sixthiterationlogs | [MINGLE] One-Man Show

[OOC: Please see below for divided sublevels.]

[OOC: Post your top levels below guys! Link to our plotting comment for ease of find.]

Edited 2019-01-24 22:43 (UTC)

[ before he can figure out what in god's honest hell is going on here, they're all watching a fucking video of his life play out. miller looks offended, while at the same time wondering: does my hair really look like that...? it's actually longer and rattier now after four months on a killer space station so, you're welcome. his only commentary is, ]

This was right before I stole it.

[ that's right he stole a mormon temple. WHAT. wanna go??? ]

Edited 2019-01-24 23:41 (UTC)

[Vision toplevels are closed to the group. Order for group visions: Billy, then Nida, then Jason.]

Edited 2019-01-25 00:29 (UTC)

Edited 2019-01-25 02:51 (UTC)

[Order for group visions: John Druitt, Ezio Auditore, Desmond Miles]

The scene that unfolds around them is painfully familiar in the most literal sense, and Loki goes entirely still as he watches himself receive word of his mother’s death, his teeth clenched tightly enough to make his jaw ache as the video of himself plays out the carefully calm way he stands, the way he turns to hide the riptide of emotions playing across his features, before energy explodes from him in a wave that upturns the furniture in his cell.

What follows only worsens in dramatic degrees and, truly, Loki has only the dimmest recollection of the way he destroys anything and everything he can reach. Blind with rage, with grief, and it’s painted across every inch of his body as the chair he hurls shatters against the far wall in a burst of wood fragments, as decanters explode in a shower of wine and glass, as he tears at the books piled for his pleasure until nothing but parchment scrap remains. Everything his mother had insisted that he have, every kindness and comfort she tried to grant to him regardless of the crimes he’d committed, and Loki watches himself rip the world around him to shreds like some wild beast beyond reason as if it would somehow stave off the wetness Loki knows clings to his eyelashes. Until—

Until Loki watches himself slump against a filthy wall, sliding down it until he settles upon the floor like a shadow of the man he’d been only moments before, chest heaving in desperate breaths on the very edge of panic, and Loki turns away before he has to watch himself let go of the wretched, anguished scream torn from his throat as if it could possibly stop the way it rings in his ears even after the video cuts out.

The scrubs at least work well for nightclothes, and Joshua is glad for that. The fireplace keeps the room less than frigid, but not warm enough. In that moment though, finding himself standing in the middle of a town, one that he knows well, and yet thought long behind them.

The scent of gunpowder is so thick, a low, sickly haze that had been second nature to his life and is now a scent that causes his gut to twist up. He thinks for a minute of the day that they had sent a message to Bogue by killing his men in Rose Creek. Then he sees himself and Chisolm hunkered down beside a wall. They're talking, and Joshua stares at himself, at a him that he's never been. Not that he remembers. A him that is bleeding, gripping his side to try and staunch the flow of blood, and he realizes what he's here for. This isn't anything he's ever lived through, and he's not going to live through it now.

Watching as Faraday, as he, races for Jack and pulls himself up onto the horse's back, the horse he had come all this way to win back. Chisolm covers him, firing rapidly, and he whips the horse hard, leaning down low over Jack's neck, spurring him on.

Above where he still stands Joshua hears a shout, a yell. Looking up and seeing glimpses of Billy and Goodnight from the church steeple. All around him there is shouting, gun shots, the smell of smoke from the building burning, burning over where the children were hidden. It all comes together for him in an instant. Even as he races across the plain, bullets flying all around him, watching as his body jerks from a bullet, and he knows. He's already dying. He was dying when he got on Jack's back, and he won't let everyone else die with him. For the first time in his life he's doing the right thing, and to save the men he had ridden into this town with, and who would ride out without him.

Except not all of them would.

Seeing the glint of sun on the Gatling gun as it was turned, reoriented, and then he isn't even aware he's screaming. Screaming as wood and dirt and bullets rain down around him, and he watches as Goodie and Billy die trying to protect him. Together, having come here with them and now never leaving.

