fall in line or release the glitch

[gramarye]

Who: Wolfgang and Will, Shrieky, Olivia Dunham (prime), Stephanie Brown, open
What: Everyone's going to pick daisies and go on a picnic in the woods!
Where: Wherever is convenient! He's mostly in the southeast part of the city, but can be anywhere.
When: Various days over the second week of the siege.
Notes: If you want a thread starter ping me and I will make you one :3 or... idk just tag in somewhere random.
Warnings: Violence, mild horrors (like, relatively, yes), also some vague discussion of mental illness stuff in the OP.

After his Awakening, he sleeps.

When he wakes up, he's disoriented -- the room is unfamiliar, he's lying on a cot in a safehouse in Mog Hill, which someone explains to him when he asks. He has mercifully been left alone most of the time, except for someone who would come to check to make sure he hadn't actually died. That makes him pause and ask how long he was out.

Three days. He slept for three days. That's three days of being utterly useless and vulnerable, with no one knowing where he is, he doesn't know where he is -- three days of Baedal going to Hell.

Three days of dreamless sleep.

He wept. He's too embarrassed to ever admit it, and he thankfully held it together until he was alone, but he did. Whether it was out of frustration, or anger, or fear, or relief, he's still not sure. Too much emotion all at once when he's spent the last three years buried under the fog his medication produces in him -- blunted affect is a side effect of much of them. He doesn't typically feel much of anything, and he'll continue to not feel much of anything as soon as he can get back on them.

One of the women later finds him hunched over a table, making small, hysterical noises. There's a glass of wine and a jug of water on the table; she can't tell if he's laughing or crying. When she asks what happened, he glances at the glass and says in a voice like a dull razor, "Well, it's been done."

After that, they gently suggest he stay away from sharp objects.

Still, he refuses to have a mental breakdown in the middle of a citywide crisis -- if he's going to indulge (which he very well might) it will have to be at a more convenient time. Compartmentalization it is.

Wolfgang puts himself to work immediately. He can be useful. He has combat experience, specialized training. He has magic, apparently, although he hasn't really felt out the limits of what he can do (he is very afraid that the answer may be everything), there are a few things that come in immediately useful. It is very strange to think of himself as telepathic, but that's the word they use. He can listen for danger and hear people in need of help all without even stepping outside. He can imprint simple but strong impulses in the walls of the building itself, calm the hysterical, reduce the pain of the injured. Boil water, grow food, keep the light and heat on when the power occasionally goes out. So many useful little things. They don't always work the way he intends -- he finds, with great chagrin, that magic never quite wants to do what he wants it to do -- but it's serviceable.

Mostly, he looks after the children. They like him, especially the very young ones who aren't quite grown enough to understand what's going on -- he keeps them calm and entertained and out of their parents' hair for a while. He runs into a family he used to sit for in Bonetown and the little girl runs up, punches him in the leg, shouts "That's for missing my recital!" and stomps off to a corner to pout. He spends the next half hour sitting through an extremely dramatic reenactment of her big solo, interjecting with the appropriate amount of reverent awe for her skill and wit, while her mother finally gets a few private moments in the bathroom. Her eyes are red when she comes out; he doesn't mention it.

As the infestation goes on, though, it becomes clear to him that he can't stay here the entire time.

Or rather, that he won't.

Comments

for Will

[gramarye]

The Mog Hill safehouse is as settled and secure as it can possibly be, and he starts chafing, knowing he can be useful elsewhere; he's convenient for them but they don't need him the way other people do. He can find people in danger -- he hears them in his head, their fear and sense of urgency -- and goes if he thinks he can handle it himself, or he reaches out for help if he can't. It troubles him how often he's had to speak to the Militia. They terrify him, his palms get sweaty and he starts to shake whenever they look in his direction, but they're around and they're actually doing their damn job, protecting the city. It's usually easier to direct them to people who need help than go on his own.

But if it's just one or two people and he's the closest one, he'll go in alone. He's armed -- he picked up a baseball bat with nails hammered into the head at some point, and he turned the whole thing to metal because it packs a harder hit that way, although it's harder to swing -- and what he wouldn't give for a gun right now. In the service, he had steady hands and a good eye; that's still half-true. But ammunition's hard to come by in Baedal. If he could just get one, he wonders if he couldn't find a way to make more, but... now is not the time for that kind of experimentation.

