Forward Plunge

"Forward Plunge" is a [SEASON NUMBER] thread started on [IRL DATE] and finished on [IRL DATE].
==Summary==
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==Full Text==
As the echoes of the armies above slowly began to die away, the remaining underground teams anxiously shifted in place, every sense perked and ready for the signal to start moving underground to the city proper. A large portion of the total troops were holed into the massive tunnel that began underneath the Jaw, and even with their numbers, it still did not diminish the sheer size of the cavern they waited in. At their head was the Forward Team–a very small team intended to be extremely light and fast on their feet, full of nixes that they would leave at each checkpoint they portaled to in order to create another portal train. Fast enough to keep up with the aboveground distraction, but slow enough that they wouldn’t be running headlong into any unnecessary danger. Several of the nixes from under the sea that had been assisting the Rebellion thus far, along with a handful of inlet nixes, Savarthan from the underground, and Nio. Ingrid’s healer apprentice was along for support, assisted by several honor guards chosen from the Jaw, and last but not least, the familiar mismatched pair of half-breeds, one short with loose black hair, the other tall and hunched with tarlike darkness dripping from his claws and a sheen of frost creeping up his feet and glinting in his hair. As the tunnels were completely sealed off from the upper world, most of the soldiers were clustered in groups surrounding a lantern-bearer.
Milae’s message rang through, and Liam looked nervously back at their leaders, ears twitching as he felt for signs of the Warden still being above them. He barely needed to; the very soil around them creaked and groaned as her weight shifted across the plains. “What’s taking them so long?” he grumbled to the Commander.
“Doesn’t matter,” Nio said, cutting. “We gotta get a move on. They’re already there. Most of them, anyway.”
Jan 16, 2022
“Don’t Wait on my account.” Lila answers through the network
“You heard the lady. Let’s do this.” Sav said as he lowered his goggles over his eyes and opened up the first portal. One of the inlet Nixes went next and opened a portal to the next checkpoint for the rest of the teleporters to make their way to.
Jan 17, 2022
It was like the ground had suddenly melted with how each soldier slipped through and disappeared from sight with ease. There was a slightly huffy murmur from the crown prince and his aide about having to use a lava portal, but Akkey’s patience was running thin, and gave Libulan a not so helpful shove from the back with her foot. He fell in unceremoniously, followed by the rest of their small party, including the accompanying apprentice that may or may not have been shivering in his boots and clutching his medicine bag before an old Castaway guard squeezed him on his shoulder in comfort. 
Liam’s frost tipped, fiery head was the last Akkey saw before she glanced back a final time, shadowy gaze falling on familiar, beloved faces that waited for their cues with bated breaths. “Here we go,” she said with a toothy grin, and she and Savarthan were on their way as the portal closed above their heads.
The soft hum of each teleportation circle slightly echoed in the tunnels as nixes operated like rolling waves off of each other, hoping to be efficient and swift. Akkey landed lightly on her feet, exiting out of the inlet portal, just in time to see the twins stretching their own connecting portal, their sleeves fluttering lightly in the air as they mirrored wide, circling arm movements to open one on the opposite dirt wall.
Jan 17, 2022
Sav woul volunteer to be the next one in, used to being in tunnels more than anyone else. Hopping through to make sure it was safe before opening up his own portal for the rest to follow. One of the inlets would go through his next portal as the dark skinned Nix held the door open.
Jan 17, 2022
The further the group sprinted, the louder their steps splashed and echoed with each jump. As Liam looked up, barely avoiding whiplash as his paws hit the dirt for the third time, he saw that the soft glow from the portals didn’t even begin to scrape the slope of the cavern they were currently in. No visible sign of either wall, let alone the ceiling. Splashes and croaks and hums reverberated through the passage like an ancient cathedral, and the smell was deep and moist and unfamiliar, the obvious tell of decay, but whatever was rotting was something forgotten to the known senses. He twisted around, almost falling over his own feet, and behind the rippling, splashing portal they were flooding out of, he managed to make out the glistening shape of another tunnel connecting to the current one; the only difference between them was that both tunnels were smaller until they joined together. The phenomenon had occurred underneath the Jaw, but not to this degree. Something in his chest quivered. He moved to catch up with the group.
As the team leapt through the next portal, in the short span it took to cross miles of distance, they all heard an eerie, muffled harmony, wavering like a chorus of voices underwater, and when they exited, it faded away strangely, lingering in their ears. It was a half-eaten phrase that they barely caught, completely unintelligible. When the cat half-breed exited last, he tripped to his knees, coughing and shuddering violently, and impossibly still covered in water.
“What–the Hel–” he sputtered, cold droplets flecking off of the tips of his ears and nose and lips.
