couple sparkleskirts." she says as she huffs.

She looks at the youma hauling things and the big drill and looks a little tiny bit saddened by the work being doing in the area. Sad being some of the one few emotions she can still experience.

DO NOT FALL TO THE DESPAIR, she thinks, as she shakes her head. Anger. Be Indignant.

"Isn't there less intrusive ways to accomplish this!?" she asks, almost pleadingly of Nephrite, placing her hands to her sides.

Jadeite has posed:
    Jadeite severely doubts that Obsidian's scientists actually could have bridged the gap between human technology and the phenomenal cosmic powers of a Dark General who can control space-time itself without the burden being heavily taken up by magic and the strange cobbled-together magic crystal tech that Nephrite's department has come up with. Even then, it's not a reproduction of Jadeite's true powers. He puts on a stoic face during the speech. It's being made for the menials, not the elites like him, or Norie, or Nephrite, or... That ghost thing over there.

    "I am prepared." he says simply, floating there in the absence of ground or air or anything to serve as a reference point other than what has been brought with them.

    Jadeite closes his eyes and furrows his brow for a moment as he counts down from ten. Then he opens his eyes and answers Norie. "There is nothing here but hungering darkness. We have brought our own hungering darkness, and she actually listens when told not to eat us. Nothing that doesn't attack us is going to be harmed." He isn't going to explain about Midnight Tokyo. Not to Norie and not to the expendables. They might not make it out of here after all, so why bother?

Pyrite has posed:
    Without that terribly useful fan and its terribly tasty spiritual energy, Pyrite is much weaker. At least in terms of Dark Energy manipulation. She is still quite the potent ghost, and a burgeoning psychic, so hopefully that is enough. Because she isn't the horror monster she used to be, haunting capacity or not, and just draining this area of Dark Energy to make is more manageable isn't an option. Instead, she dangles. She appears to be half-buried or half-sunken into the 'ceiling', even though no such surface exists, with only the front half of her body visible. Her pale face is surrounded by her long black hair, which merges into the Dark Energy surroundings seamlessly. Her eyes are closed. She looks like she's just floating in a pool of oil, sleeping on her back. On the ceiling.
    She doesn't respond to the protests, or the conversation in general. She just peacefully floats up there. Waiting.
    Feeding to replace the power she has lost.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"Mm," is all Hematite says as he seems to materialize from nowhere.

He is not prepared.

They all know, given his behavior in various settings lately, that he hasn't been the most stable he's ever been with his dark energy. Nephrite and Jadeite know, especially and in addition, that there are ways in which he's soft that are dangerous but that feel right-- right for him. Ways that feel like he's real and present.

Pyrite knows some of what he should be like, a lot more than anyone else here.

He's warded to stay in the dusk zone for longer than the two hours that's his outside limit, the line between discomfort and danger. The ward is only against the nature of the place, and doesn't cover the problem no one's seen far enough to be aware of--

--being disconnected from Earth.

At least there's that pinprick of a connection, right? Perhaps that will be enough.

A moment later, Hematite says companionably to Nephrite, Jadeite, and Pyrite, "You know I am always acting with your best interests in mind." A beat. "Right?"

To Norie he says, "I hope you brought snacks. This is going to be a while."

Nephrite has posed:
    The youma recruited for this mission cheer wildly at Nephrite's speech. Poor dumb bastards. "Jadeite has the right of it," Nephrite answers. "We aren't seeking to uproot or disturb any native life. But we will defend ourselves against attack. This is but a small part of the Dusk Zone, ultimately. Carving out a path is a small price to pay for having a place to call our own, where we can live safely, without having to fight the Enemy."

    Hematite appearing suddenly has Nephrite looking over in surprise. "Welcome, Hematite. I wasn't certain you would make it." He looks up at Pyrite sunk into the nothing-ceiling. Technically he wasn't expecting Hematite at all. But with Pyrite here... No wonder.

    "We have portable force shield emitters to spare you damage from the environment, but they may have trouble taking hits and handling Dark Energy corrosion at the same time, so keep to your usual if you could." Namely, avoid taking hits. Don't be an absolute dimwit like that one time. Or the other.

