lostcarnival | ⇨ THE MATRIX: Plot Finale

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⇨ THE MATRIX: Plot Finale

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.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

It's not the first time some veterans will have seen her furious, but it's always memorable. It seems both a very long and a very short time after the Agents arrive that she is there, appearing in bursts of flame and ripping the Agent's very essence out of their humans shells. Her eyes glow ember red, now, showing their inhumanity more clearly than usual - her hands seems clawed, and her teeth particularly sharp.

She snorts smoke in disgust as she tears them apart, and then heads to the gate with an irritated roar.

"GET OUT!" she commands, and all of the remaining residents of the Matrix seem to be sucked back out the way they came, leaving only some shed blood and collateral damage in their places. She doesn't give a shit about the injured humans of that world. All she cares about is that this whole planet has turned out to be a huge waste of time and absolutely no fun at all.

Once the dust has settled, she stands at the head of carnival, staring at the space where the gate just was, her claws clenches at her sides.

"What the hell is wrong with people?!" she yells at no one in particular. "Am I cursed or something??"

It's at the Big Top where this entire ordeal begins (or more like continues) for Childermass. He's still on light duty thanks to his less fortunate adventures in the Matrix, but it's been days since then and he's at least shown up to help out backstage even if he won't be performing. He's in the middle of setting something aside, for some other act or another, when a complete and utter feeling of wrongness hits him. It's like he's been punched in the gut all over again and whatever he'd been holding before clatters to the floor as he instead doubles over and throws out a hand for the nearest thing to grab onto, to try and keep his balance. He ends up sinking to one knee, anyway.

The struggle will go on for about a minute before the Agent overrides the magician's control over himself, though suddenly faced with a physical body outside the Matrix, in a place run by magic, it doesn't quite go as planned. Childermass doesn't physically change, but who's driving sure does.

When he — the Agent — gets back to his feet, it's an unsteady attempt, but he gets there. There's no real time to get used to suddenly being stuck in a actual physical body, but the Agent will deal, and immediately checks for his gun. That, at least, manifested correctly. The rest of this, however, is not what he'd expected.

One quick, jerky, and uncharacteristically confused glance around the Big Top later, the Agent will be heading for the nearest exit, to get out into the carnival proper, provided he can make it there at all.

Around three or so minutes after the chaos erupts, Jonathan Strange appears. He doesn't know what's going on, just that he's heard gunshots. He had been helping people escape the chaos, trying to keep people calm while attempting to find where the gunshots came from in the first place: no luck. Apparently 'whoever shot their gun' was too vague a term to use the already imprecise magic of searching for someone, something Strange really should have known but hey, hope springs eternal.

It's only after those moments that Strange decides to find Childermass. Childermass has been here for a while. Childermass might know what's going on. And, at least, he wanted to make certain the other man was safe. Not that he was worried or anything. At least, not that he'd admit he was worried. Childermass had already been shot once, he simply wanted to make certain it didn't happen again. So, as he spots Childermass, Strange runs right up to him, bundle of energy and seemingly unaware of how odd Childermass might be acting.

"There you are! There's something odd going on and I'm—why do you have a gun?" Because why does Childermass have a gun. Strange looks confused as he looks between Childermass and the gun. What use could that be? Could he be the one that set off those gunshots? And if so, why?

If it had been anyone else, anyone else at all to show up, the Agent formerly known as Childermass would have simply opened fire and moved on to the next anomalous being in this awful carnival. However, it isn't anyone else. When the Agent turns to meet Strange, he raises the handgun as if to shoot, but he doesn't manage to get that far. There's still another person in this body and the last thing in the world he wants to do right now is kill Jonathan Strange.

The disaster that would cause is too immense to sit back and watch this horror unfold around him, so Childermass fights, the gun he just shoved into Strange's face shaking in a trembling hand as he struggles against the Agent. This takes the machine by surprise, because it isn't normal, none of this is, and while he can't make himself let go of the gun, Childermass does manage to lower it again before lurching forward to grab at Strange's shoulder.

"Run," is the only warning he manages to get out, that one word so strangely full of fear, as even for a man like him can't help but find this terrifying. All that's left is hoping that, for once in Strange's goddamned life, he'll do the smart thing and go, just go, as far away from Childermass as possible.

