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

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.

As the Mother of Invention falls, Strange can't help but grin in triumph. He stops his magic, gets back to his feet, and jogs closer towards the main group, wincing as his arm occasionally gets jostled. He doesn't exactly know what's hurt the Mother of Invention though with all that pain? Probably iron.

Strange gets within range of Ignatius in order to hear his words. Destroy her? Good. The Ringmaster once told him that it was a bad idea to kill any other fae. Fat lot of good that did her. After being tortured, mutilated, and maimed, Strange doesn't feel any sympathy for the Mother of Invention at the moment. He's panting as he approaches, a bit out of breath thanks to running with a broken arm.

"If nobody else does it, I will. After all, I'm almost as much Miracle as man at this point." He thinks. Strange hasn't exactly had enough time to analyze his interior composition. He comes to a stop, standing right next to Ignatius. "Surely that should help."

But he's not doing anything until Ignatius gives him the say so.

She keeps attacking for as long as she can, but this is iron that she's trying to control here. Peridot keeps her grip on it until her soul can't take any more, and she all but blacks out from exhaustion and the spiritual pain.

Unfortunately, that means she's nowhere near aware enough of her surroundings to avoid the Mother's hand when it comes around to claw at her own chassis. It basically bludgeons her in the process, slapping her off and sending her rocketing all the way down to the floor where she lands in a heap. She is definitely in the line of fire for those flailing limbs.

Oh...good. Now Herbert can stop focussing on dragging an unconscious weight around and ~~go back and hide under the counter~~ check on someone who actually needs his help. Which includes Yukio, who he manages to give an unimpressed look before he catches a sideways glimpse of the MoI flailing around through the wall and turns to stare, briefly.

"Hm," he says, unhelpfully, and then turns back to Yukio. "I need you to sit down and explain to your brother the proper care and cleaning of your injuries--use! Localised anaesthetic, you're no good to me if you pass out. We can't afford to waste our very limited supplies on you making your injuries worse. I'll deal with Yuya." And he turns around to do that, absolutely ignoring any protests to crouch over Yuya and carefully check his shoulder.

Eruka doesn't really have a lot of time to process Peridot's order. She manages to clutch at the sword at it's thrust at her with slightly frozen-feeling fingers, the cold aura the Mother of Invention's used to try to blast them off affecting her slime's composition, and her eyes about bug out at Peridot's order. Save him? What does she look like, a fighter?! She doesn't have time to whine about it before the gem goes full Rambo on the Mother of Invention's insides, though, and she can't stay here clinging forever.

Of course, then the Mother of Invention begins to topple and she shrieks as one of those hands comes swinging for her head, slapping ineffectually at the chassis. Fae, apparently, don't go down easy. She teleports away, still clutching the sword Peridot's passed to her tightly, and where she ends up is not too far from Ignatius, actually.

Eruka recognizes dying throes when she sees them, but she has no sympathy for the Mother of Invention, so where she stands is pretty clear.

"We need to kill her! If not, she'll be back!" Eruka wails, completely and totally projecting on the situation at hand from her own experience. Her hands are shaking so hard, the sword looks like it's wobbling.

Something about standing and watching makes Papyrus shiver uncomfortably, an odd feeling he can't quite name. Maybe it's just how the metal on the outside feels, when cold sweat tries to cover his bones. It's not really a surprise, though, this is a thoroughly discomforting experience.

He's not so distracted by the odd feelings to miss that streak of green go flying near the flailing limbs, at least, and gestures emphatically to put extra power into pulling the gem out of danger.

Yukio is trying to ignore the pain of his injuries, but then West tells him off and ignores him. There isn't time for this, there isn't time to wait for anesthesia to kick in and Rin to pull and pick and irrigate the gravel out of his injuries. He grits his teeth and turns to Rin, clearly angry and in pain.

"Nii-san, do you have full control of your flames?" Without waiting for an answer, he launches into his plan, with a gesture at his side. It's not any worse than what Rin did to him, when he walked into the med tent and said 'I want you to take these crappy blind eyes out of my head'. "I need you to burn this clean. Just the contaminants. Do it quickly so I can go help Dr. West."

