lostcarnival | ⇨ INVASION!

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⇨ 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!

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Taako whips around as he's addressed, glaive already at the ready-- and Cole's words do absolutely nothing to relax him. If anything, he tenses further, hot anger rushing through and covering everything else he might have been feeling.

"Because unlike some people, I actually know what I'm fuckin' doing," is his response, and his tone is sharp and hard, his words much more quick and pointed than usual. He's angry, incredibly so-- but beneath that, he's in pain, beneath that he knows he's become no better than her.

This is just temporary, and he actually means it. This is for the best. And it's not like he knows that kid, or that parent-- it's not like they matter to him, or like they'd trusted him.

[Here you go!]

"So you think," Cole responds, with a little frown. And then he looks at Taako, reaching in, seeing the man's hurts and pains and sadnesses. He forgot her, he spent all that time not even knowing she exists. And yet here he is, making other people suffer the same? That's not right.

"You know this is wrong. Repeating the rift, it happened to me so it'll happen to them. But that's cruel."

Maybe if he repeats it, Taako would understand. Cole doubts it, though. His mind is as warped and as changed as the other Harbingers.

"You think I don't fuckin' know that?"

The words are razor sharp, and his casting glaive is redirected in a smooth whip of motion, pointed towards Cole, flame wreathing the bladed point.

"Listen. I've got a job to do here, and if you wanna get in the way, it will literally be your funeral." Taako had no qualms about killing those who got in his way before his "transformation"; now he won't feel even the slightest hint of guilt over it. Particularly if it's done in the name of his newfound purpose, the only fix for how incredibly broken this all is.

Cole holds his ground as Taako's glaive is pointed in his direction. His expression darkens as he frowns at Taako. "I need to stop you," he simply responds, as if it's the most obvious thing there is.

It's gonna be a fight thread. The small pink creature clinging to his hat lets go and briefly flashes green, before turning into two daggers. Cole catches the daggers as he looks over at Taako. He's not stopping or pulling back and he knows that Taako won't either. But he's changed. Cole needs to find a way to stop him from hurting others: it's as simple as that.

And honestly? Cole doesn't really know how well he'll fair, especially considering Taako's a mage. But considering his creepy spirit powers are tailor-made for slipping away and turning tail, Cole's got enough confidence that he can get the heck out of dodge should things go badly.

Taako's first act is to use something new-- an ability that came packaged along with his Spark, it seems, or at least its separation into a tangible object. Seemingly from within him, he summons what can only be described as a phoenix-- the creature is enormous, larger than an eagle, and its feathers shimmer with an internal flame, its talons long and shining, shards of black glass in the sunlight.

With a tilt of Taako's head, the creature launches itself towards Cole, those razor-sharp talons spread open and reaching to grab whatever piece of him isn't moved away fast enough.

The pink thing on Cole's head turns into green light. A moment later, the green light turns into two daggers: Cole catches them as the phoenix lunges at him. Cole jumps out of the way but it's not that fast. The talons graze his shoulder, ripping through the fabric of his outfit and causing some of the scratches to bleed.

Barely even a second later, Cole's trying to reach for the bird before it goes out of sight as he attempts to slash at the phoenix with his daggers.

The phoenix turns around, swinging back towards Cole-- and while he does manage to land at least a shallow blow on it, twin cuts that send blood and feathers spiraling down, it isn't what he should be worried about, really. While he's been focused on it, Taako's been busy casting-- from behind Cole, a large fireball begins to launch towards him, leaving the tip of Taako's casting glaive still softly glowing, magic fire dancing along the edge.

As the fireball launches itself at Cole, Cole throws one of his daggers in Taako's general direction. However, since he's been saddled with a genre savvy familiar, he's going to call out an attack name while he does it. When in Rome and all that.

"Memory For You!" The dagger glows green and flies at faster than average speed towards Taako, aiming for his hands with magical precision.

The fireball, however, catches Cole straight in the chest. The magical girl outfit keeps Cole from being set on fire, but the sheer force of it is enough to fling Cole backwards as he slams into the ground with a worrying thud.

Taako doesn't have enough time to cast Shield or anything, so he does the next best thing-- or tries to, at least. He attempts to dodge aside, and it misses his hands and wrists, but catches in his arm, tearing through the long gloves he's wearing, blood staining the material darker still.

"-- ffff." He narrows his eyes at the wound, teeth digging into his lip; he leaves it in, however, not particularly a fan of the idea of letting it bleed even more openly. His body can take a lot more as a Harbinger, it's true, but he's not keen on the idea of testing just how much more that is.

Instead, he refocuses on Cole, aiming a classic Magic Missile his way-- though he's casting it much more powerfully than the classic variation. At his level, it's easy to do.

Taako's not getting a choice about leaving the knife in or not. Because, as Cole gestures towards the knife, it shoots out of Taako's arm and flies back to Cole's hand, dripping blood all over the place and making things super nasty as it does so. Cole catches the knife and oh shit there's magic.