When Childermass points the gun at Strange, he just freezes. He's no stranger to guns, of course. He fought in the peninsula, one is surrounded by guns there, even if one spends most of their time in the back of the lines. But Childermass? Childermass pointing a gun at him was something entirely unexpected. As such, Strange just freezes. He has absolutely no idea what to do. But when Childermass grabs his shoulder, when Strange tenses at the man's touch, when he hears fear in the man's voice, Strange instantly realize that something isn't right and whatever it is, is affecting Childermass.

So true to form, Strange does not do the smart thing.

Because whatever's happening, whatever's going on, something has happened to Childermass and the man is definitely a danger to others and possibly a danger to himself. Strange knows that, but how many of the other people here could tell if closed-off Childermass was acting odd or not? If he can just take him by surprise, catch him in magic—maybe something like a hand, reaching from the ground, holding him there. That's simple, he's done that before, he could do that in his sleep. He can keep up that magic until someone else comes to fix this...this what, this madness? Strange has absolutely no idea what's affecting Childermass. And frankly, that terrifies him more than he'd want to admit.

Without saying anything else, he takes a few steps backwards and starts muttering the incantation for his magic as quick as he can. The problem here is, there are those precious few seconds while he's muttering the incantation and before his equally trembling hand touches the ground that he's a wide open target for getting shot, a fact which Strange, so wrapped up in his magic, has totally forgot.

[[OOC: Those two will be taking Tamaki down, but if anyone wants to do something before he gets caught (where he gets away) or afterwards just let me know!]]

Tamaki had taken the off week to rest and do some training after previously getting kidnapped, so he was ready to do the shows he'd originally been scheduled for. He's on his way to one of the side tents for a side acrobatics show when suddenly he finds himself rooted in his tracks.

It feels like his whole body is suddenly being yanked and stretched, then pulled in on itself. He's shrinking, back down toward his original height, and it isn't pleasant, like all his growing pains but in reverse and much more intense. His hair starts to turn black, the color coming from the roots and pushing down each strand, and he can feel his face shifting, like his bone structures are changing.

"N-no... no...!"

He's not sure when a gun appeared in his hand, but it's there - glitching in and out, but it's there and solid, nonetheless. His feet start to take a few steps, and Tamaki fights against them, causing himself to stumble. His body continues to shift, back and forth between Tamaki's own features and the features of someone else.

"No... leave me alone!"

Childermass takes a step back himself when Strange moves, expression falling when he realizes he isn't going to run. Of course he isn't. He'll resort to magic, again, which is all he ever does, and for the briefest time the fear he wore just before becomes disappointment. Then that, too, is gone, and whatever familiar look, any ounce of fear or worry, that had been left of the man Strange knew is replaced by something grim and uncomprehending.

There's not as much of a fight for control this time around and what the Agent comes back to is a magician doing magic. While he doesn't realize that's what Strange is up to, it doesn't matter. There's a target, he's wide open, and that means the Agent is raising the gun again — there's no hesitation now — and pulling the trigger twice.

While most maintenance and repairs are best done during off-hours, Greg tries to stay available while visitors are around in case of emergency. This, however... is not the kind of emergency he had in mind.

Pandemonium's already started breaking out before Greg's figured out the source--until a visitor tenses in the middle of her darts game. She gives a brief gasp, that's all, before she warps, changing into another person before Greg's very eyes. The pit falls out of his stomach, not just from the terrifying shift, but from the appearance man who now stands in the former woman's place. He heard the descriptions from when they nearly killed his son. Agents are in the carnival.

"Steven..."

He has to find him. Greg's feet are moving before his brain's caught up, which is great since there's no time to waste, but less great because it instantly draws the Agent's attention. His head snaps over to Greg too quick, too sharp, and reaches for his gun.

Except Greg's not quite there. Just a large, vaguely human-shaped boulder. Sitting, being unassuming, like boulders are wont. The Agent's pretty disoriented from this reality shift, he must have seen something wrong from the corner of his vision.

