exsiliumlogs | Cometh the Big Crying Wheel

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Cometh the Big Crying Wheel

Date & Time: Sept 15th
Location: A refurbished castle on the outskirts of Exsilium.
Characters: Anyone at the party!
Summary: Vanadi hosts a party that goes very poorly.
Warnings: Violence, probably! Let a mod know if we should update this.

It’s a lovely night for a party!

The venue at the outskirts of town is, unfortunately, a bit drafty — and actually rather sparsely furnished, as well. In fact, party goers are encouraged to mingle, drink, and enjoy themselves in the courtyard, as the castle itself wasn’t able to be renovated in time, and has proven to be a little bit architecturally unsound. Any explorative guests might find a small hail of dust and pebbles on their heads if they venture too far in — and who knows what else, if they continue on.

But the drinks and snacks both are plentiful and delicious, and the large canvas set up from castle wall to castle wall keeps off the sprinkling rain. The weather could even be described as warmish and pleasant, if one were feeling generous. A group of Exiles plays classic instruments in one corner of the courtyard, having been paid enough to even smile at any Transports that wander near.

All in all, it’s shaping up to be a good night. Until about 10 PM, that is. Come 10 PM, the Misery rolls into town, tearing down the canvas, nullifying powers, and crying corrosive blood everywhere. That’s the cue for all hell to break loose, as the final wave of mind-controlled characters snag their victims and make for the hills — or at least for the UE. The mind-controlled characters will also have the backup of a squadron of 20 of the Masked, the UE's special ops force. The Masked's main goal is to grab those on their list and get away, but they're certainly not above shooting to kill at anyone that gets in their way. They're also highly trained in hand-to-hand combat and physically enhanced by their suits, so they're a good bunch to try to avoid.

But do have a wonderful time until then, won’t you?

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✤[ There is a short space of time, Ruka will realize later, between when misery starts and when the Misery arrives. Its field of influence stretches wide, and reaches far, and before she sees it—before she even knows it exists—it rips the ground out from beneath her, it seizes her heart, it fills her lungs with ice. The anchor around her wrist seems to break from its chain to her heart; that desperate, restraining force vanishes in a moment, releasing her heart with sudden abandon. Like falling into a cold ocean wave from a sunburned heat, the change is so drastic, so sudden that Ruka can't help the pained gasp from escaping her; her whole body freezes and her hands go numb, wine glass slipping from her grip.

It hits the ground and shatters, and it might as well be her heart there smashed to pieces. For almost nine months, she's worn that bracelet, never once removed it. For nine months, her psychometric heart has fed on, relied on the emotions bound up in that small circle of gold to keep her steady, to keep her spine straight and her will strong through everything. Something worth dying for.

For the first time, it's gone, but the dearth of sensation was not so isolated; the dragon that resided within her, the power that supported her every weak limb has flown from her as well. Her arms are still covered, in bracers and long sleeves, but Ruka does not have to pull the fabric back or unfasten the leather covering to know that her birthmark is gone. It's not the first time, but it never becomes familiar.

In this moment, she is frozen—the silent death of wind before the storm, the placid water before the tidal wave. For anyone whose ears picked up the sound of a single breaking glass over all the rest, it might have seemed strange—stranger, still, if they remember this when the Misery destroys the illusion of safety, when all the fury of the United Earth forces make themselves known, when their Transport breathren turn against them, how she reacts before there is anything deserving reaction. ]

✤[ But after, there is so much to do, so much to avoid; without the power of the Crimson Dragon dormant within her, Ruka has no defense against the Misery's corrosive discharge, and with no weapon on her larger than a knife in her purse, she's little threat against soldier or traitor alike. She hides behind walls and fallen debris, movng from one to another to watch the chaos, memorizing faces, actions. Her advantage is that nobody has her on any itenerary for abduction; that so few know her face to begin with. Only one man in all of Exsilium knows what, knows who she is; no one else knows of what power she otherwise holds inside her, what knowledge rattles around in her head. Her heart shakes, lost for its missing anchor, but fear cannot find her. People, on the other hand... ]

✤[ Then again... the night does not start with calamity, does it? There's a whole party prior to that, and even if she's expecting disaster from the start, there is still time before. While the music still plays, Ruka flits from one area to another like a small moth. Her dress hem doesn't reach her knees, and heeled boots only just stand taller than her ankles; the cardigan worn on top seems the only concession to true formality, sleeves down to the wrists, one adorned with that ever-present golden bangle; the only finery to her attire. She's dressed nice enough, but not extravagent, and in the muted colors, she's easy enough to overlook in Exsilium's eternal gloom.

