[center][h2][b][u]Circle of Hell- Holding Cells Block B[/u][/b][/h2][/center]

You ever taken a stop to look at your current situation and ask yourself: "What sadistic bitch you happen to believe is in control of your destiny did you piss off to lead you to this moment?"

This was one of those times for one Joey B.

A simple escort, he said. Just head to where they were going and meet them there, he said. [i]Could be fun ruffling Natty's feathers, getting her target first, .[/i] he said.

Hindsight's 20/20, they say, and it was in hindsight that he realized how careless he was with this idea. Of course this ship would still have plenty of guards on standby, and considering the level of criminals that would be - and were - released out into the public, of course they weren't going to be a bunch of peons keeping what remains of them intact. 

The thoughts were rolling in his head, cupping his hairless chin with his right hand in contemplation and blowing the messy blonde hair out of his sapphire blue eyes, as he sat criss-crossed on his small and most uncomfortable bed, a wall of iron bars to the right of him.

This was Joey B. Albion, former official member of the Xuanzang crew, now an unofficial part-timer of that same crew. ...Well, until a couple days ago, [i]now[/i] he's also an inmate awaiting a death sentence in one of the ship's stops for treason, desertion, federal homicide of military officers, and now - ironically enough - breaking and entering the very Prison ship once someone comes to pick the prisoners back up on their regularly scheduled flight to the death ca-er-"prison planet", yeah that's it; complete with two minors as accomplices. ...Oh yeah, they're probably gonna die too, huh?

It all started about a few days ago, Joey patched into the Xuanzang's communications from his own ship - Some call it stalking, he calls it insuring himself Natty isn't doing something way in over her own head and dragging his pals along for the ride - and heard about their mission from Moonstrike to go to pick up some sort of special agent/secret weapon whatever from the Galactic Bazaar. Interested in what they were dishing out, he decided to ride over to the Bazaar to meet up with them. However, by the time he got there, it was too late and the Xuanzang was long gone, likely with these 'agents' in tow. Seems he wasn't the only one looking for the Xuanzang though, he met up with a boy and girl asking for where that very ship was. Mite confusing at first; he couldn't believe the possibility that [i]these[/i] were the supposed special agents they were taking. It seemed the girl had Telepathy though, basically projected the information right into his head while the boy just watched impatiently.

These were the rumored Star Marines he heard so much about back in the war, the supposed special agents that were supposed to be the Ascendancy's Trump Card back in the Battle of Proxima. They were captured by the Rau've but were treated hospitably rather than as prisoners of war. When they decided to Rebel, the girl - Maria - ran off on a mission given to her by one of them - a guy named Tarak - for information and potential aid and was to return to her friends immediately after her finished, but she arrived too late. After that span of Telepathy was, over the boy - Alan - explained that he left himself behind on the Rau've planet to train with some Rau've mentor and only recently completed enough training to be of help to the rest of their friends, but it seemed he also arrived too late with Maria being the only one of his friends that was around.

Realizing the three of them were basically all on the same boat of missing the same ship with their friends on it, Joey proposed to the two kids to come with him to get them on the Xuanzang and reunite with their friends there. They were suspicious - Stranger danger and all - but fortunately Maria's mind magic made things run smoothly as she could tell that he meant well. After deciding to tag along, they followed him to his ship and they headed off to follow the Xuanzang.

That is, until he once again patched into their communications and overheard the Briefing for their mission on Plenty, something about some super-AI that they wish to grab from a crashed Prison ship there. Now, Joey has heard about the situation down on that planet in particular, that it has been a planet under Civil war and rebel suppression for weeks now. He also knows about the Circle of Hell, a massive Prison ship carrying the worst of the worst. This situation seemed like a pretty dangerous mission for them to go on. At the same time, they now know exactly where they're going to go. As such, after some discussion, the three decided to head to Plenty before the Xuanzang reaches it, and capture the AI first. Not only would it help save their friends some trouble, but it would reunite Maria and Alan with the rest of them, and he can rub the fact that he succeeded in this mission first in Natty's face. Three birds; One stone!

Alas, they underestimated the capability of the prison ship's guards. The initial thought was that the Prison guards would be scattered about trying to fix their ship, take in any escaped criminals, and guarding the ship from any rebels who want to take out ascendancy soldiers.