(Never is actually the time for that, because there is no fucking way he's going to attract that kind of attention to himself. Never again.)

This time he picks up on intense distress and fear coming from two people who he can sense are in dire need, and there is no time to get anyone else; it's going to have to be him. He takes off in that direction, expanding his awareness to try and sense what else is there, although he's learned that he doesn't always pick up on the presence of non-human monsters; some of them are invisible to him, psychically. Still, a little forewarning is better than none. That he senses nothing worries him desperately, and he doesn't see why there's a big blank spot in his mind until he turns the corner and sees it.

They're dead, that's why. Mindless. They're quadripedal, hairless, naked monstrous things with what look like backwards human limbs, their "hands" -- or are those feet? -- twisted into horrible claws. As he pauses to assess the situation, he can see two of them get up on two legs and walk just as easily. They have no heads, and their faces -- what they have of faces, anyway -- look as if they were smashed right into their torsos. They're not zombies, he's pretty sure, but they feel tainted in a way he can't pin immediately. Not vampire, but like that, and neither are they human, but... his stomach rolls when he realises that they used to be.

The two men they've cornered are paralyzed in terror -- that happens sometimes, people freeze up. They're unarmed and defenseless and these things are frankly fucking horrifying. He should call for backup, but there's no time. He can do this, he knows he can, which is why he decides to go ahead. He can't just walk away and do nothing.

He swings and hits one of them from behind, jerking back after he feels it connect so it doesn't drag him down with him. A quick mental burst gets their attention; he can't get in their heads but he can make himself a great big flaming target. It's much easier to compel the two living people to turn and run and hide; their minds are human and familiar. He'll have time to feel bad about making people do things later, right now he's got three awful, aggressive problems in his immediate personal space -- four when the one he knocked down earlier makes it back to its feet.

They advance, he retreats. He's trying to keep a wall at his back so they can't surround him, and he ducks into a narrow alley so that they can't all attack at once. He has less room to maneuver, but so do they. Unfortunately he didn't count on them being so damn limber.

He shuts his eyes and when he opens them again, he can see them -- the threads of fate and fortune, woven in the air around him like a tapestry. He doesn't have time to be picky; he just reaches out and pulls on what looks like thin air, hoping for something useful. A set of wires on the side of the building snap and start shooting out sparks into the alley. One of the things steps in the way and immediately erupts into flame.

Oh good, so now he's fighting four undead monsters and one of them is on fucking fire.

Wolfgang is quick and he's clever, but he is not strong, and even at his most healthy, he's never been suited for close quarters combat like this. And he's outnumbered. If he could just get some damn room, he could do something with magic, but there are too many and he doesn't have enough time. He swings and feels the spiked half of his club hit home in what must be the heart of one of them because it screams and collapses -- but this time his weapon sticks in its flesh and it pulls him down hard, throwing him off balance. He's trying to extract his weapon from its flesh when another of them falls on him and he has to let go to grapple with the thing. It's stronger than he is; he's losing.

Wolfgang cries out once, not allowing himself to despair even though he's pretty sure no one is around to hear him. In a second, this thing is going to break both his wrists and render him helpless. He's not yielding, but neither is he liking his odds right now.

[charismatic]

It's probably a character flaw, but Will's instinct when he sees people running away from something – faces twisted in terror and legs pistoning like they can't control them – is to go see what they were running from. It turns out that he doesn't really know what they are, but he's getting used to that. He doesn't know what anything is here, even less than he normally does. All the monsters at home are human.

He reaches the mouth of the alley just as one of the creatures catches fire – and doesn't seem to mind. There's someone in there, on the other side, but Will can't see who or where. It makes him hesitate a moment, because he doesn't want any friendly fire scenarios happening, but with the way things are going it's either shoot or let whoever it is die for sure. He's not sure how these things are put together, so he's guessing when he takes aim and opens fire.

[gramarye]

Thankfully these things are fleshy and mostly-living, so when they're shot, they react the way one would expect something to react upon being shot -- mostly a lot of screaming and bleeding.

But they are only mostly-living; what would kill something else only slows them down. The two uninjured ones immediately turn on Will, and they're fast, faster than they should be with how twisted their limbs look. But they shy away from the flaming one, which can't see where it's going and keeps bumping into the brick walls around it; it's blocking their way out of the alley.