Greg has to give Ring Master some credit, this stoneskin spell has definitely made life more interesting. Now if he could just figure out the right medium between "not that protective" and "capable of moving..."

Sans has only been aware of the situation for perhaps half a minute longer than Greg at this point, but being able to teleport gives him a lot of mileage. He'd spotted Greg in the crowd and immediately went to close the distance - only to notice that a boulder man has taken his place in the intervening period.

He also notices that the Agent seems confused, which allows him to take an opportunity. Appearing a few feet back from Greg's stationary position, he leapfrogs over said boulder and immediately dishes out a spray of bone shards at the Agent the second he appears.

The Agent blurs as they try to dodge the attack, but the coverage of the spray makes it difficult to avoid it without making a dash away from it. Sans takes the moment to point a pair of finger guns at Greg and winking.

"Nice spell. Keep it up, bud," he says, and then turns to start chasing the Agent.

You know what, Greg will take that little fluke as a mark in the "pro" column. He needs a bright side right now.

Slowly, awkwardly, the lumpy mass of rock making up his hand right now shifts into a thumbs up. By the time it's in place, Sans is already gone, and the Agent with him.

He shoots right as Strange is about to bend down to grab some earth. Thankfully, this means that the bullets miss where Childermass was undoubtedly aiming. Unfortunately, they still hit: two bullets, right to Strange's right shoulder.

It is truly astonishing how much this hurts. Strange screams as the bullets hit, as he falls to the ground, racked with pain. It's only pure adrenaline that keeps him thinking, keeps pushing him through the pain. He needed to get out of here. Childermass, or more accurately whatever was controlling Childermass, would most likely shoot to kill the next time he got a clean shot. Strange's mind is working a mile a minute as he thinks, trying to struggle through the pain.

He won't be able to run away. This hurts too much to make an attempt to run. His hand's pressed down on the gunshot wound, as if to stop the blood or push back the pain. So, Strange being Strange, he again falls back on magic. If there was a mirror, or a puddle or...or an overturned lemonade that someone spilled on the ground in the chaos only a foot or so away. Well, beggars can't be choosers. He just needs to make it through. Then...well, then he can be somebody else's problem. The pain and the blood loss are already starting to make themselves apparent.

He's still lying on the ground, still in pain, as he mutters the incantation as fast as he can through gritted teeth, free hand reaching out towards the puddle as he does so.

[The Good, the Bad, the Buggy-]

GKHH- [When something starts to happen, she feels it-from deep inside, almost like when she was in her duel. It's different from that however. So very different, coming from within and twisting at her body rather than her soul. She recognizes just one thing about it however, and as she holds her head and starts to fumble from where she was on her way to the cafeteria, people start to stop. And stare, stare as Carly's body tenses and jerks, stiffening and perhaps even flickering through the pixel aura she gives off behind her now.

There's only one thing she can think of to throw it off, one thing-in a flurry of pixelated feathers she changes form, a tiny screech accompanying the shape of the humming bird.

It doesn't work so well however-half the bird is twisted into metal, her eyes wide as the barrel of a gun juts out and starts clicking.]

TWWWT-EET!

BANG

[It's about then that she realizes she's only half steering as well, which just makes it even worse as half the patrons start to duck while the other half look around for something like a metal bucket to cover and catch the bird in.]

[THIS CIRCUS AIN'T BIG ENOUGH FOR THE LOT OF US]

[It's a short attack-considering the time-but needless to say once she's freed of agent control and back in her own body?

Carly's not too pleased herself. Violet flames sprout along her wings and arms, her eyes brimming with angry hot tears as she reels on the nearest 'agent' she can.] YOU....

...GET OUT OF THEM, AND GET OUT OF HERE..!

[It may be best not to touch the fire-or maybe remind her that burning up the Agent is doing more harm to the host than anything (though it IS certainly distracting the agent...)]

And he's right. Childermass is already strolling over to where Strange is sprawled across the ground, stopping to loom right over the man and line up his next shot. If it had been Childermass in charge, this would be over, because he would have known exactly why Strange was struggling to reach that puddle of spilt lemonade.

The Agent, however, does not. That means he takes the time to add completely unnecessary insult to injury while he aims the gun at Strange's head, sneering down at the way the magician is squirming and struggling with the pain.

