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Bermuda Triangle


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SiphonTalvesh

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After a short layover in port at Miami, Florida, Chris and Winona were under way to their target destination. Cruising through the water at 1,500 feet in the Milwaukee Deep, about 85 miles north of Puerto Rico, Chris shook his head.


"We're almost twice their normal depth, I'm still not getting any response, and I'm not detecting any life signs. This is very strange, you picking up or seeing anything yet on the sonar?"



Right as he said it, Winona got a large ping on the radar, and something floated past her window that looked like a hand and arm, but nothing more.
 

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Re: Bermuda Triangle

“Of a sort. Check your port side.“ Winona said, pointing at the next window the severed limb was due to float by. Once the shock of that wore off, she elaborated. “I‘m getting a larger reading ahead, but it‘s hazy, indistinct. We may need to get closer.“
 
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Re: Bermuda Triangle

Chris got up, walking over to the port window, at which point she saw him visibly stiffen.

"You can shut off the sonar and communications attempts Winona, we're not going to get a reply. You uh, you may or may not want to see this. I think it's safe to say we're in clean up mode now."


If she did come over, she'd see what had him so worked up.


Dozens upon dozens of mer-folk bodies littered the surrounding water, clumps of what had to be body parts and blood floating in the water. One particular body had been torn apart at the midsection, leaving only the upper half intact, and the lower half god knew where. Without any doubt, they were looking at a mass grave, and a massacre.
 

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Re: Bermuda Triangle

Winona stood and walked over to stand beside Chris without a word, her features growing more stern as she saw the destruction wrought.

After a moment of silence, she let out a small sigh, reaching over to turn off the comms unit. "I'm leaving the sonar on for now. If we get lucky, we may catch some sign of whatever had caused this."
 
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Re: Bermuda Triangle

Chris nodded glumly, walking over to another control panel and sitting down.

"Keep your eyes on it for now, I'm going to uh, I'm going to bring that upper body into the sub with the robotic arm, see if we can determine what happened. Once we have something then we'll contact the Sanctuary. I don't want to call them and have to tell Sally it appears all of them are dead without some kind of explanation as to what happened here. If I had to hazard a guess right now, something sliced and diced them, but ... this doesn't look like a feeding attack. This looks more like pre-meditated murder. I can't think of anything that's known to be around here that would attack them, especially in such large numbers. Still ... something killed them, the question is what."
 

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Re: Bermuda Triangle

“Agreed, if this was some sort of feeding frenzy, there would likely be less remains.“ Wwinona answered, her voice taking on a clinical tone as she reviewed in her mind. “With the nature of the warning we received, pre-meditated is possible, though i doubt there was much forethought, were that the case. Are we aware of any creature with the natural weapons and intelligence to do such a thing?“
 
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Re: Bermuda Triangle

Chris shook his head.

"No, not in the time frame this had to occur in. Whatever did this, it happened fast, there's no indication of anything other than Mer-folk being injured here, and the fact you even asked me suggests your own people have never seen anything that could do this. I mean ... even a clan of vampires couldn't have pulled this off, not that fast and not at these depths. We'll know more shortly I hope, body is now on board in the arm bay. Want to join me or you planning to stay up here for now?"
 

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Re: Bermuda Triangle

“i don‘t contain the entire knowledge of my people.“ Winona answered flatly. “But it is true that we have scant knowledgef what lies beneath the waves. Few spiders take up swimming. That said, I will ask when we return to the sanctuary.“

A moment passed as she pondered the rest of Chris‘ statement. “Hmm... it‘s true that there doesn‘t seem to be any other components here. I posit that the Cabal have managed to create a strain of the Lazarus Virus that the mers are not immune to. Once infected, the pod would have fallen to infighting quickly. I‘ll come with to examine the body, but we should be cautious.“
 
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Re: Bermuda Triangle

Chris paused a moment, mulling that over. Finally he nodded.

"That seems like the most likely scenario here. We definitely will want to use gloves and suits just to be sure. John apparently from what I heard proved that Lazarus as we know it doesn't affect source blood creations, but if the Cabal managed to find a way to infect the Mer-folk, theoretically it could infect Source Blood creations as well. I'm not to keen on the idea of going ape shit. Let's get suited up and then see what we're dealing with."


When she was ready, they would head back and suit up.

((Will wait on acknowledgement before putting them in the right compartment.))
 

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Re: Bermuda Triangle

"To say nothing about myself, of course." She answered regarding the possible risk to source blood abnormals.

She spent a moment getting into one of the suits and making sure all the seals were in place before giving Chris the thumbs-up, following him into the compartment where the corpse had been deposited.
 
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Re: Bermuda Triangle

Chris nodded in acknowledgement of that, and a few minutes later when they were ready, they moved into the compartment, Chris sealing the door. Using the robotic arm to lay the body on a table in the room, he went to work, commenting as he went.

"Alright, it appears the upper body was severed from the waist up by some kind of claws or blades or something, no indication of heat or shrapnel damage. No decomposition, so it's impossible to say for certain how long she's been dead for. Left arm appears to have gashes in it, as if something tried to rip the arm open or clean off. The head appears to have a large gash near the base of the skull, with some sort of ... clear liquid seeping out. I'm collecting a sample for analysis now, then we'll start with a more thorough autopsy. Interestingly though, looks like some kind of blood under the nails of this one's fingers, what's left of them anyway."
 

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Re: Bermuda Triangle

“From what i can see, the wounds arent self-inflicted. Seem too deep to be from merclaws at all, so our thoughts there may be off.“ Winona cmmented back, helping with the examinatin as needed.
 
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Re: Bermuda Triangle

Chris nodded.

