lostcarnival | the terrible horrible no good very bad week

Entry tags:

the terrible horrible no good very bad week

Who: Strange & OPEN!
Where: mostly the carnival, with a Wismuth prompt
When: D17 and onwards
What: Strange has had a run of shitty days/decisions and is coping like a champ (he's sulking)
Warnings: mild drug & alcohol use, Strange's general asshole tendencies

sulking at the training grounds
Over the past few days, Strange learned that the closest thing he could call to an enemy was back and she had poisoned his best friend, found out his other close friend was kidnapped and enthralled, got dunked in a lake, got his emotional support gem stolen, got dunked in the ocean, made a kid cry, discovered he had a fun new phobia of sentient pineapple beasts, got gum in his hair, and received harsh truth bombs from at least two different people. And only half of this is his fault! (Maybe five-eighths. Strange'll fight it if anyone says three quarters.)

To top it all off, apparently the entire universe is in danger of ending and Creation's decided to fix that by giving people fun magical powers but apparently the universe doesn't think he's good enough! Like what the hell, Creation? As if his self-esteem wasn't already weirdly low thanks to the fact that he got beaten up by plants and the previously mentioned harsh truth bombs.

So, Strange is coping with pyromania. At least four of the practice dummies are currently on fire and have been on fire for the past half hour or so. Strange is in the process of casting a spell to set a fifth ablaze. Anybody who remotely approaches the training ground is getting an amazing death glare courtesy of Strange, as well as a grumpy "What?"

sulking part 2
Alternatively, there's an abundance of purple smoke hanging out near the top of one of the game trailers in the gamer's circle. Can smoke sulk? Undecided, but there's certainly something sulky about this smoke. It's definitely lingering around the top of the trailer and not moving in a manner that's reminiscent of sulking.

welcome to the plot
For the most part, Star Guardians need to sleep too. As does Strange But considering that Strange lives a comfortable life as the man with the world's most erratic sleep schedule, his is variable as hell and he's wide awake at around ten pm, when most people should be getting ready for bed. He's wide awake as he bangs on the trailer door of each inhabited trailer, hoping that someone's in.

He doesn't waste any time. Whenever anyone answers their door, Strange bluntly asks, "Did you get those odd powers like what Noa has?"

Fuck it, he knows about pillars, he can still be useful.

wismuth
Staying at the carnival and not getting out of bed just sounds like a really good plan right now. Except Strange is a nightrunner and when you're rooming with the deputy nightrider, you can only wallow in self-pity for so long. Scrying can only do so much so he's hitting the pavement. As he walks the streets (wearing a slightly ridiculous baseball cap), Strange keeps his senses open for any sort of magic: guardian, harbinger, fae. He's already gotten his ass whooped twice, any sort of large spikes of harbinger magic he is staying the hell away from. But it's the smaller things, the after effects that he can at least try to dispel.

And so, that's why Strange is standing next to an ATM that's currently spitting out cash, muttering something while debating if he's actually got to put his mouth on that thing or not. Thankfully, the machine sputters to a stop and the spell breaks before Strange has to actually kiss the box.

"I don't even know what this is," he complains, to anyone listening. Foggy modern AU memories can only go so far and did not extend to ATMs. But look at him go, stopping the horrible...money spitter outer machine. Greatest magician of the age, everyone.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Strange is hanging out, as smoke, near Rita's ankles. This woman threw something at him, he's not turning solid unless he has to! Which also means that, thankfully for everyone, he's shutting up. While Strange can talk as smoke, he finds the effect so profoundly weird that he doesn't normally do so.

It's battle of the stubborn as the woman looks over at Rita, crossing her hands over her chest and standing still. "I told you, I'm not leaving. This freezer's probably the coldest place in the entire mall, I'm staying put!" She seems bound and determined to not move and is giving Rita a 'just try it' sort of glare.

"Yeah, well, we're never going to fix this if you stay put!" Rita snaps, then looks to Strange for help convincing her, and... oh. He hasn't reformed yet. Coward. Rita gives an annoyed kick at the smoke around her ankles. She can't tell where his eyes are (if they're anywhere), but he better not be looking up her skirt.

