[video]

[turntex]

[The post that pops up in the feed in the middle of the night doesn't appear to be made with Dave's comm device, but it's Dave that pops up on the screen anyway, and he looks like hell. A split lip, a bruise blossoming along the jaw, nose bloodied, and...there appears to be a dirty sock caught on the collar of his uniform?

Honestly, the weirdest part is probably that it's a video post in the first place. He doesn't have time to sit around messing with this too much, though. Even as practiced at typing as he is, it's harder to do while moving and judging by the background, he's definitely on the move.]

Rise and shine, [PROFANITY CENSORED]. Elevator closest to the infirmary. I know y'all are functionally a bunch of temporally helpless infants, all shaky legged, eyes barely open and all that, but I need you to get your [PROFANITY CENSORED] down here yesterday regardless.

[He's not even trying to dance around the vulgarity filter. It's real bad.]

Found our baddie. Tall lady, redhead, red tattoos. She originally had on a suit and a blonde wig and some kinda mask but no idea if she's sticking with all that. Crazy strong and fast. Pretty sure she can heal herself up, so that's awesome. Lots of ninja weapons, like this [PROFANITY CENSORED] not only ripped off Tenten's skin but also her whole schtick, it's pretty insulting honestly. The skin thing's probably still a bigger deal but hey, I'd be pissed.

[He's babbling a little, half mumbling by the end there, but his expression remains flat and unreadable the whole time. Finally he seems to get where he's going and he pauses, swinging the camera around to the scene in question. Blood everywhere, dents and furrows in the metal walls, smoke still pouring out from the elevator shaft.

The camera spins back to him, and he somehow only looks more tense.]

She got Wash. Probably someone else too, judging by the blood she already had on her when we ran into her, but [PROFANITY CENSORED] if I know who or where.

[He leaves it at that.

For anyone actually sleeping like a normal person at this time, someone comes running through the dorm area soon afterward to bang on walls and make sure people wake up. Seems like Dave sent over the people that had been on watch outside the infirmary.]

Comments

[princesspower]

Dave-!

[ Wow, he looks like Hell. ]

How badly are you hurt?

[ She's cataloging all of this information for later. Needs to remember it. ]

I'm on my way.

[turntex]

What? I'm fine.

[He is not fine. After a moment, he concedes:]

...Might have a broken arm. I can deal, though. Gotta find where this [PROFANITY CENSORED] went.

[princesspower]

Get that looked at-! You can't fight with a broken arm! Where are you?

[ Adora looks like she might be about to lecture him. She's also incredibly Haggard looking. ]

[turntex]

Were you not listening? Jesus christ. Elevator near the infirmary.

[Sorry Adora, he's just a little bit agitated at the moment.

He swings the camera around again to display the scene once more and he's moving closer to the open elevator, leaning inside to look up and down. It's dark, made darker by the smoke billowing up from the bottom of the shaft.]

And I said I'm fine. Can't let her get away.

[princesspower]

I was listening, but-!

[ Gah! She is way too stressed out for this. She's heading for the stairwell down. ]

Dave, go to the infirmary.

[turntex]

The longer we wait, the more likely it is we lose her. You really wanna give her the chance to carve someone else up?

[Ugh. Talking in a smoky elevator shaft is a bad idea. He pauses to pull back and have a brief coughing fit before he shakes his head and steadies himself.]

I'm already here. And it looks like she went up, and I can fly, so am I supposed to just wait here until someone else shows up and then sit on my hands while they scratch their heads over how to follow her?

-->action

[parannoyed]

[As Dave scans around looking for clues, all of a sudden there's coughing in the elevator shaft where there shouldn't be coughing.]

[A soot-covered hand suddenly grasps at the edge.]

[turntex]

[That's some horror movie shit right there. Dave just about jumps out of his skin.]

Jesus fuck–

[Except then he recognizes the coughing and. Holy shit??? Eyes widening, he hurries over to look into the shaft.]

...You've gotta be kidding me.

[parannoyed]

[Wash should not be alive. His face is battered and bloody. His clothes are shredded and burned, almost to the point of indecency. His skin is stained with soot.]

[He holds up a bloody, battered hand.]

Jesus Christ, help me up already!

[He doesn't have the strength to get himself over the edge without help.]

[turntex]

Maybe I'm just understandably hesitant to stick my hands anywhere near a goddamn zombie.

[But he reaches down anyway to grab Wash's sooty hand, heaving him upward out of the shaft.]

[parannoyed]

I'm not a zombie!

[He really should be one, that much is obvious after he's actually on the floor. He drags himself on the floor away from the door and it's...clear that it's dire. That's a lot of blood.]

[Yet his skin isn't wrecked like his clothes are.]

I don't know how I'm not one after having an elevator full of grenades dropped on my head, but yep, bleeding. I'm bleeding a lot. Zombies don't bleed.

[He looks at the blood pooling near his leg.]

Actually, I'm - I'm bleeding out. I need something to use as a bandage.

[He gestures wildly at the laundry chute door.]

[turntex]

Have you gotten shanked on top of a stone slab at some point?

[It's dry – he really doesn't think godtiering is a thing for other people, let alone that it's a likely possibility given all that blood. And...god, fuck, that's a lot of blood. Dave looks faintly nauseous, honestly.

Dave finally picks the sock off his collar and drops it on Wash as if that little bit of fabric might help before hurrying over the the laundry chute. Unfortunately, him getting shoved down it before made sure anything sitting at the top of it got shoved down with him, so Dave is stuck staring at the empty chute door for a second before heaving a sigh and shaking his head.]

One minute. Try not to get an elevator dropped on you this time.

[And then he swings himself through to slide back down the chute.]