Rin can probably do this, he's done it before, just burned away clothes and left flesh untouched.

Tyki's down in a few short seconds, his Dark Matter the only thing keeping him alive as it fights viciously within his body. Were he at 0% power right now he would be dead out of sheer bad luck. If anything, he's still conscious given that opposition of two forces fighting themselves.

He feels a hand on his shoulder and glances up at the face of an ang- oh wait, no, it's just Beau. He can hear her and he lazily looks at her towards the battle in the distance. He wants to watch. He needs to watch.

"Miss Beauregard... I would appreciate some assistance even if it is towards the nearest wall."

Rin grins a little when Dr. West puts Yukio's arrogance where it belongs. But the smile is gone as soon as he looks back at Yukio, his feeling of vindication short-lived.

"Eh? Just the debris...? Mmmm... I should be able to do it, no problem."

He thinks, anyway. He hasn't used his powers in a week! Either way, he helps Yukio into a sitting position so he can better visualize the injury. His flames come easier with his heart exposed, so he unsheathes Kurikara and sets the flaming sword to one side, the blade not even leaving scorch marks on the floor. Rin's form changes accordingly, his ears longer and his flame-horns burning over his eyes.

"Ok, here goes..." Rin holds his hands over the injury and focuses, hard. He breaks a sweat and bites his lower lip. Then, Yukio's injured leg is engulfed in blue fire. His clothes, his skin, none of that burns. But instead of just turning into ash, the debris is fairly resistant to his fire. Stupid winter court magic. But, if nothing else, the warmth of Rin's flames help chase off some of that coldness from the smog.

"Nnngh... I can do it, but it's going to take a bit... hold tight, ok? It might get a bit hot."

Everyone seems to be looking to him for direction for reasons he doesn't really understand, so Ignatius tries to shake off the disquiet rising up inside of him in order to pursue a coherent direction. He guesses he probably knows more about faerie soul death than anyone else.

"We need to kill her fully," he says, "and then we need to raze everything that remains. Her soul will break apart, and we will have to destroy everything that's left. That's assuming she doesn't have pieces of herself contained in other places within Polaris..."

Ignatius obviously takes no joy in this - he would like it if she stopped screaming. With her grounded and slowly dying of iron poisoning, though, it's much easier to destroy her body. He summons a glowing blade, channeling as much of his disturbing new power into it as he can muster. Then, he leaps down onto her chest, piercing the blade through the same hole the iron knife entered.

He unleashes his strength through the blade, filling her chassis from the inside out. Her seams begin to leak white fire, yet her screams seem to have gone silent. There's something oddly peaceful about the expression on her face as Ignatius tears her apart. It's only in her final moments that she speaks.

"You've come so far," she breathes, her mechanical arms mostly falling limp. "All of you... the most fascinating... study yet. I only... wish I could S-^see more. Learn more. ^D-Do mo_re..."

Her voice trails off with a mechanical drop.

"Her soul will dissipate now," Ignatius explains, flatly. "We must destroy it all." Bit of bluish soul will float from the burning chassis. "Hit the body with everything you have."

Yukio hates those blue flames, but they're working (slowly, but more quickly than pulling the rubble out with tweezers would) to clean the injury. He just grits his teeth and turns his attention to his tail. It caught the edge of the coldfire blast, and the burn is worse than he thought.

"Just hurry up." There are still explosions and shouts and Yukio is doing absolutely nothing. He pulls a half-empty healing draught out of the bag he's carrying with him, and waits. As soon as Rin's done burning the rubble out (and it hurts, it's too warm and too hot and too blue) he'll down that and go back to helping West deal with the injured.

Zangetsu watches the Mother succumb to her injuries with sadistic glee. Good. Now, to make sure she stays dead. He intends to destroy the soul fragments floating away, and he starts going after them with his sword, cloaked in his Hollow energy. There’s plenty of others around to finish off the chassis.

Rita watches from atop Lambert's back as the Mother seems to break down.

At Ignatius's instruction, she'll nod firmly. "Got it. Let's finish this."

She'll raise a hand - the one not holding the dagger - and conjures a mass of pale fire above it. Wherever she sees that soul-essence, she blasts it with magic flames, while relying on Lambert to take her closer.

