Shades of Adam

Aronin took a deep breath and submerged completely into the dark water. The water was cold, not unpleasant, but little colder than he would prefer. At least, the heating elements in Hephaestus were still working, but they could be the last thing on this infernal city that was working. If this was Rapture on a good day, he wished he was not here on a bad day.

He tried to locate himself, and found that the path continued to his left, and into stunning darkness. Looking up, he saw the surface lit up by the distant fire and swam back up.

“It’s to the left, probably 60 feet or so. I’ll go first.”

The strange figure nodded and entered carefully the water. Aronin took a deep breath again and submerged. The water lit up as his hands began to emit glowing blue plasma, and he started to swim into the dark path, towards the next door, preparing to blow it open if it didn’t open by itself.

---

It was 1960, January. Rapture had changed. The once so proud posters describing Andrew Ryan’s great ambition were hanging lazily everywhere, mocking the current state of Rapture. The once so feared parasites… Everyone was a parasite now. Everyone needed Adam, and Andrew had it. At least, that’s what we had heard, Tree Shade and me.

We were each contacted by an anonymous figure asking us to do a job for him. I needed money for… Well, that’s my business, and Tree, I don’t know what he was offered. I didn’t think him as person that was interested in money... He was strange, no wonder, but the person assured me that he was completely reliable. I accepted.

Then we got into that spherical machine, got a short briefing, and before we knew it, we were underwater, heading for a city called Rapture, a so called utopia for scientists in the 1950’s. The only twist here was that we were in 1960… The man had asked us to find a “friend” of him, a man he knew in his youth, and save him from what was going on down there. Why he sent us to 1960, after the whole city had gone to hell and not in 1959, we never got a chance to ask.

Now, we are stuck here, trying to locate that guy, and get him to the surface by the means of our “time machine”. This city gives me the creeps.

---

The door didn’t open, just as expected. Aronin’s reached out a hand, and the door opened by the means of telekinesis. The room outside was empty, and the water flooded out of the pipe and into the room. Aronin fell on his face as he was carried along with the water.

“Ouch. That hurts. I think my nose’s broken,” he complained to Tree Shade and stood up. Tree Shade did not appear to have been affected at all. Aronin put his hand to his nose and felt. It was surely broken, and boy did it hurt. He hurried to mend the bone, and to stop the nosebleeding.

“What now?” he asked as he looked around.

OoC: I just went for a story. We are to save a guy from becoming a splicer or save him from the splicers. You don't have to, but perhaps you should write why Tree went on the mission.
Crosses fingers for a great Bioshock RP.

A rumor, a mere rumor was all it was. He'd heard it while eavesdropping on a couple of shady looking characters by the docks. Something about... smuggling goods into an underwater city. That was about a year ago or so, but Tree Shade was still curious about it. He'd only visited this dimension once or twice, but from what he could tell underwater cities weren't something that were necessarily common in the world. He searched for it constantly, though off and on, through various years of the same dimention. He doubted its existence several times, but every once in a while he'd continue his search for it. He'd begun to give up on it completely until he was contacted by a strange individual.

This man didn't give him a name, or even an alias to call him by, but he had taken notice of Tree's interest in the underwater civilization. He told him his story, of how he had a friend in need of rescuing. Then, the strangest thing happened. This man, without a name to call him by, knew of Tree Shade. He knew of his ability to travel through time and he needed him to do that very thing: Go back in time to save his friend.

Now, this was odd for Tree because he didn't make a habit of telling people what he could do. Then again, this man could have observed him for a while. However, the most obvious case was that Tree really must have told and demonstrated his ability to someone and just forgot about it.

While Tree wasn't too fond of helping out humans he didn't know, he wanted to take him up on this offer. So he did just that. The stranger returned to him a few days later and told him of someone he had to take along. Agreeing without much hesitation, he'd accepted the temporary sidekick and together they took a small boat and traveled several miles off shore. They did this because, in order for him to take anyone else with him, he'd need a good four miles of free space. In the past, he'd found that the ocean was the best location for moments like these. With a solid hour of concentration, they both vanished along with the entire surrounding four miles of water.

Now, here they were. Traveling down into the depths of a city gone to hell. Rotting corpses, dilapidated benches, and evidence of moral-breaking scientific experiments. It was the prime example of humanity at its worse. Tree Shade couldn't have asked for a better place to visit.

