⇨ THE MATRIX: Plot Finale

[ringleaders]

Who: EVERYONE! Especially Tamaki, Carly, and Childermass.
When: S1:D40 - the first day of the second performance week.
Where: The carnival, while the gateway to the Matrix is open.
What: Agents find the carnival. They don't like it. Neither does the Ringmaster.
Warnings: Body horror for some people, gun violence for others. Also, a pissed off Ringmaster.

MATRIX: RESOLUTIONS↴ The days following the kidnappings and attacks are tense. The performances go smoothly enough, but are delayed by those that have been bedridden or captured - only for the vanished workers to return a few days after the initial attacks. Bad things have been done to them, clearly, but the specifics are unclear, as is why they seem to have been released without a fight. Maybe the machines just had no further use for them, as unlikely as it seems. Regular humans from the Matrix come and go. They experience the carnival, balk at the possible unreality of their lives, and then go home. What it accomplishes is ambiguous and perhaps unsatisfactory to some. All the while, the threat of something more ominous lurks. The sensible thing to do in this situation would be to pack up and leave, but even if it is broached to the Ringmaster, she will be resistant. She spends much of the Off Week mulling over the idea, only casually recommending that people might want to stay out of the Matrix for the time being, but not enforcing it. When the next week rolls around, she makes the somewhat unpopular decision to declare that the carnival is opening its gates to the Matrix again. Workers are directed to prepare for another week of performances. This turns out to be an irresponsible choice. ► AGENTS ATTACK: Mere hours after the carnival gates open, theoretical threats assertively make themselves a reality. It may not be entirely clear what happened to all observers, but the generalities appear something like this: the gates open and performances start, humans enslaved within the Matrix start to come in, just as before, and then... chaos breaks out. Suddenly Agents are there, something the Ringmaster had assured wouldn't happen. The numbers of Agents present seem to multiple within a short time period, but with some luck you may spot the original source - it's the three captures carnival workers, Tamaki, Carly, and Childermass. ► THE BUGGED: For Tamaki, Carly, and Childermass, this is sure to be an unpleasant experience. How much they experience or remember of this will vary, but what will essentially happen to them is that three Agents are going to use their implanted bodies in an attempt to import themselves into the carnival's reality - that is to say, they are going to try to upload themselves into their bodies through the implanted bugs, and overwrite them as they do with the Matrix natives. (For an example of how this usually, watch the helicopter be overwritten by an Agent about ten seconds into this clip.) This won't really work like how they intended, given that the carnival's reality is a mixture of code, magic, and matter at the moment. How exactly this pans out with your character is up to you - you can have them completely turn into an middle aged white man with a gun (or a different middle aged white man if they already are one) but have the Agent's control falter after a short while, or they can only partially change and partially take over. Or, they can just try to possess your characters body for a while, with no physical changes. Motivation wise, the Agents are pretty simple. They discovered the anomaly of the carnival and wanted to know what the fuck was going on, but what happens after arriving isn't really what they were expecting. They will be attacking primarily out of reflex and out of a lack of better ideas. They are machines, programmed for a purpose, and will do their best to accomplish that - right now, that is eliminating a threat. The bugged characters can be saved by being taken down/knocked out/restrained enough that the Agents will make the jump into another nearby Matrix native. From there, they will multiply, for a short time. ► KICKBANNED: After the Agents enter through the three bugged characters, more Agents will appear by overwritting some of the nearby Matrix natives. Overall we are talking about 6 Agents spread out around the carnival at any given moment, but if you kill or injure their host they will be able to jump to a new human and take them over. The attack will be short, but unpleasant. After about 15 minutes the Ringmaster will realize what is happening, and put a swift end to it. If any of the possessed characters haven't been knocked out/saved by then she will literally and figuratively rip the Agents out of them, returning them to normal. After that she will tear apart the coding/consciousnesses of the remaining Agents and kick all of the remaining visitors out, slamming the gates behind them. She will be very pissed, and it will be scary to watch. Then, she will declare that they are packing their figurative bags and moving the fuck on, thank you very much. OOC GUIDELINES: The carnage here should not get excessive, though people are welcome to get hurt if they want to. The fight will be short, and ultimately the Agents will be too confused to be super effective - however, it's more than enough to provoke the Ringmaster into being done with this shit. Any Agents killed will revert to the dead body of whatever human they were possessing. These bodies will also disappear when the Ringmaster kicks everyone out. If they jump from a live host, the host will be left with whatever injuries they sustained. The bugged characters will have to get their implants removed by the Doctor. Overall, this isn't meant to be a total bloodbath, and the carnival workers will have a good shot at handling the Agents on their own turf. It's mostly the fact that they keep coming back that is the problem. Character's abilities function as normal inside the carnival, and they may possess a small portion of their One powers for the duration of the fight, too. OOC questions can be directed to the original plot post. If you are one of the three possessed people and really don't want to do this plot, we can figure a way to minimalize it for you, but I'm hoping this is something the plot volunteers find exciting.