Which is just as well, as far as Ruka's concerned; it means she can eavesdrop with little worry for notice. ]

[When the undeath flies out of her leaving a shell of life in its place, Kanaya's psyche doesn't catch up and recategorize her as an individual worth keeping alive. She's slower like this, and it's awful. Images of other people, important ones, (the first quality is a corollary of the second) flash through her head at the rate a human eye could process, not a bumblebee who sees Earth films as a series of very fast still images. All horned silhouettes at first - but the days since she spoke to one of them are somewhere in the double digits, likewise for all the humans with identifiable symbols, if they're around in the first place.

Even figuring out she has no remaining recourse aside from turning around to run takes her that long. Attempts at forcing legs (seeming scrawnier than svelte without a flattering shimmer) to take footsteps accompany her next round of thoughts about Transports, all of whom are self-sufficient or at least not sylladex-reliant, with their absence from this party recorded already. Only one person passes the cost-benefit analysis of dubious strength with her party presence an open question, and she--

The edge of a table catches Kanaya's arm mid-swing. As the pain smarts, her hand tightens from its already clenched grip; she looks down and sees the communicator she's grasping, unexpectedly dark with gray fingers casting no light on its surface. Her evening gloves hamper her progress in bringing the device to life, but these are motions she's made before manually, if not yet automatic. There might not be a yet anymore, if there ever was, is the thought coming out of order before what she actively tells herself about the necessity of ascertaining another Transport's safety.

She has to take a breath before hitting the call button and running again. Her lungs sting more from the burning, forgotten need for constant oxygenation than the acid itself. No matter what kind of frightened young girl she actually is, she's on Earth, socializing with humans, so she should muster up a decent facade because she is--Just a concerned friend looking out for her. That's all.]

I never thought I'd say this to you of all people but please tell me you're locked up in your respiteblock rather than associating with the rest of us Transports.

[It is only in the moment of silence on the other side of the line that she remembers "just a friend", concerned or not, would be a huge step up from what Haruka has actually permitted her to be. Again, her mind works slower in this state, and it's awful.]

[ She can feel the device's short buzz of vibration in her purse, motion carrying up the strap and into her arm, though it takes her more than a moment to identify the cause. She's distracted with observation, but a second buzz forces her attention. It's only by proxy of being a private call that she answers, but a device like this is so cumbersome to use as a phone.

The screens may have been smaller, but her old communicators were so much more versatile.

She recognizes the voice on the other end instantly, and her initial reaction—unseen by the other party, and probably for the best—is eye rolled skyward. ]

You should be prepared for disappointment.

[She hadn't prepared for disappointment except in the sense that she was halfway through turning her communicator landscape-style to read a text message. It's been over three months since Kanaya has actually heard Haruka's voice, and the twin rewards are less thickness than the plague provided and more digitized tinniness than she ever thought Ms. Takahashi would deign to transmit.

Kanaya's first vocalization is an appalled two-tone full on gasp, hoaa-hh, though a lot of that is just desperation for air. This running in the place of supernatural skimming is an immense drag. Air resistance may not be the worst thing that has ever happened to her considering her improbable life and undeath, but it seriously might be in the top five.]

I'd make that "up here" gesture if we weren't--

[Talking over a communicator and also running for their respective lives!!! It's only now that she fully processes the information: Haruka is in the same situation as her and not the expected degree of safe and sound. Kanaya is shocked enough to crash into something that takes up a lot of space vertically and a little space horizontally. A column? A statue? She Does Not Have Time For This -- she hadn't prepared for disappointment, and it's occurring to her (too late as alwaves) that the act of keeping contact is just impairing the other girl's escape. There Isnt Much Time, she manages not to insipidly declare as she starts up running once more.]