Aronin choked up some water that decided to come up from his lungs and looked at the other guy, who did not seem to care at all. A strange grin had appeared on his even stranger face, almost laughing at the rotten walls enclosing them. He was truly enjoying the atmosphere down here. Aronin shook his head and pointed at a door to the left.

“How about that one? It’s better than nothing.” As he closed, it automatically opened, and revealed a forest area, with trees and grass. It was the last thing Aronin had imagined he would find under the sea. Just beside the door, a newspaper stand was demolished, with a few newspapers lying around. Some were wet, but a few were dry and indicated it was just destroyed. Aronin picked up a paper and read the headline. “The fondaries is now off limits to civilians. The battle against Fountaine continues.”

The two were suddenly disturbed by a scream, a harsh scream sounding inhuman in every way. Then, a woman came running down a hill bellow them. And behind her, an inhuman character of some kind came chasing. It was shaped like a human, but it had a hook on one hand and its skin was gray and unnaturally.

But after that creature, yet another thing arrived behind them. A robot-like creature, golden, with a big round head with lots of red viewports and looking much like the hunchback of Notre Dame. And the sound it made was even more terrifying. A somewhat high pitched roar, sounding like nothing Aronin had ever heard.

Then, the woman reached a blind gate. The ugly creature charged at her, probably to kill her. But as it jumped and made a slash at her, the robot thingy caught up and with a giant drill mounted on its right hand, it penetrated the creature and flung it all across the floor and towards a wall. Somehow, the inhuman creature survived and proceeded to attack the robot. But the robot only caught him again, and this time penetrated the creature’s head, causing Aronin to look away at the disgusting scene.

But as the scene looked as if the good guys won, Aronin noted a little girl on the back of the robot’s back. The woman rose up, and looked at the girl in fear. And as the girl noticed her, she whispered something to the robot, who immediately turned around and started the giant drill.

“A woman in distress. Let’s help out,” Aronin proposed.

"Heck, aren't you the hero." Tree chided sarcastically, but moved in for the attack anyway. He reared his cane back and swung hard against the metal behemoth, the strike only leaving a small dent. He stood motionless, disappointed by his failed attack. He shrugged, "Can't say we didn't try."

The giant swung a massive fist into Tree's head, backhanding him across the room and into a far wall. Ouch. He stayed slumped on the floor for several moments before finally deciding to stand again. The giant deep-sea diver was now in a heated battle with what's-his-face. Tree hadn't had a good chance to see him in action, but from what he could tell he was a pretty decent fighter.

He casually glanced over at the woman to his left. She shook where she stood, quivering and confused. Her face looked like a butt and the lead pipe in her hand didn't match her dress, but Tree Shade didn't judge appearances... usually. He opened his mouth to speak to the lady, but Aronin interrupted his thoughts. "Hey, a little help?"

Tree turned back to his companion who was busy being lifted off the ground by the whale-speaking robot. Sighing a sigh of slight annoyance he turned back to the woman again, "Excuse me, miss." He apologized with a subtle nod.

A red beam of energy emitted from Tree's monocle, searing a small hole in the armored beast's hull, forcing it to drop the human in its grasp. It's attention immediately locked onto Tree once more, its drill revving for another attack. Seeing that beastly weapon in operation was enough to make Tree decide on going on the defensive for once. While he'd only come back later if he died, he didn't find the need to suffer such a loss just yet.

He fell from the floor and up into the treetops just as the drill penetrated the wall beneath him.

As Tree tried to hit the big robot with his cane, Aronin engulfed his hands with blue plasma. Robots were made of metal, and metal should easily melt away. With a simple motion, Aronin created a magnetic field aimed at the golden robot and sent a hot beam of plasma at the robot as it flung Tree across the room with tremendous force. It barely noticed and charged straight at Aronin without hesitation.

Not wishing to share the fate of Tree Shade, Aronin jumped, and gave himself a little helping of telekinesis to neatly pass the golden robot. As he flipped over, he caught the eye of the ugly girl riding on the robots back. The yellow eyes and green skin was disgusting enough, and when she spoke to the robot, which she called mister bubbles, the voice came out in three different pitches at once. The robot quickly gained orientation of the situation, and delivered a punch to Aronin’s face, which he dodged by flinging himself out of the way with telekinesis.