The gun, that horrific, monstrous gun, stops. The silence is almost more deafening than the hundreds of bullets that had torn apart a church already destroyed by fire. Turning, feeling as if he's underwater as he watches himself fall from Jack, tumbling into the dry brush and red dirt as his horse, the horses of men dead in the field behind him, rush away. Even then he's pushing to his feet. Another bullet. Crumpling. Even from the distance it's as if he's right there, watching as he pulls out one last cigarette, tries to light it. A light offer. The mercy of a gun. Watching himself fall over, face first into dirt, and he knows. He knows in that moment exactly what is going to happen. Knowing what it is he would have done in that moment.

"I've always wanted to blow something up," he mutters, watching as they try and scurry away, but it's too late. Dirt and metal and body parts burst outwards, the Gatling gun gone. And so is he.

She opened her eyes to a place that was absolutely not the house she had claimed after arriving through the fountain, and it took all of her control not to roll her eyes. She barely had time to ask herself what now before the memory of her first actual death began to play. Not a flashback, but happening all around her. She knew what she was seeing right away, and her annoyance only grew. There were more painful memories in her past than this, but this had been a dark turning point for her.

She barely moved as she watched herself say goodbye to Laurel. That was the most painful part. Laurel. Her big sister, alive. Happy, but about to watch Sara fall to her death.

Thea emptied the arrows into her, Sara had only been confused by her appearance there. Then it was over. Had she already been dead when she fell off the roof? She couldn't remember hitting her head on the trashcan, but she could remember Laurel crying. She'd imagined what it had looked like, and it was all pretty much meeting her imagination.

When it was over she found that she wasn't in this unfamiliar area alone. There were three other people, and she had to assume they had all been able viewers of her death.

"Not a zombie. If anyones concerned." Her resurrection had been just as rough, but at least it didn't look like that was next on the viewing screen. Or so she hoped.

With the winter cold, the hike back to the village where he lives gets longer and longer, so the night when everything in the village goes oddly, he is actually asleep in the butcher shop which brings with it one advantage. He's dressed. Of course he comes to, shaking off the sleep not because the temperature has suddenly dropped, but because he can hear his own voice. Loud, echoing in his ears, making him realize he's no longer in the butcher shop, or in the village that is becoming home.

He's back in Purgatory.

Laying on his back, the side of his face and head scorched, torn open, bleeding from the grenade blast that had knocked him down. It's only because of those wounds that he realizes when this is, why he can't remember it. Because for him, this has never happened. This is what happened after that video he'd seen previously when Willa had left him to die, and then been killed herself. Now it's his turn.

Eyes wild, panicked, the look of an animal cornered and fighting for their life. Except he's not. He's screaming, demanding that Wynonna do it, that she shoot him. Reaching up and taking hold of Peacemaker's barrel, the gun glowing, preparing to return another revenant to Hell. In that moment though, Hell is not in Bobo's card.

Even as he begs, demanded that she do it because swans mate for life, there is another voice, and the world goes sideways in a way that he could never have imagined. Standing there watching it all and a cold shudder goes through Bobo as Black Badge steps in, taking over. More than that, taking what they've wanted for so long. A revenant.

Cuffing him, hauling Bobo screaming and snarling into the back of a transport truck. Even the Bobo watching barely hears Wynonna's words, the way she's fighting against what they're doing. Arguing for the same reason that Bobo stands there, stunned, watching it all and knowing what's to come. His future is worse than he might have imagined. Dying, returned to Hell, that is one thing. Spending the rest of whatever existence he might have in horrific pain for every second of every day as the curse in his body tries to tear him apart for violating the curse.

The moment they take him out of the Ghost River Triangle, over that line, sanity will become overrated, and the pain he feels emotionally at being abandoned by the woman that he loves will be nothing compared to the power of a curse that has kept him alive for well over a century punishing him for leaving his prison.

Bobo watching as the vehicle passes the line. Dolls screaming, knowing what's coming. Bobo laughing, hysterical, his mind losing it's hold on sanity as he feels the line coming closer, feeling the pain that he caused so many revenants when he staked them out at the border.