The fourth one released him when it was shot and now lurches forward, bleeding profusely from its back and faster than it can heal itself. Its mouth is uncomfortably close to his face right now. When Wolfgang braces his hands against it to shove it away from him, its teeth catch on his wrist, leaving a long superficial scratch. Blood wells to the surface of his skin --

-- "Do you want to do something?" Shani asks abruptly. It's a full moon and they're alone in the woods somewhere she's never been, ostensibly camping but Uri's already said he's not going to sleep in the woods because that's really gross, so mostly they're just eating candy and trying to scare each other, feeling awfully grown-up because they have their own campfire and everything.

Uri would do anything, go anywhere for Shani. He's nine and she's one of his very few real friends. "Okay."

She grins, pleased. "We're going to do an oath," she says, "and become blood brothers."

"But you're not a boy."

"Shut up, that's not the point." She settles at their fire and he wanders after her, sitting on the opposite end as she directs him. She brought one of her mom's antique real silver knives, which they've been using to cut fruit with, although she had this in mind the whole time.

"What are we oath-ing?" he asks, and she has to pause to consider it.

"To be friends forever." He smiles because he likes this idea a lot. But when she starts chanting and waving her hands over the fire as if conjuring something, he starts giggling, a combination of excessive sugar and the utter silliness of this entire thing.

"No, listen, stop laughing." Uri does not stop giggling. "If you aren't going to take this serious --" she threatens.

"No, I am! I am!" He schools his expression into proper somberness, but she gives him a look anyway before proceeding. She read this in a book recently, although she's paraphrasing the actual words and doesn't actually know who Hecate is, but it sounds cool. When she's done, she holds her hand out over their fire and uses her knife to cut a line into the center of her palm. Uri stops giggling and stares at it with intense concentration like she's never seen before.

"Let me see your hand," she says, and when he holds it out over the fire she drags the edge of the blade over his palm in one quick movement --

-- and his mind snaps into sharp focus. The body jerks hard and then squeals when its skin starts bubbling more and more, and then it bursts like an overfilled water balloon, splattering everything around it with foul-smelling blood and rotten flesh. He stands there in shock for a minute.

On the plus side, it put out the flaming one, which lies on the ground twitching helplessly.

[charismatic]

Will's ready when they rush him, at least, once they get around the smoking mass of their erstwhile companion, aiming his pulse blasts at strategic places – they won't be so fast if he takes the limbs off, he figures, but right now they're still coming. He only has a moment to bee surprised – that's Wolfgang – before he has to focus on retreating, moving backward as quickly as he can while keeping up a steady fire. He doesn't think he wants to turn his back on these things.

[gramarye]

They're much slower with their limbs blown off, but still doggedly persistent. One of them falls, legless, to the ground and still tries clawing its way after him, but it's not a threat unless anyone trips into it right now. The other, still upright and bleeding that rotten-smelling blood profusely, is aiming to take a chunk out of Will's leg if it can reach him.

Wolfgang stands staring at what used to be a roughly human-sized body and is now a smear all over the sides of the alley (and all over himself) before he realises, hi, shots are still being fired. He lurches forward to retrieve his weapon and gets out of the way, flattening himself against a wall. His wrist is still bleeding and the way he bursts the downed szlachta is a lot more controlled than the other one.

Still super gross, though.

[charismatic]

It nearly gets him – it probably would have, if Will didn't have the ability to sense its movements quite before it makes them. By the time he's out back in the middle of the thoroughfare it's down, struggling on the ground with mismatched limbs. It's enough for him to take a breath and stand still, glancing over to make sure Wolfgang's still alive. He's not sure what he has over there – maybe some kind of small explosive? – but it seems to be working.

“You okay?”

[gramarye]

Wolfgang inches away from the crispy (oh, God) body on the ground closer to the mouth of the alley. He could help, he's sure, but they're moving fast and he's afraid whatever he's doing -- because he is not exactly sure what he's actually doing -- might not be contained to the ghoul. Will's fine, anyway, he notes with relief when he watches him shoot it down until it finally stops moving. Dead or just subdued? He's not sure.