Quickly getting to the feet again, the Robot now slammed its powerful fist into the ground, creating a powerful shockwave which made Aronins legs shaky and almost unusable. And as he tried to stabilize himself, the robot had caught up with him and grabbed him with the powerful fist.

And just as he thought he was done for, Tree Shade distracted the robot enough to release Aronin, but not before flinging him across the floor just like he had done moments ago with Tree. As he approached the wall, he quickly grabbed himself with telekinesis and suspended his motion, leaving him hovering in the air.

“Hello, this is Rapture, right?” he jokingly asked the lady standing a few feet aside. He descended and watched Tree jump up and away from the robot, into a few trees. “What is this robot?” he asked.

“It’s no robot. It’s a big daddy, and it’s the worst things that live around here. And those girls…”

“Yeah, creepy. What happened down here?” he said as the big daddy tried to locate the acrobatic guy jumping from tree to tree.

“Adam,” the woman said in a low and frightened way.

“Who’s Adam?” Aronin asked and prepared to fight as the big daddy seemed to lose the sight of Tree.

“It’s a substance that can manipulate DNA, I think. I don’t know much about it, only it makes us addicted. We all need Adam, and those girls harvest it. And then those big daddies protect them. And after the fountain case, it’s pure chaos down here.”

“So, why do you keep living down here?”

“Ryan forbids us to go to the surface!” she said, before breaking into tears. “I WANT TO GO HOME!”

“Easy now,” Aronin tried to comfort her, “we’ll figure a way,” and then he lifted the big daddy up by telekinesis and plunged it down into the ground, causing it to stuck deep in the ground. It gave out a loud roar and tried to get up, and with an amazing force, it lifted itself right up and charged at Aronin.

“Stubborn guy this big daddy, how about some more help?!” he yelled as he flew out of the thing’s reach.

Tree fell out of the trees and onto the Big Daddy's back, knocking the little girl off of it. "Oy, do I have to do everything myself?" Tree moaned. He bent his head in front of the beast, looking into one of its many eye-hole thingies. "Hello in there!" He knocked on its helmet. "You make me sick!" On cue, Tree Shade vomited all over the thing's visor, lighting it with one of his middle fingers.

Furious, the Big Daddy flung him off in a fit of rage, face aflame. "Aha! Take that, you big galoot!" Tree taunted boastfully. The oversized tin-can wheeled around and spotted him, eyes glowing red with anger. It let out a pretty whale call before charging toward his attacker.

Tree pointed the tip of his Cane at the beast, firing a black blast of antimatter directly into its chest. Mr. Bubbles stumbled back, chest armor ripped wide open. Tree chortled victoriously. Rubbing his hands together gleefully. He ran in for the finishing blow, tip of his cane aimed to slice through the robot's exposed chest.

Ooc: Just letting you know a majority of my posts will be short like these ones. They keep me from lagging behind and being discouraged from posting more. Besides, short beats long.

Aronin approached as Tree drove his staff through the metallic robot’s chest. But to Aronin’s surprise, and disgust, instead of gears and electronics, blood and intestines splattered out. Aronin gasped.

“It’s not a robot… It’s a living being…”

“Which makes it bleed even more!” Tree responded gleefully. “But he did make me sick,” he remarked afterwards.

The two turned around to look at the girl Tree had thrown off, but to their surprise, she was nowhere to see. A somewhat loud noise made them turn left, where the green skinned girl was busy climbing up to a hole in the ground. And in a swift movement, she had disappeared. Aronin was puzzled by this strange event that they had just witnessed. A human, which was not a human, and a giant creature, locked up inside a deep diver’s suit, and a green skinned girl… It was clear why they were sent to rescue a guy from this hell.

“Forget about the girl,” he said to Tree and turned to the woman, who probably was the most human looking woman around here. “Maybe she knows where we must go?”

OoC: I don't mind short posts.

Tree turned to the woman, who seemed to still be quite shaken up. “I'll handle this, Robert.” Tree decided, stepping in front of Aronin before he had time to say anything. “Excuse me, miss, but we're looking for a man by the name of...” He looked back at Aronin who shrugged in response. “Um... well, we quite frankly don't know his name... apparently.” He turned back to the woman, whose beady eyes were fixated on his. “Well, he's a friend of a guy who's promised us a large reward for his safety and—“

“Adam.” The woman hissed under her breath.

