plot } the creatures descend.

[synergismus]

Who: Everyone!
What: Creatures descend!
Where: All across the city, although attacks will be most fervent at its heart.
When: Friday/Veerdi evening and into the week.
Notes: Slow and back-tagging is, as always, permitted. If you are confused, look at these two posts for more information.
Warnings: Violence, creepiness, swearing knowing these characters.

On Veerdi, the presence of the creatures reaches a fever pitch. Something has provoked them into launching an all-out assault, though it is one that begins slowly. The pipe-crawlers, generally harmless though they may be, are seen across homes in Baedal, sneaking up through the pipes and into bathtub drains or sinks. They come by the dozens, and their keening makes most homeowners nauseated--but it's their appearance that leads to a number of distressed Network calls.

This is just the distraction for the rest.

The call of the crawlers draws in the armored, sickly creatures with the tiny primates carried inside of it. They are inelegantly lumbering, but much faster than one might expect, and certainly hostile. They trudge across the city, barreling over anyone who gets in their path and leaving them half-crushed in the street. They're certainly unsettling in their obvious unhealthiness, and the disease-ridden animals they carry are downright vicious, especially once they escape (messily, bloodily) from their fleshy cage.

It's the birds that are the worst, though; the cleverest, and the cruelest.

These strange black birds are resistant to typical attacks and flying in large groups. They descend on pedestrians, picking at their eyes and faces, ready to rapidly tear flesh from bone until there's nothing left but skeletal remains. They fly out of range when they can, only to divebomb anyone who might think they've escaped.

Comments

[rhinemaid]

The attacks begin to reach crescendo when Ilde is downriver; she spends the majority of her time in the water right now and intends to spend a solid amount of it there in the future, and as such she's making a significant effort to make herself known to the Gross Tar and the other creatures of it. (Partly to dissuade them from any foolish attempts on the territory in it that she's already marking out, partly because this is almost like the community she once pointed out she didn't have - it's interesting, appealing. A part of her is wary of a feeling that might begin tying her to a place she can't afford to stay.)

She watches from where she's sitting on the bank, at first, but she won't avoid attracting notice forever, and she slides back into the river (her tail forms and she pushes herself deep underwater) before she can do too much tempting of fate, kukri knife clenched in one hand as she begins to swim north toward Raven's Gate. She has things there to protect, and she'll need to catch Sonja, maybe some of those she knows here.

Periodically, she surfaces to see what the situation is above the water- the primates that wander nearest to her vantage point soon regret it.

[manipulativni.livejournal.com]

Since hearing about the attacks, Katherine has been doing her best to hide away, although she could easily fight off her fair share of monsters. She's done it often enough before. But she's far more experienced with running, and she doesn't necessarily want to expose herself as a vampire to the city, at least not yet. And while she can play the part of a frightened teenage girl well enough...well, eventually, she needs to eat. And while she could easily make a meal of someone else who's staying at the inn, it's too risky to do so when there are so many people crowding the place, trying to avoid being attacked.

Which is why she's outside, finishing off a young man who was stupid enough to believe her sob story about needing shelter from the birds. She makes sure to leave the body a bit messy, tearing his clothes and smearing some leftover blood before leaving it in the street (there's one upside to these attacks, a dead body will be far less suspicious).

She happens to be by the river, and she hears Ilde before she sees her. Curiosity compels her to head in her direction, and once she spots her form, she stops and calls out.

"Hello? Who's down there?"

[ofminastirith.livejournal.com]

At some point, Boromir manages to make his way through streets of hurried, screaming city goers, fighting as he goes along. He is extremely lost (not that he has anywhere to really go, or anyone to miss him). And so he finds himself doing what he always does in this particular situation in the wilds of Middle Earth -finding a water source and following it.

He sees another stalker, but this time has the advantage of being behind it. He beheads it, before quickly turning the beast over and ramming his sword into its diseased appendages again and again.

Grim faced and with his fair share of scratches, he scans this area of the Gross Tar for familiar scenery.