"Definitely not self inflicted, I agree there. I've set the computer to scan the fluid to see if it can identify anything unusual in it, bacterial, viral, parasitical, anything at all. That will take a few minutes. In the meantime, let's start an examination of the brain, see if we might be dealing with a new form of Lazarus."


Gently opening part of the head, he placed a scope over it, and peered into it. Standing back up, he blinked several times, then looked again. After a few moments, he let out a low whistle.

"Well, I think we can rule out Lazarus. Lazarus causes chemical imbalances, causing anger, insanity, rage and the like, leaving some damage to the entire brain. This ... this doesn't fit it. Most of the brain is completely intact, except for one part. The Limbic System has been all but completely destroyed. It's barely even recognizable at this point, and that fluid seems to be seeping out from that area, and only that area."

He paused for a moment, looking at the wounds, then seemed to mimic some form of attack in the air several times before turning back to the body once more.

"Holy Christ. I think you were wrong on that second part, I think they tore each other apart after all. We were assuming a random act of violence more like you'd see with Lazarus, not cold blooded intent with actual thinking behind it. Deliberate strikes to the same area, over and over could do this, and the kicker? The Limbic System includes areas that control fear, emotion, behavior and the like. What I don't understand though is how this happened if that area is almost completely destroyed."


A moment later, the computer beeped loudly, and Chris went over to it. Looking over the results, he frowned, then slowly nodded.

"Well, that explains that. Our unidentified fluid is actually alive. It's a damn parasite, one that appears to attach itself to the Limbic System of the brain. My guess is it takes over, and slowly destroys the logic centers of the brain, and ultimately leads to what we're seeing now in it's aftermath. There's no way to know if this is bio-engineered, or a natural organism that we just haven't encountered until now, but in the end it doesn't really matter. The result is the same. Now the real question is, has this thing spread any further to other beings? I think we ought to contact the Sanctuary and get them to send some quarantine ships out here, do a bio-scan of the area with these paramaters and see if this thing is in the water still. If it is, we're going to have a very hard time containing it."
 

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Re: Bermuda Triangle

"I... I see. I personally haven't heard of anything like that, but again, I can check with the rest of my kind when we return." Winona answered. "Does your scan show anything that might show it to be artificially made? I can't see an organism that causes these kind of reactions fitting into any sort of life cycle. It would murder it's hosts too fast to spread, one would think."
 
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Re: Bermuda Triangle

Chris shook his head.

"I can't find anything to indicate that, but you are right. It has to be artificial, I can't see anything like this naturally managing to exist. The scary thing though is, if this is artificial ... well let's say I've seen a few man made things that came out of the Cabal's labs, and each one of them had a specific marker to them that you could identify. This has none of that. If someone did bio-engineer this ... it wasn't the Cabal. I'd dare say whoever did, assuming that is the case, was even more advanced technology wise than the Cabal. I mean at least on par with the stories of vampire technology, if not superior. I just don't know, and that worries me. It's too aggressive to be natural, but outside of the Cabal, who the hell would want to target the Mer-Folk? It just doesn't make any sense as to why someone would use it on them. Yeti, humans or Medusae I could understand, there's potential to make a claim they could be a threat to someone or something else. The Mer-Folk though ..."


Again he shook his head, puzzled.

"I'd bet my job this thing is artificial. I just don't understand why, nor can I figure out who possibly could have the technology to create something like this without leaving a trace marker to find. Not even the Cabal, not even we have that kind of technology. If the stories are true, the vampires might have, but that technology would have required vampire blood to operate. The only two people who could make use of it would be Nikola and myself. Even if Nikola is still alive, this doesn't fit even his style, and I know I didn't do it. When we get back, you may want to check in with your people, see if they've heard anything substantial about any possible third vampire in the mix of things. I somehow doubt it but ... at this point we're in the dark."
 

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Re: Bermuda Triangle

“I‘ll add that to the list, then.“ Winona said with a smirk, starting to clean the tls and area around their impromptu workstation. They didnt have an autoclave, but the cleaning chemicals she scrounged up should do well enough to make sure the odd parasite didnt spread.
 
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Re: Bermuda Triangle

Chris merely nodded, cleaning things up on his end before loading the remains of the dead Mer-woman back onto the arm device, securing the body. As they slowly walked out, she could tell something else was on his mind, something unrelated to this. After a short time, he turned to her.

"This is going to sound odd coming right now, but I was planning to ask you anyway before things went to shit. What, if anything do you personally know about, or regarding the origins of pure elemental shifters?"
 

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Re: Bermuda Triangle

“Elemental shifters? Not too much. I was told about ordinary elementals, since we knew you had a fire elemental in the basement. Pure examples of their source, posessed of varying degreees of intelligence, but always of expectable bent. A shifter i imagine would be similar, though p perhaps the variance would manifest in a more balanced outlook.“ she answered, pausing to change out of the biohazard suit once they were finished. “As for origins, it seems to be rather spontaneous, usually. Some new arrival, i‘m guessing?“
 
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Re: Bermuda Triangle

Chris hesitated a moment, then shook his head.

"Kind of. My ex girlfriend actually. I was kind of hoping she wouldn't put herself on the Cabal's radar by searching for me, but I should have known better. And if how her fire elemental side works is any indication, she probably can freely shift between each of the four basic elements, as well as manipulate them. Thing is, I've never heard of anything like that outside of whispered rumors, and all of those say that shifters like that don't exist, at least not on the surface, whatever that's supposed to mean."
 

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Re: Bermuda Triangle

“Well, now you know i have to ask.“ she said teasingly. “Why did you have to ask me, if you know one personally?“
 
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