Comments

guns fuckin suck

[osteothropy]

Sans has been running around delivering smackdowns since the gunfire first started, but he feels like the security team's efforts are making very little progress. Any time you put one of these guys down, another seems to pop up in their place - a losing battle, ultimately, especially when each takedown seems to result in a random, dead human. He's changing his tactics accordingly.

Rather than focusing on the kill, defense and preservation of life seems to be far more important. Which means that he's going to take the time to deal with the bleeding human that's just stumbled out at him, because holy shit.

"Yikes," he breathes through his grinning fangs, a little taken back. "No shot." A commentary that is apparently just for him, he leaves that hanging in order to make the approach. Lucky for you, Strange, there's going to be not much dragging involved.

He puts a clawed, skeleton hand on Strange's arm, to steady him and to get ready to do magic.

"C'mon, I got ya."

truly, they are indeed the worst

[kingsroads]

Another time, Strange would have outright commented on the skeleton (?) with a tail (???). But right now, he's already too woozy from blood loss, pain, and performing a teleportation spell to get him to Sans in the first place that alright, skeleton, this is perfectly normal and he's not going to worry about this. He's probably hallucinating the skeleton anyway (fun fact, madness is an amazing scapegoat.)

"Some of them are in the workers," he mutters, through gritted teeth, using Sans's hand to help steady himself. Some of what? He doesn't know, Strange is remarkably out of the loop with regards to the Matrix, a fact which he's going to hate himself for later. But there is something here and it's not right and it's in Childermass.

"Childermass--" But whatever the rest of that sentence was goes unsaid as another spasm of pain shoots from his shoulder and Strange's words turn into a yelp of pain.

[osteothropy]

Welp, humans are pretty unpredictable with their death throes, so he probably can't waste too much time asking questions or gawking. Monsters pretty much know when they're finished, but humans can go on talking and raving, only to either abruptly die or to go on raving for several more years.

He carefully notes Childermass's name, and carries on with playing paramedic.

"Yeah. Those defense programs from the computer world. Kind of thought they were Matrix exclusives, but I guess not. But, here."

Only a moment later, they've appeared practically in the doorway of the medical tent.

"No problem," he says, his best attempt at being soothing. "Zecora'll get you patched up. I'll go check on your pal, there."

[kingsroads]

Once they're at the medical tent, Strange just looks so relieved. Granted, he's still bleeding. And he still is in a ton of pain. But he's here, he's in the medical tent, Zecora'll get him patched up soon and then...well, what he doesn't know

He also realizes that he still hasn't told Sans precisely what's wrong with Childermass. So, before he can be shoved over onto Zecora, Strange attempts to grab Sans's...arm? Is it still an arm if he's a skeleton? He attempted to grab the area where Sans's arm should logically be.

"Be careful," Strange muttered, looking over at Sans. "He's changed. Childermass, he's—" And Strange winces again as pain shoots though his shoulder, "—he's changed."

Hopefully that'll be enough information. Strange honestly feels like he could pass out any minute now.