[bothbarrels]

[ North's up, because of course he is. He's definitely alarmed when this message comes in, and he wants to make his way to where Wash is immediately, but the thing is that he just got here and doesn't know the place well yet.

When he speaks he sounds slightly out of breath, as if he'd begun jogging in some direction before realizing he doesn't know where to go. ]

Where are you? Tell me how to get there.

[turntex]

[It's a few minutes before he responds, because there's been a new development in the situation. When he finally does answer, it's with the video at an odd angle, like the comm is sitting on the ground while Dave is distracted doing something.

He does, however, manage to shoot the screen an incredulous, annoyed look. That fact that that much is conveyed despite the ever-present shades says a lot, honestly.]

You can't bang on someone's door to get directions? I've kinda got my hands full here.

[He might be in the middle of trying to staunch multiple major wounds at the same time, and one of his arms is mostly incapacitated. It's a bit of a struggle.]

--> action

[bothbarrels]

[ By this time someone has been making the rounds, banging on doors and shouting, and North was able to get directions from them. He's already on his way, walking about as fast as his legs can carry him, which is pretty fast considering his height. ]

Got it. I'm already on my way.

[ He makes it shortly thereafter. The scene is chaotic, and Dave himself seems in bad shape. North sort of actually forgets about Wash for a moment. There's too much going on here to continue thinking about that. ]

You need help?

[turntex]

[Dave has a much harder time forgetting about Wash, given he's currently half on top of him, trying to keep pressure on a chest injury with one knee while attempting to tie another wad of fabric in place over an injury on Wash's leg. He glances up as someone finally makes an appearance.]

Nah, I'm havin' a ball over here on my own. This ball is all mine, I have sole ownership of the ball and it's goddamn thrilling.

[It's a dry, sarcastic drawl, slightly tinged with a Texan accent. One might get the sense that he is not, in fact, having a great time.]

[bothbarrels]

[ Now that he has a better view he does notice that Wash is underneath Dave. North crouches and makes a quick assessment of the situation, ignoring Dave's sarcasm. He's used to that kind of thing. ]

You take care of your own wound and I'll take over putting pressure on his.

[ He moves to put his own knee on Wash's chest so that there's no lack of pressure at any point. He prepares also to finish tying the cloth over Wash's leg. ]

action

[hallelujahjunction]

[Dan is...not totally sober! Pulled a nice long and a little exaggerated sob story in front of a mess hall worker about how bad his day was and got a bottle of offbrand something (ugh, it tastes like probably cooking sherry) that he was fully expecting to process before Planker's bootcamp bullshit, but instead he's being woken up in the middle of the night because things are happening.

He throws on his uniform and rushes on to the elevator near the infirmary. On the way there, well, he had maintenance duty as his chore tomorrow, so he hits the supplies with his keys and grabs a wrench, shoves it into his pocket, grips the keys in his fist.]

[turntex]

[The situation here is a mess. An abundance of blood, the walls dented and gouged, smoke still pouring out of the gaping elevator shaft. Wash is in clearly bad shape on the floor but he's got people taking care of him properly now, so Dave is leaning against a wall out of their way, catching his breath.

He glances up at the sound of more footsteps approaching and lifts his non-broken arm in greeting.]

Sup.

[hallelujahjunction]

Hey. [Yay, the kid doesn't look dead! Wash looks...cared for! Jesus Christ, things are a mess and Dan's probably about 70% awake!

He heads over to Dave in case Dave needs some physical support besides the wall.]

I'm going to hope that the fact that they're tending to Wash and not you is because you're not about to drop dead of your injuries.

[turntex]

Yeah, 'm fine. Been worse.

[Granted, he's literally died a few times so his scale is pretty skewed. Anything seems tolerable when "peppered full of bullets" isn't even the worst thing one can compare it to.

Either way, he's happy to divert the attention from his own condition. He's been patching up his own injuries for as long as he can remember. Knowing now that that's pretty fucked up doesn't make him any more used to being fussed over. So he shrugs, mostly with the uninjured side.]

Jackie the Ripper's still running around somewhere, though, so that's great. We've really got our shit together here, that shit is fuckin' committed and wedding planning is underway.

[hallelujahjunction]

Alright. [Dan wants to try and do some kind of first aid, but the kid is sending mad "don't touch me" signals, and so long as no one looks near death Dan will respect that. He knows how uncomfortable and honestly humiliating it can be to feel fussed over when there are bigger problems.

It'd be a different story if there weren't other people around rendering aid, but since they aren't alone here...]

Any idea where she might go next? I'd go off and chase her but I'm pretty sure we're supposed to do that in pairs, and I don't think you're up to being wingman.

[vampthropologist]

[Beckett was in the library, where he always is; it wasn't hard to charm the man in charge, especially when he offered to help catalogue. He's deep enough in trying to wring what he can from the incoherent collection that his first response to his buzzing communicator is to shove it irritably under a pile of papers.

When his image flickers through, he's remarkably disheveled looking. Like a man who's been tearing his hair out over back issues of National Geographic, trying to sort from context clues if they're from THIS world or a DIFFERENT world]

Where are you now, and where did she go?

[turntex]

[With Wash miraculously alive and being taken care of by other people finally, Dave pops back on the network, still looking like shit.]

Still here. The bitch probably went up the elevator shaft, but some people would rather I sit around with my thumb up my ass than actually chase after her.

[vampthropologist]

[Beckett is moving, now, walking and talking to the pad, not quite facing it.]

I'm in pursuit, as best I can. I won't be able to communicate; if you see a bat passing by, that's me.

[As he speaks, his ears lengthen, growing leathery, and his face begins to press forward into a snout. Then the screen goes black.

A few minutes later, a bat zips by Dave and up the elevator shaft]