His gaze meeting Wynonna's, so far away, another world, and yet her words so clear. Asking about the one person that meant the world to both of them, the woman that Bobo would have died for and that she had lost so many years ago because of him. And he nods, agreeing, telling her what she needs to hear. He kidnapped her, he fell in love with the woman he held prisoner, who hadn't loved him because of Stockholm Syndrome, but because she was using him as she had done until the last minutes before her death.

Once more Peacemaker glows, coming to life in the hands of the heir, and then there is peace. For a moment until Hell holds him once more, Bobo in the vision knew peace.

And Bobo watching saw the pit beneath him open up, flames rising up, lapping at the truck, lapping at Dolls and yet not burning him, and Bobo burned in the flames, burned by the very fires of Hell as they welcomed him back home once more.

One moment he had been making his way to the town hall to look over the patrol schedule and see if he needed to add himself to any routes. The next, he found himself... vaguely ill, disoriented, and surrounded by--

Two of these, he knew. He was set slightly on edge, but he knew them all the same. Zevran was there, warmly dressed and looking ready. Takashi, however, was less dressed, his arms bare.

The last, clad in a coat over the thin clothes everyone arrived in - that was the one he did not know. Looking between all of them, his mind immediately began searching for some sort of connective thread. The one between the three of them was obvious, but this last young man - he was the obstacle to his understanding. But just as he was about to reach to remove his robe and offer it to Shiro, to ask this young man who he was, the world... changed.

Scouting

This is, more or less, the same as he'd done during the fifth blight. Kept an eye out for dangers in front of the group and reported back- or dispatched them as needed. Considering how it is these foxes enjoy hunting in packs and their tactics? Zevran does what he can to navigate around them, avoiding direct confrontation where he can. There are too many that have no weapons to make it a worthwhile endeavor- no matter how much another fur might help those of their number with no coat for warmth or how much another fight might warm is blood from the shocked stillness of his reminder-

It is better to not.

He is quiet, calm, and curt if spoken to, only doubling back to report movement or recommend a change of course. He has a job, here, and he will see it done.

Keeping Watch

When night falls and camp is made, meals partaken and headcounts finished, Zevran takes to a vantage. Not so far from Camp as to be out of sight (most seem tense about the idea after vanishing so abruptly) but not so close as to be useless. Legs tucked under him, ears pricked, eyes shining in the evening light much like a cat's, he minds the perimeter. Keeps watch for predators slinking in through the grass, for signs of any that might disturb their number. He'll trade out to find his own place to sleep- eventually. For now as he is trained, as he is armed? It feels right for him to put in the work.

He can always rest later.

Gaius had been awake since dawn, as was his habit, so he was at least dressed when he was suddenly transported. He's heard of this happening before, but it's never happened to him until now. One moment, he is finishing up his usual morning prayers, the next he is ... not, and he doesn't know where he is. He only has time to recognize that he's with someone else, the young woman called Sam, before he finds himself once again seemingly in Rome.

It's not the first time that's happened, but it is the first time he's been transported somewhere first. Before, he'd been walking through the village when the world changed around him. Here, it's like he's been brought here just to see Rome again. He recognizes the room; it's his home in Rome, the house he'd grown up in, the house his brother had lived in until his death. It's the atrium, a wide, high room with an opening in the ceiling and below it, a small pool in the floor.

Footsteps sound from one side, and a man comes in, wearing in a toga and the purple-edged tunic of the equestrian class. He's a few years younger now that Gaius is, but a family resemblance is clear in the jaw, in the proud carriage of the head and shoulders. It's Tiberius, his brother, as clear as he had been the last time Gaius saw him alive.

And he knows what this is. This is a dream that he's had before.

"Gaius!" he calls, across the room, then steps closer. "Gaius, why do you wait?" he asks, holding his hands out in supplication.

"You cannot escape. One life and one death is appointed for us both, to spend the one and meet the other in the service of the people."

His prophecy spoken, Tiberius fades from view, and the atrium is once again empty, before it disappears and the scene changes.

A fox.

Vulpes vulpes? Vulpes rueppellii? He'd only caught a glimpse of the creature, but its shape and coloration didn't match any species data stored on file. Not to mention its size. Another mutated freak, then—like the 'cat' at Stark's forge.