...What they did NOT know is that Kherol's Vice-Admiral just happened to be down on this planet as well with his own squadron rounding up any criminals that escaped, AND dealing with the rebellion at hand, and so there were far more guards than they thought there were, ...they were also far more competant and capable than they thought, managing to capture and restrain the two magical kids while pointing a lot of guns at Joey's face. Interestingly, seemed odd how prepared they were for two Star Marines, but they seemed to think the two kids were affiliated with pirates...Something about them coming for their Captain? Joey had no idea what they were on about, and it seemed the two kids were just as confused.

Either way, it looked like it was just a case of bad luck.

Which brings us to present day, with Joey locked up in a Cell on the second floor of Cell Block B, looking at the utterly massive area just outside his iron bars.

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[b][u][i]Cell Area Description[/i][/u][/b]

[indent]As this is a Prison ship, it's only natural that this would be filling up the most space within it. Oh, not this Block, rather just the three Cell blocks in general. They all generally have the same design to them, a massive rectangular space of five floors, the walls in five rows lined with prison cells and an open space right in the middle that serves as a sort of courtyard for them. Usually when times comes to let them out to exercise, they place equipment in the open area to use, and when an announcement is being made, real easy to have the prisoners' attention when the ones making the announcement is front and center. The three cell blocks are layered on top of one another, forming a tower of sorts, cell block B being right in the middle. Below that is Cell Block C which is the only one connected to the rest of the ship; if anyone came into the Cell area of the ship, they would arrive in Cell Block C, and would need to ascend upward to get to Cell Block B, and Cell Block A at the top, the top most area of Cell Block A being where Solitary Confinement for the worst of criminals is held. At the end of this hallway was the room reserved for this ship's "guest of honor", Realist's cell. The three block are divided by thick layers of titanium alloy which makes up their central courtyard, the very center of which opens up like a door in order for an elevator platform to go through, before immediately closing upon its disappearance with a razor's edge.

As additional security, a sensor is in place on the block "gates" as the elevator goes up and down, detecting the elevator and how many are on it as soon as it passes by, so as to prevent any prisoners from just jumping to the lower blocks while the Elevator is going through the floor. If too many are on the elevator than there was supposed to be, the gate won't open.

At least, that's how it was supposed to be, however, thanks to the crash, the security system on the ship malfunctioned, which included the security gate of the Cell Blocks. In fact, most of the cells in all the blocks were broken open along with the Block gates in the center. Any prisoners still on the ship are those with Cells that still worked even after the crash, and all the doors in Solitary Confinement - Realist's Cell included - has their own backup systems to keep them locked in case of such emergencies as this.[/indent]

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Needless to say, Joey and his two new pals were placed in the working cells of Cell Block B. Let's see...He was on the third floor of Cell Block C, and Maria and Alan were placed just above his own, with Cell with Alan on the fourth Floor and Maria on the fifth and top floor of the B-Block.

One would think these three were capable of breaking on their own, and indeed, Joey does have an unorthodox idea of how to get out of his own predicament. However, As soon as Maria and Alan were captured, they were given mechanisms designed for restraining Kaisoken-infused magic like the Star Marines had, particularly a collar on their necks that seemed to suppress their magical capabilities. Joey could probably escape at any time, but he's toothless without the guns he had with him, and even if he somehow gained them, what kind of asshole would he have to be to leave two kids to fend for themselves on a ship wrecked prison?

He has an idea in mind to help the others get out. Problem? ...It requires getting a guard to come here, and wouldn't you know it? They're pretty few and far between at the moment thanks to this mess.

At this rate, nothing was gonna get done fast. Figured now's the best time to try and get something done. So Joey walked up to the bars of his cell, slapped his cheeks, did a few stretches of his arms, then, with a look of determination, he grabbed at the iron bars, took a deep breath, and...

"[b][color=yellow]OI! CAN SOMEONE GET THEIR BUTT OVER HERE!? PRETTY SURE IT'S PAST LUNCH BY NOW! KIDS NEED THEIR FRUITS AND VEGGIES OVER HERE![/color][/b]" Joey yelled out, the damaged but spacious Cell block echoing his voice across the other Cell Blocks.