Again, he mostly dodges the spell. It hits him in the shoulder, the same shoulder that the phoenix's talons grazed earlier. This makes the slightly bleeding scratches bleed even more, as Cole's shoulder erupts with pain.

Well, that arm's slowly looking like it'll be kind of useless. And he's still too far away for close range combat. So, Cole starts running towards Taako, trying to close the distance between them.

-- well. Taako nearly drops his glaive in surprise as that knife is yanked away, and he claps a hand over the wound by reflex, blood spilling over his fingers and further ruining his fine black gloves.

Cole's gonna pay. And also he's gonna pay these fucking drycleaning bills.

The sound of Cole running towards him jerks him back out of that thought, though, and his hands both plant back on the staff of his glaive; he swings it forward, drawing a line at his feet, and a Wall of Force springs up to stop Cole from reaching him.

The phoenix, which is on the other side of the forcefield-- the side that Cole happens to be on-- swings back down towards him. It's still bleeding, though the cuts apparently were shallow enough to leave it in good enough shape to descend on Cole in an attempt to take out an eye, those long black talons swinging towards his face.

Cole skids to a stop before hitting the Wall of Force. However, that doesn't do anything against the phoenix. As it swoops for his face, Cole brings up his arms. Thankfully, the talons don't get an eye. Unfortunately, they dig deep into his arms, tearing them further to shreds.

As someone who's fighting style relies entirely on daggers, Cole knows that he won't be able to keep this up for much longer. His arms are hurting and bleeding, he's already losing a lot of blood, and it's only a matter of time until he has to retreat. Still, Cole's going to give it his best shot up until then.

"Memory For You!" It's the same as before: he chucks a dagger, glowing green, at the phoenix. The dagger doesn't track the phoenix or anything and if the bird dodges, the dagger will return to Cole's hand.

Given the sheer size of the bird, "dodge" is a bit generous for what it does; it attempts to sweep aside, and the dagger misses its core, but clips one of its massive wings, sending a flurry of feathers raining down on Cole. Should any of those feathers touch his skin, they'll burn as though a red-hot coal was pressed against the skin, continuing to spread deeper even if the feather loses contact with him.

However, the loss of those flight feathers makes it difficult for the bird to remain gracefully airborne; it descends to land beside Cole, half-crashing into the asphalt. It takes a second for it to pick itself up; while it's now stuck to the ground, except for short bursts, it's still an enormous, fiery bird with huge talons. At least it can't get him from the air anymore, though.

And again, while Cole is occupied with his familiar, Taako has been at work casting; he drops the wall of force, and a sickly green arrow is fired from the tip of the glaive, aiming towards Cole. However, before it makes contact, it bursts, spraying caustic acid in Cole's general direction.

Edited 2018-03-05 01:24 (UTC)

Two area-based attacks really aren't fair, Cole briefly muses to himself. He dodges most of the feathers but a few hit his arms, burning through his clothes. Likewise, Cole swerves out of the way of the arrow's path but he can't dodge it once it bursts. The spray of acid hits him on his back, also burning through his clothes.

"You need to get out of here," comes a shrill pink voice from seemingly nowhere (but actually from the daggers). Cole winces slightly, looking down at his hands for a moment.

"But I need to stop him," Cole plaintively responds. Yes, he's beat up as all hell but he needs to do something. Cole doesn't really know how familiars work, just that the bird's a good target and this thing's moving around and acting more like an actual bird than a spell. Maybe it's a familiar? And what would happen if someone killed a familiar? One way to find out. Cole speeds towards the phoenix, intent on stabbing the thing straight in the chest.

Fortunately for Taako-- but unfortunately for Cole-- they aren't playing fair. However, Cole does manage to turn the tide, if only temporarily, when he manages to actually connect with the phoenix, the knife piercing directly into it. The feathers that touch him as he stabs it burn, as though each one is made of solid flames, but the bird stops short... and then collapses.

"... uhh. Fuck."

Taako didn't know that could happen. He can feel-- it isn't dead, simply... disabled, but it's incredibly inconvenient. Not that he doesn't already pretty much have Cole on the ropes all on his own. Taako begins to cast again, attempting to fire a Magic Missile to try and either finish Cole off, or force him to retreat.

There's a very confused pause as the bird collapses. Considering his familiar has so far remained unmurdered, Cole also didn't know that could happen. So he stares for a moment at the collapsed phoenix before that shrill voice starts up again. "What are you waiting for?! Go, go, go!"

Oh, right, he needs to leave. Taako finishes casting Magic Missile as Cole starts to book it, running away from Taako as quickly as he can, concentrating so hard on remaining unseen. You can't see me, you can't see me, you can't see me.

It works. He's still detectable either via magic or weird elf senses. But visually? Cole just isn't there anymore. And physically, Cole is just running the fuck away, trying his hardest to just get out of Taako's range and hope that the elf decides to ignore him.

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⇨ INVASION!

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this is LATE I'm sorry, I got a job and had to ask quix about stuff

no worries! <3