[nojudge.livejournal.com]

At some point, because circumstances are what they are, a certain pirate has to make something of an unglamorous escape. Shot is in rare supply, he needs time to recharge his energy to use magic, and while fighting rollers and monkeys in close quarters is effective enough considering his skill with his blade, the godsdamned birds are another story.

So he takes a breath and dives into the river.

Between the current and his ability to hold his breath while swimming, he loses his feathered adversaries rather neatly. The downside to his cunning plan, however, is that the river isn't, shall we say, fucking around with said current - nor all the rocks in it - and Balthier realizes as he narrowly avoids slamming headfirst into something very solid, that he is now quite stuck, being hurdled effortlessly by the river.

Damnit.

This is going to give him such a headache, he can just tell.

Mina's First Aid Station

[primogen_vampirate]

When the attacks began (seriously began, that is), Mina was actually on her way to the Hellsing building. She wanted to discuss recent events with Integra. Strike that. Sir Integra. Who was Mina to cast aspersions about a woman taking on the title of a man? After all, she had been Mark for a number of years. She sometimes still was.

The creatures waylaid her plans.

Almost immediately, Mina heard screaming. It was just like the American Civil War again. And she knew there were going to be some serious injuries soon. Dropping her latest set of shopping bags, Mina slit her wrist with her fingernail, chanting softly to herself. She held up her palm, turning in a wide circle. Cruac was one of the few vampire magics with which she excelled and as she turned, a topiary wall of hawthorn formed around her, shaped in a circle, with a narrow passage opening the center up to the street. It wasn't much. It certainly wasn't impenetrable, but it would serve. Cutting her wrist again, she bolstered the hedge with a second spell, causing curling thorns to grow out of it in a thousand different directions.

Dipping her fingers into the remaining blood on her arm, Mina knelt down on the street, spelling out the words 'First Aid.' As an afterthought, she drew a cross as well.

She collected her shopping bags, tossing them against one of the hawthorn walls, all except for the smallest bag, which contained a few items that would serve as makeshift medical supplies. Mina pursed her lips, listening to the sounds on the other side of the hedge. What bothered her the most was her all-too-calm reaction to the sudden deluge. She was getting old, getting jaded.

With a sigh, she shook her head, taking out her CiD. This was an opportunity, she decided. An opportunity to prove her mettle.

Was it wrong that she viewed an attack by monsters in such a positive light?

[birdofhermes.livejournal.com]

It won't take Alucard long to find the makeshift first aid station. Though he's better suited to a multitude of things beyond errand boy at present, there's no disobeying Integra - and her logic holds true: he can make quick work of a supply run, even if he'd rather not be the elect.

In one hand he's gripping a messenger back, black and nondescript, but it's quite obviously filled to the brim. It's all of the supplies she requested, plus a few additional basics for the human and nonhuman alike - some of the less common salves emblazoned with the occasional cross or rune. Fortunately, there's nothing deadly here - only protective.

He comes to a halt just beyond the gap in the hedge, peering inward, and then it's all but growled (the most good-natured growl imaginable, of course): "Delivery."

( open to everyone, taking place early on in the attacks )

[aregulargirl.livejournal.com]

Max is wandering the streets of the city when the swarms begin, and has no reason to believe that anything is out of the ordinary (aside from everything, as she's only just arrived). Evening's just begun, and she's shrugged on a jacket, mostly out of habit, since the climate in Baedal is considerably warmer than the one in Seattle. For the first hour or so, her walk goes mostly undisturbed, and she makes her observances of the places and the citizens who walk the streets without incident.

Then the pipe crawlers start to make their move.

She's stopped at the corner of one of the streets, directly in front of a nondescript building, when she spots something - a nasty, slimy, crawling thing - crawling across her path. It looks harmless enough, but something about it reminds her of Manticore's creations, of the nomlies she let out. She focuses closer, notices the strange arms, but before she can make much more out, she is suddenly and violently sick to her stomach, badly enough that she begins to pitch forward as her knees buckle and she tries to keep bile from rising in the back of her throat.

"What the fuck," she mutters, reaching out and grabbing at the wall to stay upright. She manages to, but while the nausea ebbs a bit, it doesn't go away, and she wonders what the hell is going on.