So she looks to the only other counsel she has here: her cat, who's sitting comfortably outside of the freezer. Francis simply gives a pointed glance at her book, and raises his paw as if to demonstrate a point.

Oh. Maybe that'll work.

Rita calls her book over, tears a page from it, and focuses to infuse that page with her knowledge: specifically, the fact that this woman's in danger, she'll likely die if she stays cold, and she needs to be warmed up. Then, she thrusts that page at the woman. Touching the page will transfer its information directly into one's mind, allowing them to know it with as much certainty as Rita does.

Points for Francis: the mascot character is more useful than the sidekick. As the page is flung towards her, the woman reaches out, as if to catch it. As soon as her skin touches the paper, however, she pauses for a moment, blinking in confusion as the information is transferred to her mind. There's obviously a conflict of interests. Obviously it's important not to die. But at the same time, she just desperately wants to be somewhere cold.

"But where else would I go?" she mutters, frowning slightly. "I've got to be here, the cold feels amazing." Still, she's at least listening to Rita, though she isn't moving just yet.

"I can try something, if you want," Strange pipes up from Rita's feet. The effect is odd, like his voice is simultaneously reverberating from all of the smoke. "Though I doubt you'll like it."

It's an improvement. Looks like she's starting to listen, at least.

But... there's no doubt that trying to drive the mushi out with heat is going to be incredibly uncomfortable for her. Still, isn't there a way to get her to move, other than plain old violence? Rita ponders that, when Strange interjects.

Rita looks down with an uncertain squint, adjusts the skirt of her dress (seriously, he's not looking up, is he!?), and asks, "What do you mean, I won't like it?" Whatever it is, she has a feeling he's right.

Since the room's getting colder, the woman's getting a bit less confrontational. She's still refusing to move, but it's obvious that she's giving Rita's suggestion some thought. Though, occasionally her being lost in thought is interrupted with a frown, as she watches Rita and Strange with a critical eye as if this will somehow explain just what the heck those two are doing.

In smoke form, Strange slithers upwards, stopping right near Rita's face. It only takes a few seconds for Rita to start to feel a bit woozy and dazed. At that point, the smoke wafts away and the slightly nauseous feeling vanishes. Still in smoke form, Strange whispers to Rita,

"I've made people pass out before, but only under certain circumstances. Otherwise, I could certainly help in causing a scene to try and coax her out that way."

Scrunching her face, Rita waves a hand at the smoke, but fortunately Strange leaves it at a short demonstration, and her head quickly clears.

"You don't have to show me that way!" she hisses at him.

She then stops to consider the woman once again... and seems to reconsider rejecting the idea outright. "Actually... it might be worth a try," she admits. It's true, Rita doesn't like it, but not only is the woman's cooperation an issue, but warming her up might be extremely uncomfortable... if not outright painful. If she's knocked out, maybe she won't have to feel any of it.

Knocking someone the hell out is a go! Except, unlike when he knocked out the severely poisoned Reira and Sans, Strange's poison plus the mild hypothermia and slight dazed condition of the woman isn't enough to knock her out entirely. It's enough to throw her for a severe loop, however, as she staggers forward, with her hand to her head. She tries to move and get out of the smoke, but Strange is still there, just engulfing her head in the purple smoke and making her woozy and nauseous as hell.

"I can't cast in this form," Strange explains, as he continues to just linger around the woman's head. "You'll have to do the magic yourself."

Because whatever Guardian plan Rita's got to help save the day, it probably involves magic. After all, this is Rita.

Setting her sword aside, Rita puts one hand around the woman's back and grabs her arm with the other, guiding her out of the freezer as she stumbles around. She gets the woman to sit down on the kitchen floor, then gets started on casting.

"Here goes... Get ready," she tells the others, though it looks like it'll be up to Rita to handle things if something goes wrong.

If it's warming they need, there's no need to turn to Guardian magic; her fire magic is enough. Rita conjures four pillars of flame that hover around them without touching the floor or ceiling. It doesn't take long for the air to start warming up until it feels much like a sauna.

As Rita guides the woman out of the freezer, Strange still hovers around her head, while simultaneously trying not to get any smoke near Rita or Francis. The woman herself is moving in a slow, sluggish manner, like just the simple act of moving is hard.

