lostcarnival | this is a robbery [closed]

Entry tags:

this is a robbery [closed]

Who: Childermass, Lambert, Cole, & Yuya.
When: Sometime later during the Harbinger invasion.
Where: The Wishmuth Museum of Art
What: The Harbinger of Fortune has his eyes set on ruining an exhibit opening for the museum's more lucrative patrons...
Warnings: Lambert's ass, Cole's TMI memory theater, and Yuya possibly wishing he'd chosen to team up with two completely different Guardians at that point in time tbh.

What would have otherwise been a quiet gathering of Wismuth's elite, to ooh and aah over the Wismuth Museum's newest additions, has ended up going a more poorly than anyone could have ever planned for. It all started with requesting to see the invitation of one man, having strolled into the reception in an indolent, uncaring manner. No one recognized him. No one was surprised when he told them he did not have one.

Surprise only came when the shadows all around them sprang to life before anyone could try and eject him.

Now the museum is surrounded by the flashing lights of cop cars and news vans, the radio and TV all announcing a strange hostage situation to add to the rest of the bizarre and dangerous events taking place in Wismuth these past few days. Not that the police can get in contact with the hostage-takers. Not that they can go into the building itself, either! The few who have vanishing just like everyone else who'd been in there before, considering their sole contact having been a short-lived emergency call from a security guard and then... nothing.

Overall, it's a mess all around the locked-down streets bordering the Wismuth Museum of Art.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From there on out, it won't be the only card they'll find. Just outside the door to the museum proper are several police officers, that being as far as they managed to get. Further down the well-lit, marble-lined hallway will be even more cards, these ones of people in varying degrees of nice or even fancy evening wear.

Besides the cards, the only other eye-catching item lingering in the hallway — besides the occasional cool-looking vase or interesting painting — is a little sign proclaiming something along the lines of 'private event this way'.

Lambert glances at the cards, but he won't collect them. For one thing, this fucking outfit doesn't have any pockets. For another, there's nothing he can do for them except find who did it to them.

The easiest way to break an enchantment is to find the enchanter. And those signs...

The witcher's steps gain more purpose as he takes the lead, Pig a silent, watching figure still riding on him as he follows the direction they're pointing in. He knows where they're heading. It's the exhibit that wasn't open yet when he and Childermass came by. The same one they'd made fun of together.

"Keep your hands free," he tells Yuya, simply. "You'll need them."

"No...!" Yuya pushes forward at the sight of more cards, already on his knees to gather them. Even like this, he can't leave them here. What if no one else understood what it was? What if they were thrown away or destroyed?

He can't in good conscious leave them. But Lambert's words do make him pause when he dives to collect another card.

"... I know." So those cards are all going into the back pocket together. They'd fit better in his old pants, but at least they shouldn't fall out. It makes him a little slow to follow Lambert, starting to pull up the rear.

Cole's outfit doesn't have pockets either, so he lets Yuya pick up the cards. As they get closer to the exhibit, Cole waits until both Lambert and Yuya's eyes are off of him before slipping out of sight and making himself unseen.

Nigella, however, still is seen. She sighs, a tiny little animal sigh, before she floats next to Yuya, sticking close to him. "He could at least tell people before he does that," she gently complains.

Cole's still around, sticking close to Lambert and Yuya. He's just not visible at the moment.

Being so sentimental for strangers will, frankly, always confuse Lambert, even if he wasn't in the process of shutting his emotions down so he can focus. It's funny how automatically that still comes to him. When Nigella speaks up, he realizes Cole's gone from sight, and frowns. Inconvenient and annoying as that might be to him personally, he can't deny he's got the right sort of idea. They'll have better chances if Childermass isn't exactly sure of how many people he's dealing with, or who. If Lambert could go invisible, he would ... but that particular bit of magic relies on shadows.

He does, however, have another trick available to him.

"It's too quiet. I'll try to draw him out," he tells Yuya. "Hang back, but be ready for anything."

It's all the warning Yuya will get before the air shimmers, and where the witcher was standing is a dark-haired woman with a pale, bluish tint to her skin. Feathers cover her skin in odd patches and are threaded in her hair; long black talons for nails and clothing that wouldn't look too out of place as a Harbinger herself. If he remembers the two crow sisters who'd been helping the Count with his ritual in Portland, he may see the similarity enough to guess this one was related to them... except this sister never lived long enough to see the end of that whole mess.