He looks like Carrie at the prom. And also like he's going to be sick; the combined smell of rotten and burnt flesh is making some kind of awful horror cocktail. He nods mutely, a hand hovering over his mouth.

for Shrieky

[gramarye]

The city shut down, but people still have needs. It's not safe to go out in the street, especially not alone and unarmed, but plenty of people are still out -- mostly people wrangling monsters, ushering others to safety, trying to clear the streets but they just keep coming. After days and days of this, the people holed up in their homes are rapidly running out of supplies, namely food. The safehouse Wolfgang's been returning to contains thirty-five people -- some of them children -- and between all of them, they use up a remarkable amount of resources.

Wolfgang volunteers to go get supplies -- well, no, actually he insists on it. Nobody else here has any combat experience, which is also why he insists on going alone. It's not that he doesn't think they're plenty brave, but he can't rely on any of these people to not freeze up, and taking someone who might fail to pull the trigger would endanger them both.

It's not like he's actually alone. He can still see his Avatar.

He's not sure if that's normal or not and he's a little afraid to ask. It walks behind him, unseen by everyone else, which makes him nervous; generally speaking when you see something no one else does, it's because you're fucking crazy, and he can't let go of the deep-seated belief that that is exactly what he is. That he might still be. Certainly there's something... off about the way it sees the world -- and the way he sees the world. Every time it talks to him, he flinches.

It doesn't talk to him much.

One of the more useful aspects of the magic that he apparently has is that he can change an object's size. He can carry a truly ridiculous amount of crap in the palm of his hand, and in the backpack he's carrying, he can bring enough food to keep them supplied for weeks. Not fresh stuff, shelf-stable things, canned food, stuff that can keep for a while since they have no idea how long this is going to last. (If it's ever going to end.) He leaves money behind the counter, not his (he hasn't got any) but pitched in from the people he's feeding. There are plenty of looters taking advantage of the chaos, especially in areas with the Militia otherwise occupied, but he is not going to be one of them.

He's just leaving when he thinks he hears something.

He pauses, straining with his ears until he gives up, exasperated, and listens with his mind instead, spreading his awareness out in a circle all around him It's a very different sense, one that he's unused to using, but that he remembers -- using it again after so long is just like stretching a muscle, it takes no effort at all. Yes... he hears something. To the east.

He should leave it alone. Then again, Wolfgang never does what he should, that's why he's so damn stupid. (His Avatar pipes up to supply that super helpful comment; he tells it to shut up.) He turns and heads in that direction to investigate instead. He's got magic and a weapon, what's the worst that could happen?

[wontturntofoam]

Shrieky had lost track of Rex days ago, and since then, he'd found himself strangely aimless in the midst of the chaos tearing through Baedal.

He'd returned to Badside first, darting between buildings and alleyways, trying to avoid both the monsters and the humans. Since the Candle Lighters had made their announcement, he'd felt a renewed distrust of those around him, a distance from the other citizens. He'd been fortunate, despite this. Traveling alone made it easier for him to keep out of sight, to duck away or run when something came too close, and he'd made it back to the house having witnessed plenty of attacks, but faced none himself.

It was empty.

He probably should have seen that coming. There were safe houses set up around the city, and the house wasn't an easily defensible location, what with it's broken windows and decaying doors and such, and the fact that no one was around didn't necessarily mean that anyone was hurt or anything of the sort... All the same though, darting from room to room, still unsteady on his feet, only to find every one vacant, with no trace of their former inhabitants.

He stays for a little while. Watches through one of the broken windows, as a swarm of green scaled creatures descend onto a nearby house and tear it apart. No one comes out, but Shrieky's guessing that whoever lived there fled long ago. The green things are probably just looking for food anyway.

After a while, the green creatures disperse, and Shrieky decides that he should do the same. There's no food or protection or company to be found here, and no real chance of anyone else showing up. He decides against leaving via the front door, and instead, slips out via the back window, into the narrow, mossy street used for deliveries by the row of markets and stores. He drops down a little more noisily than intended, and lands awkwardly. There's a shower of glass shards that he's dislodged from the window as he falls, and it hits the floor like a cascade of tiny bells.

He straightens, eyes searching up the street anxiously for some sign that the monsters overrunning the city had heard his graceless landing. His ankle hurts, very slightly, but it's just a twinge, really. Uncomfortable, and unfamiliar, but not actively troubling.

[gramarye]

His Avatar protested strongly against going back to Badside, knowing that his ulterior motive is to get his medication, but he's ignoring it. He's sick, he needs it, they're just going to have to learn how to get on with the drugs in his system. Anyway, people don't like coming to Badside voluntarily when the city's running normally, he can only imagine what it must be like now that it's overrun with monsters. The street he finds himself on is very quiet, which should be encouraging since it means there's nothing hulking around trying to kill everything else, but there's something nagging at the edge of his awareness, something he can't quite sense. It's making the hair on the back of his neck stand up.

