Advanced Ultramarine

[Narrator]

A little while earlier...

Odo and his men were heading down to what the Valkyrie had told them was a team of VILE agents heading towards the crash site of the yellow sub. The team met another team about halfway there but Odo didn’t quite catch it. From his perspective, they were pausing to chat.

The city was weird to begin with, like being in an underwater section of old town Edinburgh. There were twists and turns, and paths leading to holes filled with deep water. Odo had a feeling those weren’t just puddles. Now that they were close to the target they’d been following, Odo was having a bit of trouble figuring out which one of these people was this ‘Carmen Sandiego’ they were here to get.

Then those puddles started to bubble.

Something crawled out of them, coming up from the ground, from around the corners. He was about to warn his men, but they were already seeing something, and firing loads at it.

 

[Neb]

Despite the order to huddle against some unknown force, Neb was feeling pretty good right about now. In fact, she was feeling really, really good, so good she should have been suspicious of just how good, but she was too high to notice.

Freed from the worry of her friend’s fates, she finally took a good look at her surroundings as the ACMEs edged her and the other unarmed into the center of the group.

“Hey Flag, what is all this?” the VILE asked her partner as she hugged his arm excitedly. “Is this for real? Are those gunshots? I don’t even know, but the ACMEs look spooked.”

 

[Flag]

From the point of the director's arrest, Flag found himself hitting upon an odd language barrier as the words of others simply became noise as it greeted his ears. The gunshots in the distance were crystalline, however, and with them came a brief clarity that allowed him to register Neb's concern. "Might be the other group. The one from Harbin."

 

[Joe Kerr]

With the gunshots came the return of Joseph’s splitting headache; the sudden jolt of pain rendering him temporarily incapacitated. Vaguely aware of some movement and shouting, the Jester took a moment to fight through the pain and regain some sort of bearing.

Placing his weight on the crowbar, Joseph took a laboured breath and attempted to stand up; midway through this, the Jester squinted and saw what appeared to be another group, gesturing toward them in the distance.

“Friends of yours?” he half-yelled to the ACME Commander.

 

[Ivy]

[Cowritten: Ivy/Chase/Deric]

Ivy tightened her lips, ignoring the questions. She could see her team already on high alert without needing to mention protocol. But while ACME had security measures, it didn’t mean their commanders were in situations where they were regularly surrounded by undead.

When strange creatures started coming out of the shadows, Ivy didn’t wait for her sensors to give her answers. She turned to Chase.

“You’re okay,” Devineaux nodded as soon as he caught her eyes. It was best all orders came from one central command, or they risked confusion. As if this entire scenario wasn’t confusing enough.

Her eyes probably gave away her feelings completely, Monaghan realized this after she heard the director’s answer. It was exactly what she needed to hear, but she felt a little guilty for indirectly asking.

Then some kind of plant mutant appeared from the shadows behind Chase and the ASP. Ivy shot at it instinctively.

“Great googly-moogly,” Deric blurted out as he was watched Ivy shoot at something behind them. Deric scanned the area with his eyes and with the STUN suit’s sensors, but couldn’t find anything. This place was really starting to tingle his spider-senses.

Devineaux noted shadows, but didn’t quite catch what lurked behind him.

“OK! We’re moving!” She shouted the order, “To the temple!”

Releasing a little sphere the size of a golf ball, she input the temple’s coordinates and let it roll. One of the Bunker Boys’ inventions, called Crumbler after the crumbs left by Hansel and Gretel, the round robot made iridescent glowing dots to mark paths in the dark.

“You’re carrying, big guy,” She said to Euge, meaning that he’s got the director in tow, “keep him safe.”

She gripped her STUN rifle and started clearing a path through plant sludge. And here she thought she’d killed enough plants to already last a lifetime.

 

[Nevon]

Somewhere else...

Systems disconnected…
Battery: 42%...
Attempting reconnect…
*Beep*
Searching for [Lead] Commander I. Monaghan…
Signals not found…
Searching for [Second] Detective D. Storm…
Signals not found…
Systems disconnected...
Battery: 42%
Attempting reconnect…
*Beep*​

Nevon woke to the high-pitched sounds of his indicator. After a few seconds, he realized he’d been laying on the ‘connect’ button on his wrist controller.

“Ugh,” he groaned as he moved to sit up. How did he go down in the first place? “Hello?”

Nothing answered his call. When he looked down at his hands, he jumped. Dark liquid… blood? His? Whose?!

“Oh man, oh no, I’m not certified to be in the field unsupervised…” he was, actually, because he already made Detective, but right at this moment, he’d forgotten all that.

“Ok, think Nev, think, what happened?” His head in his palms, Nevon rubbed his scalp a few times until something started coming to him.

They had calibrated the engine of one of VILE’s winged submarines. Then they must have boarded it. Nevon only remembered the temple and its gaping mouth. Did something swallow their plane whole, a fog, a cloud? He didn’t remember seeing anything.

Did he pass out?