[nojudge.livejournal.com]

Max isn't the only one out and about today - Balthier is, as always, restless, and out exploring the city now that his immediate necessities are sorted (the most immediate, getting the hell home, is something he realizes to be something of a work in progress).

Odd animals appearing at random is actually quite familiar with him, and he's about to remark in passing that people are awfully skittish here, considering, when the nausea hits. (He has the thought that he's very glad he'd passed on Jack's offer of painkillers. Earth medication always makes him faintly ill, no matter what the ailment.)

It takes him a minute to make a decision - less than that to sort out the only new variable - and even though it makes him feel like he might just sick up all over the street to do it, he pushes forward to where the thing is wiggling around and brings one leather booted heel down on its head, snapping its neck. Someone across the street gives out a muffled scream in shock, but as soon as the thing stops its death spasms, the sick feelings dissipate.

Staring at the thing (and now attempting to get its blood and other materials off his shoe), he mutters, "The hell was that?"

[ofminastirith.livejournal.com]

Nobody in this city is particularly close to Boromir, which is why no one has realised that the man has been in a tremendous amount of shock since his arrival. He hasn't interacted with anyone unless out of common courtesy, determined that he should come to terms with his death and abduction by himself.

The stern faced man of Gondor is a confident yet unapproachable figure to those who might have seen him about town. He eats and sleeps at the Valhalla Inn. He explores the city calmly; watchful and deep in thought.

(And sorry Baedel, but you are complete arse compared to Minas Tirith, in his very biased opinion.)

The mounting number of crows have been cause for concern and he can't help but think crebain, ducking into buildings and alleyways whenever he sees them in large numbers.

The pipe-crawlers had also been troubling him. After squishing one earlier, he was greatly disturbed when inspecting its appendages. Still, no one else seemed to be too alarmed beyond their initial disgust. And as more of them appear, the more Boromir starts to worry. Where are the guards of this city? Why aren't they protecting their people?

He keeps looking at the CiD, contemplating what to do, who to talk to, when there is a loud crash further up the street. A stalker has appeared, and crushed into a group of pedestrians. He swings into action, sword at the ready, ducking, swerving and finally beheading.

As he rolls it over for inspection, the first gruesome little primate bursts out, and he jumps back. It springs away in the opposite direction of him and attacks someone nearby. Then another, and another. They are quick, vicious, and he can't keep up.

"Get off the street! Run, you fools!" he yells to anyone willing to listen, and battles on.

[coffeeking]

The loud crack of gunfire fills the air once, then twice, then a third time in quick succession. Boromir may be unfamiliar with guns, but the results of the weapon should be plain enough as three of the creatures fall respectively with each bang, ripped away from their would-be victims to collapse in growing pools of blood. The neat, round wounds in torsos and faces are efficient and well-aimed.

"Nice sword," Ianto comments rather casually, appearing to one side. He's close enough he doesn't have to shout, but not so close Boromir might accidentally nick him. He raises his firearm again and takes out another of the creatures as it leaps at him.

Clark and Lex

[patricide]

Lex is usually highly observant, but since arriving to Baedal he's had a bit of tunnel vision. The gradual changes of the city go unnoticed as he buries himself in his work both personally and professionally, striving to make a name for himself as fast as he can at the office and then coming home to work on building renovations. It's all a long process but one he knows he'll be satisfied with later.

The other downside to busying himself in such a way is that Lex hadn't allowed himself much time to spend with his friend from back home. He is treating Clark to a meal at a restaurant with an outside patio when the swarms of birds begin. He dives under the table for cover and pulls out his knife instinctively, doing what he can to hack at the birds but he knows it's a poor defense for their current situation.

"We're not far from where I live," he calls to Clark over the swarm, "at the soonest opening we need to make a break for it."

[goodtothecore.livejournal.com]

Clark has also been a little distant from Lex since first arriving (other than following him a little from a distance to make sure he's been safe, which doesn't really count), giving his friend space to concentrate on his work, and himself space to make his own, slightly more isolated living arrangements where he can have the comforting familiarity of farm work to fall back on - and that keeps him busy, too. So he was happy to take Lex up on his invitation to the restaraunt, and only a little guilty that he didn't think of it first - and then the birds show up.