When he hears a breaking glass noise, he goes to investigate. Shrieky is the only living thing he sees on the street, which -- that's a relief, that it's someone he recognises and he looks okay, but Wolfgang still doesn't relax. Why is he so tense?

His hair and clothes are bloody and he's in a general state of dishevelment such as he has never been before, wearing someone else's ill-fitting clothes because his were ruined, all of this being more or less par for the course for everyone in Baedal right now. There's blood on his weapon, too -- he's obviously been in a fight. Or several.

"Hi," he says.

[wontturntofoam]

If it had been someone else Shrieky might not have immediately recognized them, hair and clothes disheveled and bloody as they were. Wolfgang happened to be particularly distinctive, however, and he was one of the citizens of Baedal who Shrieky had more or less committed entirely to memory.

By contrast, Shrieky looked implausibly well. His clothes were a little torn, and a little dirty, from a few falls he'd had while in the process of fleeing the Murlocs in Rex's lab, but there was no blood on him, he wasn't armed, and he didn't look anywhere close to as afraid as he really should have done. Nevertheless, the sight of Wolfgang draws an expression of open relief onto his face. It's good to know that even if everyone else he knows has vanished or died, there is still Wolfgang.

"Hi." He replies, grinning openly now, as he steps forward, a little unsteadily. A thought occurs to him, and the smile slips slightly into a more concerned expression, "All of the blood on you, it's not yours, is it?"

[gramarye]

"Mm?" He glances down at himself, at his hands, looking a little... vague, but that's rather normal for him. "Oh. Well, not most of it." He doesn't sound too worried about it -- at most, he's got a couple shallow scratches, and considering how many close calls he's had so far...

He's going to try not to think about close calls. Fuck this city.

"Are you okay?" Shrieky looks all right, but it can be hard to be sure, and he is definitely not a healer. It's the most useful thing he can't remember how to do with magic, irritatingly.

[wontturntofoam]

Shrieky follows the glance down, quickly and efficiently reminding himself that yes Wolfgang, does look like he might have injured in some significant capacity, and it's not just Shrieky being irrationally concerned. "Not most of that blood, still leaves quite a lot of leeway for how much blood may no longer be in your body..."

He reaches out to give Wolfgang a very gentle pat on the arm. Keep your blood inside your body. That's his recommendation.

"I'm fine. I was staying with Doctor Lewis, but some froggish monsters broke in, and I lost him when we ran." Shrieky glances back towards the house, a little guiltily, then shrugs, "I was looking for people, but I believe they've taken up hiding somewhere."

for Olivia Prime

[gramarye]

He had meant to get back to shelter earlier, when he felt the first whisper of exhaustion -- he tires out so easily anymore when he used to have such stamina as a teenager -- but he'd gotten sidetracked and, well... that was when the mutant wolves appeared.

Larger than average -- and a large wolf is pretty fucking large indeed -- and ragged, missing patches of fur, bleeding some kind of horrible pus, he would have to be a complete idiot to keep going that way. If he weren't so tired, he would close off his mind, make himself psychically invisible (or actually invisible)... but when he reaches for that power he feels it slip just out of his grasp. He can't concentrate. Tapped dry. He could have sworn just a moment ago he was fine, but now...

He starts backing up immediately but slowly, but they catch his scent anyway. He freezes for one brief moment while their heads rise and they all turn their eyes (those that still have eyes) on him. Then he breaks and runs.

Running is the one physical activity Wolfgang has always been really, really good at.

But he's been sick for years and he's exhausted, he's got nothing left. They're gaining on him up until he effectively trees himself by climbing up the gutters on the side of a building, just out of reach. He can't stay there forever and they're waiting, leaping for him occasionally, and he's trying to make them fuck off but their minds are so alien and he's so tired. So tired. He can barely focus on staying upright. He is momentarily grateful when they suddenly break and flee until the logical part of his mind catches up with the rest of him and makes him wonder why they left not as if they were bored of waiting, but fled as if in fear.