Not that the classification mattered. Not as much as the shout of warning that had gone up from one of the humans as it drew near. Not as much as the sharp, mocking, bark that had emerged from the animal itself. Or the sensation of falling it triggered. Half-familiar faces were replaced by a blur of trees, a flash of movement—

—and water, rock-filled and icy, as Connor lands in a frigid stream.

Teleportation is an impossibility. That hadn't stopped it from happening twice in the last day, disrupting every theory he'd half-formed about his theft in the process. The android's LED blinks sharp and quick, mouth pressed to a thin line as he drags himself to shore. It's an arduous process, made worse by water-logged clothing and plant-slicked rocks. By the time he finally trudges up onto the snowy bank, he's working to repress a shiver.

Colder temperatures. A scattered maze of rocks and trees. The unfamiliar waterway. The terrain around him is still mountainous, but... is this even the same range? Connor stills, listening hard for the group he'd traveled with. For any signs of nearby life.

"...Shit."

No one, and nothing.

Outside the Temple, Shortly After Visions End

It feels a little like waking from a series of extremely vivid dreams, or that weird feeling after you walk out of a movie theatre into the blaring sun. He doesn't know what to expect outside those walls, and the mountaintop view is breathtaking- and he's sure the cold would be too, were he not dressed warmly on top of being covered in fur.

He thinks he can hear other people, and while he doesn't go far from the teenagers he was brought here with, keeping them if not in his line of sight, at least keeping track of where they are- or trying to, he does break off from them to investigate the sounds.

It's a long way down

What he wouldn't give to have his powers back. He'd even settle for his wall-crawling, to allow him better footing, especially in areas where the decline toward the base of the mountain is steep- especially when his foot finds a loose rock, and even the extra balance afforded by his tail sends him skidding down it for a good 20-30 feet.

He doesn't get up right away. The fall puts him far enough ahead of the people he's with that it gives him a few seconds alone to compose himself- and to fight the feeling of being utterly useless.

Her only intention after being an audience again to seeing her death play out had been to get the hell out and away. To get back to the warm comfort of her house, the privacy away from the three extra pairs of eyes that’d been so privileged to see how her life had ended. Lucy had no idea where anyone was or what they were planning, she’d bolted soon after she’d walked away from the group and the shrine. She couldn’t have cared less, all she wanted to do was to put as much distance between her and Desmond as possible. For as long as she could and for how hard she could push herself, Lucy ran. All she had was the path before her. Her steps in the snow would show where she walked and where she’d stumbled, where she’d fallen to her hands and knees to dry heave. And then her steps were picking up, stretched out in her strides. On and off she’d stop to catch her breath, to fight the stitch in her side that clearly showed she wasn’t cut out for being pushed this hard yet with the wound still healing, a month and a half later.

How long had she been running? An hour? Two? All Lucy cared about was being alone at this point. Not talking to anyone, not having to explain anything, especially not to Ezio.

What did it mean? Why did they have to keep going through that? Here she thought things could get past it, that maybe here the two of them could put it behind them and actually live something of a normal life. They could be happy. They could forgive one another. There was no need to choose sides—freedom was achievable. They had freedom from the ties that would’ve otherwise kept them rooted.

Whatever was left of daylight was beginning to slip away. The temperatures would soon drop. She was alone as she had no idea how long it would take to get back to the village, or if it even existed now. Setting up camp would be a good idea, and yet her legs kept going, she kept running. Her lungs were protesting, she could feel the sweat between her shoulder blades, at the hollow of her throat. She was certainly dressed for the weather, her peacoat underneath a bulkier winter jacket, thick boots, but to be out running in said layers, she was risking possibly catching a cold.

Now was as good a time as any to stop. Considerable distance had been put between her and the shrine, though Lucy felt it wouldn’t be enough. She staggered off to the side, grasped the rough bark of a tree trunk, gasping for breath as she moved behind it to lean against it. She couldn’t quite remember a time in her life where she’d run so hard, covered so much ground. Her right cheek stung sharply, ached, made it difficult to fully open her eye without wanting to wince. Reaching up she gingerly felt over it, looking at her fingers and seeing blood. Vaguely she did remember the slap of a sharp edged branch catching at the side of her face while she’d been running, thinking nothing of it, too focused on the fact that if she kept going going going then she could outrun the problem.