The room starts to heat up. This poor woman is in a cocktail of pain right now, with the dizziness of being passed out combined with Strange's poison smoke and the mushi's intolerance to heat. She grits her teeth and lets out a moan of pain, curling in on herself.

It's working though. The warmer the room gets, the quicker the snowcloud above her head starts to vanish. The Harbinger magic starts to dissipate as well as the mushi vanish. And Strange, the big coward, actually solidifies at this point, turning back into his fully-clothed self. He's standing next to the woman and watching all of this with a small frown.

"I think it's doing the trick." But Strange obviously doesn't like the fact that it's paining the woman so much.

Rita nods, frowning. It's working. It doesn't feel good, watching someone suffer like this, but it's working and they just have to see it through to the end. As the snow cloud fades and the woman's pain seems to subside, Rita uses her third eye to look for more signs of mushi or Harbinger influence, but as far as she can tell...

"It's gone."

Strange can probably tell, too. The pillars of fire, no longer needed, dissipate into smoke. Francis, while no one was looking, took care of getting rid of her sword and now seems to be contentedly sampling some half-melted ice cream from an overturned container.

"... We should probably get out of here." Before the woman starts asking questions, or someone else comes in and sees the mess. Then again... if Guardians have a peculiar tendency to be easily forgotten or ignored by the public, Rita might be fine. But she'd rather not chance it.

Rita might be fine but the jury's still out on the member of the team who isn't a Guardian. Understandably, Strange doesn't want to be hanging around when someone else shows up. So, he gives Rita a little nod.

"Might I suggest we head to the food court? I doubt this woman will come look for us but it is the most crowded there. Plus, I'm feeling a bit light-headed."

That's what happens when you hang out as smoke for a minute or so.

"You're lightheaded?" Rita echoes in disbelief. After he gassed the woman and Rita (a little), he should be the last one complaining about that.

"Well, whatever... guess we can go try and blend in," she adds after a pause. Rita waves her book over to herself, closes it, and places a hand on the orange jewel on the cover. The book disintegrates, and the jewel turns into a ball of light that quickly returns to its place in Rita's chest. When it does, there's a brief, bright flash... and her clothes are back to normal.

Gesturing for Strange to follow, Rita starts on her way out of the kitchen. Francis, after licking the ice cream off his paw, hurries to catch up with her.

"It's turning into smoke that makes me lightheaded!" Strange complains, as he follows Rita out of the kitchen. Once they reach the door that separates the kitchen from the rest of the mall, Strange jogs ahead of Rita. This is solely so he can reach the door first and he holds it open for Rita and Francis, complaining all the while.

"When I'm smoke for under thirty seconds, it's perfectly fine. But anything longer than a minute and my head starts to go a bit funny. I've been working on seeing how long I can stay in that form. I'm up to two and a half minutes before I feel so odd that I have to call it quits—though I am working on staying in that form longer."

All of this is said as if it's the most casual thing in the world.

Rita gives him a weird look when he goes out of his way to open the door for her. It's an odd reminder that this obnoxious old man is also sort of a gentleman. Sometimes.

"Hmph... so there are limits to that form of yours. That'll be good to know, next time you decide to run your mouth too much." Rita's still salty over how few hits she was able to land on him, back at the training yard.

They step into a hallway marked for employees only, then out into the food court proper. Some of the commotion seems to have died down with no visible developments to gawk at, but many people still loiter about, content to stay nearby just in case something else exciting happens.

The next time he runs his mouth? Strange frowns for a moment before he connects the dots with what Rita's referencing. He gives her an ironic little smile before the mild teasing starts back up.

"Yes, but I wonder what will run out first: my endurance or your patience?" Strange knows that it's his endurance but hey, might as well give Rita a bit of shit while he can.

When they're in the food court proper, Strange makes a beeline for the obligatory greasy pizza place that every food court has. There's a few people in line so, he starts to wait, assuming that Rita's going to wait with him.

Well... Rita doesn't have anything pressing to do right this instant, nor did she eat before running over here... so whatever. She'll stick around for a meal.

There are a few pizzas sitting on display, some with slices missing, presumably having been sold to other customers. Rita looks over the labels. Pepperoni, veggie, cheese, meat lovers, Hawaiian...