“Oh, so you know him!” Tree chuckled, pleased to get something from this sorry creature. “Do you know where he is?”

“I need Adam.”

This caught Tree off guard for a moment. He shifted his position, taking a step closer to the sickly lady. “Do you and Adam have a... special connection? Are you his love bug?”

The woman looked at him as if he were crazy or something. “What? No, I need Adam. Give me Adam!” She grabbed Tree by the scruff of his shirt, pushing him back a bit.

“Whoa, now!” He chuckled. “We don't have Adam. We're LOOKING for Adam. Don't worry, he will be safe soon.”

The woman looked Tree Shade up and down, quickly searching his pockets while he just stared down at her awkwardly. “Um...”

She pulled back, finished. She looked disappointed and angry. “You don't have Adam?”

Tree sighed through his frustration. “I already told you, woman! We don't have Adam!”

She just rolled her eyes, turning to walk away, but Aronin stepped in her path. “Please, we need your help.”

She scoffed, “Need MY help? I need my bloody Adam!”

“Don't worry, we'll find him!” Tree butted in.

The woman screamed, lunging at Tree with a lead pipe in hand, clearly fed-up with his cluelessness.

Aronin caught the lead pipe with his hand, with some telekinetic help to keep it in place.

“Lady, I’m sure there is some kind of misunderstanding here. We are looking for Adam. We don’t know where he is, and we don’t have him here either. But we can help you find him, as we too are looking for him.” The woman looked back at him with madness in her eyes.

“NO! I want my Adam for myself! You won’t get it!” she screamed before running away, leaving Aronin with the pipe in his hand.

“What was she all about?” Aronin said as he turned at Tree Shade, who just shook his head. “Ok, let’s find this Adam.”

Then, from above, voices appeared, hissing like snakes.

“Adam, who got adam?”

“They took down a big daddy. Where iss the little sssisster.”

“They won’t s-s-share!”

“Hey little fisshiess, where iss the Adam!” someone yelled as they fell down on Aronin, knocking him over. Aronin just got a glimpse of a person with crooks as hands before he pushed him away with telekinesis. He crashed into the wall, and with the claws, he climbed it in a spider like way.

“What the hell are those?” He yelled as another jumped down, this one at Tree shade. “Let’s just hope they’re not this Adam fellow,” he said and engulfed his hands in blue plasma, readying for battle.

Tree watched the funky monkey-man-spider thing cartwheel his direction, strange hooks in place of hands. What the heck was this thing? Tree couldn't' help but just stand in awe as it cartwheeled into his face, the force of its kick sending him careening into the wall.

Tree groaned and climbed back to his feet. "Will this mayhem never end?" He was actually quite enjoying it, so he wasn't sure why he was complaining. He twirled his cane in hand as he lurched forward to meet the strange individual. He pulled back and swung hard, only to miss by a few inches, the spider-man jumping out of the way.

"Wot? Got no tricks up your hat?" The freak mocked.

Tree obliged with a bow, the top of his top-hat aimed directly at his enemy. "You're right, you truly are the better fighter." A flash of orange light burst from Tree's head, a rain of bullets catching the strange creature in the chest, knocking it back to the floor. It screamed for a few seconds before scrambling to its feet, somehow still alive. "You f****** bloiter!"

Tree rushed him again, cane craned back, eyes wild.

The last guy came charging straight at Aronin with a lead pipe, but was blasted away by Aronin’s telekinesis. The guy did a flip, and threw his two hooks at Aronin with great speed, and then jumped up and into the trees. The hooks were easily stopped by Aronin, and with a hadoken pose he sent a beam of blue plasma into the trees, setting the whole forest aflame.

But as Aronin tried to spot the one that had jumped into the tree, the first splicer, which he had thrown across the room, flung himself from the wall, and crashed into Aronin, sending them both tumbling across the floor. And as they tumbled, Aronin’s plasma filled hands caused small parts of the grass to catch fire.

With another burst of telekinesis, Aronin lifted himself off the ground, and flung balls of plasma onto his attacker, who were still recovering, engulfing him in blue flames. And in a short time, all that remained was a pile of ash.

“If you are done with your share, we should continue right away. This fire does not bode well…” Aronin said with a bit guilt.