    "Of course we do," he responds to Hematite after making sure a youma offers one of the emitters to him. "And likewise we look after your best interests as well. Right, 'Lord' Hematite?" Nephrite smiles. What a pompous ass.

    "If there are no further objections?" he asks, in a tone that suggests there better not be because he's continuing regardless. Then the drill starts up, the glittering black crystal on the tip already emitting some kind of high-pitched sound as it spins rapidly, sending out bolts of energy like lightning bolts as it dispels the amorphous dark and leaves behind a glowing red mark upon the shadows, like overheated metal.

Norie Okana has posed:
Norie Okana looks up as Pyrite is there bathing in what looks like murky oil. She kind of wants to bathe in murky oil, too but she has work to do. She looks between Nephrite and Jadeite and frowns. "This is bad for the dusk zone." she says with a frown. "You're destroying things. And.. and drilling holes in it." she says as she re-crosses her armss.

She then looks to Hematite. "I have duskfruit. and donuts." because of course she has donuts.

"Mnf..." she says. "There's creatures here who's habitat you're disturbing..." she says as she tries to plead her case. "Is there. Anything I can't do. To make you reconsider this!?" she asks as she frowns.

She opens her messenger bag to then grab a duskfruit and nibble it nervously.

She isn't making moves though. She doesn't want to cause issues by trying to attack things, or stop things by force.

When the drilling stops she frowns a little harder as she hovers a few feet off the ground and floats to the right a bit and looks to the left and right, trying to feel out for incoming creatures. Remembering the fracas that her, Double Trouble and Sunbreaker caused with just a small fight.

"Wait. Is the Dusk Zone toxic to you all?" she asks, curiously.

Jadeite has posed:
    Jadeite sighs. "If exposed directly to it for long enough, I suppose I would suffer ill effects. Existing in a demi-plane like the Dark Kingdom can be done indefinitely, and a border realm like the Dusk Boundry is likely safe for me as well. Earth can literally be walked to from here, if you can survive coming to this side of the Boundry in the first place. Otherwise, as long as one doesn't go too far into the Dusk Zone... I suppose almost anyone could wander in this region."

    The drill starts. Jadeite would know even without the sound and light show. He can feel the distortion as space-time wraps around the crystal and then spirals out in flayed strips along the drill itself as the machine advances. To others, it probably looks like heated metal. To Jadeite, it looks like a wound.

    Perhaps Norie has a point.

    Unfortunately, Jadeite doesn't particularly care.

    "I sense nothing approaching." he announces while levitating over to Hematite's side. He doesn't make contact. He knows something is up. But he does murmur, "Always." as answer.

Pyrite has posed:
    Pyrite doesn't react much. When Hematite arrives, her eyes half-open, and she looks and sounds distant when she welcomes him. "Hematite-senpai. You came after all." Her bright red eyes continue staring ahead (or 'down' for those who insist on having euclidean reference points). Her answer to Norie is brief, and to the point. She makes a 'Mm-nn' sound and then says, "No. It feels like home."
    She has no other reaction to anything going on, but the darkness she's connected to, flowing into and out of, flinches a bit like there was an unexpected pain. Pyrite just blinks docilely. "N o D a m a g e." she says in English. She doesn't know English is a language that exists, but she has watched enough anime to pick up some phrases.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
There's finally a small smile from the first among equals that is Hematite, strongest soldier of the Dark Kingdom, and it's a smile tilted Nephrite's way at the greeting.

Hematite takes the proffered emitter from the youma graciously, hanging it off his belt. "Of course, 'Lord' Nephrite," he says dryly. "And don't worry. I figured out a directional shield for my beautiful hair, it should stretch to cover the emitter."

Is he even serious right now? There must be some level of serious; he's not laughing. Then he looks to Norie and shrugs one shoulder. "It certainly isn't kind. I'm about as allergic to it as I am to dark energy in general, but you've seen I can carry enough of that to little ill effect." Right. "I just have a time limit. This will help extend it."

