lostcarnival | ⇨ INVASION!

Entry tags:

⇨ INVASION!

Who: Everyone! But especially HARBINGERS!
When: S2:D16-22
Where: All over Wismuth!
What: As the Harbingers reveal themselves, those among the carnival that Creation has chosen will start to discover new powers within themselves. It's because they're magical girls, yo.
Warnings: Harbingers being assholes.

HARBINGERS OF VOID↴

On Day 16, the Harbingers begin revealing their new selves... in the form of wreaking havoc on the city! CY-Ren isn't looking for mass panic or serious structural damage - instead she wants constant annoyances and distractions, of the sort that will keep those that might be on her tail distracted from her true plans. However, when Creation is faced with the threat of twelve new Harbingers, it will have to fight in kind...

► HARBINGERS: Your job is to use your powers to create messes for other people to clean up! CY-Ren gives no specific instructions outside of a general framework... flex your powers! See what you can do. Don't destroy the city or anything, but give Creation a run for its money. She needs these civilians alive for her later plans.

► STAR GUARDIANS: Twelve members of the carnival have been chosen by Creation to fight in its name, even if they don't realize it yet. When confronted by the Harbinger's chaos, their Sparks will make themselves known in whatever form is appropriate to the character - and they will be asked if they are willing to use the power of their soul to fight the darkness. How this scene plays out can be flexible, but essentially they will find themselves faced with the question: are they willing to fight for the preservation of life? If they say yes, their Spark will emerge, and they will be able to trigger a magical girl transformation, as you do.

► CHARITY CONCERT: While everyone else is busy with the sudden rise of the Harbingers, CY-Ren's PR team is releasing a statement -- they will say that new information has revealed that there had been bomb threats made against the canceled concert, which are now being blamed for the damages. CY-Ren will make a personal statement, saying that in order to apologize for the failure of her previous performances, a new free to attend event is being planned for the near future - people who had tickets to the previous event and had to go home early get top priority!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Outbreak (NPCs)

There's something odd happening to the people of Wismuth today. They seem tired, worn out, apathetic beyond what a simple bad mood could cause--which is made even more clear by the watery double that follows them, seemingly invisible to those around the victim. Still others seem to be vanishing from sight entirely, reaching out to others only to be ignored, sometimes even passing through the very people they try to reach out to. Some others struggle for breath and have an incredible craving for water--nearly an obsession.

These are hardly the only phenomena, and some may be familiar to those that have been with the carnival for some time. Un and Ah taking up residence in people's ears, kagebi working their way into gas burners in restaurants, and a...surprising amount of shimi devouring book store's wares. One thing is very odd about these mushi, though--when driven out of a host or destroyed, rather than reacting as they 'ought' to they dissolve into a puddle of black ink. Curious...

Infestation (Tanyuu)

For those able to see mushi, the source of this plague is much easier to track, but simple investigation will reveal the source easily enough--one of the nature parks in Wismuth has become very odd of late. Where plants had previously bloomed with vibrant health they now wilt and shrivel up, leaving huge swaths of dead brown branches and dried petals and leaves. In the center of a dense cluster of trees and crackly bushes there is a shadowy nest, and from it ink spirals out into the air before forming into mushi of an incredible range of types, drifting away into the air. At first the area seems undefended, but as anyone approaches Tanyuu's long form slithers out from behind the nest...and she smiles.

"I wouldn't suggest interfering."

At first, Ginko did the best he could to do what so many people had advised him to in the past: Stay out of what he couldn't handle, keep himself out of trouble. Which... honestly, not trying to find Tanyuu or look into the situation with the Harbingers was one of the most unpleasant experiences of his life.

In a couple different ways, the reports of outbreaks of what definitely sounded like mushi infections came as something of a relief. On one hand, it was obviously... kind of a huge problem, and confirmed exactly what he had come to fear about Tanyuu's whereabouts.

On the other... maybe it was better to know for sure than to be left wondering. Besides which, this was something he could help with - even if it meant leaving his and Tanyuu's animals back at the Carnival for the time being, for safety's sake.

He hadn't actually set out with the goal of tracking Tanyuu down in mind. Not consciously, anyway; he told himself he probably wasn't equipped to face her on his own, not with how she was right now, even if he could find her. He was just investigating the mushi infections.

But, of course, one thing led to another, and it didn't take too long to track the outbreaks to their source.

"...Tanyuu."

She smiles at Ginko, but the expression is empty--like a mimicry of warmth and affection, but something was lost along the way.

"I should have known you would find a way to get involved. But you can't stop this."

"I know. I don't plan to." He speaks slowly, carefully - and he's not really lying. He knows he can't stop this on his own. Not the Harbingers' attack, and probably not even Tanyuu's, but--

Maybe he can make some kind of progress. Or at least figure something out.