Jan 17, 2022
Sav skidded to a stop on the other side of the portal and shook his head to clear his mind, and some of the water from his hair. “Woah, did you guys hear that?” He asked as he looked around the group. “Keep that portal open a second!” He said as the last Nix came through. “Now I’ve lived underground my whole life but I’ve never heard anything like that. What about you guys?”
“It is unfamiliar to me as well.” The inlet shook her head as she responded.
It seemed no one was familiar with the sound and Savarthan sighed and shook his head. “Welp… Guess there’s only one way to find out.” He said before plunging his head back into the portal.
Jan 18, 2022
Akkey also came to a halt when she heard the commotion behind her, and sent a slight spray of muddy water outwards. Her skin had begun crawling past Kanan and Kaliw’s portal, whether from the whispering darkness, the sheer cavern size that  reminded her of past ghosts, or the overall sinister atmosphere that their surroundings pressed upon them, it was difficult to narrow down, but her unease was undeniable. She left Libulan and Manong, the only other dark haired nix in their crew, up at front as she quickly back tracked to the tail end of their little cluster.
“Liam!” Whilst their previous checkpoint was inspected, a muted green-blue and purple glow simultaneously emanated from her fingertips as she made a pulling motion with her hand, helping the cat breed back up with intent to dry him and the others. She always had proficient command of vapour that she allowed to touch skin, so for Liam to be drenched and choking rocked her nerves even further than before.
“What is it?” the twins’ voices were hushed, the rest of their honour guard huddled close as well.
Jan 21, 2022
“Hey, wait–” Water steamed away from Liam as he reached out to Sav, but before he could stop him, the underground nix already had his ears buried in humming water again. There was little difference from a normal teleportation this time, and when his head emerged in the last place they portaled from, it was still quite dark and menacing. In the far distance above the portal, the only thing visible was an octagonal crystal, unusually and inorganically tall and rigid and straight. It shed a faint light across the ceiling, the only way that it would have been able to be spotted in such an ominous environment. It pulsed blue slowly, and it was strangely reminiscent of the beacons of the Rebellion’s invention, currently sitting in their leather harnesses. Below the hum of the portal, another string of the same garbled voice could faintly be heard, but other than that, the marker didn’t seem to be emitting any kind of field or detectable magical energy.
A paw roughly grabbed the scruff of his shirt and yanked him back through. “–the Hel you think you’re doing!?” Liam blurted, pushing him in the direction of the portal that another one of the inlet nixes had cautiously open and waiting for them to continue. “Don’t get separated!”
Jan 21, 2022
He gives the boy a mischievous grin and shrugged. “I mean I was only a tenth separated.” Sav replied as he stepped through the new portal. “Hardly even worth mentioning.” He elected to open the next portal himself.
Jan 21, 2022
As the bulk of the team began to step through, a cold pulse suddenly emanated from the portal. Ingrid’s apprentice leapt back, losing his tentative grip on his new friend’s sleeve, and as he desperately attempted to regain his hold, as well as sprint through the portal, he watched its edges frost over, creeping towards the center, which swirled ink-black before becoming completely encased, and then cracked heavily, starting to fall away. Liam shoved Hiccup aside as he ran for the portal too, but he only managed to slam both palms into its surface and caused it to crumble completely into frost.
“Shit.”
—
In the throes of teleportation, the forward team felt a lurch, and the soft glow of the portal blackened to dark twilight. A freezing nausea dragged at their stomachs, and the nixes could sense an awful swerve to their course. They were going the wrong way.
They tumbled out harshly against the floor, covered head to toe in chilled water just like Liam had been, and it slapped against the hard floor in wet curtains. At first, Nio had thought they’d gone blind; all they could see was disturbingly bright white and blue surfaces through the water in their eyes, but as they refocused, they saw a shadow of their own reflection, crisp and clean and translucent as though looking into a still pond shot through with a stone texture.
The room was marble–all of it, from tall ceiling to wide, sterile floor, and every counter and door, all sharp corners and pale, foggy surfaces. It looked akin to some kind of place to run experiments, some kind of laboratory. In front of the sputtering rebels, one wall of the lab loomed wide and tall, appearing to be an impossibly large frosted window, with the slight shift of watery light across thick glass. The illumination therein was strange, ambient, giving the whole place an uncomfortable sterile energy.
Nio swore and turned on their heel, coat fanning around their knees, and moved a hand to dry themselves and ready a portal out of whatever mess they had just jumped into. The water coalesced across the ground, but it remained formless and reflective, no glow to be seen.
“Did someone’s internal compass get shot?” they said curtly, words echoing as though in a canyon. “What’s going on?”
Jan 21, 2022
Sav pursed his lips as he took in his surroundings. "Well... This is less than ideal." He says as he looks around the room for a way out.. They couldn't afford to waste too much time with the rebellion waiting on them. He pressed his hand against the marble before drawing out his motes of lava and pressed it into surface hoping to break or melt it.