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"[b][color=red]OH SHUT UP ALREADY![/color][/b]" A much younger boy's voice brashly yelled in response from just above Joey. The angry look in the pale boy's red eyes almost pushing through the bars as he looked down towards the direction of his loud neighbor. Irritated, he walked back toward the middle of the cell, pushing his fingers across his short snow-white hair. Out of the three, he was the most impatient and consistently focused on escaping, as Maria was more concentrated on meditation and Joey was annoyingly laid back. This was a regrettable decision on his part.

Unlike Joey, he didn't have any weapons on him, hell, he didn't have much of anything on him save for his clothes and his Omni-tool. He didn't need much of anything, as a Star Marine, he was only ever truly reliant on his magic and his physical skills. This, for the moment, is the main factor behind the irritation he felt at present. It was bad enough that these Prison guards locked an Anti-magic collar around his neck, preventing him from just melting the bars and escaping, but Joey's consistently patronizing 'requests' has happened at the top of his lungs has gotten on his nerves for long enough.

"[b][color=yellow]Aw, come on, Al. At this point I'm just playing around.[/color][/b]"

"[b][color=red]You've been at this for fucking Days! DAYS! Even at night for fuck's sake! The few times it [i]actually gets[/i] someone here, and what do you do? [i]NOTHING![/i][/color][/b]"

"[b][color=yellow]Calm down and just relax, kiddo. I do have an idea, it's just, they never seem to show up at the right times to pull it off.[/color][/b]"

"[b][color=red]Right time? WE'VE BEEN HERE FOR ALMOST A WEEK! A GODDAMN WEEK, JOEY! We had plenty of times these guards came around, AND YOU COULDN'T EVEN DO ANYTHING WITH THE ONE ON YOUR FUCKING FLOOR! I HAVEN'T HAD A GOODNIGHT SLEEP OR BEEN ABLE TO THINK ABOUT JACK SHIT FOR FOUR DAYS NOW, BECAUSE YOU'RE CONSTANTLY YELLING BULLSHIT! SO EITHER DO SOMETHING, [i]OR SHUT, THE FUCK, UP![/i][/color][/b]" Alan yelled, the talk between the two echoing across the entire Cell Area. Even people in Cell Block A, and Cell Block C below would be able to hear their screams reverberating off the walls.

Alan couldn't see it, being exactly above Joey's own cell, but Joey was smiling. Not a patronizing smile, as if laughing at the flustered boy above him, but rather a small smirk of confidence, as if things were going the way he wanted them to go.

Amidst all of this, Maria was quiet, sitting criss-cross on the middle of the cell floor above Alan. She said not a single word to stop the bickering of the two, and seemed utterly unphased by their verbal warfare as she kept her focus within herself. As the collar around her neck would suggest, she was indeed a Star Marine as well, but unlike the others who have naturally aged since their time in the war, Maria was still the small pale girl in the purple dress they all met on that day, seemingly haven't aged a day. Of course, the other Star Marines noticed this during their time with the Rau've, but she had no answer for them as to why, only a theory that perhaps the dust injection process that went awry and made her need that cybernetic in her head also stemmed her growth.

She did not flinch out of her concentrated state of mind, not even as Alan's bombastic yells echoed like the wrathful whispers of wraiths. With a deep sigh, she opened her dim violet eyes, a lack of shine in within them as if she had no soul within that small body of hers. Something the guards never gotten used to and were always so freaked out by, but something the Star Marines knew her for well enough. The guards believed that she was simply a husk, some sort of well-kept undead shell; despite the collar on her neck preventing any harm to come to them, none of the guards wanted to go anywhere near this girl when the time came to give her food, treating the task as a punishment more than a chore. But as the Star Marines learned in the past, she was very much alive, and did have emotions and spirit like the rest of them, she did show care, kindness, even some degrees of passion for things, but simply lacked the ability to show these things, not because she was holding back but because the Cybernetic plate in her head simply made her physically incapable of emotional response of any kind, resulting in a perpetual look of sheer apathy.

So while she did not look like it, she was very annoyed at verbal sparring of her partners, moving her waist-length white hair away from her face after the concentration she built up was broken by them. She'd tell them to quiet down so that she could continue her meditation, but her emotionless whispers would be overridden by their loud voices. Unfortunately, thanks to her collar, she can't even telepathically tell them to quiet down.

[@The Man Emperor] [@jdh97] [@Th3King0fChaos]