Event Log: Null Attack

[hadrielmods]

Who: Everyone!
What: The event log for the Null Attack event
Where: All over the city
When: May 29th- ?
Warnings: None

What starts as a normal day will begin to herald in the beginning of the end. On May 29th, you might see something in the sky out of the corner of your eye- blink and you miss it, but there's definitely something there, something that's not any kind of animal you've ever seen. Now that you know to look, you may be paying closer attention to the sky in order to catch the next one that flies past- a ship. A ship that that seems to be designed in a way that might remind you of the Null themselves.

As the days pass, it becomes unmistakable- the Null are here and are scouting out the area. It's time to prepare for an immediate attack and start putting all those contingency plans to good use. Will you gear up for a fight and fall into formation? Will you close and lock your doors and stay inside? Or perhaps there's some other plan that you want to enact?

You'll have time to discuss that on the network later, but now you need to start reacting to the Null's actions- which are apparently to start building smaller encampments around the city as they try to find the way inside. Confusion is holding them at bay for now but it might be time to start building some defensive measures and fortifications, because she won't be able to keep them at bay forever.

When they break in, they do so in a big way- with a massive explosion at Confusion's temple that rattles throughout the entire city. It's obvious that something has happened- and what exactly that something is reveals itself shortly when Null begin to flood the city, having broken through Confusion's protection.

This is when the fight escalates to an all-out war. Nobody is spared, and they're watching everyone from above. What will you do? How will you keep the ones you love safe? How can anyone survive this? All you can do is fight back, all we can do is wait. Good luck, Hadriel.

► This log covers the entirety of the Null attack
► Please tag headers of threads with content warnings where they apply
► Please put your character's name and open/closed in the subject line of your starters!
► If you are killed by the Null, please let us know here.

Comments

closed to Drake Holloway

[substances]

👻 i'll be the atheist in your foxhole anytime

The whole time he's been in this godforsaken jungle, Drake has been with him. Sometimes they would separate for one reason or another, tactics or other stuff, but Drake is used to busting crackhouses, not guerrilla warfare in a jungle that would be deadly even without the Null skulking around, so he's been mostly following Klaus' lead. Which is really weird, considering the whole time he's been here, from the first hour of it, Drake has been the one looking out for him.

Klaus knows Drake is tough, that he's not going to just die out here on his own, but still, he feels a little responsible for him. So when they run into a group of Null scouts, too many to deal with just the two of them, Klaus silently gives Drake a shove on the shoulder, gestures off to his right, indicating that he should run for it, and then jumps up in front of the group.

"Wow, what do we have here? You know, last time I checked, the jungle totally sucks if you don't wanna get all rusty so why don't you guys just..."

And he's cut off by the Null lunging after him. Taking off in the opposite direction from where he sent Drake, Klaus actually laughs while he runs, making as much noise as he can, breaking branches and kicking dirt and being reckless so they don't get distracted from him. It's nice to cut loose and ditch the stealth and right...around...this boulder...there's a massive swinging battering ram trap that'll take out at least two of them, and Klaus can hide in the chaos.

Except that one of the Null hangs back at the last moment, and as the ram that just took out two of his friends comes swinging back, it glances hard off the right side of Klaus' head, right as the Null fires that stupid fucking brain scrambler at him. Klaus goes down hard, squirming around on the ground, disoriented and with his head ringing. He can feel blood dripping down the side of his face from his scalp, his jaw is aching, and loses track of where he is, what he's doing. He keeps pushing himself up on one elbow and then collapsing again because he forgets that his head is hit between attempts, he can't remember what direction he was trying to go, his ears are ringing, all he knows is that there's danger.

So much danger. There's bullets and smoke and fire and the smell of burning flesh and screaming and crying and he laughs and Dave is there, but Dave is gurgling at him, bleeding, his beautiful eyes wide and mouth moving.

"No no no no no..." he moans, lifts a hand to his head, uncoordinated. There's heat behind him and his instincts, honed by years of trying to keep him alive while he's high as a kite and out of his mind, manage to let him scramble forward and away from the heat. It's enough to break the immediate flashback, but he's still disoriented, confused, looking around with eyes wide.

"Drake! Drake?! Where are you?" he yells, voice trembling.

[braveoff]

Truth be told, Drake is feeling a little in over his head. He's not a soldier. He's been training with one for the better part of two years now, but they've actually discussed the fact that he's not cut out for it before. This is a different kind of war, of course -- for one thing it's far easier to consider the Null monsters. They may be sapient but they don't register as people the same way as an enemy army back home would, not because of their robotic nature or alien appearance but simply because of how they think. Their complete disregard for other forms of life, their condemnation of emotion... so yeah, he can handle killing them. And he's even survived a Null invasion before, mostly alone... but he was a zombie, then. He could take and deal far more damage, could keep fighting for longer stretches. It didn't matter as much that he wasn't a soldier when he was like that. Not until he started to get really hungry, at least.