The illusion isn't a flimsy one -- whatever magic was in that ring the Ringmaster bestowed, it weaves a convincing illusion. It can't hide a mind, though, and even if he's borrowed a different form, it's still easy for Cole to tell it's Lambert under that. Pig slips down, to stay out of the way.

Yuya will find himself gathering what is basically a deck of frightened people by the point they reach the reception space. A banner overhead welcomes them to the new Treasures of the Mediterranean exhibit, bordered by tall Ionic columns at the entrance. Greeting them there are the last of the "hostages", spread and spaces out in a way that could make imagining them trying to flee the exhibit all too obvious. They're all cards now, same as the rest. Beyond, similarly scattered about, there are trays of hors d'oeuvres and shattered glasses of wine staining the floor.

More importantly, they aren't quite alone.

On top of the columns cluster a number of those same shadowy crows, definitely keeping an eye out for trouble. That said, once approached, by whoever it is that does so, they'll only look and stare, silent as ever. There's no flying away to warn anyone or even trying to engage. Could be Childermass doesn't need them to.

It takes him a moment to notice Cole disappear, his expression tight as he tucks the carded people away. He sucks in a deep breath to steady himself again, straightening up to move forward. They have to stop Childermass, first. He knows that, and then they can help these people and repair the damage that's been done. Sure, he's done this before. But he really wishes he could use his deck.

Yuya never saw the changeling that Lambert transforms into, but he recognizes a lot of the cues of the Winter Court, and he knows that was Childermass' identity in Portland. He peers into the room from around Lambert, but nods wordlessly and does exactly as he's told--hang back and let Lambert go in first in hopes of drawing Childermass out.

Whoa, that's new. Nobody can see it, but Cole's downright surprised by Lambert shifting faces like that. He takes a moment to blink in surprise before right, time to do this.

When Lambert enters, Cole does also. Remaining unseen and silent, he walks into the exhibit hall as well, staying close to the walls. Nigella lingers near Yuya, watching the whole thing wordlessly, but there's a small frown on her face.

There's no point in a distraction that isn't, well, distracting. While Lambert isn't blowing anything up (yet), he does, in fact, simply walk in. The crow sister's expression is pinched with disdain -- Lambert doesn't have many memories to draw on, to pull together an impression of her, but at least the magic takes care of some of the heavy lifting for him.

His voice, too, is altered when it rings out through the exhibit, haughty and cold as he calls up to the birds.

"Not even a hello?" One foot reaches out to nudge a broken wineglass aside. "What a mess. Where is he?"

Cole goes by without even a glance from the shadows and he won't have to worry about getting called out, either, because the second a crow sister, of all things, steps out into sight, every crow's head turns in unison to stare. Oh, and that's a long, drawn-out stare, completely in silence before as one they take off.

Again, no sound. They're shadows, after all, carrying little to no weight in these forms, almost like they aren't even real... save for scent, which only the witcher among them would pick up. It should have been that familiar smell of snow and pine needles is all ash and burnt pine now, as if even Childermass's magic has been twisted by the Void.

But that aside, they take off and do a circuit of the area in front of the entrance before darting away in one mass of black into the exhibit hall. Within, they'll scatter again, finding new places to perch — display cases, on exhibits themselves, on the moulding along the walls — all save for one, which instead lands on the shoulder of Childermass who's in the middle of holding an intricate necklace of golden leaves up from the latest case he's gotten open. At the center of the hall is a pile of, well, treasure. Literally. Golden statues, jewelry, silver, ancient coins, all dumped on the floor alongside wallets and watches and pilfered pearl necklaces of Wismuth's elite.

For the moment, he's dressed quite normally, not at all different from what he'd been going about in Wismuth before vanishing at the concert. If anything, it makes him look like a villainous businessman, not a Harbinger. He'll tilt his head towards the crow as if listening to it, slowly turning to look towards his "sister".

"Well," he says, quirking an eyebrow but otherwise seemingly unbothered by the unexpected arrival. "Now there's a face I hadn't expected to see here. A little far from home, aren't you?"