"Pathetic," is what he'll say just before pulling the trigger a third time.

The fact that Childermass is taking his sweet time is music to Strange's ears. He doesn't know what's going on. He has no idea what's happening. Childermass would recognize the incantation, he would recognize why the puddle was so important, whatever this thing is that either looks like Childermass or is possessing Childermass, he doesn't know magic.

If he manages to survive this encounter, that will be wonderful information to tell someone.

So, as Strange finishes the incantation and places his hand directly in the puddle (which is a bit disgusting but beggars can't be choosers), he simply gives Childermass a wild grin. The bullet misses entirely as Strange vanishes into the puddle, teleported somewhere else via magic. The incantation was vague, bringing him 'somewhere close to the damned doctor's tent.' But it at least got him away from Childermass.

Hopefully there'll be someone over there. Because right now, Strange is so racked with pain that he honestly doesn't think he can do anything else.

#1: magic is once again useless
Once he heard the gunshots, Strange instantly recognized what they were. Though that opened up a whole host of questions. One, who was shooting? Two, why where they shooting? Three, how on Earth did someone have a gun in the Carnival in the first place? Didn't this place run mostly on magic?

Thankfully, Strange had his silver basin that he ~~straight up stole~~ had borrowed from the kitchen a while back. It's propped up on a picnic table, filled with water, as Strange splits his time between directing people to the exit as well as looking into the basin of water, occasionally drawing lines on it and peering into the basin as if that somehow helps.

As he spots someone he knows from the Carnival (or at least someone who looks like they'd be from the Carnival), he calls out, "Do you have any idea who's firing those guns in the first place? I need a name, I can't find anybody if I don't have a damn name!"

#2: guns suck. :( warning for blood
Jonathan Strange gets to join the ever growing ranks of People Whom The Matrix Straight Up Fucked Over. He is not happy about that.

Hey there person who's hanging out in the remote area of the Doctor's tent. Surprise, there is now a magician who appeared almost out of nowhere, lying in a puddle at your feet. Having been shot in the shoulder twice by Childermass, Strange looks absolutely horrible. He's bleeding, obviously in pain, hand over the bullet wounds which are still seeping blood, his own claws digging into his flesh because of the pain which makes even more blood...all in all he doesn't look good.

He attempts to stagger to his feet, but it's very slow-going. "Help," he stammers, through gritted teeth. "I need-" but then a fresh spasm of pain shoots though Strange, as he cuts off his own words with a yelp of pain. "I've been shot!" His tone is almost incredulous, as if he can't believe this happened to begin with.

Once he's been dragged to the Doctor's office and is recuperating, Strange'll attempt to wave over anybody who looks like they know what they're doing. He looks awful and drifts in and out of consciousness, but he's got to tell the supervisors something. He honestly has no idea if the chaos is still going on, but he's got to tell them this before something terrible happens.

The lunch rush is just beginning, and Hinawa is on her way to a table with a tray of piping hot soup bowls. She doesn't even realize something is wrong until she's staring one of those stone-faced men directly in the eye (hadn't that been an older gentleman just a moment before?). She hadn't had the displeasure of seeing one of these agents in May Tricks, but she had learned enough from the others to know they were dangerous. They're strong, their magic is powerful, and their weapons are deadly.

And now one of them was standing right before her. She does the first thing she can think of: She upends the tray of hot soup on him, then turns and flees back to the kitchen as fast as she can, screams and confusion in her wake. Once there, she grabs for one of the talking bricks.

"H-hello? I think- I think one of those men, agents? I think he's here in the cookhouse! Could someone please come and help?" Her request is polite, but the fear in her voice is obvious.

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."

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.

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."

Steven had just been warming up for the day's performances when chaos breaks out. He's backstage at the time, doing some stretches and trying to get ready to move on from his injury physically, but then something from the other side of the curtains draws his attention. It isn't any sound or movement that he can pinpoint at first, but instead a pervasive sense if ill ease, like a radiant anxiety that feeds into his own emotions.