"What's 'Hawaiian'?" she whispers to Strange.

Strange is looking between the veggie and cheese pizzas, deciding which of those two he's going to pick out, when Rita asks her question. He whispers back, so as not to embarrass Rita too much,

"It's an island in the Pacific. I've no idea what it has to do with pizza, as I haven't been there myself—"

But then he cuts himself off. Because there's pineapple on that Hawaiian pizza. He went literal months without having to possibly deal with pineapple and now he's encountered it twice in a few weeks? Strange's expression shifts to a frown, as he shudders slightly and gives the pineapple pizza a look.

"Don't get Hawaiian, it looks disgusting."

Rita raises an eyebrow at that reaction, then gives the offending pizza another look, trying to determine what could possibly be so offensive about it.

"Just looks like meat and pineapple to me," she says plainly, not seeing the issue.

Francis, ignoring the conversation at hand, hops up onto Rita's shoulder and stares at the pizzas.

"Exactly!" Strange responds, with an aggravated hrmph. "Why would someone ruin a perfectly fine pizza by putting pineapple on it?"

This is obviously a point of consternation as Strange just looks at the pizza like it has somehow personally offended him. Urgh, and the pizzas sitting next to it probably smell like pineapple also.

As Strange is too busy whining about the existence of pineapple, he's not paying any attention to Francis.

"Who cares? It's edible, and it's all the same mush when it hits your stomach, anyway." Also, Rita actually likes pineapple. Maybe she'll get that one after all. Getting under Strange's skin would just be a bonus.

Francis, feeling ignored, lets out a demanding meow. He waves a paw in the direction of the meat pizzas.

Strange continues to ignore Francis for the sake of having a dumb argument with Rita. She's defending pineapple, this shall not stand.

"Grass and burnt food are edible and yet you don't eat those. It's perfectly reasonable to not want to eat something as it tastes disgusting." His tone is pure 'duh, Rita', this is an obvious fact in Strange's mind. So what if it's all the same when it hits your stomach, you still have to taste it in the first place.

"Pineapple isn't disgusting. You're just picky," Rita casually retorts. Seriously, what kind of adult gets this bent out of shape over food?

Francis's meowing grows louder as he tries to interject into the argument.

Meanwhile, it seems they've reached the front of the line. The cashier, a young-looking guy with dark hair, asks cautiously, "Uh... Are you two ready to order, or...?"

Strange is about to continue arguing when the cashier speaks up. Oh yeah, food.

"I'd like a slice of cheese pizza and a large Mountain Dew, please," Strange chimes in, with a little nod. Everybody should be thankful that the carnival doesn't have vending machines because Strange's taste in food has straight up slipped to garbage. Thanks, Wismuth.

He steps out of the way, letting Rita go to the cashier and order her food. It's at this point that he notices Francis...and hmm. Would they get in trouble if there's a cat at the mall? But how is he going to ask Rita that without drawing attention to said cat?

The cashier processes Strange's order, then beckons Rita over the counter.

"I'll have the Hawaiian, with a cola," she tells him, casting a short glance to Strange before grimacing suddenly, her shoulders tensing. Looking back to the cashier, she adds, "...and a slice of meat lover's." Francis promptly retracts his claws from her shoulder and starts purring.

Fortunately, the teenager working fast food in the mall doesn't get paid enough to worry about a little rule-breaking, and while he definitely seems to stare at the cat on Rita's shoulder as she pays, he doesn't say a word. Before long, both their orders are set out on trays for them to grab, and the cashier's moved on to the next customer.

Strange has his drink while Rita makes her order. As such, he downright chokes a little on the drink when Rita mentions Hawaiian. She's doing this just to spite him! If he had just kept his damn mouth shut, she'd have ordered something different! It never really occurs to Strange that Rita would be ordering it because she likes pineapple because obviously nobody likes pineapple.

So, they've got their food. And the mall food court awaits them. Sitting down at one of the tables, Strange gives Rita's pizza one last glare before deciding that no, he's not going to focus on that, he's just going to eat his slice and not look at pineapples in the slightest!

Besides, he's got another question. "Can Francis eat his entire slice? It is rather big for him."

the terrible horrible no good very bad week

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)