An explosion of white feathers and screeching and he shrieks himself, raising an arm to protect his head even when he feels something sharp dig into his flesh and puncture it. He can't tell if it's a beak or a claw and either way it freaks him right the fuck out, so much so that he loses his grip and plummets two and a half stories to the ground, the impact knocking all the wind out of his lungs and leaving him gasping for air. He dropped his weapon, fuck, he grasps desperately around him but he can't find it and that thing -- some gigantic eagle thing with talons as big as his arm -- dives at him again. He barely manages to roll out of the way and avoid being impaled.

He's not sure if he's screaming or not. Probably not, his lungs are on fire right now and he's still struggling to get enough air to breathe.

He finds his legs. Helpfully. It takes nearly every bit of willpower he has left to push himself to his feet and take off running. That whatever the fuck oh god is too big and its talons aren't meant for walking; it has to launch itself into the air, gain some altitude, and then glide after him.

It's still faster than he is.

When he glances up he can see it preparing to dive again, so he throws himself to the right, rolling into the space between two buildings. It just misses severing his leg at the ankle. It's too narrow for it to fit into here except for its head; from the street all that's visible is a gigantic white bird sticking its head in an alley, obviously trying to get at something. Occasionally it pulls back and tries with its feet, having no better luck reaching him.

But Wolfgang is trapped. To his back is just a dead end; he can't go out the front as long as that thing is there. It is, thankfully, just a bird, not a zombie bird, not an alien bird, not an abdead bird; it doesn't breathe fire or shoot lightning. If he had a gun, he'd just shoot it in the damn head, but he doesn't; if he could concentrate, he'd excite the blood in its veins, boiling it alive, but he can't. He's so tired, he can't think, which means he has no control. He collapses instead, his back to a brick wall as he watches the thing snapping at him, just out of its reach. He doesn't even have enough strength to compel the thing to go away.

He is not aware that he's psychically broadcasting -- not thoughts exactly, not a direct plea for help, but more just a sense of immediate danger and urgency. And rapidly growing despair.

[nolimitation]

At every opportunity since the universe cracked open, Olivia's been venturing out of the Inn to patrol the streets. Maybe she can't fix the problem - an unsettling feeling for her in itself, when back home she'd have Walter in the lab, Peter at her back, figuring out a way to put all this right - but she can take care of some of the monsters roaming the streets, maybe make it a little safer for people to step outside their homes.

She's moving cautiously, gun held low and at the ready. The streets are empty enough, with people reluctant to risk being eaten, that she can hear certain kinds of trouble coming from some distance away - and this particular trouble is no exception. A screech splits the air, and if Olivia doesn't quite take off running toward it, it's only because she'd rather not turn a corner and run straight into some monster's teeth.

That changes at the sudden burst of emotion, almost impossible to distinguish from her own at first. She stumbles, vision shimmering momentarily with flickers of golden light, before she manages to shove it down, draw a breath to steady herself, and start running for the sound of the commotion, the sense of urgency spurring her on despite certain rational concerns about what she might be charging into.

When she skids around the corner and can actually see the source of the commotion, the bird has its head in the alley; all she can see at first is an enormous mass of feathers, and nothing of whoever or whatever it has cornered. Olivia's not going to give it any more of a chance to get at its prey.

"Hey!" she calls to get its attention, her gun snapping up to level at the creature. She's going to need it to turn toward her before she can be sure any shot at it would have a chance of killing it... and she can only hope that she's quick enough to take it down before it comes after her.

[gramarye]

The bird -- because it does appear to just be a giant bird, white all over, with an eye as big as a human head -- is distracted by the noise, pulling back and flap-hopping awkwardly to try and turn to face her. It's fast and deadly in the air but ungainly on the ground, not able to walk on those massive talons, and with a wingspan that surpasses the width of the street. If it manages to launch itself into the air, then they're both in trouble.

On the plus side, it makes a gigantic target. Hard to miss.

Wolfgang can hear someone else out there but he can't see Olivia from back here; he desperately hopes whoever that is has some kind of weapon and isn't running in blind, and more than that he hopes they can use it. Still, there's a flood of relief at the chance, one that pulls back almost immediately as he stops broadcasting. He can barely haul himself to his feet, still trying to catch his breath, but he won't come out as long as that roc is still alive; he's useless right now.