Oh, he picks up on that scent, all right. Familiar enough to recognize, altered enough it makes his hackles rise. Whatever's happened to Childermass, that it's been enough to change his magic can't be a good sign.

Without any sign of attack, Lambert will continue advancing forward -- though it's that pile of treasure he heads for, not the Harbinger, to examine exactly what it is he's gathered up. Even as he gives it his not-entirely feigned attention, he keeps an eye on Childermass too. He has more tricks up his sleeve than Lambert does, and there's no telling what else the Void has granted him.

"Home's wherever he says it is," he shrugs, forcing himself to keep moving, skirting around the treasure to force Childermass's attention away from the entryway -- for whatever good that will do. "You know that."

So far so good, as Childermass keeps his eyes on the crow sister and not on the entrance. He'll draw his lap back in a grimace, almost like he just picked up the smell of something disgusting, but he won't make any real moves aside from leaning idly against the display case and absently weighing the gold leaves in his hand.

"Really," he says, definitely unconvinced. He knows who this is. He knows dead is dead. He can't recall if the Count could do what the Ringmaster could, though, which leaves just enough doubt, only— "Though... you three always did look so much alike to me, my dear sister." Yeah, it sounds like she's anything but dear. "Which one are you again?"

The obvious problem there, of course, is that Lambert has no fucking clue what the answer to that is, but it's not as if that's enough to make him give it up just yet. He knows he can't fool him for long, doesn't need to convince Childermass who he is -- he only needs to buy time.

"Forgot already? I suppose not all of us can be special," he says, in lieu of a real answer, still moving, until he comes around the pile of treasure and finally stops too look at him. "The Summer Court's here too, you know. I wonder if they'll find what they're looking for."

Edited 2018-02-21 03:45 (UTC)

"And? Is that all you're here to tell me?" Childermass scoffs. The Summer Court is here? So? Should he be afraid? "What they do doesn't matter, Mackenzie, so feel free to buzz off."

He takes a step away from the display after saying that, giving the necklace in his hand one last heft, then pulling it back to toss over towards the crow sister. Here, catch. It's honestly just gold, no real iron hidden in it.

"Here. Why not use this to buy your way back into hell? We both know that's where you belong, seeing as a wimpy little human managed to put a knife through your scrawny little chicken neck."

"I just thought you might miss them. You spent so long hiding in those gardens, after all."

Lambert catches it out of the air reflexively, probably quicker than a changeling should be able to, but the illusion doesn't dispel, holding up under the motion. With all his attention on Childermass, and how effectively Cole's hidden himself, he can't quite tell where the other two are. He hopes one of them realizes they should attack, because he's running out of improvisation material here.

"That was lucky." It isn't at all hard to call up an ugly sneer at 'wimpy little human,' if only because that's how he feels about the Portland version of himself most days. Lambert spins the gold necklace lazily around a finger, the metal catching and reflecting what little light there is here. "And it certainly wasn't permanent."

"Oh, you're just cranky because your father would never miss you if you ran off instead," Childermass retorts and holds his hands up. Empty, for now, but then he holds a palm out and waves his other hand over it, revealing that same sleek black and silver deck of cards Strange had been warning about on the radio earlier.

A magic trick. How quaint.

Following that, he grips the lower end of the deck with a thumb and fans them out before offering them towards the so-called crow sister.

"Here. Pick a card, any card."

They didn't really make a solid plan, so Yuya's largely uncertain where he's supposed to step in--or what he's supposed to do. Can he trap Childermass? Maybe if he made a big enough bubble, but that seems really obvious. Lambert is a monster hunter, and Yuya trusts he's not trying to irrevocably hurt Childermass... but he might have a better option for dealing with it.

An idea strikes him, though, something he can at least give Lambert an edge (he hopes). After a series of carded people, the last thing he wants is for any one of them to get stuck--so when Childermass offers his deck, Yuya waves the wand and pushes forward normal-sized colorful bubbles from his spot in the entryway.

Deceptively normal, because as they get close to Childermass--or if they're popped before then, they explode into a tiny firework. One that makes a big sound, like someone blew up a full sized one then and there. It's going to be loud, and Yuya braces himself for it.