He'd like to be able to get her back to herself, back to the Carnival, but he's not willing to let himself hope for it.

"What... are you doing?"

"What I was always meant to."

It's ironic, really. Despite her hatred for Foster's delusional attempts at using Ginko as a tool for his own ends, he wasn't far off the mark...just with the wrong sibling. Keiko, her feathers colored coal-black just like her master's, hisses from where she sits twisted up in the branches of a decaying tree, and Tanyuu starts to advance on her brother.

"All that time worrying about omens, sealing and resealing those scrolls...it was going to fall apart in the end. I'm simply advancing the clock a little bit."

Ginko's gaze flicks to Keiko, then back to Tanyuu's face. His hands tense, fingers curling by his sides, but he doesn't move as she starts toward him.

"Meant to? Tanyuu, you-- nobody is meant to do something like this. It's not our decision to make."

"But allowing the world's persistence is?"

She doesn't expect Ginko to understand. He's had to hold onto this lie so tightly, just to keep living...as had she, before the Void proved how hollow it all was.

"How long do you really think that this can stand? Bloating and growing out of control...forests are burned to allow things to grow anew in the aftermath." Her expression softens, just slightly, and she reaches to touch his arm gently. "Is it really worth struggling against that fate? Creation and Void are an equal match. The tide will turn whether we want it or not."

Allowing it? Under his glamour, Ginko's ears flick back.

"So you want to force it?" Even though it's Tanyuu - possibly the only person he can really think of as family, his sister - he steps back, and a more focused intensity edges into his voice.

"Tanyuu, if you really believe it's going to happen one way or another, why do this? If both sides are equal-- if working for the persistence of the world is wrong, how is trying to destroy it any better?"

Ginko pulls away, and she...pauses, for a moment. A troubled look passes over her face, and her brows furrow together. It hurts, more than she wants to admit, but--

"It's not destruction, it's renewal. Creation has run rampant, growing and manifesting and leaving stagnancy in it's wake. It's own creations turn against itself, even without the Void stepping in! Isn't it better to end things quickly, than allow life to suffer through a slow and painful end?"

"If the sides are really balanced, as you say, isn't that 'stagnancy' just part of the natural cycle? It's perfectly normal for things like this to work in waves."

He gestures broadly at their surroundings - at the park, the world, at reality. "If what Creation has made is falling apart, it will do it on its own. Nobody has the right to choose to mercy-kill all of existence."

"How do you know we aren't upon the crest of a wave? The world, the entire multiverse is too huge for us to perceive it's entire shape and flow, and we as thinking beings aren't separated from it's flow."

Keiko flies down to Tanyuu, curling around her shoulders and nuzzling at her cheek with a low purr, and Tanyuu strokes her head with a sigh.

"It's impossible to 'stand aside', Ginko. One way or another, we affect this world with every breath we take. And I refuse to allow this farce to continue any longer, even out of ignorance."

"Exactly. We have no way of knowing what point we're at in any cycle we might be a part of; trying to force things to move in a certain direction is as presumptuous as it is dangerous."

Ginko tilts his face downward, glancing at the ground for a moment and then back up at Tanyuu. "I know that. You know I do. But this-- what you've gotten involved in is too much." Then, somewhat more boldly, he adds, "And I know you wouldn't feel this way if the Void and... and Cy-Ren hadn't done... whatever it was to you."

This, from Tanyuu of all people, is no more natural of a progression than the "renewal" that she's been roped into trying to force. He's sure of it.

All six of her eyes narrow, and what little warmth had begun to bloom is abruptly snuffed out. "No one has 'done' anything to me, Ginko. All they've done is shown me the truth. And if you're too blind to see it yourself--"

She makes an abrupt few strokes in the air with her brush, the character bursting into strings and forcing their way past Ginko's eyepatch.

"--then I'll just have to show you."

Those brushstrokes don't leave him much time to react, let alone to act on the growing realization that he should maybe leave.

He takes a startled step back and raises a hand on reflex, trying to cover his eye, but he's too late to stop the inky strings from pushing past the patch. "Tanyuu, what--"

As the ink merges with the tokoyami in his eye, it suddenly grows far more active, pressing out of the socket, into his flesh, energy and direction imbued into it by Tanyuu's will.

And she smiles.

"We both knew this was how it would end, Ginko. Accept it."

It doesn't hurt, exactly, having the tokoyami spreading outward, eating into skin and bone alike. It might be worse if it did, rather than feeling like-- like nothing. It's not that it doesn't feel like anything, it's nothing, numb and intangible and gone.

Ginko can't even get himself to speak, cold fear tightening in his chest and throat. He takes another shaking step back and presses his hand over his eye, as if that will do any good.

