Chapter 49 - Crescendo Event

Crescendo Event
The room plunged into darkness, leaving Naluri's helmet's screen as the only source of light, as dim as it was. There was also a low hissing noise. Rokiahi immediately summoned her full face gas mask. She swiped up her breathing mask and thrust it on the baby Alien's face, pulling the elastic strap round its head. The flexible mask did not properly adjust to the Alien's jaw, making it insecure, but it was definitely better than the rigid gas mask. Rokiahi quickly dived behind a desk between herself and the elevator. The Alien was dragged with her, the pressurised oxygen flask that the mask was connected to by a tube being at Rokiahi's waist. Rokiahi sat still on the floor by the desk, holding her breath and listening for sounds. She couldn't see a thing and was lucky that she had remembered where the breathing mask and Alien were before the lights went out.

The hissing stopped and Rokiahi could hear creaking coming from the elevator. Judging from the short amount of time of hissing, Rokiahi guessed the gas, if it was gas, wasn't flammable. She summoned her Rocket Jumper and waited.

As soon as she heard a footstep, she turned to point the Jumper over the desk and held down the trigger. The incomer was caught off guard and dived to the side with a manly grunt. No sane person would fire a rocket with a wall only two metres in front of them. But this was the harmless Rocket Jumper. Rokiahi, taking a guess at where the grunt came from, fired the grappler at the man and again at the opposite side of the room. The man was promptly pulled across the room, only to slam into the table in the middle.

As the man struggled to free himself from the grappler cable, Rokiahi shone a flashlight in his direction. It was Solid Snake but as Old Snake, an elderly man no longer in his prime. Rokiahi was aware Snake suffered from accelerated ageing and according to his own canon, was meant to die during The First Year from old age. Haruhi's intervention had saved him. And yet he was fighting for Gensokyo. He was wearing a tieless suit, instead of his Octocamo sneaking suit, which of course Naluri had instead. However, he was still wearing the Solid Eye, an eye patch fitted with zoom and infrared technology, as well as a jaw sized gas filter mask to protect himself from the foggy pink gas in the room. Rokiahi had managed to grapple his right ankle, so Snake had fallen over with his right leg pulled on top of the strap table. He could barely be seen though, due to the heavy gas.

Making use of Snake's slight daze from the sudden flashlight, Rokiahi jumped to the centre table, taking care to stand on the opposite side to Snake, and quickly strapped Snake's right ankle to the right arm strap on the table with a strong tug. But with a mighty pull from Snake, the table toppled towards him, fading out of view in the gas. There was a twang as the grappler cable was cut, the wires recoiling dangerously towards the other end of the cable. Snake rose above the gas with a combat knife, Rokiahi's attempt to restrain him completely useless.

Making use of Snake standing up, Rokiahi dropped the flashlight and dived into the gas to his left out of his sight. But there was a sudden tug at her waist followed by an awkward crash, as Snake tripped over the breathing mask tube onto the fallen table.

A dim glow through the fog gave Rokiahi, who was laying on the floor, an idea. She grappled the glowing object, pulling it towards her.

As Snake painfully stood back up again, something touched his left temple. Rokiahi pressed the hanging sticky head pad to his head and touched the screen of Naluri's helmet. Since the projector was idle, the signal from the minidisc went straight to the head pad, transmitting Naluri's experiences to his brain, bypassing any visual requirements. Snake suddenly felt as though the air was being sucked out of him and he passed out almost instantly, collapsing unconscious onto the floor. Rokiahi pressed the screen once more, pausing the video, just having played the section where Naluri had been sucked out the spacecraft and passed out in space.

Rokiahi switched off the helmet screen and pulled the wires off it. She picked up her flashlight, stepping on Snake's combat knife. The knife suddenly disappeared, Rokiahi absorbing it into hammerspace. She caught sight of the Solid Eye and touched it, taking it into hammerspace as her own. As she made her way to the elevator, Rokiahi was tugged at the waist.

"Little One!" she realised in horror. Following the oxygen mask tube, she came across the lifeless body of the Alien. Rokiahi picked up its cold body only for it to yawn loudly. It was asleep, the gas being non-fatal sleeping gas. Sighing with relief, Rokiahi entered the elevator, switching off her torch and listening quietly for any movement from above. There was no light coming from the upper room. But just in case, Rokiahi knelt down on one knee to adopt a low stance in the small elevator. If there was anyone on the floor above, she would be an easy target in the small phone booth.