Yuya reacts to Childermass offering his deck, Cole reacts to Lambert's brief spike of worry. As Childermass offers the deck and Yuya sends out his bubbles, Cole makes himself visible. He's moved so that he's standing behind Childermass, arm outstretched. However, he's not pointing at Childermass: he's pointing at Lambert.

Happy memories are few and far between for Childermass, especially when he's like this. But Lambert? He's got nothing but happy memories with regards to Childermass. Perhaps if he can show Childermass those happy memories, it will help him remember.

The memories are projected in the air between Lambert and Childermass, as if there's a flat screen set up. The memories are also visible to everyone in the room. They start off fairly general, lingering for two or three seconds before flipping to a new one: Lambert in the hot spring while Childermass watches. Lambert, Childermass, and Strange getting drunk on the moon.

However, the memories soon shift to something a smidge more intimate. The two to three second span means that it's easy to overlook an individual memory or two, but hard to overlook the entire effect: there's plenty of memories where Childermass made Lambert happy. Lambert gazing at Childermass over Chinese food when he thinks the other man isn't looking, the two of them sharing a bed, the two of them close to each other, exploring a museum side by side, playing video games in a dilapidated basement somewhere, Lambert's lips brushing against Childermass's, the shock as Lambert discovers Childermass's daemon doesn't hurt him, stolen moments, small looks, the two of them dancing together at the Prince's ball.

Cole's got his hand held out and will keep doing the creepy memory theater until someone chucks something at him or tells him otherwise. Come on, Childermass. Remember.

Okay, so, a lot happens at once. There's no real suave way to react to a series of firework bubbles going off, though they don't quite reach him. The crows still lingering around the room spot them first and, acting on their own, dive. Bubbles pop, there are loud sounds, the shadows burst along with them, not having been all that solid to begin with.

Childermass jumps, cards startled right out of his hands. They won't hit the floor, though. They only look like cards, but they're still his Spark. They don't scatter across the ground, they rise up, floating, picking up some sort of orbit around their master and then--

They're all gone, just like that, in the blink of an eye. Thankfully not for good, since he's only stepped into the shadow the display case behind him casts. He reappears out of a shadow by a Grecian statue, standing on the pedestal space in front of it. It puts him slightly above the rest and gives him a front row seat to the images flashing across the air.

"That's..." A lot of things he never wanted other people seeing, actually, thanks Cole. His attention snaps to the crow sister (who isn't one at all, he already suspected), then to Yuya, and finally to Cole.

Yeah. That's got to be Cole. Rather than dwell on what's being shown, he'll scowl and pull a card out of the air, immediately flinging it at the spirit. Not a major arcana and therefore carrying no spell, but a minor one and those? Those are sharp.

Good job startling Childermass, Yuya, bad job Cole startling Lambert as well -- who the hell uses the power of sneaking up an enemy to show off someone else's memories?! The expression of chagrin and humiliation that stabs through Lambert is wildlly out of character on the crow sister's face, ugly flush coloring her cheeks, and the few moments of surprise that Yuya bought are for nothing since all Lambert can do is gape.

And then it's too late to grab Childermass, and Lambert snarls, still wearing the changeling's guise. There isn't even time to shout at Cole for being a fucking idiot before Childermass attacks, and then the response is completely instinctive: Lambert steps to shield Cole, disguise falling away as he raises the familiar witcher spell to block the card, though he isn't certain witcher magic will be enough to block it.

In the meantime? Childermass will suddenly find himself illuminated by headlights as a fucking motorbike comes at him out of nowhere, engine roaring and echoing around the room as Pig charges right at the pedestal he's standing on to try and knock it out from under him.

Edited 2018-02-21 06:05 (UTC)

Yuya stumbles out of the entry way, equally startled as his rushing out is met not with action from Lambert, but... more of Cole's home video. He knows Cole can do this, and later he'll realize he shouldn't be surprised this was what he attempted--but Yuya still comes to a halt and stares, gaping in disbelief as the memories play.

It's at the memory of them in bed together that Yuya realizes this is really rude and he should really not be looking at this, so he quickly jerks his attention away as his cheeks flush and he shifts awkwardly on his feet.

At least the violence getting initiated is a suitable distraction, and while Lambert's protecting Cole and Pig rides for Childermass, Yuya shakes the bubble wand to start another flurry heading towards Childermass. These are a little larger, and don't quite do anything, but there's so much more of them and the color makes them harder to see through.