Which is around the same time that Joker suddenly flicks into existence behind Tanyuu on one side, slamming the hilt of a throwing knife towards the side of her head.

He'd hoped it wouldn't come to this, and not just because he likes Tanyuu, or because getting to her head means leaping over lots of her with his wings flared out from beneath his coat. It's mostly because Joker is well aware that whenever any of their own have been turned against them, it's always been with a little something extra lining their edges.... and Tanyuu, with the knowledge that she has, can be full of edges. The people who protect things are usually the ones who know how to best turn it inside out, after all.

If only he could go invisible like that angel self of him could, easy as breathing. As it is, well, the second he'd seen that... thatspread out from his eye, eating and eating, the twist of fear on Ginko's face....

Holding invisibility is hard to do when you see someone you love looking like that.

Joker knows better than to assume that love will fix any part of this problem. All he can do is hope that the blunt end of a knife will.

Joker's not being quite as foolish as this seems because he does have backup, backup with a better form of cloaking and a less mismatched power level. Scout gets an intuition of what he's about to do all of one second before he does it, and lacking wings herself she's not in position when he does.

It can't be helped. Lion-sized, haloed in a light that lets him touch people without the pain of a soul contacting something it shouldn't, bearing four great protruding fangs, Tràkata appears at Tanyuu's tail, still in motion from a reckless charge that ends with a bite, or an attempt at one. If he got his angle just right and bites into it he's not letting go; if he didn't and just scrapes, well, that's still going to sting.

Scout's behind him, tall and challenging in abbreviated white and gold and blue robes, Creation thrumming in her and shining out from her flesh the way light glows through paper. She holds the bejeweled, elaborated hilt of her lightsaber out, pointing the emitter at Tanyuu.

"Hey! Look at me, traitor!" Spreading outwards is one of her quieter gifts as a Star Guardian - a sort of field of face me fight me look this way aimed square on Tanyuu. Everywhere and everyone else is dimmed a little, and it's like the ground in every other direction is sloped upwards - it's not impossible to get past, but there's the strong sense that Scout will take advantage if she's ignored.

It's Keiko's hiss that alerts Tanyuu to the fact that she and Ginko are not alone--she turns around just in time to register the wide spread of white wings--and sketches a hasty spell that pushes Joker back with a blasting force. There's no time to dodge out of Trakata's way, and she screams in pain at the same time that Keiko streaks forward with fangs bared, latching onto his face and coiling her body around his head to blind him. Tanyuu whips her tail in an instinctive attempt to throw the familiar off, slamming him against a withered tree with not unimpressive force.

Then Scout calls out and her eyes focus on her; it's too easy for her to fall prey to the blinding focus, to let Ginko and Joker slip just so slightly out of her mind's eye...but not entirely. She scowls and makes a few more brush strokes before an ominous buzzing sound starts to rise out of her mushi nest. "And you think you're here to save the day, do you?"

Out of the bush rises a swarm of tiny black creatures, which rushes toward Scout at Tanyuu's sweeping gesture. More mushi of a plethora of other types rise out of the nest as well, some heading for Ginko and others for Joker, though not with nearly as much predatory speed.

For a moment, Ginko can hardly believe what's happening. Joker's sudden appearance comes as a jolt, and Scout's after, snapping his attention away from the mushi creeping outwards from his eye. He doesn't even notice that the tokoyami's growth has slowed to a crawl, as visible as it may be to outside observers.

Seeing Joker blasted back-- he might as well have been struck by that same force himself. But he can't get himself to move, to react beyond a halting step forward and a half-vocalized protest - not until mushi start rushing from the nest. Ginko can't do much about Creation, or the Void, or these magic battles that keep breaking out, but these are something he knows. Whatever might be happening to him, he can't let Joker and Scout be taken down with him.

The last of his hesitation dissolves, and he pulls a retractable pin from the roll in his pocket, flicking it in one quick motion at the fastest of the mushi heading for Joker. "Scout!" His voice is shaking, but as quick and focused as he can be under the circumstances. "Those will eat your soul, watch it!"

Shit- All the air rushes out of him as he's hit, and Joker nearly forgets to flap his wings to regain his balance so that he doesn't go smacking into something. There's barely anytime to focus on much more than that. By the time he's back on his feet and focusing, there's a menacing hum vibrating through the air.

Well. Shit. Alright, he'll just have to deal with this as best he can, then.

At his belt, he smacks the button of a small Pokeball waiting there, and Dartrix bursts out in a flurry of feathers and leaves. "Foresight!" Joker calls to the bird, watching as his eyes light up. That ought to make it easier to see the mushi as their targets.... hopefully... but that's not going to cut it, especially with a creature pinned right before him. "Leafage, c'mon now!" Even as a whirlwind of leaves suddenly torrents right towards the creatures, he tries to take to the air himself. If he can just get out of range of those things, and circle around to get to Ginko...