[nolimitation]

Olivia almost takes several steps backward as the bird turns toward her, the instinctive reaction to being faced with an aggressive predator big enough to swallow her in a bite or two. She manages to tamp down on the reaction and hold herself steady, if only because it crosses her mind that running is only going to encourage it to come after her that much faster, but it's not exactly easy. For all the dangers she's faced in the course of her job, literal monsters are actually fairly rare.

Most of the monsters she's accustomed to are human-shaped. This is just an animal, probably hungry and angry and confused, but not really malicious, and she doesn't want to kill it - but one look at that hooked beak and the gleam in its eye convinces her it won't hesitate to kill her, and she wants that even less.

She trains her gun on one huge eye - it's an easy target, and much likelier that she'll kill it this way than manage to find the heart - waits for it to land in one of those awkward hops, and fires. Just once, hoping to conserve her ammunition if at all possible, but she keeps her finger on the trigger in case the first shot doesn't do it.

[gramarye]

The shot goes straight through the eye, and the roc lets out a horrible squawking shriek as it reacts to the pain of a bullet burying itself deep into its massive brain -- horribly, it does not die immediately, but thrashes around in the street, its wings knocking out windows when it slams them into the sides of buildings. Then it collapses, unable to get up again, but still twitches and lets out one ear-splitting cry as it struggles to right itself, growing more and more feeble.

Killing things, even mindless, violent monsters -- it's not a picnic for anyone. But there is blood around its beak that didn't come from the roc. Only the gods know how many people that thing killed.

Wolfgang can see its head from where he is, lying motionless in the street, a growing pool of blood leaking under it. That should make him sick, but he's seen so much blood over the past two weeks that instead he feels awfully numb. He has to lean against the wall to stay upright, watching it and waiting to see if it moves again; it doesn't.

[nolimitation]

Olivia watches, jaw clenched, as the bird slowly dies. She's tempted - extremely tempted - to put another bullet in it, end this quickly, but she can't afford it. The way things are in the city now, she can't risk using bullets she might need for the next horrible thing she runs into.

When it finally stops moving, when she can't see it breathing anymore, then she walks slowly to the mouth of the alley, keeping one eye on the bird just to make sure it really is dead. The gun's lowered the instant she spots the person inside; after a moment, she holsters it entirely and steps closer, frowning in concern.

"Hey. Are you okay? Are you hurt?"

for Steph

[gramarye]

Wolfgang has recently acquired a lot of disturbing, confusing memories -- confusing because he can't always separate what are his from what are what he used to be, and disturbing because they are all the missing pieces of the actual childhood he forgot. He was born Awakened, born knowing what he was and the truth about reality, with an Avatar that spoke to him from the cradle and taught him things. He remembers his infancy and his very early childhood in clear detail, and it disturbs him what he knew how to do before he really knew what he was doing.

He was three years old the first time he crossed the Gauntlet.

A natural channel, he just wanted to get from one place to the other and took the quickest route, stepping out of reality and turning his body into spirit-stuff to travel quickly from point A to point B. He was six the first time he ventured into the Middle Umbra and wandered the Realms therein -- and not everything contained there was friendly. He was eight when he first stepped into the Low Umbra, the realm of death. He had needed to understand what happened to Safiya, and why.

So as an adult, as he's doing the best he can amidst the utter chaos Baedal is currently in, he instantly recognises the prickling sense of wrongness that assaults him when he sees three of those oversized, cybernetic spiders weaving a massive silver web around an abandoned carriage in the middle of an otherwise empty street. They are each about the size of a large dog, which is small in comparison to many of Baedal's other monsters but enormous in the context of spiders.

He has seen them before in the spirit world and he knows instantly what they are. He stops short just out of their field of vision and hesitates there. Pattern spiders shouldn't be able to exist in the material world, and he can't tell whether those webs they're making are real or not, and whether they're visible to other people or not. Now is really not an ideal time to be insecure about his ability to tell what is real.

They look dangerous, all jerky metal limbs and clockwork bodies. He's just not sure how to proceed, and he needs to decide now before they sense him.

Too late. One of them turns in his direction and he's not sure if it can actually see him (do the even have real eyes?) but it definitely knows he's there, because it shoots a line of shining silver thread at him that he barely manages to duck, yelping as he rolls out of the way. He's torn between fight or flight -- flight because he's not actually sure he can take three of them alone, fight because he knows he can't leave them here to ensnare another mage.