He smiles a little crookedly at Jadeite, too, and Jadeite's answer makes some tightness around his eyes relax. Then he does say, at the same time as he wants to pull the other three out of here, out out out, and take them away from all of this, "I, ah. Have a longer established time frame in which I can stay in the Dark Kingdom, yes." The takeaway being that no, he can't stay there indefinitely, either, even carrying this much dark energy.

Has any of them seen him stay in the Dark Kingdom as long as a day? It's possible there's more than one reason Beryl decided to go corporate.

He looks up and up at Pyrite (he needs Euclidean geometry as well as the calculus.) There's an abortive move to extend his arms toward her, but this isn't the time or place. He doesn't know where all of her is. "Py-tan," he does say, and his voice is warm. "I'm glad to see you. I was worried when I found your phone."

Nephrite has posed:
    Nephrite holds up a hand and sighs. The drill is working. That is good enough for now. "I will take your concerns under advisement. If there is a less intrusive way of building what we need, we will take it into consideration. If we had enough Dark Energy users to forge a tunnel with their powers, we wouldn't need to resort to brute force measures. For now, though... We need at least a basic starting point, so we can come back here in the future. This won't stay the same place after we leave, most likely."

    It's a murky cloud of caustic darkness. The corrosive effect shouldn't be too bad this close to the Boundry, but a normal mortal would definitely be in pain by this point, if not showing signs of being devoured by the very 'air' they are touching and breathing.

    Nephrite imagines himself asking a Sailor Senshi, 'You really believe that's air that you're breathing?' after all of this is finally working. Morpheus is the best, truly.

    "GO FORWARDS!" he calls out, sweeping his arm out to gesture ahead of the drill. It starts up again, and proceeds, spinning the darkness into vapor. Youma with magic begin forcing the Dark Energy to congeal, maintaining the spiraling momentum, and shaping a sort of psuedo-tunnel out of it. It can still be seen through, as much as an opaque darkness can be seen through, and one can step completely around it without being inhibited, but more and more this one section of the Dusk Zone is gaining a semi-stability. There is structure to it, at least on the illusory level.

    "Anything that we didn't bring in with us is a target. If it gets within firing range, it's too close." he calls out as the drill operates, making sure the youma with ranged powers know when and what to shoot at. The physically powerful ones will do the labor of unloading equipment and materials, and quickly forging them into tracks like one would use for a train. The passage of the drill-mounted train car is creating the concept of tracks as it moves, making building real tracks that will stay in place more feasible.

    He looks to Norie, Jadeite, Pyrite, and Hematite, checking with each of them for if they sense anything coming or detect anything amiss.

    This close to Earth, they shouldn't be facing much in the way of hostiles. But one never knows. He listens through an earpiece to the chatter of the techs and researchers on the other side of the pinpoint Gate. There's a lot of excitement among the humans. This is their first time seeing a dimension outside of their own universe. It's one thing to decypher magic as a mathematical formula or prove its existence through testing materials brought back from the Dusk Zone. It's another to see it.

    Nephrite smiles a bit. It must be like how he feels studying the stars. If he could actually leave Earth behind and travel among them...

Norie Okana has posed:
Norie Okana nibbles her duskfruit as she listens and narrows her eyes.

The voice in her head speaks to her. 'Why haven't you tried to kill these fools?'

She answers back 'Because it's rude. And it'd cause rifts Riven-senpai would have to deal with.' she says angrily, into her head. 'Also. I am outnumbered.'

She grrs a little to herself. "Ugh, fine. Do whatever you want. Who cares if it goes all sideways." she says softly as she finishes her duskfruit, core and all in a sudden, in a way too far for human jaw, bite.

She gnashes her teeth again and looks over to Pyrite, and back to Hematite as she gets...texts.

She looks down to her texts in her phone which she pulls from her pants pocket and floats there in the air as she replies a few times, and then looks back up.

She sighs and wilts a little in the air she's floating in and looks back up to Pyrite. "Oh. Good. It does feel good. Doesn't it?" she asks quietly. "Uhm. mnf. I'm. Obligate energy vampire. Norie Okana." she says. "Dark energy mass. Really." she says.

"Are you. Pyrite?" she asks, noting Hematite called her 'Py-tan' earlier.