Maybe he can obcsure Childermass's vision so he can't throw another card.

Well, that didn't work. And oh great, Lambert's pissed at him again. Cole's already attempting to step out of the card's way before Lambert comes in with his shield. If the card does break through the shield, then it'll slice Cole on the shoulder. If not, there'll be plenty of other opportunities for everyone to wonder just how a spirit can bleed in the first place.

"Guardian Memory!" Nigella shrieks as she just FLIES right towards Cole. Once she approaches him, she turns into a beam of green light, which separates and magically forms two daggers. Cole grabs each dagger, shifting into a combat-ready stance.

"I thought he could remember but his thoughts are all for her!" Cole points out, as if this somehow serves as an explanation for what he did. The problem with daggers is that they're melee as hell. Yuya's bubbles and the sudden motorcycle (okay???) are providing decent cover though, so he makes an attempt to dart away from Lambert, trying to find a spot that's closer in the fight but not currently occupied by a goddamn motorcycle.

Motorcycle? Motorcycle. Childermass is going to focus on the motorcycle speeding its way across the exhibit room to hit him first. That one seems important to focus on! The card he threw won't do much beyond bounce off the witcher's shield and then vanish in a blip of blue light, so Lambert and Cole are relatively safe for the moment, especially with Yuya's bubbles getting between him and his line of sight of the two.

But back to the motorcycle. It connects with the pedestal, which means it connects with the statue, which means the whole thing is about to fall over and shatter. What it doesn't connect with is Childermass himself, because he jumps up right before impact and then there's stone shattering and all the masonry dust that kicks up filling the room under him, all under him, since when he jumped up he had no intentions of landing again.

He pulls another card out of the air around him.

"Enough!"

The word is followed by him holding the card up — the Fool — followed by a veritable windstorm kicking up around him. It picks up the dust from the statue, kicks around loose jewelry, broken glass, and, ultimately, slams outward towards the walls of the exhibit hall. It's like a wall of wind hitting them, shattering display cases as it goes and his own attempt to push all of them further away from him, motorcycle and all. In the midst of this, the shadow crow that had remained on his shoulder collapses into formless black and creeps across the magician's form, covering his clothing and transforming into something entirely new — all black and silver with pale blue highlights, the same color as the glowing fae marks barely visible on what part of his chest can be seen through that.

"Of course my thoughts are all of her! Did you honestly think I would waste them on someone as pathetic as him?" He raises his voice over the howl of the wind. "Don't make me laugh!"

Edited 2018-02-21 16:05 (UTC)

The card might miss its mark, but Childermass's words find theirs, cutting through the shriek of the card's breeze and the cacophony of loose debris hitting the shield.

Pathetic.

It doesn't matter that his rational mind knows this isn't Childermass right now, that the Void or CY-Ren or whatever else has twisted him around. It's still his face, his mouth giving voice to every doubt he's ever had about whatever this is between them, every fear he's ever had that the magician might wake up and realize he was wasting his time. With the way that Wismuth heightens emotion, the word's a lance that cracks straight through the armor he'd built up to protect himself, around the fragile hopes he'd kept so carefully hidden away even from his own mind. It hurts.

Of course, he only lets himself feel the full brunt of that for a moment, because Lambert reacts to heartbreak the same way he reacts to anything else: by getting pissed off. At Childermass, at CY-Ren, at Creation, at everything that's led to this stupid fucking mess.

"Pig!" He screams over the gale. Pig's engine roars, glowing gold as his Spark responds to his will.

Fine -- Childermass wants to blow them away? He'll blow that damn peacock out of the sky. Pig rears and slams her front wheel into the ground, and columns of solid rock shoot out of the ground around her, some aiming to slam up into Childermass from beneath or the side and others forming shelter against the wind.

Edited 2018-02-21 16:51 (UTC)

Yuya is, of course, knocked back by the wind, almost backward somersaulting as the force wins out over his scrawny limbs. His back hits the wall, and he covers his head and projects his own shield dome to cover himself from the debris, and grant him a little recovery from the wind.

He rolls forward to his knees, looking up at Childermass. And then to Cole and Lambert, a little more worried about how they're faring.

Edited 2018-02-21 17:02 (UTC)

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