Miss Beauregard, ugh. Beau's expression twists at the unexpectedly mannerly greeting, from this guy who's probably concussed... Maybe that's it, maybe he's just concussed, because she sure hasn't done anything to make herself look ladylike today.

"You look pretty pummeled, man, but if you want to stick around..."

She helps haul him to his feet, glancing back towards the dwindling sounds. It looks like the Mother's down after all, some kind of bullshit winning strategy pulled out of their collective asses. Maybe it's safe for this guy to sit against a wall and watch, waiting comfortably for help to come to him instead.

"Yeah, okay. If you don't mind being where more enemies might come out, I can haul you to that brand new door to the farm. Or we can sit you against that piece of broken sky bridge over there. Just, don't take too long to decide, or I'll pick where to haul you."

The lizard boy and his dragon are here. It's pretty unsettling that fae murder has to turn out this way, but the two help with blasting the soul fragments as well- letting loose twin beams of plasma.

(Meanwhile the dragon actually has a cool new gem stuck to their sternum. It starts blinking in a countdown sort of manner.)

Now that the darkness effects are fading, Sans will let his aura die down to something more manageable. More specifically, he's looking for Papyrus in the crowd, trying to visually confirm that he's okay. He ends up spotting him tugging people out of the way of the Mother, and drifts down closer to meet the group.

Fire guys says to destroy the body, and Sans is completely willing to help. He summons up three of his blasters and channels his angelic and monster magic through them, blasting the spaces where souls bits seem to be emerging. Funny, seeing something like this on a bigger scale. Yet, no matter how much razing they do, it doesn't feel like this could be fully over.

He doesn't specifically enjoy the process, nor does it bother him. Really, he just feels sort of numb. What goes around comes around, he guesses.

Ignatius said to hit the body with everything they have, that's what Strange is focusing on. He focuses his magic on the already burning chassis, keeping the fire burning hot and adding his own flames to the mix.

For all that he wanted to wanted to kill the Mother and get the hell out of here, Strange is oddly quiet during this endeavor.

"You're not the boss of me," Lambert tells Syrlya, in a low rumble. As the Mother of Invention starts to flail around, thankfully, they're not in the immediate radius. Peridot is, though, and it's a good long worried moment for Lambert until he sees Papyrus's magic whisk her safely away.

There are probably others who can help Syrlya more than Lambert can right now, largely on account of having opposable thumbs and shit. Ignatius probably has the right idea, though as Lambert scans the field, his eye catches on the rabbit and he frowns.

"No sign of Gild," he tells Syrlya for his benefit, since his line of sight on the ground is all of jack and shit right now. "Try not to die until we take care of this, will you?"

With that, off he goes, waddling and tail swinging. He pours as much of his dragon breath over the Mother of Invention's chassis as he can to support Rita's magical attacks, focusing particularly on areas with ripped-off limbs and other damage in the hope of weakening the structure further with heat.

"The broken section is fine," he says outloud, trying to move a little to lean his back against something. He has to see this to the end. With that he'll mostly be quiet for the rest of the time to observe.

His hand opens to allow a few hundred Tease to flit into the air mostly to rush off in the direction of the soul fragments, firing large bursts of Dark Matter through them. Unlike his Noah body, they aren't affected by any light aura or song. They are just here to destroy with large bursts of energy.

"Ha." Syrlya's expression twists into a crooked smirk, which is about the most motion he can manage without causing more pain. While Lambert scans the field he tests his body again and flinches.

"I'm--not dying," he hisses between teeth. "It's fine."

And when Lambert turns to go, he closes his eyes and lets out a weary breath. Okay, it's not really fine, but he'd rather they not fail to kill the Mother of Invention worrying about bones they can't fix immediately anyway.

Peridot will be grateful for the save whenever she manages to regain her senses. For right now though, she doesn't look so hot. She basically ragdolls for the whole distance over to Papyrus, a pained expression marring her features. She isn't unconscious but she doesn't seem particularly aware of her surroundings either, and just lays in a limp heap wherever she happens to get pulled to, the edges of her form flickering occasionally.

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