Lucy had known the risks in joining the Templars, in agreeing and willingly abandoning the Brotherhood the same as it had abandoned her. They were fighting a war between factions; death would soon find her no matter what, only she hadn’t expected to be ratted out by fucking Juno of all things. And how could she have known? Because she and the others were Precursors? Bullshit. Lucy truly believed that good could’ve come from her joining their ranks, aiding them in their cause. Bill Miles had always only ever been using them, grooming them for the fight. It was all he’d cared about. He didn’t care about her, about Clay, not even his own son. Look where it’d gotten them—

Doubling over, her hand to her right side, she needed to focus on catching her breath; she needed to keep moving, before it became too dark that she wouldn’t be able to follow the path. These woods weren’t familiar to her. She wasn’t like Connor, she wouldn’t be able to move as easily through them. Yet in spite of what needed to be done, Lucy stayed where she was, taking that extra moment more to rest, muscles in her legs trembling from simply being upright and carrying her weight as opposed to sitting and being stretched out, not overworked.

If getting down the mountain were a competition, their ragtag team wouldn't rank, even for an honorable mention. Jess alleviates what burden she can from Elektra, their troupe leader, and otherwise contributes by staying out of everyone's way as she dries out. They make it back, each of them in one piece and all of them worse for the journey, start to finish.

Jess beelines for the house she shares with Frank and Kamala, where she don't know if she'll be welcome much longer. If she's the first one there, she rush through a bath and a glass of basement wine before she's confronted. If not, it's going to be a long line for bathwater at the Inn and she'll spend every minute glowering about how she deserves to be drenched in filth. She can only forget about all the goddamn animals until she's in the door and they all rush her legs, nearly knocking her back. She doesn't have time for this!!!! and other groans and curses as she gets them fed as fast as she can. Because surely they didn't just like miss her or something.

Edited 2019-02-03 04:36 (UTC)

Frank's OP team gets back much earlier than most without even really trying (sorry) which gives him time to think and get his affairs in order. He and Kamala reorder their house in relative silence before he starts getting ready to go. He's not sure what's going to happen when he walks out that door, but he knows she can't be around him right now. She needs time and he needs to give it to her. After doting on all his animals, he plucks Bruno up with the intention of taking him wherever he ends up. Right now, he's not sure where he's going and much less sure when he's coming back. His last message to Kamala is a tap to his smartwatch to indicate he's reachable when she's ready and then there's a sign she's never seen him use before, mostly because he hasn't ever: Love you.

He leaves before she can respond, pack shouldered and croc-dog held against his chest as the other dogs whine for him, but he's not taking them with. They should stay in the house with Kamala where it's warm and safe. He knows she would never let harm befall them. He doesn't get far before remembering that Elektra needed to talk with him and so he goes to her porch to wait. It's not as cold as it's been, enough that straddling zero degrees feels downright balmy and even Bruno doesn't seem too salty about waiting outside.

When she returns, presumably after sending Matt to the Inn to clean up his act, Frank will be sat there on her stoop with a sleeping croc-dog on his lap and a joint held between his teeth, barely started. His backpack with the stupid flame patch is sitting next to him, indicating that he intends to stick around for a minute.

"I see you've shed some dead weight." Ha-ha.

He'd briefly broken apart from his group, but he isn't worried about it. Somehow, his assigned team was probably the most capable one here, made up of horror survivor experts Frank and Kamala and three whole Avengers. Besides, Kamala is pissed at him and has every right to be so being on his own right now honestly feels like breathing again. He starts the long hike down the mountain and keeps a lookout for anyone who might need assistance — some kind of crisis would be a great distraction right now. God, Desmond was right, he really is bored here.

Just then, he sees someone knelt down and quickens his pace to see what's up. Reyes is probably just tying his shoe or looking at something on the ground, but here's Frank to overbearingly dad him anyway. (Sorry, he's had a rough... life.) "You okay?" he asks softly, his voice like gravel dragged through broken glass, but his expression spells genuine concern.

Closed to Group: Reeve, Rinoa, 7, Steph

Closed to Group: Vanille, Reyes, Anne, Seifer