This fight is much harder, for several reasons, and he's starting to second guess his choices. The Null are relentless and savvy to a lot of the Hadrielites' tricks this time around, and it's already gone on for longer than the first invasion. Drake had known that the fight was coming when he'd asked Hope for a cure and all the reasons he'd struggled with the decision are front and center right now. He'd also made the tactical choice to stick with Klaus instead of Ephemera or Lup, someone of a similar ability so that he wouldn't turn into a liability, but even Klaus is miles ahead of him here because it's not just the knowledge, it's the experience. Klaus is actually a soldier, he's used to sustained battles, to the chaos, to pushing to keep going after days, weeks, months of nonstop combat. Drake isn't. He's tired and he's overwhelmed and he's worried about his partner and his other friends and his guardsmen but it's not safe to try and contact anyone. He just has to keep fighting and hope they're okay, that they'll all find each other again. Do the job he's supposed to, and trust that they're all badass enough to survive this.

When Klaus signals that they need to split up again, Drake doesn't think this time will be any different than the previous encounters where they used such tactics. He'll loop around, they'll both make their presences known to lead the group into traps in opposite directions and pick them off, then meet back here. Except before he's managed to get all the way around, Klaus springs up out of cover and tries to sass the oncoming killer robots. Drake is too shocked and confused to react before his friend is tearing through the jungle in the opposite direction with all four Null giving chase, and he curses under his breath and tries to follow. He knows which trap Klaus is going for and it won't take out all of them. Maybe he'll be able to lead the other two to the next? At least the clamor is easy to follow.

The jungle is thick enough here that Drake hears the trap trigger before he can see anything. There's a heavy thud of impact and then the crash of metal being crushed as the ram smashes the Null to bits against another tree. But how many? He can still hear things moving, and then his stomach drops out at the sound of Null weaponry going off, with no answering gunshots. Is Klaus down? Drake clenches his jaw to keep from calling out and just follows the trail, swinging Ephemera's rifle off his shoulder. He's getting a little low on ammo but there's no choice right now. When he reaches the crushed Null debris it looks like they only took out two. And from here he can see the other two Null advancing on something -- Klaus must be on the ground. He must've been hit.

There's no hesitation as he raises his weapon, keeping it steady by sheer force of will. If he's lucky they're the same design as the two that got crushed, which means he knows where their power core is housed... sure enough he's able to take one out before the other realizes he's there and turns to fire back. It's second nature at this point to activate his borrowed shield, which holds but leaves him having to change tactics again.

Except then he hears Klaus screaming for him, and all bets are off. He can't risk trying to get another perfect shot from here so even without rage mode he's going in, deflecting as much as he can with the shield and switching to his axe for some extremely ill advised direct combat. To hell with stealth right now, if he loses at least he'll literally be going down swinging.

But somehow, he doesn't lose. He's a good deal bloodier and knows he'll be feeling some damage when the adrenaline winds down, but it's nothing life threatening so fuck it. The shield vanishes and Drake shoves his axe back into its loop and rushes over to Klaus, who looks like he took a far more serious hit, the side of his face covered in blood and his eyes wide and frantic, clearly disoriented.

"Klaus! Hey, I'm right here, I've got you." His voice is a little urgent even to his own ears and he can't tell if it's safe to move Klaus or not, but they really should get away from all the noise they just made. There'll be more coming. Drake holds Klaus' head steady with one hand and lifts the other in front of his face, two fingers up. He doesn't even know if his friend can see, but he'll find out. "How many?"

[substances]

It's all just bad timing, really. Klaus moved too soon, forgot to account for the rougher terrain on Drake's end of things, was a little too eager to get them off Drake's trail, and everything ends up a disaster. He's barely aware of it when Drake comes in to rescue him, just knows that the heat behind him is gone and Dave needs a medic or he's going to die and he can't lose Dave, he can't lose Dave, if he loses Dave he's going to die, he's going to die...

When he sees the light of the shield flick off, his head jerks up and he looks at the person leaning over him, saying his name, saying he's right here and he's got him, and Klaus' eyes fill with tears.

"Dave, you're okay..." he murmurs, and smiles soft, pushes his head against Drake's steadying hand in a sort of uncoordinated, jerky way, and replies in a hazy voice, "Two. There's two. Can we go home now?"

His ears are ringing and he feels dizzy and uncoordinated, so he pushes himself forward and wraps his arms around Drake's shoulders, presses his forehead against one of them, completely forgetting that he's still bleeding. Profusely. When he pulls his head back a little and sees the blood he left on Drake's shirt, he takes a panicky, soft breath.

"No no no no...are you okay? Dave..." Looking at the other man, he swallows hard, furrows his brows, presses his hand against the center of Drake's chest and doesn't feel the spurting of hot blood, looks at his face and doesn't see it gurgling out of his mouth, "We have to get out of here. Now. I can't lose you."