As the lift crawled up at an agonising pace, Rokiahi waited patiently before pointing her left arm straight up, her left hand horizontal and palm up. The Impact Dial, with the absorbed power of a block of C4, activated, the phone booth bursting apart from the inside, showering the room with its remains, Rokiahi could hear the smashing of glass and then a whirl of energy. With little warning, sirens began to sound in the room and it lit up slightly, but not due to the lights. The hanging light above the elevator began to spark before it shot electricity at the floor with a thunderous snap.

As the lift finally reached room level, Rokiahi could see that the Impact Dial had inadvertently broken some of the glass display cases. Bolts of electricity were joining the green metallic tiles and the hanging lights, the many bolts moving across the tiles in erratic patterns, lighting the room up. Being a museum, of course it had its security. Being Doom's museum, of course it had security Doom was immune to. Destroying the phone booth may not have been a good idea as it would have served as an effective shelter. Rokiahi's rubber boots and gloves would suffice as protection against the electricity for now.

Rokiahi quickly looked around to see Gordon Freeman near the corner, stumbling somewhat. Standing next to the phone booth had knocked him back a considerable amount when it exploded and he was struggling to not fall over, the HEV suit he was wearing being made of metal, except from the shoes and gloves. As he regained his composure, Rokiahi noticed he had dropped his shotgun on the floor, now coursing with electricity. Destroying the phone booth was definitely a good idea as Freeman had been waiting.

Rokiahi did not want to risk a firefight in such a dangerous environment, throwing a chaff grenade in Gordon's direction, summoning her glasses under her mask. Gordon, another hammerspace user, pulled out a pistol at Rokiahi. Rokiahi had expected this and had her grappler ready. She fired at Gordon's gun arm and quickly pointed down at the green tiles before firing again. Similar to Misaka in Japan but the other way round, electricity shot through the cable to Gordon's suit though with not as much power. At this time, the chaff grenade exploded brightly, spreading the grey chaff across the room. The retracting cable pulled Gordon's arm down, while the electricity tensed Gordon's muscles involuntarily, forcing him to shoot downwards. In pain, Gordon pulled the cable off his suit with his left hand. He aimed the pistol at Rokiahi who was sprinting towards the room door, Alien in her arms, and pulled the trigger but the chaff had jammed the weapon. Without a word, Gordon put away the pistol and summoned a two handed Gravity Gun. He pointing it at a metal helmet on the floor, the helmet flying towards him and hovering in front of the Gravity Gun. Once more aiming towards Rokiahi, he fired, the helmet launched across the room with tremendous force.

Rokiahi, keeping in mind to always keep an eye on the enemy, especially with the siren drowning out any sounds, quickly jumped back, the larger projectile a little easier to dodge than a bullet. The helmet hit the wall, causing waves of electricity to expand from the collision point with loud crackles as small electric bolts jumped from the surface. Noting this phenomenon, Rokiahi took hold of a metal curved armour breastplate on the floor. Unlike Gordon, Rokiahi's gloves covered the majority of her arms, so there was little risk in accidentally electrocuting herself. Hooking her normal grappling hook onto the armour, with a black insulating plastic cable, she threw the armour piece across the floor, intimidating sparks flying as the plate skidded towards Gordon. Gordon was unnerved and simply pointed the Gravity Gun at the breastplate, the armour coming off the floor and hovering in front of the gun. Rokiahi calmly pressed the button on the detonator she had summoned. The block of C4 attached to the plate exploded, knocking Gordon off his feet. He landed on the floor face up, electricity immediately surging through his suit and into him.

As he lay twitching, Rokiahi grabbed Gordon by the collar and pulled him onto the open lift, away from the electric tiles. She absorbed both the shotgun and Gravity Gun into her hammerspace.

"Don't become a mere soldier, Mr Freeman," spoke Rokiahi, "War isn't all triggers."

She opened the door and reentered the pitch black corridor. The Alien was beginning to stir, the oxygen mask helping its recovery. Rokiahi unsummoned her gas mask, replacing it with the Solid Eye in infrared mode, over her glasses. Looking down the corridor, in the direction to the circular lift, Rokiahi could easily see the white silhouette of a crouched man, tiptoeing towards her. Rokiahi closed the door, fired the grappler at the floor and then at the door handle. She then pushed down the handle. Electricity from the handle shot through the cable and spread out through the metal floor of the corridor. The man immediately fell over onto the ground, twitching.