Just as he's taken a couple, uncertain steps beyond the curtains to see what's happening, a gun fires. His focus flashes to its source, and he sees them standing there - an Agent, straightening up from within the ordinary humans that had arrived to the Big Top early to get good seats. The Agent doesn't seem interested in any of those people - their shaded gaze spins on Steven immediately, like they can sense the enemy in their midst.

He feels a smothering, paralyzing surge of fear run through him as their gun tracks him with its barrel. He can't move. He can't breathe.

The next thing he's conscious of is being surrounded in soft pink light as his bubble has formed, multiple bullets ricocheting off of its surface and sending him rolling back behind the curtain. Screams break out, and his thought and feelings have become too loud for him to comprehend or tolerate - he curls into himself, pulling the barrier in close, covering his ears with his hands and closing his eyes like it will make the feelings stop, but they don't.

He only manages to suck in a breathe every few staggered heartbeats, and his literal understanding of the world around him vanishes, being replaced with abstract feeling.

He stays frozen there as bullets are fired all around the grounds, unable to free himself.

I. How are there this many people here
Sora's trying his best, he really is. It's his job to keep the peace, it's his job to protect the carnival patrons and his coworkers, but there's so much chaos it's difficult to keep his head in check. These are people, not heartless or monsters or nobodies, and he can't just go into battle mode and whack anything he can see with the keyblade.

His key is out, but there's no room to fight with this many people around, innocent people, and he couldn't possibly swing, knowing he might accidentally hit someone.

The crowd is thick with people running and screaming, and it's difficult to get his bearings, and it doesn't help that he's too short to see over them. He could jump up and try to see, but that might just make him more of a target.

Sora's forced, instead, to search from ground level for the source of the disturbances, but a little help would certainly be appreciated. Specifically, from someone taller than him.

II. That sure is a gun

He's found one, one of the agents, and boy do they not look happy. The space around them is clear, giving Sora an area to fight without worry, but the other guy is fighting with guns, and that's just not fair.

He rushes towards the intruder with the intention to hit, dodging as best he can, but even he can't avoid every single bullet, and a few graze his arms and legs as he runs. He ignores them, and manages to crack the agent on the back of the head with the keyblade, sending the guy toppling to the ground.

Sora takes a moment to catch his breath, watching the fallen agent apprehensively, and then there's another shot from behind him, this one grazing his side and ripping his shirt. Sora hisses at the sting and spins around, and... is that? The same agent? Again?

He does a double take, then falls back into battle stance.

"Are you SERIOUS?"

Lars's shift had ended a while ago, and he'd heard so much about the performances in passing that he thought he might go ahead and check it out today. It would be a way to kill some time, and also disdainfully judge something with the unnecessary, overblown and biting criticism that only a teenager could be capable of. Lars had just been chilling, leaning against a wall (so as to not seem overly invested or interested in what was to happen), when all hell had messily broken loose.

He's used to strange, paranormal violence, but gunshots are actually something Lars has never experienced—the immediate terror is totally different. He jumps, instantly tense, eyes wide and just as insantly cold as his heart hammers in his chest. When he hears the next round of gunshots, Lars screams, immediately dropping. His wide, frightened eyes turn over his shoulder as he crouches, seeing dust from the wall shake out from gunshots.

The agents are clustered more in the crowd and towards the exit, and while the logical part of Lars tells him to bolt from the tent immediately, the scared shitless part of him wins out in wanting to hide. So he scrambles pretty ungracefully (and not totally unlike a lizard) towards the stage, stumbling behind the curtain. Which he learns, pretty effectively, is kind of useless; the curtains jolt with gunshots, and Lars screams again, toppling backwards onto his ass.

"Augh!!"

And—he sees a pink bubble at the corner of his eyes, which even peripherally he recognizes immediately.

"Steven!"

Lars sees more than a few bullets ricochet off his bubble. Lars has physically interacted with it before (in fact, he's. pretty much made out with it, to be honest, but anyway), so he isn't surprised to see its sturdy deflections. He wonders if he can get behind it, and moves hurriedly, still keeping low, to do just that.

He places his hands against the surface of the bubble from the back of it, peering inside the bubble. The way Steven is curled sort of worries him.