For a second he stays where he is, but Lex diving under the table gives him his cue - no showing off his invulnerability. As he ducks under the table next to Lex, he's not sure if the birds are normal - he's been hearing rumours about them, and other weird creatures showing up. And - "When did you get a knife?"

He's mostly surprised Lex doesn't have one of the large caliber handguns he's more used to seeing his friend pull out in times of extreme duress.

( all across town. )

[tropfatale.livejournal.com]

Well, this is familiar.

In some contexts, these are the sort of creatures Sonja would enjoy--even command. Since they've been tampered with (like her), she's not so inclined to keep them around, especially when they attack her, though she's thus far had better luck than some with going down the streets. Theoretically, she supposes, she could summon the full force of her presence and bypass them entirely.

But that wouldn't be as fun.

She has her bow for the flying creatures, her sword for anything low-hanging--but she's observed that the birds respond best (or at least die easiest by) to magic. Since she's not so keen on outing herself to the general population, she's trying to work either with Ilde, who knows, or by herself, but run-ins are inevitable. She nets three of the birds with crushing telekinetic influence, invisible, but pinning them to the ground. One of them breaks free from the side and makes a desperate lunge toward the sky, one of its fuzzy barely-real wings sticking out at an angle, the other dribbling strange pearlescent black beads.

Interesting. She pauses in her assault to advance and examine this more closely, toeing her booted foot at one of the dying birds.

[coffeeking]

"Well done," Ianto comments, slipping out of the shadows. His gun is drawn, but lowered, as he too looks curiously at the dying crow. "I've been avoiding the birds, myself. Guns just seem to piss them off."

If he finds anything strange or uncomfortable about Sonja's powers, he doesn't say so, or make any other indication of the sort.

Dean and Integra

[wearyheadtorest]

Dean huddles in a doorway, eyes up, tracking the movements of the crows. Every so often a few try to divebomb him, or one of the other entrances. "Everyone keep back!" he calls over his shoulder, to the people gathered inside. "They can't get you if you stay away from the doors!"

...He hopes. So far, however, so good.

But the flock of crows is growing darker. He knows that means they're growing in number. He's held them off with a few warning shots from his handgun but something seems to have shifted in the way they're circling the station. Dean has the decided sense they're plotting.

A knot of them slowly breaks off from the rest of the group. Dean swiftly switches out for his sawed-off shotgun and blasts them as they divebomb as one, trying to get in the door. He gets a few and the rest scatter, but he knows it's just a matter of time before they try again.

Integra's on her way. Maybe between the two of them they can make a bigger dent in these crows, get these people to better shelter.

[suninhades]

Before Integra left the guild hall, she made sure to pack up a number of supplies - far more than she usually bothers with, but the obnoxious creatures flooding the city are many-pronged and frustrating in their particular natures. She suspects, based on the intelligence she's gathered, that the crows are greatly unfond of magic. They fled before her and the Princess, after all, and the notion that they are magical beings and not merely spirits would explain their barely-corporeal makeup.

Unstable, she thinks. Not suited to being blasted with that which ties them together; perhaps it overloads them, or mixes poorly. Either way, it's going to be a headache extracting Dean and his cadre of civilians - Integra doesn't think that the bindings on her soul or the seals etched into her gloves will be enough to frighten the birds away like the presence of an elder fae being would, but perhaps in concert with silver bullets, it'll get their attention.

She comes over the bridge on horseback at a full gallop, stopping only when the station is in sight. For a moment she just assess the situation, and then, completely calm, takes out her modified SIG P226, and shoots the current flock leader in the head - from many yards away - causing it to instantly dematerialize. Then she shoots another. And another. She empties her 14 round magazine in short order, and as the whole shrieking murder of them explode into a frenzy, she ejects the spent magazine, reloads, and puts her side-arm away. The crows, thoroughly distracted from Dean and the civilians, begin to converge on Integra.

She merely waits.