Rokiahi waited for a moment before kicking the door back open. The grappler cable snapped, the floor losing its charge. She paused once more. After a brief silence, Rokiahi summoned a Longbow grenade and threw it towards the body. It shot through the air before hitting the floor and rolling into the body. The body immediately sat up and kicked the grenade back. As the grenade exploded in between the two people, Rokiahi could see through the Solid Eye three glowing circles appearing down the corridor in a triangular formation. As Rokiahi had expected, Sam Fisher, with his trademark infrared visor had been faking and likely had a full body rubber suit. Sam raised his rifle towards Rokiahi and pulled the trigger. Rokiahi quickly slipped back inside the museum, dodging the single bullet. The chaff had spread into the corridor from the museum and contaminated Sam's weapons. Rokiahi tugged her grapple, pulling the now rather mangled breastplate to her. With a swift motion, she turned back out into the corridor and kicked the armour along the floor towards Sam, who had just thrown a stun grenade. Rokiahi was too far away to knock it back and it exploded, briefly filling the corridor with intense white light and an enormous boom that even put the museum siren to shame. Rokiahi's earplugs kicked in, defending her from the deafening bang. Her glasses vastly dimmed the flash. However, the heat the stun grenade left behind, clouded her Solid Eye's Infrared view with white, essentially blinding her and leaving her vulnerable.

Then the Alien suddenly jumped out of her arms and she was jerked forcefully at the waist. Unprepared, Rokiahi toppled forward. Suddenly, something was pushed into her hand. She grabbed it and immediately recognised the round shape as a fragmentation grenade, without the pin. She reacted fast and absorbed it into her hammerspace straight away to prevent its explosion. Now low to ground, Rokiahi could see the slight outline of the hot stun grenade ahead of her through the Solid Eye. The grenade was a brilliant white, its surroundings a little dimmer. Summoning the Gravity Gun, she pulled the grenade towards herself and shot it blindly in Sam's direction. She did not hit Sam, who was a crouched position, apparently a little disoriented by his own grenade like Rokiahi was. However, with the interfering stun grenade out of the way, Rokiahi's sight of Sam was clear and could see the armour had made its way slightly past Sam. She gave the grapple a strong pull. The plate zoomed into Sam's feet, tripping him onto his back, onto the armour. Rokiahi quickly activated the grapple's retraction, pulling the two of them across the floor to each other. She took hold of Sam's goggles, taking them into her hammerspace. In exchange, she summoned Gordon's Freeman's shotgun. Along with the electricity it had stored from the museum. As soon as the metal gun touched Sam's exposed face, the high charge shocked his body, knocking him out.

Rokiahi took a moment to catch her breath. She had originally attached the grappling hook to the armour to use the armour trick on Gordon but it turned out to be unnecessary. Rokiahi stood up and looked around. She realised she couldn't see the cold-blooded Alien in the dark, even with the Solid Eye. Using her flashlight to see, she knelt by the now fully awake Alien and patted it on the head, "Good Little One." As demonstrated before, the baby Alien could use sounds to tell exactly what was going on, the stun grenade only helped it pinpoint the frag grenade's location. The Alien seemed tense, looking at the ceiling. Rokiahi followed its gaze. There was nothing out of the ordinary with the corridor ceiling. "Are there more people above us?" Rokiahi remember the switch for the circular elevator. Neither Gordon nor Sam seemed like ones to dive onto the lift with the equipment they were wearing. Snake was more than capable of performing combat rolls but that was only with his sneaking suit on.

Rokiahi took the oxygen mask off the Alien, sending it back into Hammerspace. "Come on," she beckoned to the Alien, making her way to the elevator. The two of them entered the lift, light coming from the room above. Rokiahi pressed the up button and the lift quickly ascended. She summoned Gordon's shotgun, expecting something to happen. Elevators were always dangerous places. As the elevator rose, Rokiahi could feel the air getting colder. Suddenly, there was an explosion from above as well as one from below. The lift stopped abruptly, pushing both Rokiahi and Alien into the air for a brief moment. Before they could land, the elevator dropped like a rock back to the lower floor, leaving Rokiahi and the Alien to freefall.

Rokaihi was prepared, as usual, shooting the grappler at the Alien, pulling it towards her and threw her grappling hook up to the upper floor. It attached to the ledge, swinging Rokiahi to the wall. As Rokiahi was about to start climbing up, the hook's hold unexpectedly slipped, causing Rokiahi to fall again. However, she was now next to the wall. She summoned the Rocket Jumper and fired down at the wall, rocket jumping to the opposite side of the circular hole. With another pull of the trigger, Rokiahi was launched up even further. On this second jump, she reached up and grabbed onto the top ledge. She immediately noticed the surface was very cold and slippery, even with her rubber gloves. As she attempted to pull herself up, a hand grabbed her right wrist. Rokiahi swiftly summoned the shotgun again in her left hand, pointing it directly at the person's face. Only to see a red eye and a blue eye look down at her.

"Looks like you are managing well enough on your own, yes?" greeted Ilse with a smile, a chuffed Cirno at her side.