lostcarnival | ⇨ POLARIS 3.0

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⇨ POLARIS 3.0

Who: Everyone!
When: Day 115
Where: Polaris
What: On the morning of day 115, a couple hours before the technicians would come to pick up the test subjects, the escape plan will officially come into effect. If your character has been left out of the loop up till this point, feel free that someone hastily explains the plan during the initial phase! The meat of everything else will be played out via megathreads and any private toplevels people want to make.
Warnings: Probably violence.

PEER REVIEW↴

The plan starts with getting everyone out of their cells. Childermass is going to be using his Gilded Mark to enhance his shadow movement abilities, unabling him to teleport himself and other people out of containment. If your character has other ways of escaping they are free to pursue that, but on a base level, it can be assumed that everyone gets out thanks to Childermass. (Thanks Childermass!) Once everyone has been removed from their cells by some means or another, they will be forced to split into teams as swiftly as possible, as the moment people start breaking out, negative attention from the staff will start building. The area is poorly guarded at first, but as people become aware of the breakout, more will arrive.

Gild, speaking on behalf of her inside plant, will say that those that 1) want to get their stuff back, 2) want to find Ignatius, should get the assistance of their allied Deltas to access sector A5. From there, they will have to access Polaris's storage in A3, a neighbouring sector, and find access to C2, the station where Ignatius is being held. They should expect to be met with armed resistance, but with any luck allies will be there to assist them.

In general, characters will be most effective if they back one of these major objectives:

► TEAM LOOT: This team is trying to get back the items and pets that were confiscated when the group was brought into Polaris. Their objective, according to their allies on the inside, is to get to A5, and then make their way to A3. The important thing is being able to locate their stuff among a sea of other items, and to make it through security in order to reclaim it. Gild's plant has said that they will assist with this. After getting these items, Team Loot may wish to merge with Team Rescue.

► TEAM RESCUE: This team's primary focus is to get to A5 and then make their way to C2. If desired, they may wait for or join with Team Loot, or they may strike out ahead in order to take advantage of the element of surprise. The key factors are obtaining a way to access C2, as well as being prepared for armed conflict with the technicians guarding it, as well as possibly the Mother of Invention herself. Though, the ideal is that Gild will be distracting here at that time.

► TEAM DISTRACTION: This team can do their thing wherever they please, as their main intent is to sew general discord and distract the staff from the teams doing more important things. They should be prepared for armed resistance, but what tactics they pursue beyond that point are highly variable.

► TEAM FORTRESS: This team is attempting to set up a protective base of operations in the original sector in order to survive the conflict and protect their noncombatant comrades. How they accomplish this is also highly variable.

Other objectives may exist, of course, and can be made with their own separate top levels. Chunks of these megathreads will have to be played out in summary form, so when characters are simply trying to get from place to place and specifics aren't necessary, feel free to stick to that format. Assume that everyone is already out of their cells for the purpose of the megathreads.

Here is a shitty map of how the sectors connect, from a side view of the central Polaris hub.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

There's a lot happening and without being within ear shot he cannot assess what the others are doing. She's grappled with various areas and he continues to look over Eruka out of the corner of his eye. This is rough and he knows it and she looks absolutely terrified.

He puts on a bright smile, a false one if he needs to, and he curls his arm around Eruka a little tighter, "Be careful and try not to blow anyone else up." Of course, she can always call for him later if she gets into trouble. Forget how ominous it seems as he lifts them up into the air and uses his speed to run forward across it towards the Mother. He'd wink at her but the visor is in the way.

Once they are close enough he'll let her go or throw her, depending on what she wants with his arms and tentacles retreating from her. He then joins Sans in working debris away from the 'falling' pair. It's best if he stays back away from the frontlines.

Tyki's effort to contact the witcher isn't entirely in vain. Tyki's and Yuya's texting rings, if they're paying attention, light up with a short but none too descriptive message.

On my way.

In the destruction that the Mother of Invention's wrought, there's no shortage of shadows, and while everyone else is in the middle of preparing for their assault, the witcher shows up and off to behind her side, coughing in the smoke pouring in from the Farm. It's hard to even make out where any of his allies are, from here, but if nothing else, the Mother of Invention makes herself a ready target.

Childermass is gone as quick as he dropped him off, hopefully back somewhere safe, and Lambert honestly hasn't got the slightest idea if this the best place for him to be right now. But nothing ventured, nothing gained, right? He grips the iron knife between his teeth and starts running at the Mother of Invention, ignoring the pain racing up his side and changes mid-leap.

So yeah, now there's a dragon trying to leap onto the Mother of Invention from the flank, his aim to find purchase on the joint of her shoulder and use the force of his landing and weight to tear that arm off . Lambert doesn't know if the spell from Wismuth that's supposed to keep him from being grabbed and held will hold any water against a True Fae, but he sure as hell hopes it does, or at least keeps him from being immediately slapped away by one of those nasty-looking mechanical arms.

Getting through the Mother's chassis seems to be about as hard as getting through that void enforced wall - the vorpal blade cuts, but not as effortlessly as usual. Instead, it cuts more along the lines that a normal blade would to a normal target. It catches in the middle, as if stuck in a bone, but the boost of energy from the Mark will carry it the rest of the way. It takes the Mother off guard, and as that arm falls limp, the dark magic stops pouring through it.

Ignatius takes the opportunity to turn into a small eruption of ghostly white flame, breaking free of the other arm and pulling away as he tries to shake off the effects of the dark magic on his soul. He looks like he's being gradually worn down by the battle, but he's still going.

"Right there!" he shouts, summoning up a bow of flames, and launching a shining white arrow at the hole he left in the Mother's chest. For the first time, she makes an irritated sound of discontent as it strikes her torso, and as her arm falls to the ground. She swipes her other arms at Ignatius and Peridot, tugging against the crystal vines trying to hold her legs. Debris clatters off of her head and body.

Then Lambert hits from behind, trying to tear off her other humanoid arm. It doesn't work, not without something more compelling than sheer physical force. Yet, she can feel that iron near to her. Another of her arms will attempt to knock Lambert away, while also dealing with both Ignatius and Peridot.

Papyrus is using blue magic, but between the fluctuating power coming from Ignatius, and the at-least doubled weight from all the metal, it's more of a struggle to use than before. Once he and Carly have latched hands, he pushes his personal gravity upwards, above the arcs of most of the still falling debris.

"Are you flying okay?!" he hollers over the noise, now that they both know the other's not falling. "If you're not flying okay, let me down! I can fall safely, and..!"

At which point he'd be on the ground, faced with a lot of things to keep dodging, which isn't ideal. He's not as used to dodging as he should be, for the kinds of danger they get in now. After a near-year of recurring dangers, occasional training with people like Lambert, noticing the differences in how his brother fights, he's practiced enough to be capable of it, but it's never his first instinct.

...Or maybe, he could try summoning a blaster, and hold on it to reduce the weight Carly's helping with and attack from a place of reduced risk. Holding it active would be a strain, but it's worth trying. He does his best to balance the two active effects, reaches up with his spare hand to grab the forming blaster, and instructs it to fire at the Mother of Invention's face.

"Mnfg! Right...Now, I'm just trying to get us out of this!" Carly shouts back, briefly distracted as various debris loads suddenly swerve in another direction. The blasters are even more distracting, but-

"...Is that Sans over there...?"

Shut up there was a lot of white in this area and IT'S HARD TO SEE NOW,

Time to move. Zangetsu ensures Syrlya is holding on tight, then takes to the skies once more, bounding and leaping and ricocheting off of invisible air platform, formed as he needs them. He can feel Ignatius flagging a bit, but it's enough. It has to still be enough. He hopes that by not staying in one place too long, the Mother won't be able to get a bead on them -- distracted as she is by the dragon and the Ignatius and the Peridot--

Oh crap, Peridot! He makes a mental note to... get her later. She seems to be doing ok???

Either way, if he manages to get into range without being swatted by one of those arms, he maneuvers Syrlya into place.

"One... two.... three!!"

He puts all his strength into the throw, tossing Syrlya like a plant-man-shaped javelin, accompanied by a shockwave of red and black reiatsu, just to give him some more "oomph". He doesn't wait to see if Syr lands -- instead he darts to the ground below the hole, ready to catch him if he doesn't make it.

And hopefully not get stepped on in the process.

Thank god for debris displacing water everywhere. Strange appears from a puddle near the grassy area. He's got a visibly splinted arm (and an expression that's pure 'oh god, why am I doing this') but otherwise looks to be in one piece.

And hmm. That sure is the Mother of Invention tearing at Steven's vines. Might as well give the kid some help. Strange bends down, mutters an incantation, and puts his good hand on the grass. Vines, root, earth, and all sorts of dirt and plant matter starts to move from the grassy area towards the Mother of Invention, with the intent of wrapping around her legs and helping in the 'hold her down' effort.

Edited 2018-11-12 00:03 (UTC)

Steven holds his position as this goes on, pouring all of his strength into growing and maintaining the nest of vines around the Mother's legs. He doesn't know if they are really capable of tripping her up, but it's the best thing he can do right now - to tap into the strength of the Blue Rose, and focus everything on trapping her.

He drops down to his knees as he urges the vines to grow faster, thicker, and taller - attempting to tangle up her lower limbs as he goes. Every time a vine strains and snaps, he can feel it in his heart, but he'll keep going for as long as he can.

He looks around when he feels Strange's power join him, seeing new vines join his. He smiles briefly before he goes back to focusing - they can do this, he thinks. They just have to keep going!

It's more forceful than Syrlya expects, and he holds his good arm out with his feet ready to land. He hits the Mother of Invention's shoulder too hard with a grunt, slipping against the body.

He scrambles to recover, throwing his weight forward as few grapples to the mental plates. As he slips down he grabs the edge of the hole in her chest, stopping the descent. Once he's steady he pushes with his feet to leverage himself up.

And then he carefully moves to grip the edge with his wounded hand, testing his strength. The hang is weak, but he needs his other arm free.

Once it is, he starts to pull the iron out from where it's wedged between layers of his armor.

Onnn second thought, maybe Eruka doesn't want to head for the hole that everyone and their mother is trying to hurl their energy at. But as with all things, it's a bit late to change her mind now! Ultimately, what she does is shift into a jelly version of her frog self for maximum shotput-worthiness, getting Tyki to chuck her with the intention of landing somewhere on the Mother of Invention's chassis.

Sheer animal terror, though, means that when she's sent sailing, her nerve fails her at the last moment and her form dissolves into a blast of steam, a form she's had far less experience controlling than the slime. Whoops. In practical terms, this just means there's a small cloud of vapor hanging out over the Mother having a serious existential crisis about whether it wants to be solid again or not, stuck uselessly watching Syrlya as he tries to hang onto the opening in the chassis.

Rita raises an eyebrow when Yuya receives a text ring message. Did he have one of those, too?

But that's the least of her concern, as Peridot's starting to hack through one of the Mother's arms, and she sees the Mother winding up to swat her away with another one of her limbs. "Protect Peridot!" she yells as she pulls Yuya with her, flying in between the Mother's arm and the gem with the intention of blocking the attack with Yuya's barrier.

The arm slams into the shield and crashes right through it, bashing Rita and Yuya and sending the two of them hurtling down toward the ground.

As Syrlya hits her chest and clings to the hole Ignatius made, the Mother's attention will turn to him immediately. She slaps her remaining humanoid arm over him, like someone trying to crush a bug that's crawling on them. It'll be hard enough to potentially break bones... if Syrlya had any.

Meanwhile, Strange and Steven finally cause her enough difficult to draw her ire. From two of her mechanical arms, she will rapidly fire her coldfire blasters at both of their locations, attempting to disrupt the growth. The rest of her attention remains on Ignatius and Peridot.

Lambert, in the meantime, is also having profound regrets. One of the Mother's extra arms slamming into him is enough to dislodge him from his perch.

As he falls, he twists around, lashing out desperately with the exposed bone of his tail to wrap it around her forearm and give it a sharp yank down with the force of his descent. Regardless of his success, he'll end up crashing and bouncing off the vines growing around her legs, momentarily stunned.

Yuya's tugged around obediently by Rita to Peridot, hovering close as he pushes his shield out. Things are more chaotic, this close to her, and his gaze flickers around wildly to keep up.

He sees the arm coming, but it's not until it's already hit the shield that he realizes he can't hold it. He sucks in a breath as it's shattered under his will.

"Look out!" He twists to grab for Rita suddenly, trying to yank her closer with his hand to her head and his shoulder angling in front of the arm. He doesn't see whether he's successful in blocking Rita from it, before it slams into him and he feels their bodies hurtling. It's so fast he doesn't even cry out, suddenly blanking from the pain.

Steven is focusing so much of his energy on growing the vines that he barely has a change to summon a bubble shield before the coldfire blasts strike. The pink bubble appears, and in immediately shattered by a direct blow, launching him back and into the wall of the tuck shop hard enough to leave a crater. The vines holding his gem in place break on impact, sending the gem twirling away to bounce across the flooring.

Peridot grimaces as Rita and Yuya go hurtling to the ground. She'll have to remember to thank them for the save later, assuming they get out of this mess.

With the Mother's focus still partially on her, getting to the front of the chassis is difficult. Turning into a dragon might give her the extra power she needs to stay latched on, but it would also make her a bigger target for swatting. The bat might be agile enough, but a single blow could turn her into a fuzzy green pancake. She already found out that using her elemental form is a terrible idea.

That kind of just leaves her with one option.

Scampering for her life, Peridot traverses the perilous landscape of the Mother's chassis, scrambling up over her humanoid shoulder and skidding down her metal tits with the hilt of the vorpal sword grasped firmly in her tail. It's not graceful, or even remotely cool looking; her movements are clumsy and frantic, and she's basically yelping and just trying not to die the whole way, squawking as she careens off the slope and haphazardly whips her tail down towards the wrist of that arm, letting the sword fly. She's going to add a little extra encouragement for taking that hand off of Syr. Maybe a vorpal blade strike to the wrist will do the trick.

Considering that Strange has been in this fight for a lot less time than Steven has, he's quicker on his feet than the gem. As soon as he spots that coldfire, he poofs into smoke and the beam passes directly through him. It feels odd as hell but he's not any more broken than he already is.

This halts the growth of his vine/earth/plants mixture...but as soon as he reforms, a few feet away from where he was originally, Strange starts murmuring, regrowing the vines and earth, and trying to hold the Mother of Invention down some more.

Initially Yuusei bolts out away from the tuck shop to keep an eye on Carly and Papyrus, tailing their trajectory as closely as he can given the state of the battlefield in case one of them falls. Carly doesn't look too well off, after all, and neither of them are gonna do well with a descent from that sort of height.

Then the Mother of Invention blasts Strange and Steven, and out of the corner of his eye Yuusei spots Steven fly into the wall of the shop separated from his gem. He changes his own path with the intent of retrieving both Steven and his gem.

There is shouting from Gongenzaka, shouting that Peridot will need to ignore. For a sharp instant as Yuuya falls, his focus moves from how Peridot will need to guide iron, to 'Yuuya!' on repeat...as if they could do anything about it.

But the sharp pangs of fear and worry cut short, and Gongenzaka regains his senses in time to pass on something of an idea. "She will still focus on us- but if it is possible once this arm is cut away, guide the iron inward!"

Not to mention what ever other direction their target may be in, but keeping the iron INSIDE while not getting squashed is the big goal first. They can move from there.

While the position is good for getting a stab into the hole, it's awful for protecting himself when his usual method of survival is "just don't get hit" and there's nowhere to go.

He barely manages to get the iron in his good hand before her arm slams into his back and he screams. A jerky shudder rides through his body as wooden bones are snapped and his flesh is bruised by the impact.

He gasps for air, his focus slipping to autopilot as he thinks over about stabbing iron into the hole, struggling to push his arm through.

"What the hell are you--" is as far as Rita gets in protesting before Yuya takes the brunt of the attack for her.

She holds on to him as they fall, spreading her wings to try and slow them down, but it does little. They crash into the vines growing around the Mother's feet but by some stroke of luck, rather than getting raked through the crystal thorns the whole way down, they end up tumbling right on top of Lambert's fallen dragon-body. There's a sickening crack at some point, and at the end of it, Rita's lying still, conscious but wincing in pain with one arm still wrapped around Yuya and one of her wings bent in a direction it's not supposed to bend in.

~~WHY THIS BITCH GOT SO MANY ARMS~~

Zangetsu snarls as the Mother tries to smash one of their best chances into mulch. Peridot goes for the wrist, and Zangetsu goes for the forearm, attacking the elbow joint... and keeping an eye on poor squished Syr. If he has to finish the job himself, he will.

He cloaks his blade form in black and red, hot but not quite fire so much as raw energy, slashing violently at the joint.

Peridot's descent is so out of control that she mostly just manages to smack the hilt and flat side of the blade off of the arm instead of getting a clean cut, in the same moments that Lambert clings to the arm with his tail and falls down. Neither attack manages to stop her from wrapping her fingers around Syrlya's body, continuing to squeeze as she pulls him away from her chest.

Like a damsel in King Kong, Syrlya is being held aloft now, as the Mother regards the beings clinging to her with impatience. She tries to step out of the snare of vines around her legs, but it's a bit more difficult than anticipated.

"I'm impressed," she drawls, shaking her body in an attempt to rid herself of these pests. "So let's try this, instead.".

Darkness emanates from every crease in her chassis, filling the air like an inky mist. For everyone enveloped in it, they will be weighed down by the metaphysical force of darkness - everything will become harder, and their own personal demons will rail at them with particular violence. Pain hurts more. Fear pulls at the mind more desperately.

The black mist fills the entire surrounding area, up to the walkway in the middle of the water. The Mother laughs, exerting her will triumphantly.

[EFFECT RADIUS HERE!]

Edited 2018-11-12 01:17 (UTC)

Yuya's body rolls limp in Rita's hold. There's blood starting to pool from where the arm slammed into him, under the armor and on his head. But he's breathing steady, his eyes fluttering as he struggles to hold onto consciousness.

And then there's smoke. He hardly registers his fear, because the sudden spike of pain makes him black out.

Yuusei's pace slows momentarily, like he's tripping over himself as he runs into the black mist clogging up over half of the "battleground" now. He's not exactly in pain, but something in his chest aches - nonliterally for once - as he wonders if he can even make the stretch across to reach Steven, if there's even any point. Shouldn't he be trying something more productive in the face of the Mother like everyone else? His veins begin to sting, and then they burn as he coughs from the smog.

Even so, he shakes his head and presses forward, intent on securing his targets. He can't fight in this battle, so he'll make damn sure no one has to get hurt more than necessary if he has anything to say about it.

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