Cometh the Big Crying Wheel

[initiates]

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?

Comments

[heartsink]

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.

[speakveryclearly]

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.

[heartsink]

[ 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. ]

[speakveryclearly]

[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.]

[heartsink]

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.

[speakveryclearly]

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.

[heartsink]

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.

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

[speakveryclearly]

[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.

[heartsink]

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.

[speakveryclearly]

[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.]