lazybox | SOUP SOUP SOUP

So the thing is, normally none of them would pay all that much attention to rumors of a mystery Aegis in the custody of anyone. Like, of course they'd go try to free the blade in question, if they couldn't free themselves, because that's what they do. Blade rights is an uphill battle without any end in sight.

But this time, well, this time Asch's intuition is screaming at him actually, that rumor's not all wrong, and so of course they need to go investigate it.

... With Mythra running distraction, because honestly, taking a light blade on an escape/heist (depending on the state of the blade in question) is a recipe for failure. At least she understands that part. And with all of them in resonance, it's not like Jade and Asch can't both yank on her attention for backup.

Intuition gives them easy, silent progress through the facility, with the aid of a bit of dark ether and a few heavy blows to the head for the couple of guards unfortunate enough to come across them. No killing, yet, mostly because the repercussions will fall on the local blades, rather than them. Asch has an unfortunate tendency to be hyper-aware of that.

So now, it's the dead of night, and he and Jade are making their way up to the cells. Asch, for his part, isn't sure if it's better that it's the cells, or if it would be easier if they were just picking up a core crystal. On the one hand, escaping with a core crystal is much easier. On the other hand, it makes it kind of difficult to get an idea what kind of blade they're dealing with.

Either way, they're just about there. Asch holds up a hand to prompt Jade to stop, the both of them dressed in dark clothes that completely cover their ether lines. (Like this, they could almost pass for a pair of mundane human infiltrators, which is part of the point. Between them they have every element, including surprise.)

"Almost there," he says, tipping his head in the direction of one of the cells. "Let's see what we're in for this time."

Because it's never simple. He can feel from both the ether signature down the hall and the way his own intuition weighs on his mind that this time definitely isn't simple.

Threaded | Flat

Yuri is, unfortunately, deeply familiar with the situation he's found himself in - alone somewhere dark, in pain. It's disorienting, but he struggles through it, trying to ignore the mantra of ow ow ow that beats in time with his human heart.

Sodia'd stabbed him. Once upon a time, only a few months back - yeah, he would have expected that from her. She's cute and bright with poison seeping underneath; from the moment Flynn had resonated with her, he'd been expecting one of her daggers in his back. He couldn't quite fathom why she'd done it now, though. He thought they'd been getting along better, and Alexei had been right there, monologuing!

A deep throb from the wound in his side, and he winces. For a flesh eater, he knows, he's lucky. Stable on an unheard of level, one of the few with - as of yet - no noticeable downsides to his genetic disconnection from the mystical OS all pure blades are a part of. Still...he's a flesh eater. He's able to survive wounds that would kill a human, and heal faster from said wounds as well, but. It's still not quite the efficiency of healing a blade would get. This stab wound isn't going to kill him, but it's going to be a right pain in the ass for a while, especially since Estelle doesn't seem to be anywhere near him.

Speaking of: where is he?

At first, he hadn't really paid it much mind, because he'd been distracted by the pain, but the aer here - wherever 'here' is - is fucking weird.

He tries to ping Estelle; a flesh eater's connection to the blade network is fucking shoddy at best, but he's her driver. He's got a direct line to her.

The ping hits dead aer. It doesn't bounce back, like it would if she was offline, or being held in some sort of containment chamber, like the blastia Alexei had chained her in. He knows what that feels like. He'd spent their entire frantic, worried journey to rescue her just reaching out for their resonance again and again and again. This...is nothing like that.

This is absolutely not the right time to be panicking, but when it comes to logic, Yuri has always been contrarian. He's panicking.

He really, really wishes he had Repede with him right now. This place is freaky, and the aer is weird, so he's kind of glad Estelle isn't with him (though he sure does wish he could fucking feel her, all the same) but, man. He just wants his dog. Repede's cool head has always prevailed where Yuri's sense has failed him.

He squeezes his eyes shut, and clenches his jaw, and forces himself not to cry as he forces himself to his knees. His head swims, and for the first time, through the darkness, he takes in the vague details of the room he's in.

Huh. This, too, is unfortunately familiar, in a way that would be far more amusing to him at...pretty much any other time, really.

He's in a cell.

What the fuck.

He tries to rewind events in his mind. They'd fought, they'd won, but at the same time, they'd taken losses. Namely: him, when Sodia had fucking shanked him and sent him tumbling over the edge. After that - panic, the fall, and water.

Had...had Alexei scooped him up? It wouldn't be the first time Yuri had found himself in his custody, though there was a comforting lack of non-consensual surgery involved in this round. So far.

Panic bubbles back up at the edges of his mind again. He tries to beat it down. He fucking hates being locked up, but usually it's totally easy to ignore. The potential of this also involving Alexei has his mind running around in frantic circles like a very distressed ratwigle.

It's because of that panic, he thinks, that he doesn't realise there are people heading his way until they are literally right in front of him. They look human, he thinks, and it has him tensing...

He's in no condition to fight. Doesn't mean he won't, if they force the issue (humans, generally, will force the issue, he's found).

"Well?" he says, with a bravado he may not feel, but has sure as hell perfected, "all this effort to invite me over, and you're not going to keep me company? And here I've been, just itching for a nice chat over tea..."

waiter there's some gravy in my soup