[ Running? That's for people who are actually targets of calamity and destruction. And while Ruka is used to that being the case for her, she's seen too many soldiers see her and promptly ignore her for concern on that regard to light her heart with fear.

There was fighting, chaos, but for reasons she didn't yet understand, it wouldn't come for her. Not this day.

To contrast Kanaya's lack of breath, Ruka's own voice is steady, as close to calm as she can manage with a wary eye tracking the trajectory of the Misery. ]

You should probably get out of here. It's affected you, hasn't it? [ Now that she thought about it... while she knew that it was most probable that her powers had been taken as part of a widespread effort, rather than individual targeting, something like that would affect someone like Kanaya much more intensely.

She will never forget his human face. ]

Worse than you're used to.

I need to get out of here??

[It's true, technically, but that implies she needs things for herself. Then again, Haruka's the one who wants her to develop a slightly less pathetic abasing worldview, isn't she? Kind of like how Kanaya's the one who actually tries to check on her welfare even at a time like this. Such a shame they haven't found an amenable way to split the difference and now quite possibly never will.]

No, you do!! [So Kanaya thinks, because there are a lot of connections that she hasn't made. She has no idea about the radius aspect of the Misery, and even though she sees other sudden transformations that offer a rough form of the power loss conjecture, the powered pattern in the kidnappings themselves has not dawned on her, hence her urgency about the safety of an allegedly physically weak and perfectly normal girl.]

They're going to take me away with them, possibly in a body bag, that's pretty much a given at this point. They've done their work on me already, I'm a tenth perigee's eve wax figure at this point--

[Left in a haunted hive never to be seen again. It's a good thing Ruka is so good at decoding her dialect, she'll miss that when-- Right. There's a reason she made this call.] And sorry. Sorry is another thing that I am.

Is now really the time for that? [ No, says the exasperation in her raised voice, moving now for a more secure cover for her back, distracted as she is now with the phone call. ] If you're not dead yet, then get out of their crosshairs.

Well--

[Though she trips over the back of a collapsed chair right then, at least there are advantages to falling flat on her face: Already on her stomach, she crawls under a buffet table, temporarily hidden by the floor-length tablecloth.]

The prevailing forecast is that there won't be any other time, period, [and she wants to properly say good-bye to someone before they part ways just once in her sorry excuse for a life, but this isn't (nothing ever is) about her] so...

[Useful, useful. Come on, gray girl, think of something useful.] You know. When you go out of here, turning left has more overhangs, but turning right has more alleyways.

[ If she had the hands for it, there would be heels hard pressed against her eyes for frustration—well, eye and socket, anyway.

Idiot, idiot. ]

You know. They're not taking you out in a body bag. Not unless you put yourself in one, that is. If they want to take you, they want to take you alive.

[ Remember all that talk about analyzing every aspect of U.E. and Initiative motives at the drop of a hat?

Yeah. ]

[Her respiration is irregular and ragged as she catches herself, uncomfortably positioned underneath this nutrition access plateau, actually seriously coming to terms with the concept of being grubnapped a second time. Her toes are always dipped in this ocean of abduction-angst; now she feels the waves come in, crash against her skin, and interfere with her breathing.

There is no doubt in Kanaya's mind that the other party in this conversation is the correct one. Haruka almost unavoidably can lie sometimes, sure, but she's able to be wrong (factually, if not morally) about as well as she's able to hit a target in training.]

Were you... [More words have to wait just a little longer on account of oxygen. Wow, is this making her regret engaging a girl on a respirator in conversation.] Disarmed by that thing too, or are its effects only supernatural? [The hoops she'll jump through to make herself - I, me, my - disappear from a sentence.]

I have nothing it could have taken from me, of course.

[ The lie, as easy as a fact; she doesn't know for certain what exactly is causing the removal of powers, or to what extent, but Ruka is nothing if not practiced in matters similar to these. As she told the Soldier, if the patterns were the same, she would find them. She can extrapolate. ]

I've only had a little while to observe, but it seems to affect supernatural abilities, and, I assume the Initiative Weapons, as well. [ Because what good was disabling the one, and not the other? No good at all, as far as she could determine. ] And, aside from that, they're not after everyone here. The decoys and the soldiers, I mean; it doesn't seem like they are... at the very least, they're prioritizing.

