[attr="class","llppromisedblurb"]
Slowly but surely the amount of light reaching them begins to reduce. One moment, she and Ana are swirling through sunbeams daggering through the water, and the next they’re submerged in a hazy, gray gloom. Cyg had to squint to keep tabs on Genesect, but her Swanna swam with instinctual speed and grace, and had no problem trailing the mech as they sank through layers and layers of darkness. [break][break]
Cyg’d read a book about Noctowls once, and it’d said that, to nocturnal creatures, the darkness was never just dark. It had different textures, viscosities. It wasn’t till now, as she was pushed in on all sides by nightmarish, oozing blackness, that she understood what the book was talking about. [break][break]
As they headed deeper into Sea Mauville, the submerged structure began to take on a life of its own. Corners, walls, hallways, cubicles all became forms in the gloom, looming and frightening. Every now and then Cyg thought she saw movement and would jerk her head in the direction to find it was just fragmented metal peeling from a wall. She wasn’t so much scared as she was thrilled-- like the kind of excitement you get when you’re watching a suspenseful movie. [break][break]
Cygne had wanted to be in those types of movies, once. This was
way better. [break][break]
Even sunken and dilapidated, Sea Mauville was armed with its own claws. Anatida had to pull her wings in super tight to avoid being scratched, or catching herself on jagged edges and splintering metal. She made it through mostly unscathed, save for a few feathers sheared off and left to float in the depthless ocean. [break][break]
The sound of
oscar clayton ’s voice filtered back through the stagnant air as Genesect, Cyg, and Anatida broke from the water; already raspy and echoing through the mech’s vocalics, the strange, echoing hum of the data chamber made it eerier, somehow.
“Yeah, boss,” Cyg said, immediately reverting to subordinate mode, as she’d been indoctrinated by the workforce all her life.
“All good here.” [break][break]
She was amazed things were still running, at this depth and after all this time. Cyg climbed off her Swanna and recalled her to save on room, and oxygen-- her mouthpiece would continue to work, even out of water, but Ana had no benefit. She found herself scaling a staircase that lifted her completely out of the water. [break][break]
The air was warm and suffocating, trapped for years beneath the surface of the sea, and heated by the chugging data centers. It was stifling in her dive suit. As she approached one of the consoles, movement out of the corner of her eye made her jump a bit. She and Oscar must have identified it at the same time, because Cyg said,
“Shit,” just as his coughing jag began to echo out from Genesect. [break][break]
The darkness around them lit up with eyes. The motion from the incoming Tentacool and Genesects responding attacks made the tangled corpse slouch forward at her; instinctively, Cyg reached a hand out to push the offensive object away. Her stomach dropped as her hand sloughed through the squid-munched, bloated flesh. Her hands were gloved and prevented her from touching it, but she still got to experience the sensation of decayed carcass collapsing in around her fingers, smelled the cloud of viscous rot it expelled, and watched a piece of intestine slip free of the abdominal cavern and loop tantalizingly in the dark, before an angry and ravenous beak sliced through the air and snipped it off. [break][break]
Terrifying
and cool.[break][break]
Oscar wasted no time launching Genesect into motion; the mech was a scalpel of ferocity and precision. Cyg was torn between engaging in battle and trying to get the task completed as quickly as possible. She tapped the odd keystone holstered at her hip twice-- a bit harder than she intended-- and a loud roar, like a whoosing of air, with the distant sound of hideous laughter, drowned out all the other noises in the room. A giant, purple cloud with a malevolent, jagged grin billowed from the keystone to light the data center up lavender and green. [break][break]
Cyg rolled her eyes and ducked down, just as Genesect slashed over her, swiftly dealing with an attacking Tentacool. She approached one of the data stacks; some of the neon blue LED lights bordering it still worked, flickering and spitting electric blue light, but were quickly subsumed in purple gas. A plexiglass plate sealed the front of the stack, protecting it from water and other damage. [break][break]
“Get this off,” Cyg ordered, and the mocking laughter increased tenfold. Sinistree’s form began to bubble and shift as she slithered through the seam of the glass plate. She gathered her pneumatic body there, increasing the pressure as more and more of her filtered in, until finally the plexiglass jumped free with a pop. Cyg grabbed it and whirled, slamming it into the mantle of nearby Tentacool and pushing it backwards.
“Keep them off my back,” she commanded her Spiritomb as she inserted a USB drive into a slot on the data sock. The light next to the slot flicked yellow, then green, and a matching light on the drive slowly pulsed yellow, indicating a download.
“We’re in business!” Cyg yelled over the din of battle and Sinistree’s ethereal, echoing
uproarious laughter, following the lines in the data stack to the next USB slot and repeating the motion. [break][break]
[break][break]
TL ; DR[break]> upon reaching the data room, Cyg recalls Anatida the Swanna to save on space and oxygen[break]> She accidentally touches the nasty corpse[break]> Uses Sinsitree, her Spiritomb, to pop open the protective case on a data stack and begins to download the information onto a USB, dodging and avoiding Tentacool and relying mostly on Genesect to protect her[break]> Once the cover is off, Sinistree uses uproar to keep the Tentacool distracted/away and just generally to cause chaos because she's a menace. Cyg continues to download data.[break]> HOPE THIS IS OKAY POG
CRIMSON EYES BEGIN TO GLOW in the darkness all around you, one set at first, then another, then a half-dozen more. Before you have a chance to retreat, the figures advance on you with predatory speed, a swarm of TENTACOOL ravenous and out for blood. 