Ooc: I swear I posted in this already. >.<

Bic:

Tree punched the dead splicer dangling from his fist one last time before letting him topple to the floor. "What fire?" He turned to his ally, soon learning what fire he was talking about. The trees above them had already ignited with a bright orange flame. If Tree had seen the fire earlier, he would have been able to sandblast it away, but it was too late for that. "Well bloody hell, Aaron! What the blazes did you do that for?"

"No time to point fingers. Run!" Aronin shouted, turning around just as a flaming branch crashed down behind him.

It looked like there was some shelter up ahead that would be able to withstand flames. Tree let go of the ground, falling toward the shelter and reaching it before Aronin could. He threw open the door and slipped inside, slamming and locking the door behind him. It was funny, actually. He was acting as if he were really scared of losing his life or something.

A frantic knocking sounded at the door. "Who is it?" He responded

"It's me, you bastard, let me in!" Aronin shouted from the other side.

Tree thought this through a moment. It could be a trap. "How do I know you're not one of those crazy monkey-men with hook hands?"

"For all that is good and holy, let me in!"

Tree chuckled. "Come now, we both know there's nothing good OR holy on this planet."

"Dammit, Tree Shade!"

"Ok fine, Arthur, I'll let you in." He obliged accordingly.

Aronin slipped inside just as a flaming tree fell down beside him.

“It’s Aronin, not Arthur,” he remarked gloomy, a bit irritated that his companion was such a lunatic.

“So, why the big fire?” Tree gravely asked. Aronin was not sure whether he was serious or not, and just lifted an eyebrow. “Everybody needs a little fire in their heart,” Aronin jokinly replied. “Rapture too.”

But then, he noticed the lady from before, sitting in a corner in the room they were in, crying. Carefully, Aronin approached and reached forth a hand.

“Hello? Are you alright? You kind’a freaked out back there Ma’m,” he said calmly, to which the lady stopped crying. And now Aronin noticed she had some of the ugly features the persons they had just been fighting. Her face looked like it had been covered in acid, although just for a second. Her features were not nearly as prominent as the others, but they were starting to come forth.

“I’m sorry,” the lady whispered. Aronin crouched down beside her. “I’m sorry,” she said a bit louder, and started to cry again. “It’s the Adam. It’s driving me mad. It’s driving everyone mad.” She sobbed. “Ever since we began to splice us up… It’s the plasmids. The tonics… The Adam…”

“I’m sorry?” Aronin said, a bit taken aback by the sudden change of mood. “What’s this Adam you are talking about? Is it not, a man?”

“You.. You don’t know, do you? Are you new here?”

“You may say so,” Tree replied.

“Then you have walked into a death trap. I can tell you what I know,” the lady said, and told the two strangers about the discovery of Adam, and the creation of plasmids, about people becoming dependent of Adam, to constantly splice up, and about the recent riot.

“So,” Aronin said and looked at Tree, after the lady finished her story, “What do you think we should do? First of all, we don’t even know where this guy we are supposed to rescue is.”

“So,” Aronin said and looked at Tree, after the lady finished her story, “What do you think we should do? First of all, we don’t even know where this guy we are supposed to rescue is.”

Tree let out an irritated groan, a bit more tired from the girl's long-winded story than anything. "I have no clue. Did the guy who contracted you give you any sort of useful information?"

"Not really." Aronin replied grimly.

"Same here." Tree sighed. "He was rather vague with his description of the place." He glanced over at the estranged woman, fearing she'd jump at him with that lead pipe of hers again.

Aronin and Tree sat there for several minutes, trying to think their situation through, when the woman finally spoke up. "That fire is going to kill the forest."

"Obviously." Tree mumbled.

"No, you don't understand: Those trees keep us alive." She twitched oddly.

Tree Shade had to force himself from cracking a Tree pun. "How so?"

Aronin suddenly understood what she meant. "Oxygen." He said. Tree straightened where he stood, suddenly realizing that if the city ran out of oxygen, and they all died, he'd be trapped down in this city in a never ending cycle of death and rebirth.

"Great, Ronon, you've doomed an entire underwater city to their graves. Good job." He clapped his hands together, applauding sarcastically.

"We have to stop that fire." Aronin made his way to the door.

"Wait, what? You do realize that there's a roaring inferno out there, don't you? Just how do you plan on putting that fire out?"

He unlocked the door, preparing for the wave of heat about to enter the room. "With water."

Somehow the idea that they were underwater had briefly escaped Tree's mind. "Ah, that could very well work."