Hard-Boiled Halloween

Mission Details:

Mac made his way back to his office fresh off his last mission but more than a little exhausted. Passing through the front door he saw Vera start to try and say something but shut her up with a glance, passing by her with such a dense aura of tiredness the last bit of energy for her day seemed to evaporate through her pores and eyes, condensing on the ceiling and pouring down the oppressive rain of drowsiness. Moving past her, an apparent cloud of his own accompanying him, Mac entered through the door marked with a simple message “Private” across its translucent window, rushing to his desk to start the write up and paper work of the missions he had just finished. A halloween night he had no problem with was one alone, but jeezus if he’d rather be doing anything other than goddamned paperwork. Working his way through his first report, the meatiest of the bunch, Mac would take a second to get a glass of water, trying to wake himself up, but of course the cooler was busted, so he was stuck with a glass of warm water, sitting in a ripped up leather armchair with a mountain of work. He took a sip before setting the cup down, and leaning back in his chair, taking a heavy blink before opening his eyes to reveal a change of scenery.

Instead of his dark, sparsely lit, or decorated for that matter, office he found himself looking at the vaulted ceiling of a well lit room that a simple glance around the place revealed to be grandiose both in size and ornamentation. Examining the corners, doorways, and cleanliness of the place told Mac this was some sort of hotel room, complete with a bathroom and fresh linens, the kind of place he had not even considered entering if not for a case, Mac had only ever frequented the kinds of establishments with creaky floorboards, wet ceilings, and floors cleaner than the mattresses. But this, this was nice, the kind of place he could get used to if he ever made the money and lost the will to keep up with work, the mahogany chairs, the curtains laid abouts the bed, the ornate silver handles to the door. How they shined and glossed and reflected Mac back towards himself. As he stared into the handle, he was jolted back when it opened quickly and the door swung open to reveal Vera, bawling her eyes out and screaming “WE HAVE TO GET OUT OF HERE,” before rushing the still sitting Mac, collapsing into his arms unconscious.

Raising from the bed he sat on, Vera still in his hands, Mac was puzzled and more than a little concerned about what could have shaken the usually cold and stern Vera. Looking out the door, he decided to investigate, dropping Vera as he rushed through the door, closing it behind him. This lobby was nothing like the fantastic room he was in. It was a familiar kind of dark, but far from desolate. Trash and antiquities dashed across the room in a strewn about fashion, like some sort of tempest has blown through the room. The walls were adorned with broken gas lights, the only light shining in coming from the moon through the blue stained glass windows creating a sort of dull blue vision to everything. As he surveyed the scenes, panning right, he would take inventory of where everything was and what was there, trying to find where someone may be hiding, but as he reached the end and began panning back to the left, he found that everything had shifted in slight but intelligent ways. Just as he reached this conclusion he heard the clanging of glass and metal together overtop him. Looking up to the ceiling, violently shaking, like it was possessed by something trying to break its hinges, a once brilliant, now rusted and twisted chandelier dangled, giving the warning of a large creak, before two loud bursts of nuts and bolts rang out, and with one loud rush of air the whole thing came tumbling down, taking the banisters and stairs to the next floor with it, Mac just barely able to dodge out of the way.

Thinking the place was just old, Mac assumed Vera was spooked by something like a busted pipe or a dead rat, but was quickly proved wrong when out of the wreckage of the stairs, the chandelier rose like it was pulled by a string, another assumption quickly disproved when it launched itself, prongs out, directly towards Mac, who immediately dropped everything and started to run his ass off, making a B line for the door, only for them to close right in front of him. Being pinned between the two, Mac quickly jumped off the wall, flipping over the chandelier as it crashed into the door, breaking itself and partially splintering the door. As Mac dodged the flying splinters, he came to the realization he had left Vera behind in the room, and running there he saw all the small items, the tea pots, the plates, the blank picture frames, start to levitate before launching towards him, crashing off his body and off the walls as the whizzed by. Busting down the door to their room, and picking up Vera, cradling her in his arms as he hatched up a plan to escape the haunted hotel. Looking behind and around him, he noticed the presence had no power in this room, and thus he had all the time he needed to make a plan. Remembering what he had seen out there, it took mere moments before it was decided. Grabbing one of the many cloths, he draped it over Vera, held her as close to himself as he could, and started running, bursting through the door he made a beeline for the stained glass window and, tucking his chin, he jumped through the window, making his escape from the haunted hotel.