Making himself stand, he didn’t have any major injuries. The STUN suit kept him safe, but he could see scuff marks on where he’d be in trouble had it been skin. Nev’s flashlight turned on and helped the built-in camera identify his surroundings. Blair was in a chamber, the floors were full of broken tiles in flower patterns. Eight large columns surround him on four sides, rabbit-looking animals with large carved eyes sat on the top of them, holding up the ceiling with their backs. Where the pillars met the floor were snake carvings, all of them had different scales, with gems in their eyes. And all along the pillars were butterflies or twisted eyes, he couldn’t tell.

Nev looked back at where he woke up. The dark liquid before was underground water filled with a red algae. There didn’t look to be any easy entry or exit, except for a dark rectangular open doorway directly in front of him.

He hit ‘record’ but the indicator said his disk was full. When he tried accessing playback from earlier, the files were empty.

As far as Nevon Blair could tell, he was facing a nightmare scenario. He was suddenly the lone survivor of this mission. What would he do now?

 

[Acton Roux]

[Cowritten: Roux/Neb/Joe/Chase/Deric]

Long ago, when Acton was a boy, he would have strange dreams that featured his grandfather. The man would be miserable, chained physically to his quest for immortality. Each frozen link was the ghost of some unfortunate soul sacrificed to this idiocracy. Some were relatives, willing sufferers of a beloved's insanity.

Noises that surrounded the doctor, be it gunshots or shouts, slowly began to merge into the clinking of metal. It was his grandfather, Acton believed in disbelief. Buried in his mind into a chasm as deep as this ocean, the old man had returned--minions in tow--to claim a final link in that demonic chain.

With the injuries he recently sustained, the no longer masked doctor felt an extra chill of vulnerability.

"We must go, do what the ACME female says," he spoke to his peers, although none may have heard him.

But the continued loss of inhibition had birthed a wild rebelliousness in the normally cautious Neb. Drunk on power and itching for action, she quickly lost the inclination to follow ACME’s orders.

“Hey Flag, check this move!” The girl shouted gaily as she broke from the group. She grabbed a thing by the wrist and yanked it down, then ran her other arm its captive arm and slammed it into the side of its neck.

Joseph watched in disbelief as the grey-headed girl happily broke rank to engage in drunken fisticuffs. Before he could approach his delirious teammate, the Jester was cut off by a half-dozen skeletons rising from the ground; each creature was arrayed in tactical gear reminiscent of those preferred by mercenaries. In their bony ‘hands’, each skeleton sported an AK-47 which they were now aiming at Joseph.

Gathering his strength, the Jester swung his crowbar; well-timed repeated sweeps reducing his foes to a mess of bones on the ground, clearing the path before him. Sparing the ACME contingent a quick glance, he shouted back to Flag whilst taking a quick swipe at the skeleton near his feet.

“See if you can grab Neb. We need to hurry before the ACMEs leave us behind.”

When the others seemed distracted, he glanced at Chase Devineaux. The man was in doctor Roux’s clothing, having a doppelganger in such a time may not be so terrible. His delirious mind hatched a dubious plan.

"The chain will hinder you, my friend." He spoke to the Director as they began to move, "Even if it is tethered to a tank."

Devineaux was already looking for a way out of these cuffs, but communication with Euge was sporadically cut off by weapons firing into the shadows. He first looked to Ivy but when he was unable to make reason, he called out to Deric.

"Don't move, buddy," he tapped Euge and pulled the chain from the ASP as taut as possible. "Hey Storm! Give me a hand?"

“Gotcha, jefe,” Deric said, raising his rifle. “You might want to cover your eyes,” Deric ordered before shooting out a link of the chain, freeing the Director. Deric also handed Chase one of his backup sidearms. “Stay close and try not to shoot me in the back by mistake. I’ve got no idea what we’re shooting at just yet but I’d rather it not be me.”

 

[Carmen]

[Continued from this post]

With the notion of having been ‘teleported,’ Carmen presumed the culprit was nearby. In the stillness, she expected his footsteps.

No one appeared.

Somewhat disappointed at being incorrect, she quickly turned to her surroundings.

The air here was cool but heavy. Each breath felt twice as languid and half as efficient as the one before. Echoes of water lapping against stone harmonised with the cooing of distant winds. It was too dark to see anything.

If only she had light.

A crispness cut through the air and glowing sapphire wings fluttered about her silhouette. Taken by surprise, she gasped and discovered that air entered her lungs much easier now.

Butterflies—no, moths—scattered as if floating on moonlit sails. The largest was nearly a foot in length. Similar to the Attacus Atlas, a species endemic to Asia, the upper tips of their wings curved to resemble the heads of snakes: creatures befitting of a temple that worshiped serpents and the night.

Some saturniids clung to her clothes while others perched randomly, but not haphazardly, along an invariable path. From there, her eyes perceived an arched doorway.

With another breath, she took a step. The insects flicked their wings in waving unison, rippling to her wake. Rustling white noise and ethereal glow completed a dreamlike atmosphere and for a brief moment, a doubt toyed with her mind.

Reality was blurring, perhaps.

The path led her to a hall of thick, leafless vines. Ambient light reflected from unknown sources painted sections of the room in tranquil teal.