[controlledvariable]

It's a happy - well, happy if she manages to save Wolfgang, not so happy if she gets killed by a spider - accident that she stumbles upon the spiders at the same time Wolfgang does. She's on the rooftop when she sees both him and them, because she only ventures down to street level when she has to. This method has it's pros and cons, but she's still alive, so she's sticking to it. She recognizes Wolfgang, but even if she didn't know him she'd still go to help.

There's no hestitation once she sees one of the spiders go after Wolfgang, Steph just jumps down to a first storey balcony, getting her in range, then she fires her gun at the spider that shot the web. It's an energy gun, rather than one thatshoots projectiles, and if it has no effect on the spiders she's got an exploding batarang ready. Privately, she's relieved that she's not arachnaphobic, that'd make this more difficult.

At the very least, though, this is confirmation that the spiders are real.

[gramarye]

The pattern spiders in Baedal have material bodies and thus are affected by material things -- energy blasts, projectiles, baseball bats. That's good to know, he thinks even as he immediately gets down at the sound of shots fired. If there are any more in the city, people can take them down physically. The one Steph shoots flies back about four feet from the impact, a hole in its abdomen causing it to flail its spindly metal legs, but it makes no sound. It's still moving, though.

Either he's having a very vivid hallucination (always possible, but currently unlikely, not that he can trust what his Avatar tells him about reality) or those are real if someone else is firing at them. Okay.

He has to put distance between them; he can feel the tug of the web even from here, if they snare him they'll kill him. He's not good for melee anyway and he'll just get in her way. He rolls again and climbs to his feet, backing up.

They're a strange mixture of clockwork and cybernetic, which is good for him; technology is particularly susceptible to the effects of entropy. He ducks behind an abandoned and upended street vendor's cart. He's never had to affect anything this large and "living" before, but this has been a really good week for winging it, so he withdraws inward and focuses on that shining he knows is there anymore. The spiders have split up between them, two making their way to Steph, since she's presenting the bigger immediate physical threat right now, but one of them stops halfway and starts to twitch and jerk erratically as the gears that control the movements of its legs grind to a halt and start to crumble into rust.

[controlledvariable]

It's nice that he gets out of the way. Steph loves her friends dearly, but sometimes she gets sick of them rushing in to the save day and potentially getting themselves killed -- she realizes this is hypocritical, but doesn't care right now. So Wolfgang moving away from the spiders and hiding is refreshing.

It means she doesn't have to worry about him, instead firing two shots at one of the spiders coming at her, sending it flying and hopefully putting it down for good. If not, she'll finish off the job with her knife. The second one starting to crumble is... weird, and she casts a quick glance in Wolgang's direction. Though it's a waste of time to wonder whether he's responsible somehow, so instead she just shoots the now disabled spider, taking advantage of it's inability to move by aiming right at it's head.

That one should definitely be dead.

[gramarye]

Thankfully he is dumb but not that dumb, and he knows his limits.

Wolfgang stays behind the shelter offered by his makeshift cover, but he does glance around it to assess the situation and see where they currently are. One is down, its head blown off and its body half-rusted; another one's still heading for Steph, whom he can't quite see from down here, and the third is trying to find him.

She seems like she's doing fine, so he focuses on the one closer to him, willing the metal parts that govern its movement to fail. They do, spectacularly so, and it crumples in on itself like a piece of paper and lies there uselessly, but not before it starts to let out a high-pitched whistling-whining sound like a boiling teakettle, steadily growing louder.

I didn't do that, he's thinking, and he will be extremely irritated to realise he's broadcasting thoughts again. His magic is poorly behaved and difficult to control.

That's not a death cry, it's calling for help! Shoot it! That is a child's voice -- not his.

Thanks for the hot tip, I would love to if I had a damn -- Right, whoever's up there has got a gun. "Shoot it!" he calls with urgency. It could be calling other spiders, or it could be calling other Umbrood; he really doesn't want to find out.

[controlledvariable]

She doesn't hesitate here, either, although it takes her a couple of seconds to jump down so she can get a good shot, but then she's fired twice at the whistling spider, taking it out.

This puts her in close range of the final one, and it takes a lunge at her that she dives out of the way of, rolling as she lands to come up on one knee and facing the spider. She fires once, then twice, because two shots seem to be the most effective.

Guns are really starting to grow on Steph. Why didn't she start using them sooner? It makes life so much easier to not have to constantly dive into close quarters combat.