WC: 1000

Mission Complete

Mission Details:

Proceeding through the streets, Mac searched far and wide for a place he could possibly seek refuge from whatever it was that was within that hotel, bringing the unconscious Vera along with him. Finding the outskirts of Yugakure no Sato to possess quite a few seemingly abandoned farmhouses, sheds, and hovels. Pointing one out that looked like it had the most roofing too it, hoping it could serve as a shelter for a time while Mac would try to think of some manner for himself to get back to the village hidden in the mist, while also trying to think of however it was that he got to this place, a place he didn’t remember arriving in. The sky was an odd dark orange in color, something Mac had originally imagined was something related to the position of the sun, but as time wore on, the sky stayed that odd shape as the pumpkins shaped moon began to rise in the sky. Finally finding an appropriate Shelter, Mac, still holding an unconscious Vera within his arms, headed into an abandoned farmhouse, entering past a steel shed door, and instinctively closing it behind him, quickly settling into the new place before taking into account his surroundings, this delayed protective action would come to haunt him. 

As Mac would lay Vera down, he would take the time to form a makeshift bed for her to spread out and get some rest on, given how tiring the previous events in the manor had been. Mac thought maybe he needed to get some rest himself, but a grumbling in his stomach and a parched scratch at the back of his throat told him he had to grab a bite to eat and try and find something to drink or he’d be in for a long night of no sleep. Looking around for any sort of food stores, Mac would realize that this place was strangely empty save for a trapdoor in the back of the barn house, all chained up shut, like a warning against entering it. This uneasy appearance caused Mac to be more sceptical about his surroundings, he would notice that the holes around this place were bore perfectly, not like the work of some pack of termites but like the work of a drill. He would see that the spacing between the planks had some sort of shiny material blocking off any sort of air escaping or entering, and looking at the door he saw a steel circular prism, a cylinder, rotate over the door, a distinct clicking noise signalling that the detective and his secretary would be stuck. That's when the shit hit the fan.

The door locked in an instant as Mac felt the floor more closely. What had first appeared to have been wood was a cold steel facsimile of the material, the walls sealed off, the only hint to what could be outside would be the apparently drilled holes sprinkled throughout the wall not quite as dense as a cheese grater, but certainly frequent enough to notice their pattern with alert eyes. As Mac went to closely investigate each of these holes, to see if maybe they led to some sort of escape from this horrible trapped room, he was greeted only by disappointment as they each appeared to be part of a pipe system, nothing Mac could use to get the hell out of here. As he was investigating the holes splattered along the wall, however, he was greeted at first with a pleasant scent emanating from them, a scent that quickly sharpened as a translucent gas started pouring into the room, smashing his face in with fumes, causing him to at first choke on it, going into an intense coughing fit, before experiencing acute anaphylaxis and slowly losing the ability to keep his eyes up. As more and more fumes pushed into and up the room, Mac fell down and onto the metal floor, falling unconscious and feeling a slight tug at the boot cut of his pants.

Waking up in a sterile white room, Mac would look around himself, first having to adjust to the brightness of the room, before noticing he was surrounded by chained up shinobi and civilians, among them noticeably was Vera, all gaining consciousness at about the same time as Mac. As he looked around at all the chains his eyes glided to his own wrists, also chained up but something Mac couldn’t quite feel, he figured he was still numbed by whatever agent it was that they used to knock him the hell out, and in thinking of this looked around for a person that could be in charge. As his eyes glazed over the similarly confused and chained up fellow inmates, numbering 12, he heard the intercom, first through its feedback, then through a voice that picked up and spoke. 

“In two minutes, you will all be released from your binds,” the voice stated, a timer appearing on the ceiling breaking up the plain white monotony of the area, “Five minutes from now, a poisonous gas not unlike the one that brought you all here today will disperse from the ceiling, and kill all those that remain in the room. This gas will stop if only one of your living bodies is left alive inside the room. When you wish to advance to the next room, each of the contained has a key tied around their neck, simply take one off your prey and use it to advance to the next room. In the next room, further details and instruction shall be given, but until then you are all expected to fight so that only the strongest may survive, be that the strongest physically, or those with the strongest will and mind,” the voice would demand, almost immediately sending everyone into a frenzy as they lie near one another chained up, ready and chomping at the bit to start killing each other, a fate Mac did not wish to entertain, so he did what he always does when the going gets tough, he got planning.