She then sighs a little. Ugh these feelings suck hard. She wishes she could feel good things again...

Jadeite has posed:
    Jadeite would much rather be with the researchers and technicians, to be honest. Not to problem solve with them or experiment, but to read what they've come up with so far. Expanding his knowledge base, and multiplying his options is his core strength as a Dark General. Not his powers, but his capacity to adapt. Versatility, flexibility, actually thinking through problems instead of just smashing his head against them.

    That is one benefit of being the least among equals: He doesn't have the luxury of not thinking.

    "Well, hopefully once things are more stable that will be less of an issue." is his only answer. He doesn't bother saying, 'Because Midnight Tokyo will be closer to Earth than the Dark Kingdom. So close someone can just step through from one to the other, as easily as they can walk from the World of Light to the World of Dusk through the Dusk Boundry.

    He envisions a future where the citizens of Tokyo are snatched off the street without warning. Youma abducting children by being the beasts under their beds, the monsters in their closets. Dark Energy twisting the minds of salarymen into getting into a car and just driving at full speed down a crowded sidewalk.

    Wouldn't that be just delicious?

    He feels like he should be disturbed.

    But mostly he just feels nothing, and cold contentment, floating at Hematite's side. "We'll figure it out." he says calmly towards Norie. "We always do." He smiles a small smile.

Pyrite has posed:
    The sleepy, distant-looking Pyrite answers after a noticeable delay, like she's sedated, "Yes." Pause. "I am Pyrite." Pause. "You were on the mountain?" she asks. She wasn't there for that. Well, she was, but it was a different her. The same her, but from further along. Or maybe behind.
    She starts to drip down from the 'ceiling', the blackness of her hair and her uniform slowly, noisily stretching out of the darkness, while her pale, pale skin looks like it's going to tear right off, but doesn't, just stretches and rips in places, but there's no blood. This isn't a body, this is an image, an illusion, a ghost, and she can be whatever she wants to be, she can be anything, just like Hematite didn't say to her that one time, but he thought it, he felt it, and then it was in her head, in her heart, after she channeled his pain, and now she believes it too.
    So, looking like Rei Ayanami in End of Evangelion, tearing and stretching, and growing as she comes closer, getting bigger and bigger, because she was so far away, her giant, half-torn face, eyes pulled wide by the tension, stops near Hematite and says, "I can not find me either."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Hematite watches the drilling; he texts something; he watches. He shakes his head at Nephrite when asked silently if there's anything going wrong or anything on the approach, then glances down/away at the clusters of animatedly talking scientists and purses his lips slightly. They don't know what they're celebrating, not really.

This really isn't Stargate.

He texts some more, startles slightly at Norie's vehement grousing, and then pockets his phone. "We'll see," he says mildly to Jadeite. "It might cause different problems. Impossible to know ahead of time, but it'll be interesting to find out." Then he grins at his coldly contented friend and says, "Dodge tanking doesn't protect against my own nature."

Then Pyrite's... very, very Pyrite. Hematite stares for a second, and he says cheerfully, "Nobody with that many arms can sit at my lunch table. But I'll go find her, okay? I need both of you, and she warned me she might get lost."

He looks over and raises his voice a little, then. "Neph, you've got this well in hand, and it's great to see your progress. You definitely don't need me here, but if anything goes badly wrong, you know how to get me."

He reaches up and briefly clasps Jadeite's shoulder, then scruffles Pyrite's terrifying head, and offers Norie a little bow-- then turns around and teleports out.

Nephrite has posed:
    This first mission is just to test the Dusk Drill and guarantee it works, as well as that they can stabilize the Dusk Zone to create essentially a new demi-plane without the help of a god like Metallia or a master magician like Beryl. So far, it seems to be going well. Time passes, and though there are little wriggles of attention at the outskirts of Nephrite's sensing range, and concealed presences that Norie and Pyrite may pick up, the continuing space-time tunnel is as stable as it's going to get. Especially if Jadeite lends his aid.

    So far... Successful.

    After an hour of drilling, walking, and keeping an eye on the creatures and entities that watch from afar, they stop. They will build a small base here, just a structure to define the surroundings and force order upon a space where there is none. Sensory equipment and a Gate generator will be set up, and a crew of youma will be stationed here. More progress will be made next time.

