END GAME: THE COUNTDOWN STARTS

[sailmods]

[the prisoners wake up on cold, hard floors.

the lights are bright, glaring, a sterile cell with sterile bars facing a sterile hall. the prisoners with you, across from you, and no one else. no rocking of a ship in waves, nothing. just the prisoner and their prison.

time passes, one assumes. the rhythmic click of Friday’s heels down the hall. it’s almost like the ticking of a clock.]

Comments

Okie, Crichton, Arthur, Crabb, Yakko, Sharky, Mulcahy, and escapees

[configuration_birdwatcher]

Then into your life, there comes a darkness

Bastion boots up to a cascade of error messages, some of which they're used to and others they don't often experience. The most urgent, at least according to how their systems have automatically ranked them, is that they have zero bullets loaded - not just in their gun arm but also the ammo drum for sentry configuration, which they haven't used since October - and the ammunition generator isn't responding. Several other systems are unable to initialise: self-repair (distressing but unsurprising), the transformation management utility for tank configuration, wireless communication using any frequency outside the range of 20 Hz to 20 kHz, and the secondary channel for their optics that handles input outside the visible light spectrum. They can't detect any damage, only deactivations.

They lever themself upright and assess what they can see. They're in a prison cell with... there's a 93% chance that's Okie, but they've never seen his internal weather look so dark and still before. Five other passengers they recognise from the ship are in the cells visible from theirs; Crabb and a black-furred, semi-bipedal, partially clothed animal of unclear species with Yakko's voice are front and centre, having an argument with someone out of sight about a topic Bastion can't even begin to follow. They caught a mention of puppets.

// Status? they ask Okie, as much to check if he's incoherent or unconscious as to get a verbal answer.

There's a spacecraft blocking out the sky

Once they get their bearings, they consider the bars. Unlike railings constructed primarily to stop humans from trespassing or falling from a height and hurting themselves, they aren't lightweight enough to knock out of place with a single punch. Disarmed and with tank configuration entirely shut off, they can't blast their way out. They have one more idea, but it's not going to be very subtle; all they can do is time it for when Friday isn't nearby.

// This will be loud, they warn Okie.

The kinetic energy required for the two-meter-tall load-bearing steel frame of a Bastion unit to move around its armored chassis full of weapons and circuits and psychological problems is far in excess of what a human or even most animals could produce in a bare room by muscle power. Bastion runs at full speed towards the bars and twists at the last moment before impact, slamming their shoulder armor into the metal with as much body weight as they can bring to bear.

WHAM

[sailmods]

[the bars are unaffected.]

[configuration_birdwatcher]

All that kinetic energy sends Bastion bouncing off the undamaged bars, where they go sprawling on the ground and skidding toward the back of the cell with clattering and scraping noises not entirely unlike a metal shelving unit falling down the stairs. At least it's the ground they hit and not Okie.

Breaking down the bars with direct force didn't work, but they can try a few other approaches. Their self-repair system's still not responding, so if they hurt themself they're stuck that way, and they can't try melting the bars with it. They'll have to be more careful. Bastion stands up and approaches the cell bars a second time, planting their feet in front of the wall and gripping the metal, then shoving their handhold to the side as hard as they can with the rotational force of their whole body.

[sailmods]

[with a loud groan, the metal bends far enough to allow someone through.]

[configuration_birdwatcher]

[ Bastion reaches to help Okie out first. ]

[mistertwister]

[ with a much quieter groan, Okie lets himself be lifted and holds himself up on the bars. ]

Holy shit, dude.

[configuration_birdwatcher]

[ It's a tighter squeeze for Bastion, but they get themself out of the cell and into the hallway. They didn't know if that was going to work after the way the first attempt went, but they could probably manage it again. ]

// I'll open more cells. I don't think you can help; do you want me to bring you to Siffleur?

[ They can't see any swelling or broken limbs, but they don't know what else might be a sign of injury on a weather-person and Okie's having difficulty standing up under his own power. Which is not conducive to helping tear the bars apart or riding on Bastion's shoulder while they do that. They're not sure what specifically Siffleur's doing, but he's at the end of the hall with Victor. ]

[mistertwister]

I can go with Siff, yeah. 'Less we get all our bullshit back I'm just a human that stands out.

[ He steps out into the middle of the hallway, gets the feel for his legs under him again. ]

You want I should pass on a message?

[configuration_birdwatcher]

[ They're glad that he's doing better. It'll save time if they don't have to escort him, too. ]

// I'll start with cells where both parties can fight, in case we're interrupted.

[ They don't have any personal messages for Siffleur, and he should be able to pick up everything else he needs to know by looking around. ]

[mistertwister]

I'll, uh, be on standby then.

[ He claps his hands as if they just finished a pregame huddle, before turning to shuffle awkwardly down the hallway. ]

[ss_buttcrack]

"Whoa! Everything okay over there?" Crichton is not able to see what's going on, but that sure did sound like a tank hitting a ton of bricks.

[configuration_birdwatcher]

// We're okay, Bastion answers from the floor with a wobbly whistle. They're not sure if Okie is actually okay but at least they didn't land on him and make it worse, and while they're scraped up and might have a dent in their shoulder armour they didn't damage any important parts.

// The bars are sturdier than expected.

[ss_buttcrack]

"You gotta be kidding me. You're built like a tank and you can't bulldoze through them? Then, how the hell did the cougar get out?"

[configuration_birdwatcher]

// I don't know.

By all accounts, it doesn't make sense. They saw Siffleur go by, but they don't have a view of his cell, and it can't have been because he used more force than they did. Bastion stands back up.

// Maybe Friday returned his powers? Siffleur has a close relationship with her, and if he had his shapeshifting and regeneration he could break himself down until he fit through the gaps.

cw: mention of gore, animal harm in the abstract

[ss_buttcrack]

"Maybe..." Crichton wrinkles his nose picturing Siffleur biting pieces of himself off until he could fit through the bars. Animals do that, don't they? Chew their own leg off to escape a trap.

"I hope he likes you better than he likes me. Given half a chance, I'm pretty sure he'd leave me to rot in here."