At its centre was a female figure made of dark ivory or bone. Under a layer of time-settled dust, she sat about three inches tall, her shapely figure flanked by two ornate cobras. In addition to exaggerated feminine characteristics, her neck was artistically elongated between two rows of long wavy hair. At first glance she seemed a mixture styles, from the Venus of Lespugue to the Harappan goddess, but details in her jewelry, peaceful smile and lowered gaze suggested much more complex tools.

Fibre, traces of ochre-dyed spun thread clung to curves indicating she may have worn a costume.

The stories this one could tell, the thief considered as her gloved hands secured the little goddess between folds of linen. This was her prize, from the ‘womb’ of the temple. As she pocketed the idol and began walking away, she discovered no exit from where she had entered.

Returning to the central platform to reorient herself, she spied another opening behind it. Among the vines was an alcove with an ornate granite chair. At its foot were crystalised skeletons of two large serpents so coated with minerals that they seemed at first carved into the stone.

Inscriptions along the chair’s border did not look like any known language, but as she glanced over them, a feeling of urgency rose in her chest.

Voices, too close for comfort, were audible.

“We found her,” she discerned the accented English of a Romanian, “it’s Carmen Sandiego, get her to the boss!”

 

[Flag]

Rolling his eyes at the jester’s request, Flag started to cross the distance to where the girl was executing a roundhouse kick that he was certain she was proud of.

He crossed over the trail of glowing dots that ACME’s robot left behind and heard a loud fluttering to his left. Certain that it’s source was about to hit him in the face, he turned to dodge and found nothing. That was when the silence fell around him. Looking down, he still saw the lepidopteran-shaped ‘breadcrumbs’ but the worried, jumping bodies of ACME and VILE alike were missing.

“What…” He mused under his breath, but trailed off as an unmistakable light laughter rang from the end of the iridescent path. It’s clarity resonated within him and he was pulled from the mental fog of the city he left.

Soon there were other voices cut through the air. These were rougher and with a accent recently familiar. Flag grit his teeth as they brought to mind a specific fight in the snow and what had been at stake. With a renewed anger rising inside him, it was finally time to run.

 

[Neb]

[Co-written: Neb/Chase]

While what she fought still had no clear shape, a new, fleeting familiarity about them ignited something savage in her, and she eagerly seized upon a shadow rising up towards ACME's director.

As the chaos around him intensified, Devineaux paused to check the the road before them. Immediately in his line of site was a pale face. He had seen her before, even in the dark he could make out her scars. Chase returned her unusual gaze, locking eyes until he realized too late that her pupils were not fixed on his. Something frozen gripped his shoulder and then neck, pulling at him with invisible weight.

With a burst of Russian epitaphs the woman pulled a knife from her belt in one fluid, practiced movement and buried the blade between the attacker’s cervical vertebra.

Her Russian rang in his ears, and almost as quickly as it began, the icy grip on him subsided. Catching a breath, Devineaux turned to see a small woman with her blade deep inside a dark cloud of claws and teeth.

As the thing staggered, Chase moved forward, his attention on the knife. Then, wrapping an arm around the VILE agent's waist, he pulled her away from the shadow.

The woman fought against the ACME Director, her efforts an impulse after years of training.

“[Let go of me! Let me fight! I’ll fucking make them pay!]” she shouted, unaware she’d switched to Russian in her anxiety.

Her accent wasn't Moscovite, but his brain was not yet able to grasp its origin.

“[Hey, stay with me]” He reasoned in Russian, “[They outnumber us]” to keep her calm, he patted the side of her elbow.

Neb blinked a few times as the comforting physical touch made its way into her system. [But they-] Another shadow caught her attention and she tried again to free herself, but her momentum was gone. [But we need-]

“[We need to regroup at the temple,]” Feeling her less enraged, he let her feet touch the ground, “[With Carmen.]”

Her friend’s name sank through the miasma, and Neb echoed it back as her eyes refocused. “Yeah, yeah, we gotta go,” she replied in English.

Nodding, he returned hilt-first the knife she had used on his attacker, “And thanks.”

As she took it, he tapped her shoulder gently to stay beside him. Attacks seemed to have reduced in frequency and the team were moving together as a unit. The temple gates were in sight.

 

[Nevon]

Meanwhile, back inside the temple...

Nevon Blair heard commotion coming from somewhere almost under his feet. Following the sources of the sounds guided by his STUN suit, he came upon a large chamber with high ceilings.

He crawled inside the roofing corridors to get a better look, a few stories below was a large man giving some commands to his group. The doorway to the south lit up with flashlights and a few other men brought in at gunpoint a woman in a red coat. Nevon’s heart fell to his stomach because he knew who that was.

 

[Narrator]

Since the Orca landed in this airlock, its captain had been confident at every turn. The ocean was his element. Being so deep underwater gave him a certain kind of focus. But now time was running out. He and his men were at the heart of the temple, with almost nothing. They were close to tearing it apart, ripping loose tiles from the floor and walls.

As luck would have it, some of his lackeys did find something. When the red first caught his eye, Gunnar Maelstrom could barely hide his excitement.