Tràkata flinches with both the fangs and the impact of being knocked into a tree, his ears going back, but his jaws are locked and will only release when he wants to open them, and as part of Scout, he has her training in working through pain. His gleaming bronze-clawed forepaws come up to hook and pull at Keiko. All the while he's utterly silent, focusing any attention he might spend on growling or speech on his teeth and claws.

"Shut up," Scout says as levelly as she can. She can't stand turncoats. If they turn because of an external force, well, the Force plays a role in it with Jedi, too, and it doesn't mitigate what they do. Getting mad about it won't help.

When the whatever-that-is flies at her, Scout ignites her lightsaber and moves ahead at a trot. It's a production, like this; a great blade made of white-blue light shimmers into being with a shockwave and light trails its every movement, a comet-tail filled with sparks. She slashes the air and crescents of the blade fly off, each with their own trail, trying for the mushi. If she doesn't get them all that's all right, as long as they're after her they're not aware of her dæmon.

She can't worry about the two men now. Scout's focus is on closing the distance and getting her blade or hands on the Harbinger.

The attacks on the mushi reduce and scatter their numbers, Dartrix's attack blowing the pack and slowing their approach while Scout's lightsaber slices through and leaves spatters of ink across the ground. The swarm buzzes around and around her, frustrated by the lack of essence, unable to detect where it is hidden. Meanwhile Keiko hisses and screams in rage, her claws scratching at Trakata's hide with blind desperation, but manages to keep from being pulled off entirely. Most of her long body is still coiled around him, adamantly refusing to let go.

Tanyuu scowls in fury, just as frustrated as her swarms. Why has Scout not fallen comatose? Nothing should be able to hold back sanekui when they have been bolstered by her might...! Her brush slashes through the air again, pouring strength into Keiko and transforming her in a more mighty and battle-ready form. Another few swipes of ink, and the ground beneath Scout suddenly starts to shift and crumble, destroying the previously steady footing.

But with all of this, the tokoyami has slipped her mind entirely, and the spell starts to unravel, releasing it's hold of the mushi's will. Slowly the numbness and shadow begin to recede, creeping back under the eyepatch once more.

Edited 2018-03-26 05:04 (UTC)

Seeing them at least avoid that first attack, with Feathers sweeping the mushi away and Scout slicing swathes through the mass, is at least pretty encouraging. Scout is holding her own, and with Tanyuu distracted Joker should be safe, at least for the moment--

And in that same moment, the slow return of sensation to his face, strange and prickling and there, jolts his attention back to his own condition. He can't let himself focus on that too much, though, he can't think about it-- his legs shake slightly where he stands, relief barely starting to rise through the dread settled in his gut. His eye stays locked on Scout, trying to track whatever Tanyuu might be doing - at least as much of it as is actually mushi-based, and not... some kind of Harbinger thing that he can't hope to anticipate.

As Keiko shifts and changes Tràkata moves both his paws to either side of his mouth, plants them against Tanyuu's scales, and his thick ruffed neck and powerful shoulders bunch and strain as he braces with his paws and pulls with his jaws, trying to take what little time he has before Keiko's in a state to stop him to just tear a great horrible chunk out of Tanyuu's tail.

Meanwhile Scout has one of her flashes of insight that gave her her name and gathers herself, leaping surprisingly high in the air and coming down on a mossy boulder, which her hoof-claws slip on for a moment before recovering. She swipes more of the sanekui back into ink, face set and angry; she knows if she could just get in close she could end this, and that Tanyuu's not just going to let her.

Well, if it's a distance-based slugging match, she's not helpless now, either. Scout shifts her weight, centered and solid with one foot leading, her tail curling a half-circle on the stone underfoot, staring at Tanyuu with her blade down. This traitor, this Harbinger who wants to use her powers to kill her own friends, to kill Scout's friends, it's different from before and still the same, but this time, now, Scout can do something about it.

The power of Creation wells deep in Scout, much more of a manic energy than the few times the Force has blessed her but still a great sense of life, and shines in her, glows out from her skin, from the magic substance that composes her dæmon, haloing outwards and pushing the frustrated swarm back, tossing the hems of her clothing and her extended hair as if they're blown by a wind. She swings her lightsaber up to point at Tanyuu.

"I'm going to stop you!" she calls, which is good enough for an attack name, apparently, because the light around her collects around her lightsaber and fires out in a burst that rocks Scout back despite her bracing.

Edited 2018-03-27 01:35 (UTC)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

⇨ INVASION!

no subject

INFESTATION

INFESTATION

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

finally deposits this drawing i've been sitting on

not-boyfriend says "hey can we maybe not"

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject