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

Beau's halfway across the walkway, seeing the people who'd landed in the water already moving out under various means, pressing forward to check where the skybridge collapsed.

Then the cloud spreads, and not for the first time, she freezes up faced with something unfamiliar and painful and fundamentally unpunchable. How do you punch a cloud? About as much difficulty as punching a ghost. You can see it happen, but you pass right through without doing any damage.

Worse, just standing here breathing reminds her of regrets, the idea of pushing forward brings regrets, and the thought of turning tail brings still other regrets. Every option is shitty. Fuck it, she might as well keep doing what she was doing - check for anyone unconscious or obviously injured, try to haul them back to the dipshit healer hiding under a cloak. With a shaky breath, she presses on.

...The iron. DUH... Now that Gon is shouting at her, she feels like a complete idiot for not thinking of that right away.

Later, she'll blame the darkness magic for that oversight.

Screw this mist, though! She can do this! So what if she's not acting how a regular Peridot should, she hasn't done so in years and it has barely bothered her in ages until now! Isn't her metallokinesis proof enough that she's much more than Homeworld ever made her to be?

She holds out a hand towards Syrlya and feels for the iron, trying to beckon it towards her. It's not hard to sense; there's metal everywhere around her, but she knows from experience that iron has a unique vibe that makes it stick out like a sore thumb now. Even without direct contact, it doesn't like to play nice with her fae-touched essence. She just has to look for the metal that feels the coldest and least friendly to her metaphorical touch.

His mind wracks through multiple situations of where he should be, what he should be doing, whose side he should be on, and mostly his family. He's shuddering visibly, his body irked at the way the scrambling thoughts eat away at the back of his mind. He doesn't have many fears or doubts within himself but in this situation with this thing in his head, the thought of being consumed, mostly by his Noah or any other fae again, by anything jerks his body into almost freezing up on the spot.

Yet something else distracts him far more than he wants to show. Sans' sudden blinding aura burns in his direction, revealing him of those strains thoughts but also hindering him at the same time. His Dark Matter flares up his arm to avoid taking the brunt of it and he visibly jerks away, dragging himself backwards with a push of his Power to Choose. It's a sudden rough movement to avoid further injury to his side. Unlike his other injuries, these ones don't heal so easily as his skin hisses with raw irritation. He stares in Sans' direction with a rough pant as he's swallowed up by that darkness once more. He pulls him away completely out of the range of his aura as blood drips towards the debris and floor beneath them.

The pain is almost unbearable but its not like he's felt the hateful kiss of something like this before. No, his attention should be on the Mother of Invention but right now he's feeling strangely helpless, useless, and frightfully pained as he watches others continue to fight.

Lambert should have expected such an answer of Rita, of course, and she shouldn't be surprised by his answer either. His neck cranes around, dropping the iron knife onto his back for her to pick up while he goes for the vial she's holding and tips his head back to get the dose down his throat.

That great dragon throat swallows, and he finally speaks, voice a low rumble.

"No, I'm not. Hold that and hold on." With the flood of sudden energy through him, he finds the strength to shove himself off the ground and into flight with a roar. For now, he's just bringing them to a better vantage point, trying to figure out what the hell is going on up front before they decide on unleashing any further attacks.

It's at this moment that another form emerges, in the shape of a rabbit with feathery wings. Samyaza arrives from hiding, with a fox and bunny at her side. She sees the darkness ahead, and knows what to do.

She sings.

With the power of angels, and of the Silver Mirror, the sound of her voice will cut through the darkness. Everyone who hears it will gain a resistance boost against the powers of the darkness, bestowing them with additional strength. It's the least she can do, after what they sacrificed to save her people from Lilith's control.

The angelic notes flow like waves of power, Samyaza rising into the air on wing to join the power of Sans's light.

There's light as Papyrus drifts down, light that feels a little bit like a jail door opening and a familiar face poking in. Like the knowledge he's messed up, that'd been clenching in on him, abruptly relaxing to something he can act with.

Papyrus stumbles and rolls to a shaky landing, harder than he'd intended but lighter than it was shaping up to be. It feels like the curved areas over his knees scraped a bit, but otherwise there's no new pangs of pain. Just shadows. Memories and fears, loud in his brain.

And, he remembers as song adds to the light, it wasn't so many days ago that he'd felt like this. Like this, and simultaneously not felt like this, and found a way to be patient with himself through the feelings.

He's terrified, he recognizes. This feeling is like being back in the Void again. Maybe because it's power from the same source, he's terrified and a little off his game... but still here, and she's still big and up there, and maybe there's people he can help. The plan's to stab her deep inside with metal, right? Who has that metal?

"Hey!!" He shouts to the people around him. "Who has the iron, do you know?"

The thread of a melody catches on Eruka's fear, making it dissipate enough to find her resolve. She pushes with her will, and somewhere inside the Mother of Invention, the tadpole bomb she's sent in will explode with about the force of a hand grenade -- though it is, of course, still just ordinary magic. Who knows how much good that'll do.

But she's not the only one clinging desperately to the Mother of Invention's side, she can see, and her gaze darts wildly between Peridot and Syrlya, uncertain of how she's supposed to best help here -- if she can help at all. She opts to cling stubbornly to the chassis as she can, for now.

The darkness hits hard as soon as Yugo has Clear Wing deliver Gon's body to the tuck shop, with no way of knowing if the big guy is okay or not. And the feeling of utter helplessness is about as suffocating as the void... why does everything have to drag him back into that darkness?

It brings to light how frightening this all is especially for his scaly partner, who lets out a distressed whine.

But then Samyaza's singing happens and while they're way out of range for San's angelic aura, just because his soul is void-touched doesn't mean it doesn't stir up the heavenly-touched part of it. "Come on Clear Wing! I counted on you when we went up against a True Fae once, we can help everyone to beat one again!"

Onward!

Peridot will manage to summon the iron, but it will burn the whole way, as if the very act of interacting with the metal is enough to burn her spirit. Still, it will arrive in her claws.

Meanwhile, the Mother staggers back a foot as a bomb explodes inside of her chassis - not enough to do major damage, but enough to be annoying and to get her attention. She summons an aura of harsh cold around her, trying to push those going for her weak point away.

Ignatius seems to have been momentarily stunned by the darkness, but he musters his strength and presses forward, attempting to engage the arm that's holding Syrlya. He slashes at the wrist with a blade of hot-cold vapor, adding to the damage already done. The grip on Syrlya will loosen slightly.

"Release him or I will wipe you from this plane!" Ignatius yells. In the same movement, his blade shifts into a bow and arrow again, shooting at her face. The Mother hisses a laugh, turning the cheek as the arrow blow smacks her across the face.

"So protective," she says. "What did these mortals do to you?"

Her remaining arms strike at Ignatius again, concentrating a field of darkness into bladed claws. He is clearly the priority, to the point that she doesn't see the blade in Syrlya's hand slip away. Ignatius raises his arms, summoning a field of magic to catch her attack, though it strains him to hold the arms in place.

"Go!" he shouts.

Gongenzaka's instructions are quick, but immediate when the iron meets Peridot's grasp- "Through the hole at her front, and inward as much as you can," he begins; if it needs to go in any particular direction, he'll include that as well. The priority is still getting the iron IN- so go!

So everyone's just accepting the fact that the Eden rabbit just showed up right the fuck out of nowhere? Strange is entirely confused and is going to need a primer on how exactly what's her name the rabbit got here in the first place...but hey, he's not complaining.

He returns back to his previous strategy of summoning vines and roots to try and trip up the Mother of Invention as best as possible (while also staying far enough out of the way of things like 'falling arms.')

He recovers slowly though his skin and muscle on his left side are damaged to the point he can barely move it. It heals slower than he wants to and he gathers his wits about him. That is until music fills his ears and they raise high into the air, vibrating lightly at the sound of it until they pin back sharply. His hear is too keen, too absolute to the fact that he knows. His whole body knows what this is as the familiar presence echos through him.

It makes his head bow, his knees buckle even as his fingers grasp at the back of his head. It fills his ears, his head, and his body with all of that horrid sound. He knows it is helping so he doesn't voice his complaint even as it amplifies. With the amount of damage he's taken already his body takes a large hit and he staggers as if he was standing on something solid.

"Don't... stop," he husks, his dark matter dissipating from his arm as he just drops from the damned sky.

"I've got it," Rita affirms, taking the iron dagger in hand and using her other to hold on to Lambert as he ascends. The blade, small as it is, feels oddly dangerous, but she's able to hold on to the hilt, at least.

"Peridot might be able to get her," she says to Lambert. "We can't let anything get in her way."

And should she fail... then they'll have to try and get this blade in there.

Herbert's just closed the eggspace again after getting everything he needed in the short term out of it (and after standing inside for a little bit, contemplating not coming out again) when a large robot thing suddenly dumps a limp Gon off in front of the tuck shop before leaving.

Al...right. He. Guesses he has to go get him.

As.

Soon as possible, probably.

Ugh.

He leaves the fake safety of the counter (and lifts the blanket off to tuck under it) before walking over, thankful that the robot at least left Gon outside of that shadow stuff filtering through sections of the tuck shop, and grabs him by a hind leg, as a part he feels is least likely to dislocate during the process. Grip as firm as possible, he starts slowly dragging Gon backwards towards one of the rooms at the rear. Again, this whole structure is absolutely not safe from a 30 foot tall robot, but at least he won't be an obvious target.

Samyaza's song and Ignatius's urging are the last bit of encouragement she needs. The cold coming off the chassis is biting, and the sting of the iron is salt in the wounds she's already taken in her soul, but she's more determined than ever to get this done.

Peridot locks eyes with Eruka briefly. Snarling with determination, she starts to clamber the rest of the way up to the hole, thrusting the vorpal sword towards Eruka with her tail as she goes. "Take this! Help Syrlya!" she pleads, having no way of knowing that the grip on him has lessened by this point. Then she jumps and grabs the edge of the gash in the metal.

She'd be running on fumes by this point if it weren't for the encouragement and support of her allies, and her own vicious, desperate desire to put an end to this place. Gon barely needs to tell her what to do. She doesn't stick her arm in the hole; she hovers the knife, drawing it back before launching it through the gap instead, using Gild's boost to her stabbing abilities to land the target. And once it's in, she just doesn't stop stabbing. She stabs, and stabs, and slashes, and stabs, and slashes, yowling with a fury that she's been sitting on since the day the Huntsman's spear skewered the Ringmaster.

Just as Herbert begins the arduous task of dragging a horse fox dog man into the shop, a giant cat runs in next to him. The cat carries an unconscious Yuya in his mouth, and a pair of demon twins on his back. Rin jumps off and takes the still weightless Yuya from Kuro.

"Dr. West!! Yuya is really hurt! And Yukio got hit by some debris earlier when the bridge collapsed. Please, help them!"

Rin himself doesn't look too bad. He has some dried blood, evidence of injuries that had already healed.

Though, he sees him struggling with Gon's body, and drags it the rest of the way inside for him.

"I'm fine," Yukio snaps, climbing down off of Kuro's back as Rin grabs Yuya and Gon. He's moving stiffly, there's blood down the torn up right side of his suit where bits of flooring embedded into his side and leg, and he's holding his tail stiff and still behind him. But nothing's immediately lethal, and he's placing himself low on the triage list (lower than he should, with the amount of blood he's losing).

"Where do you need my assistance, Dr. West?"

As the iron dagger shoots into the Mother's chest, the reaction is immediate and obvious. One moment, she is grappling her arms with Ignatius, who is desperately trying to ward off her blades. The next, she shudders forward as if she's choking, as if something has caused her heart to rupture.

Which it has.

The iron rockets around inside of her chassis, until Peridot becomes too exhausted by the effort to move it anymore. The Mother bring one of her mechanical arms around, trying to wrench her own chassis open to remove the poison inside, but she can't. Her own hull is too well defended for her to open it so easily. The iron barb remains.

She cries out, losing her balance and tripping over the vines around her legs. She falls backwards, teetering and crashing with station-rattling sound. Her mechanical body seizes. Her arms keep trying to claw at her own chassis, trying to dig out the iron, but there's nothing she can do. She thrashes in pain, his mechanical arms flailing violently, endangering anyone near to her.

Ignatius falls back, panting from exertion, his body cover in wounds that bleed smoky grey vapor, left from her attack. He stares down at her writhing on the ground, obviously disturbed, but still determined.

"We... We have to destroy her... While we have the chance," he says, wide-eyed.

Steven is still in Yuusei's arms when it happens. As they collect his gem, Steven hears the song and starts to feel a bit more in control of himself, leaving him to wonder how the rest of the group is doing. Then, he hears the Mother's screams.

He squirms, pushing forward to see. He can feel his vine still wrapped around her, being trashed by her kicking legs. He can feel her pain, as loud as anything. His eyes go wide.

"Oh no," he breathes, but he can't bring himself to leave Yuusei quite yet. He doesn't know what to do. This... feels horrible.

Beau's not sure if the fear effect was worst at the edges, if that light and song are alleviating it, or if she's just bracing herself better. Could be a mix of all of the above.

Either way, she's picked up speed and confidence, running fast enough to get by the shattered skybridge as something person-shaped falling out of the sky. She veers off that way, just as glad not to be heading towards the Mother of Invention, and finds... that guy with the changing skin color, who she'd roomed with the one night.

"Uh, Tyki, wasn't it...? You need any help?" She crouches down and gets a hand under his shoulder, anyway, with the idea that the answer's yes unless he gets up on his own.

Past the skyway, there's crashing and flailing, the fight presumably getting more intense.

Lambert grunts his affirmation, but his eyes are on the fight, trying to find the best way to circle around and contribute to the attack, Ignatius seems to have her well-occupied, thankfully, but Syrlya still trapped in the Mother of Invention's hand and looking in bad shape, now, that's another matter.

The dragon circles around behind the Mother of Invention and awkwardly tries to latch onto the hand still holding Syrlya, scaly hands trying to pry at the fingers still holding him tight, trying to get her grasp open loose enough to get the Mesmer free. There's a half-assed plan about catching him with his tail if he succeeds at that, though it's unlikely Syrlya's squished innards will appreciate that.

Unfortunately, it's in the middle of that effort that the Mother of Invention straight up keels over and starts flailing around. Caught by surprise, Lambert nearly gets clocked by a flailing arm, but he just redoubles his efforts to wrench the Mother of Invention's fingers open. There's no time to be gentle: as soon as Syrlya is free, Lambert is gonna straight up get his jaws around his body (hope that armor's sturdy) and take off, gliding off to touch down heavily somewhere out of range and dropping Syrlya on the ground.

Edited 2018-11-12 04:08 (UTC)

Once the Mother's arm seems to break, Zangetsu springs off of her, finding a spot in the air to observe -- ready to catch or carry anyone who falls off. He starts to go for Syrlya, to pry those cold fingers from his poor broken body, but Lambert is on the scene and successfully gets him to safety.

The Mother falls, poisoned by the iron. Zangetsu can feel her soul crying out, and it is great. Fuck this bitch for everything she'd done to him, to his allies, to his friends.

But... still...

"YO! HOTPANTS!" he yells at, presumably, Ignatius, "WHAT DO WE DO NOW?"

Syrlya's faintly aware of the efforts to save him alongside Peridot's efforts (and her loud screaming) to murder the Mother of Invention. His fingers twitch, but there's a faint smirk on his expression even as his gaze goes hazy, while the fae starts to scream and topple. It's probably not going to end well for him, but honestly? He's somehow okay with that, as long as they succeed. As long as everyone else makes it out of this.

And then Lambert hauls him out, and there's a choked sound of pain as he's hauled away. It clears his thoughts, anyway, and as he's rolled onto the ground (oh, ow, that hurts) he blinks his eyes rapidly to bring them back to focus to look up at Lambert and Rita.

"K--keep going." He starts trying to push himself up, but he barely moves his arms before he lets out a yelp of pain and flattens back to the ground. "Make... sure she's dead."

Before the folks by the broken skyway even really start to strategize, those in the heat of it follow through with their plans. The iron gets in at the Mother's soul, and she begins thrashing and falls over in a way that very clearly communicates pain... and maybe dying.

Papyrus doesn't loiter on the edge and hope for the best, but moves in closer. With those limbs flailing about, people might get crushed underneath. He can at least watch and try to tug them out of harm's way with blue magic, now that he's not trying to keep himself in the air or her farther away.

...Besides. It feels like... somebody should watch. There's nobody here she hasn't hurt, but he doesn't hate her so much as her choices, and in a little way he wishes she'd taken his idea to make herself less awful, and let them go. But who knows how long it took the Ringmaster, before she started befriending people. It might have taken the Mother thousands and thousands of years of trying before she even got that far.

There's just something horrible about the idea of dying friendless and surrounded by enemies. Even though she brought them all here, and hurt them all, and is the reason they're enemies at all.

Even though she said she didn't mind the way she was, and didn't want to be frail.... She's dying anyway, isn't she.

Edited 2018-11-12 04:21 (UTC)

As Papyrus comes closer, ruminating on the life and choices of the Mother... he will feel something tingle within him, creeping through his bones and nestling in the metal of his armor. He won't be able to put a name to it right then, but maybe he'll understand later. For now, his connection to her feels oddly powerful, considering she's his dying enemy - in a way that goes beyond his own sense of empathy.

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