    "We'll see what we can do," Nephrite agrees with Jadeite, in regard to Norie's concerns. "We don't want to wind up fighting the entire Dusk Zone." That would be a losing proposition. Hematite's reassurance, even after he departs, are enough to bolster Nephrite's confidence. This can work. He complete the project while still scaling it down to a less destructive level.

    And as the one who came up with the idea in the first place, no one would suspect that he's trying to protect Earth from his own scheme.

Norie Okana has posed:
Norie Okana looks at Jadeite and oh no, he's cute. Which means she doesn't want to fight with him too much verbally. She mutters. "We-well I hope you do. The landscape. Habitat, is important here for a variety of creatures." she says. "It isn't about just hostility of them, it's about conservation efforts." she says quietly.

Look, she just wants to. Pet all the Dusk Zone creatures. Is that so bad?

She then watches Pyrite come along and she watches her with interest. Even though the weirdness, and skin tearing awfulness. She watches in awe. "Yes, I was in the mountains. I ate a lot of energy there. I was good for a few days after, even." she asides, her usual monotone settling in from the grave concern, slowly. "Hematite-san told me you we're a ghost. I was. Curious. About it. But. Later? Maybe?" the vampire asks a ghost.

She then pulls a couple donuts from her messenger bag and shoves them into her mouth because she's peopled too long.

"Thank you." she says quietly. "That's. All I want right now." she says quietly as she bows back to Hematite as he leaves. She looks over to Nephrite. "Just. Some care." she says quietly.

"Kinda wanna find something to pet right now." she says quieter still.

Jadeite has posed:
    Jadeite lends help where he can. He created his own personal pocket dimension from scratch. Solidifying a dimensional tunnel that was build by someone else is child's play. Also, the sooner he gets out of here, the better. Unlike Pyrite, feeling comfortable here is a red flag to Jadeite, because he knows he shouldn't. He may not remember why it's dangerous, but he knows that not remembering is itself a cause for concern.

    So, once everything is settled, a gloved hand rising and guiding and directing reality itself to become what he wills, even if 'what he wills' is 'a tunnel to a squat, square building with a watch tower and wi-fi', he is all too happy to thank everyone for their efforts, graciously, and compliment the youma who came along. Even if they didn't get to fight anything, they will surely be able to now that the locals are aware of them. Their job is to fortify, expand, and organize patrols.

    With a bow towards Norie, the Dark General says, "Jadeite, if we have not yet been introduced. I expect we shall be seeing more of each other going forwards." A smile, and then he too teleports away.

Pyrite has posed:
    Through it all, even as progress is made, a frame of reference created out of wholecloth in a dimension that has none, the giant face of Pyrite looming up, staring down at the proceedings with those great, big red eyes never seems to change in distance. Well, that's to be expected. Just because perception is being solidified doesn't mean Pyrite's perception of herself is changing. And, when it comes to ghosts, her own perception of herself is more important than any other kind.
    She is reading the ebb and flow of Dark Energy, making sure the wounds don't get infected by licking them closed. She used to be able to eat them, but not anymore, not since she was defined more specifically and bonded more strongly to Hematite. A reconfiguration of her self-perception comes with a shift in capabilities.
    But it's done, finally. Out of the eye of the giant Pyrite face, a teardrop of blood emerges and drips down to splatter on the newly-formed 'ground'. A solid mass at the center of the red splotch rises up, revealing herself to be a humanoid figure. A small girl, with long hair, in a military uniform. She's rather messy at the moment, given she's drenched in her own spectral 'blood', but her eyes open after a moment, white and red in a coating of dark crimson, and looks over to Norie. The blood is already flaking and drifting upwards, like it's dried and crumbling already, and by the time she reaches the vampire, she is clean and pristine again. Mostly. She smiles a mysterious barely-there, Mona Lisa smile, and says, "We can talk. Would you like to pet my cat, Shiro? He is a ghost too."
    Whew! The day is saved! Also, the spooky giant face is gone. It just disappeared when people stopped acknowledging it.