"C͞a̢ll̢i͢n̨g͘.͘ ̷Echoin̴g͠. Ca̛l̶l̸in̛g̸.͠..̴" A disheveled human form stepped into the room through the only visible connecting doorway, a polished steel door slammed and latched shut behind him. "Ec͟h̕oi͡ng̶...̀" his voice raspy with the wear of hundreds of waking hours of use. Adorned with a ragged, stained gown, a series of tubes ran up his arms and connected to a mechanical crown and ran back down his spine through the gown. Shadows coalesced, dripping like heavy smoke from beneath the crown and masked his eyes, which glowed with a soft grey light. His left hand was made entirely of ice, with inhumanely long, dagger-like fingers.
He stumbled further into the room and looked as though he was carrying a heavy weight with him at all times. His croaking voice came through once more, reverberating off of the sterile marble surrounding. "It̷'s blue l̸i̡g͝ht ̵o͜ver ͝mur͡d́e̛r̵.͞.."
Jan 22, 2022
"I... heard it was soon after Ragnarok. What happened?"
"I think he took a blow meant for someone else. And--he never came back."
"Guards. Up." An immediate, savage hiss to the others before Akkey zipped past them in a blur and splash of water to plant herself like a coiled spring between their party and the newcomer. Her mind whirled in too many directions. Liam and the others' separation raised her alarm by several degrees, but she was forced to push that aside and attend to the immediate situation. She gazed hard at the exhausted figure with his frightening, almost alien appearance. Libulan and the rest readied themselves as commanded, watching uneasily as they would an incoming, strange threat, but she remained solid and unmoving, like she had already steeled herself far earlier than the rest.
"Savarthan," her tone was dripping with forceful stress that grew by the passing second, "If you could keep with the goddamn group and not touch things on your own." Her hand splayed out straight behind her, no longer tinged in black just as the dark in her eyes melted away. Her fingers trembled noticeably, beginning to shiver from the initial lack of temperature regulation and the fruitless efforts of manipulating the puddles into portals beneath their feet. Moon blessed gems slowly lost their sheen, laying dull and lightless in their respective gears. What the fuck. What the fuck. What the fuck--
It may have been years, decades since she saw him last, as he approached them, but even in his unfamiliar disposition, Akkey wouldn't forget another water user, especially not one who stood with her and her father in the early Rebellion. She was the only one who would know.
There was a slight tremor in her voice, "Tezz..."
Jan 23, 2022
Tezz cocked his head to the side, Akkey's familiar voice lapped against the walls of his conscience. He shook his head, mechanical pieces groaning in the crown as he tried to shake off the now alien feeling of familiarity, home. A nearly unintelligible cacophony of voices rang out in response after he steadied himself again. "(He/we/I/they) (are/is/will/have) not(be/never) here, T̷͙̥̠̫̜e̛̻̤̱z̥z̩̩͎e̛̬r̝͇͖̦̯̞͟e͏̩̻t̵̗̪, (we/I/he) (buried/destroyed/drowned/suffocated) (him/them/us) in the d̛̤̮͓̘e̮e̞p̱̘."
Tezzeret clenched his fist, the ice cracking and reforming under the strain. The voices fell away before his original croaking, cracked voice echoed out once more. "Wash away the blood on my hands." He began his stumbling march closer to the party once more.
Jan 24, 2022
Sav rolled his eyes as he pulled the lava back. As the door slid open and the figure appeared he fell into a defensive stance. He listened to the exchange between the two and spoke up. "Hey Akkey, I don't know if you know this... Guy, or not but I'm getting some bad vibes off of this guy. Like off the damn charts bad." He said as he formed his lava into a thin disc.
Jan 28, 2022
“Tezz! You’re Tezz, right? What happened to you?” she eyed him with distress, taking a careful step towards him, but the eerie vocal chorus drowned them out as he continued his purposeful approach.
“I don’t think he’s going to listen, Chief! Get back!” The scrape of metal rang out as one of their accompanying guards unsheathed his sword. 
“Wait, no-!” Akkey yelled out as he charged past her. Habit called up a portal to transport him behind her again, but the water vibrated uselessly as he sprinted towards what he feared was a threat to their team, swinging the weapon in calculated arcs to scare him away.
“Stop right there!”
Jan 28, 2022
Tezz's eyes flashed to the approaching guard and in an instant his mouth was filled with water being pulled from the surrounding air. Tezz clenched his fist and the water froze solid, expanding, shattering the guards jaw before exploding into his skull.
