Planatae

Rallying

It didn't take long for Ricardia to realize she'd miscalculated the situation. Her cell cluster wasn't the only one in the prison complex. Running through the hallways and encountering room after identical room, she felt as though she'd been trapped in a horrible maze, one that endlessly repeated itself.

Finding the exit would be no easy task, she realized, and so working with the other prisoners may be more beneficial then she had thought.

So when she approached yet another cell cluster, she called for attention, rather than ignore the group that was slowly freeing themselves.

Each cluster seemed to have about three or four prisoners within, and this one was no different. Two men and a woman stared blankly back at her. Draped in old, faded clothing, their bodies seemed to tilt and waver, as though they stood in a strong wind.

"Follow me!" She called out to them in Standard, hoping they'd understand. "Let's look for the exit together."

They just stared at her blankly. The man seemed to possess the most vitality out of the three of them, so she focused her effort on him.

"Do you want to be captured again?" She asked. "We need to use our numbers to our advantage."

"There's no point," he finally mumbled. "It's not like this shithole is any better on the outside."

Ricardia paused, confused for a moment - but then it hit her.

Onyx, she realized. That's where all these people are from. They must have been pulled off the street at some point, just like her. But while the hacker had targeted her out of revenge, she was sure the others' situations were vastly different. What kind of person do you have to be, she wondered, so that no one will miss you when you're gone?

The answer stood in front of her: the outcasts, and dregs - the ones at the very bottom. Their Factors were what probably made them targets, but unlike her, being off-planet made them useless.

Ricardia needed to fire these people up - and fast. With the Purists' protective lenses, she wasn't sure if her Factor would act as any sort of advantage either. Sticking together would be to their benefit.

"How long have you been here?" she continued, pushing him further. "Sitting on your ass, hoping someone would save you from your... pathetic existence?"

The woman shifted uneasily, but the man scowled - she'd struck a nerve. "Nothing we could've done," he grunted.

"But now there is." She jerked her head backwards, towards the passageways. "Somewhere out there is an exit, but we're only gonna get there by working together." She kept her voice level, calm - the same tone she used back on Caedum during ritual events. She tried to exude authority, to jolt something in these people to listen to her.

"This is our one shot," she added, "to get out of here, to start over."

There was a beat of silence. Then another. And finally, the man lumbered towards her. After a moment, the woman followed, trailing behind.

"Alright," he said, cracking his knuckles lazily. "Let's give it one last go." There was a forced nonchalance in his words, but she could see the sudden gleam of fire in his eyes. It was a rage she could understand; a feeling that simmered within herself, just below the surface.

His brows furrowed then, as if he'd just remembered something. "I don't know about you, but I have a Factor. Won't be useful though, since we're not planet-side."

Ricardia nodded in understanding, but she gave nothing away. Unless the Factor was a basic Body-type, like gills, or a tail, going off-planet severely weakened its effects... for most people, at least. Although Ricardia's Factor was also within the Body-type grouping, it shared more qualities with the other categories.