At the Valhalla Inn

[gotbottle]

The front doors fly open and Rachel, who has been keeping watch through a window, calls out to someone trying to dodge some of the crows. "Come on," she urges, "in here, quickly!"

The poor man's a bit overwhelmed. Rachel hesitates in the doorway for a moment and then she ducks out, closing the door behind herself, grabbing a handful of the man's coat. "It's okay, come on."

They battle their way back to the entrance, Rachel using her grasp on the man's clothing to haul him to safety. She opens the door and stuffs him through. She has to fend off one last crow; she realizes, once she's slammed the doors against it, that it's gouged her arm pretty good with its claws. That's all though--otherwise she's fine.

The man seems reasonably okay. He can walk. "There's first aid back that way, go, have them check you out." She watches him go and she resumes her watch through the window.

She knows nothing about first aid or fighting. She figures this is the way she can best be useful. She watches the crows but from time to time her attention is pulled away by movement and sounds within the inn itself.

[edsidlemirth.livejournal.com]

Eddie isn't doing so well, staying put at the Inn. He isn't especially good at fighting, and doesn't know anything about first aid, either, but he has plans, always, and he wants to do something.

He's traded out the nice suit the city brought here with him for a cheaper shirt, and a long coat that's boring but that's the point. Once that was settled, he applied himself to the Inn's defenses as best he's able and as much as anyone in charge will actually let him assist. His ideas themselves are quite workable, but he's so darn overenthusiastic and convoluted about it. After getting into an argument with someone over whether or not their idea was completely stupid, Eddie heads over to the window to look outside, and sighs.

open for trollan'.

[birdofhermes.livejournal.com]

If anyone's taking misdirected glee in the presence of these creatures, it's Alucard. It shows plain on his features - or at least, what of them can be glimpsed as he moves through the streets of Brock Marsh. The vampire himself is hardly visible between his own rapid movements and the descent of what crows he's tempted into attacking him. The growing assault is probably valid cause for alarm - in these numbers, the birds would have no trouble maiming a man and picking his skeleton clean.

Fortunately, Alucard is a different case. It isn't obvious at first glance, that he has a plan - one that's working quite well, considering the circumstances. Anyone who pauses to pay attention for more than a moment will be able to tell that the monster under assault is at little personal risk.

Guttural, almost otherworldly sounds punctuate the crows' neverending shrieks. There are glimpses, however brief, of glowing, red eyes - more than just two, far more, but what they belong to is difficult to discern under cover of darkness and the avians alike. The occasional flash of yellow-white teeth shows through the blackness, and careful observation will reveal something that makes the crows appear downright cuddly.

What used to be Alucard's arm has shed its form, taking on one of sheer darkness, black dotted with red that extends far further than anyone should be able to reach. There isn't any appendage to be seen. Instead, it's the head of a giant dog - one that looks as if it might be a descendent of Cerberus itself - made visible with each successive gnash of fangs, if only briefly before the crows again block it from view. The sound of the creature's teeth interlocking is paired with a sickening crunch, and almost immediately, what's happening is wholly evident.

He's eating them.

[rhinemaid]

The instant she surfaces in Brock Marsh, Ilde regrets it - she doesn't need to be on dry land to see how much worse it is here, and she sinks lower in the water (eye-level) before she can draw unwanted attention. She shouldn't linger here, she knows, she should dive deep and swim much faster...but there are a few of those little primate bastards near the river's edge, and Ilde has a good arm, and it's just a little too tempting.

The monkey she catches first - she launches herself backwards out of range of the others after snaking one away - is bleeding to death already as she flings it through the air, but it probably won't die before she can find out whether or not Alucard will catch it in his mouth like popcorn.

[returntous.livejournal.com]

This was not the weirdest thing Mabel had ever taken a baseball bat to, or even the scariest, but it was not fucking easy.

The Brock Marsh street she had been walking down exploded with claws and feathers, to the horror of her and everyone else. She'd dragged two boys into the closest shop - a bookstore with the world's most unfortunately large windows - and had them and the shopkeeper brace shelving against those windows as much as they could. The birds furled against the windows like an angry cloud; at the sight of the first crack, Mabel had banished the other three to the windowless thick door of the storeroom in the back. She'd barricade them in, if she had to.