He still had a minute left chained up at the end of the intercom’s message, according to the timer. After that he would have three minutes before the gas came down, a fate that would seal the doom of all in the room. Wait a second, Mac would think, if the gas is poisonous, it doesn’t matter how fast we kill each other and how fast it stops, it will kill everyone left in this chamber, this would kill everyone because there is no way 12 people would be able to kill each other in 3 minutes, so there must be some sort of trick, Mac would pause and should his hands not have been be bound, smack himself in the forehead, I already have the key, just need to get the hell out of here without getting killed by these murder hungery maniacs, gotta get a hold of Vera too, and protect her as we try to escape whatever this place is and, if we can afford it without risking our necks too much more, put an end to the fucker that got us all trapped here so he both pays for putting us through this shit, putting people in the past for it, and people in the future, I just got to make it to the door with Vera before we get murdered, it’s simple, Mac thought to himself. He was about to start another long, unnecessarily long and complex string of thoughts about just how he was going to escape and be safe on his way out, when all the sudden he felt the restraints around his arms click for a moment, looking up at the timer, five seconds were left, he didn’t have time to plan anymore, he’d have to hope this would work.

Springing up as soon as his manacles sprung open, Mac rushed to Vera, gripping her by the wrist and rushing with her to the door as all the others, keeping her in the vice between his thumb and his index. The two would have to dodge through a maze of marauders waiting to strike and kill them at any point. It seems they hadn’t caught onto the gimmick, but luckily considering they were a pair, Mac and Vera’s absence didn’t cause any of the other “contained” to fight them, they were already busy trying to rip each other’s throats out they couldn’t worry about the guy and gal just trying to run away for now, afterall, they probably would have assumed because they ran away, they must be the weakest, an assumption Mac wasn’t sure about. They very well could be weaker, if these are all people from the ninja world that can throw fireballs and create incredible illusions, what chance would he have. But as Mac looked at the group of people, he noticed none of them were launching such magical attacks, it was purely fist to fist, so maybe if forced into combat, Mac would have a few tricks up his sleeve. 

Punching and kicking his way to the door, Mac would use the key on his neck, bending over and turning it with the grip still tightly on Vera to his nine o clock. As he opened the door, he instinctively stepped behind it, feeling the turn of the knob present extra resistance indicating some kind of trap, but in his haste to get out before the gas deployed, and in his overprotective restriction of Vera, he left here directly in the way of a cracking bolt of lightning that shook Mac’s nerves and completely bore a hole not only through Vera, but everyone that still had the key around their neck, leaving Mac the lone survivor of the room. He was crushed and immediately tried to rescue Vera, but as she lay in his arms, giving out her final breaths, her body started to fall apart in his arms, leaving nothing behind but specs of dust as again in his life Mac was left alone trapped in a room, forced to bear the guilt of the death of someone close to him.

A mix of somberly and angrily, Mac stormed into the next room, ready to find the fucker responsible for this. Looks like they didn’t expect anyone to survive this, Mac figured, Well now they have to expect me, lets see what the fuck I have to do to get to them. In the next room there was a single box, on it strange carvings, a sort of puzzle box. Figuring it is his only lead in an otherwise blank room, Mac figured why not open it, what was the worst that could happen? So he started fidgeting with the engravings, and in time the box almost seemed to solve itself.

Solving the puzzle box, he felt the entire room shake and shift, the floor rose unevenly and the white walls and ceiling were replaced with dark and dingy linoleum as another flash of light brought Mac to a completely new place, an uncomfortable chair surrounded by 11 other people, all seemingly dead in the eyes, tied into what looked like electric chairs. This was all some sort of sick genjutsu? Mac thought, Ripping himself out of his chair and starting to search the area. Finding a small man plugging away at a series formula for some sort of jutsu. Mac’s shadow covering his work, the small man would slowly turn around. By the looks of it he was a small Akimichi clan member, spirals on either side of his face, apparently sick too by the looks of it. “Did you like my game,” the small man said. To this, to the death of his friend, Mac replied the only way he knew how.  Not with words, but with grabbing the pencil, slamming the guy’s head into the desk, flipping his chair over, going into full mount, performing an emergency tracheotomy, before stepping up, and slamming his foot down on the pencil until it broke off into scattered splinters. This led to only a readjustment in his stomping as he shifted to the head. Stomping and stomping, he would feel himself almost raised into the area as he would once again lose vision and awaken kicking off the sheets of paper on the desk he used to recline. A dreadful dream for sure, but one he was out of, for now.

WC: 2081, TWC: 3081
Mission Complete!
Claims
+25 vigor
+5 Speed
+6.2k Ryo
+30 AP
+10 Tickets
2k/2k for Chakra Sensory
250/250 for Genjutsu Release
250/250 Mastering Genjutsu release Handseals
943/2,500 Chakra Nullification V7 - Sensory continued from Here

Approved