"Steven!! Are you hurt?! Hey!"

There's no blood too be seen, at least not yet, but Steven isn't quick to respond either - instead he stays curled in his tight little ball, barely managing some combination of hyperventilating and crying. He can feel the additional source of fear next to his own more than he can hear Lars's voice, at first.

He makes a strained sound, one hand clutching at his now glowing gem, like he's trying to fight off whatever is overwhelming him so completely. But he can't.

With Steven's pitiful response, Lars's fear forks and also amplifies, visibly breaking out into a sweat. There's fucking bullets flying everywhere, and his resident OP alien hybrid child friend is, he's decided, injured, and Lars is just a noodley young man who could probably be out-benched by every girl he knew. Somewhat frantically, Lars hits his palms on the surface of the bubble.

"Steven!"

He's not sure what he should do. He's not sure what he can do. The bubble rolls a little from Lars's panicked, ill-thought out gesture, and he makes a shrill little yelp, managing to catch the bubble on either side with his hands and roll it back towards him. It was only an inch or so, but it was enough to scare the shit out of him. He frantically looks around, and a table catches his eye—a long one, set up with some supplies, likely for the performers.

"Crud," he concludes elegantly, dashing away from Steven—while trying to remain mostly in range of its shielding properties. He ducks and winces a couple of times, flinching hard reflexively when bullets fly by two feet of him, and he pushes all the stuff off the table frantically. Once its surface is cleared, he hauls it forward (it's thankfully rather cheap and light-weight). Once close enough to Steven, he tosses the table clumsily onto its side, not having enough hope to lift it over Steven. He quickly and frantically grabs hold of the bubble after stepping around the table, rolling it behind the table.

Once they're both behind the table (somewhat safely), Lars collapses onto his ass, jittery hands closing around his ears as he drops his head between his bony knees, breath coming out in scattered, uneven bursts between his clenched teeth.

He's emitting terror, both for himself and for Steven, because what the fuck can he do? Either way, for someone who's just awakened with full blown psychic empathy, it's probably definitely not helping steven's situation. The table occasionally bounces from gunshots, and Lars's posture tightens inwards. He's desperately trying to clear his mind enough to think of what to do, but as a generally anxious and flighty person, he's apparently gotta at least relent to his panic first.

Well. It's been some time since this has been seen, hasn't it?

After taking care of Tamaki- and by that he means possibly tying the poor boy up with a whole lot of rope- Joker had been making a fly straight to try and find the Ringmaster because this? This is just cause to bother her. No one, not him or the other veterans or her, surely, want a repeat of the vampires. He's just about to fumble for his radio, wanting to yell maybe a little bit at her, when-

The Ringmaster angry is always a show all its own. From above, winder under his wings, Joker watches it all happen, and gives a low whistle as the gate disappears.

If this never happened in the first place- if she'd listened when he'd brought up that maybe they should just leave with such antagonistic forces in the Matrix, a thought he mulls over with no small amount of bitterness- then he'd be a lot happier. Still. At least this has been taken care of quickly, before anything too disastrous had a chance to happen.

From a little ways behind her, there's the sound of wings as Joker comes in for a landing. He's a little battered, bleeding in a few places, but not apparently shot at, which is the most he can ask for. A short second passes as he looks over her, trying to figure out what exactly to say.

I told you. No. Funny, most people just sit in the cookhouse complaining when they don't like the games. No.

"Bad luck, I'd say," he ventures with instead, using practiced care, "since we didn't have much trouble with Morpheus' and his lot. Care for a drink ta wash away the bad taste of this whole bleedin' mess, ma'm?"

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⇨ THE MATRIX: Plot Finale

⇨ FUCK THIS SHIT WE'RE OUT

⇨ CHILDERMASS WITH A GUN (aka an Agent)

pew pew it's getting shot time

bye strange it was nice knowing you

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmd1qMN5Yo0

closed-ish to Mitsuki and Joker

why did i know exactly what that would be

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because really what else would it be

CARLY | OTA

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Jonathan Strange | ota!

Chaos in the cookhouse

guns fuckin suck

truly, they are indeed the worst

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TURTLING IN THE BIG TOP

Sora | ota

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