"P͂̓e̡a͗ͣ͌ç̍̽̋̈ͬeͬ̒ͩ comes ŗ̳̠a̯͈̥̫̟̫į̪̝̥̝n̴̲ing down like d̰̞͙͓̹̳͇e̻͔͓̫̳ạ̙̺̯d̢̩͓y hail." Tezz looked pointedly at Akkey as he spoke. "She dug me out from the deep corners of the mind of the one who shares our body."
Jan 30, 2022
Sav watched as this... "Man", this Tezz, filled the overeager soldier with water and froze him from the inside out, the ice forcing his bones to jut out in unnatural ways before falling to the floor with a sickening thud and crack as the ice cracked on impact. The Nix winced as he watched this happened.
"...Okay, we're just gonna chi-... Calm down and... Talk, I think?" He says as he reforms the lava into a ball, keeping it at his side but at the ready.
“I’d catch you falling from any tr- C̢͕̹͉̣̠̠̩A̵̠̳̜̗̪L̖̠̹Ḽ͎̺I̱͙̭̝͈̤̝NG͓̮̹̮͙̰̙.” The shadows flared from beneath the eldritch crown placed on Tezz’s head. The water in the room lifted into the air like the gravity of the world had stopped effecting it.
“E̙̰̘̼̪̘͠C̠͎̥̫͍͕͖H̯͘O̮̟͇͚̝̩I̻͜N̪̙͚G̰̩.” The hovering water shaped itself into thousands of needles, solidifying and surrounding the party. The black, acrid smoke poured over Tezz and fell to the floor. He began hovering several inches off the ground, his arms outstretched to his sides he made a wide sweeping motion with his arms before snapping them forward. The needles of ice followed suit, descending into the group before him.
“Okay… That doesn’t look good.” Sav murmured to himself as Tezz started to pull the water up into the air. He slowly lowered the lava to the floor and started slowly spreading it in a thin line around the group. “And that’s definitely not good.” He said as the water formed into needles and Tezz rose up from the ground. As he swept his arms forward Sav had his quickly rise up, creating a thin shell around the group to block and melt the icy needles. “Akkey, I assume this guy’s a friend of yours.” He grunts through gritted teeth, his voice strained with effort. “But we don’t exactly have time to save his soul right now.”
“The underground nok is correct, miss,” the other dark haired nix that towered above everyone else’s heads agreed in his peculiar, crisp accent. Several stray frozen shards shattered into harmless pieces onto the ground, his trident forged out of rippling water spinning to create a temporary shield against the attacks, “He is intend to attack us, we must defend. There is nothing on window, you have complete checked?”
“We need to find a way out of here and back to the tunnel!” Libulan’s voice was tinged with panic as his own eyes roamed the doors that almost camouflaged against the marble. Several hands trembled in another useless attempt to teleport out. Whatever it was that kept them there, interfering with their portals– it unnerved him, along with every other nix in the place. And it showed, as their closely held group began to fall apart.
“Azul!” Without hesitation, his aide began to edge towards the nearest hopeful exit to her, slapping a deadly ice attack away with a fist, wincing slightly upon contact whilst the rest of their ragtag team tried not to get caught either.
“Wait, but–!” Akkey’s heart thudded wildly in her chest, alternating her wide eyes between Tezz above them and the disfigured body below him, the unfortunate soldier’s final cry that cut short still ringing in her ears. No no no, this has to be that old feral thing, there’s gotta be a way to fix this… She shook her head, “He heard me, I swear! He’s in there somewhere! I might be able to get him to listen if–” her eyes followed the billowing darkness from beneath him up to the crown of his head. Why does it always have to be shadows…
She clutched someone’s shoulder, uncertain as their party slowly began to break apart the other way, “That thing on his head, it must have something to do with all those voices and why he’s acting like this,” Akkey took a careful step towards Tezz again, “I need to get it off him.”
Tezzeret remained floating several inches off of the ground. Minute twitches danced along his arms, cascading through the rest of his body. Inside his mind a battle raged, glimmers of hope and his old home brought a new energy to a man locked inside his own mind. The water in the room began to shudder and dance along the ground as the struggle intensified “~rrrraaa̸̢̬͋ą̴̡̗̈h̶͕̓͝ḩ̶̰̅ḧ̵̫̭́͂h̸̬͓͌̅h̸̲̾H̵͉̆͘H̵͈̜͊̌́Ḥ̵̢͋̊̽H̴̭̜͠!!!” Tezz let loose a guttural roar and he fell into a crouch, his fists clenched. The hand made of ice began to lose form, melting and disfiguring.
He shakily lifted his head looking at the crowd before allowing his gaze to fall on Akkey. Tezz’s voice came through, soft but lucid, “Akkey, are they safe, are they alive?” A shudder washed over him and his composure nearly fell. He croaked out three names. “Clover, Treepelt, Melira.”