Oh, that makes sense. [In response to the first part, that is: Why would a weak-hearted humanist girl drag her bow and quiver to a party?

The prioritization, though... that's something she hasn't been as capable of noticing, with her focus where it has been. Pressing her luck, she raises the tablecloth by the hem to take a look at the carnage outside. And, what do you know, once again Haruka is right.

She forces herself to drop the fabric sooner than she wants to, lest she give into the impulse to scout the crowd for a peerless fashionable brunette. A part of her laments that this, their last conversation, couldn't have been face to face. What part of her that is exactly, hard to tell in this heavily effected body. Usually, the tug Haruka's heart exerts on Kanaya's, irrational desires like these that are the signs of the human emotion called friendship (or the symptoms of the troll disease so-named, but that's for cases of a requited nature), makes itself known to her consciously in between two places: Her throat, the same burn as around anybody with enough blood; and her mind, where Haruka has a singular status as sovereign. Without the ever-present desire to drink providing motivation... why is the pure meeting of minds not enough? It doesn't matter. She's asking too much.

Her next words are not delayed as a result of this lamentation, but they do have a moderate mournful taint.]

I suppose that for the same reasons your abduction was a matter of concern to me, I should believe your claims to personal safety. [That's a little too ambiguous, isn't it? Even though the other meaning is entirely true, for Haruka's sake she has to tack on some pretense of referring exclusively to her strategic prowess.] Down to the decoys themselves.

Well, I can't say I'm much of an attractive target, unless their only concern is ease of transport.

[ Was that a pun? Shit.
And is that Misery, splattering caustic fluid far-flung from its physical form? Double shit. Her arms that cross in front of her catch the entirety of the acid; she does not have her shields, but never has Ruka been more glad about her leather bracers than now.

Regardless, this calls for changing locations post-haste; the background cacophony Kanaya receives on her end gets louder both for the motions of defense as well as retreat. ]

You'd be a much higher priority.

[An involuntary smile tugs her lips at the wordplay. Human irony looks - er, sounds - so good on her, the least easy (most difficult) transport of them all. By contrast, the motion of Kanaya's mouth smudges her lipstick. So there's a bright side to the facelessness of the phone situation after all.

Of all the times for her to be maybe even the most important for once, huh? Though it goes without saying that Ruka speaks purely from a tactical perspective.

The smile doesn't last very long.]

If that's the case and my original worries would better be reversed... [If Haruka is safe enough here and Kanaya should run... Behind her, a stray drop of acid has eaten through fabric and table both.

Game theory clearly states Kanaya should hang up and make a break for it, freeing herself and leaving Haruka less distracted.] Then I guess I'll have to go soon. [But she's still in shelter for now and her sense of priority demands she add:] --In the incredibly unlikely circumstance that you're still here when June comes around again and Painwheel still lives in Unit 505, I'm pretty sure she'll let you in for your gift.

Extremely unlikely.

[ There's a heavy weight of dread that settles within her with those words. After all, not one person who arrived in the City before her, or even in the long months after, expected to be there anywhere near as long as one year.

Would this simply be how her life continued? Exsilium and the City were not alone in their abductions...

But there was no use thinking about something like that now. ]

Go.

[Kanaya's heart pounds in her chest - so inconvenient, the natural made newly unfamiliar by her previous sparklepire sabbatical. Her throat thickens, a light coating of jade-tainted salt water pricks at her eyes, and on some distant ignored level she's painfully thirsty for plain old water. She might not be a rainbow drinker hypervulnerable to fire anymore, but it's still the least pleasant sensation type of all to her, eating away at her--

Wait. That might actually just be the literal Misery acid at work. Okay, yeah, she really has to get out of here.]

Goodbye, Haruka.

[The click sounds to her distinctly like a troll guillotine's blade.]

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Cometh the Big Crying Wheel

open, also late :c

Fashionable to a fault

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They've both used well as interjection without nauticalization, they're doing well on the pun front

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