⇨ THE FANTASIA FESTIVAL

[ringleaders]

Who: Everyone who decides to come!
When: Day 12
Where: Wismuth's Fantasia Festival
What: CY-Ren's performance in Wismuth's biggest music festival finally arrives, and those willing to help Noa the Star Guardian show up to intervene.
Warnings: It doesn't go super well.

SONG OF THE CY-REN↴ CY-Ren's arena is the biggest stage in the festival by far, but it isn't the only one. Several big acts have assembled in the surrounding area, all with a lovely view of the ocean and with Wismuth's skyline in the background. Though she isn't explicitly the main attraction at the festival, everyone knows she's the real reason so many people have showed up. The amount of star power she has is overwhelming, and there are plenty of fans that would get violent on her behalf. ► GROUP UP: Noa will ask everyone to meet her in a park area near the festival stage, so that you can discuss plans briefly before putting them into action. The key is to try to stop the concert before CY-Ren's plans can come to fruition - whatever they may specifically be. How you go about this is up to you, but with how many people are present, it's bound to be a challenge. ► INFILTRATE: After speaking with Noa and determining what everyone will be doing, it will be time for everyone to break into the performance arena. No one has tickets for this, unless they've forged them, as they sold out a while ago. Any means of getting inside is fine, whether that be teleporting, passing through walls, or jumping in by wing. Once you've gotten into the crowd, it's up to you to get close enough to the stage to disrupt the proceedings. ► UNDER HER SPELL: It only takes her first song for things to start going wrong. The impact of the music will strike each individual differently - for most it will only feel strange, but for some it will be completely transfixing, like something that reaches deep into their soul. Those people, the ones slated to become Harbingers, will react to the the song strongly - upon hearing it, they will gradually completely lose their sense of agency, sluggishly moving towards the stage by whatever means available to them. If someone tries to stop them, they will go as far as physically, or even violently, resisting. "Blindsided by the beat Clapping your hands, stomping your feet You didn't know that you fell Now you've fallen under my spell" Obviously, if you want to participate in the Harbinger plot, you'll have to arrange it so that they manage to follow through with their hypnotized objectives. They will feel somehow empty during this time, as like they need to follow the music in order to achieve any chance at fulfillment. If you are not becoming a Harbinger, you can still have your character be affected by this to a lesser degree and then stopped by another carnival member, or as a feat of self control. ► BATTLE: By the time she switches to the next song, things will have started to get real. Any blatant, long distance attacks made early on will be mysteriously blocked by some kind of magical force field surrounding the stage, which will take some time to penetrate - at least until Noa gets involved. Body guards will storm anyone who tries to get onto the stage, and ostensibly said guards are not at all human. Instead, they appear to be horrible looking shadow amalgamation in suits, and while their attacks are mostly just physical, they can move with unnatural quickness, can't be pinned, and strike very hard. They can be NPC'd by anyone, and only have vaguely humanoid thought processes. "Me and you, you and me Why don't we see who is better? We don't have to be one and the same thing Oh, what's so wrong with a little competition? Are you afraid of failing the audition?" By the end of the second song, the hypnotized carnival members will have been snatched up by CY-Ren's void agents and disappeared. This can manifest as them being grabbed and escorted off, or possibly disappearing into shadows alongside one of the bodyguards. The guards will be trying to work stealthily, ideally sneaking away anyone being affected by the song without anyone around them noticing, but they won't let secrecy get in the way of their objectives, either. The audience will be able to realistically notice if things start exploding in their faces, but the song will distract them from anything less obvious.

Comments

[scientificist]

At the Concert
Herbert has a certain idea of what concerts are like, not that he's ever been to one. He's not particularly into music in general, but especially not loud enough to cause hearing damage, which is why he's put earplugs in. He's young enough to be an attendee but it means he looks kind of like he mistakenly thought it was going to be a New Wave concert, as he's too young to pull off Someone's Dad Who Insisted On Being The Chaperone.

Currently, he's standing off to the side, at the edge of the crowd, looking back and forth between the stage and the sea of people. He's appropriated a cooler from a tent to stand on, as he's too short for keeping watch to be really effective otherwise. He has a small black bag held clutched against his stomach, trying to avoid potential thieves. After all, he won't be much use as a medic without any supplies.

Just in case, he has one extra bottle in his inner jacket pocket. He doesn't expect things to go as wrong as the girl on the radios seemed to but it's better to be prepared.

Under Her Spell
The earplugs do nothing. Or rather, they do what they're supposed to, which is slightly muffle the music, but they were never going to absolutely block sound. Especially not when it's magical.

Herbert hears the bass and the rhythm and the muffled tones of singing and it's oddly compelling, like no other music has been. Like nothing other than scientific discovery has been before. He steps slowly off of the cooler, looping the handles of his bag over his arm. It should be alright just this once. Reaching up, he pulls the earplugs out of one ear, then the other.

His head is full, he can't hear anything else, think anything else, a hole opening up and pressing against the sides of his skull. He has to get closer -- what was he thinking, standing at the side like this. Letting his bag slide down into his hand he holds it up in front of himself and begins to shove his way through the crowd, too entranced to take anything but the most direct path.

Under Her Spell!

[motivenotfound]

Herbert's not the only one feeling the music in his soul. Mari is transfixed in a way she hasn't been in years, in decades--

In ever, maybe. A churning hollow in her heart, the pull towards something much greater than that hole, the emptiness of... of being only human, that's all, it's being only human, and this... this is the pull, the desire in all human hearts to escape that pain.

Yui, Gendo, and--yes--SEELE itself. This is that feeling.

Suddenly, she understands.

She understands everything, her own heart, her own... her own vision of Instrumentality.

Grabbing the arm of a nearby burly teen (a boy with green hair, she doesn't really care to notice anything more), she pops up above the crowd, each foot on the shoulder of a different stranger, and begins striding confidently over them towards the stage.

[scientificist]

More and more, Herbert is only focussing on the press forward, each step closer through the crowd to the stage.

But even mesmerised, he can’t help but notice the weight of the enormous woman treading firmly on his shoulder. Enormous? Normal-sized? Glamour is confusing enough when he has any mind to focus on it, it’s impossible to concentrate on the reality when the only important thing is approaching the source of the song.

There’s enough of Herbert to be irritated, though (when is there not), and lash upwards at the weight as it begins to leave, his arm hooking around Mari’s leg, the bag acting as an anchor over his own shoulder. If she’s strong enough, this will now be the second time that Herbert has been yanked off the ground by a large woman while brainwashed.