The windows were tougher than they looked. The small window on the front door was another story, those black furious balls trying to squeeze through the break in it all at once. They manage it one by one, only to be bashed into submission by Mabel wielding the shopkeeper's bat. The cracks in the larger windows were getting bigger and the crows weren't going down without a fight.

Her arms are starting to bleed.

[hehaseatenthepancake]

In the distance, through the flapping wings and the bird calls, there's a clip-clop sound of hooves rapidly approaching. The cadence is all wrong for a horse, however, two legged rather than four. The hoof noises are finally accompanied by a massive shape of red and tan, wielding a golden sword.

"BOOM!" Hellboy shouts as he barrels into the midst of the crows. He lashes out with both the sword, and the massive stone artifact that is his right hand. After a few seconds of slashing and crushing, the cloud of birds disperses, taking off for easier pickings.

As they fly away, he calls after them, "Yeah, you better run!" He takes a moment to look down at himself -- this coat survived with much less damage than its predecessor -- then walks over and knocks on the door of the bookstore. "Hello? I'm collecting for the March of Dimes?"

[suninhades]

On horseback, Integra has taken to skirting the Brock Marsh district, occasionally darting in to kill something or another, sometimes directing fleeing civilians up towards Raven's Gate - no use trying to fight bridges over the river, now. At least the birds have decided she's too much of a hassle, between her sharp-shooting and the enchantment-stitched explosive flares she's carrying with her, though every so often she still sees one, or a pair, watching her from the eave of some building.

The rest of the plague isn't so easily deterred. More than once she passes a gang of monkeys, bodies soaked in blood and gore, still hopping and chewing in the fresh remains of a corpse. While perhaps disturbing, it seems hardly evil, but panicked, over-excited and out of control. Typical wild animals. One gets too close, hissing in an attempt to protect its territory - Integra's horse half-startles at first, but it becomes clear that it's only out of irritation, because it stomps on it in the next moment, crushing it to death instantly. The rest of the lot make an enormous torrent of noise, but clear off.

Up ahead, she sees the shifting, jagged-edges of the birds; true murders of crows, now, looming over buildings and homes. She sees smoke, too, and hears sirens of the Militia. Useless bastards. With determination, Integra kicks up her horse, and sets off into the heart of the district.

[tothelastbreath]

As she gets closer, she'll start seeing signs that something else has been here, something that definitely isn't human, but doesn't seem to fit any of the creatures terrorising the city. The path is marred by sparse pockets (there really is no better way to describe how restrained it looks, as though the perpetrator has at least tried to keep damage to a minimum) of gouged concrete, clusters of five parallel slashes that might've been caused by the claws of some huge animal. This only lasts for the next dozen feet or so before the slew of bodies begin, all furred, all bleeding from what looks to be similar claw marks, all either dead or too injured to cause anyone trouble, until the path is practically littered with primates. By now, it should be clear what those seemingly random gouges in the road were meant to be: warning shots. Whatever fought off the monkeys in this particular area has attempted, however briefly, to chase them off instead of outright killing them all.

Further along the way, a dead armadillo lies on the side of the road in halves, cleaved clean through its middle. The severed ends are still glowing faintly with fast-fading lines of pale green light, and should Integra reach them in time, with eyes sharp enough, she may be able to tell a cross had burned bright on bone and sinew not too long ago.

A figure dressed all in white stands right in the middle of a modest square up ahead, the furred hood of his cowl tugged low to hide the distinguishing colour of his hair. When he lifts his head to eye the swarming crows, light glances sharply off the silver masquerade mask obscuring the upper half of his face. It's an obvious effort at anonymity, one he doesn't seem to care about undermining as he strives to get the attention of an agitated crowd of civilians, trying to direct them inside a building he appears to have chosen for its relative lack of windows. You can tell he chose it by the way the front door's lock is slashed open, and how the marks match the strange, metallic-looking claw in place of his left hand.

"Everyone ― this way, please!" His tone is rough with urgency, British accent a lot more evident than usual, but there's no mistaking this voice for anyone but the not-quite young man Integra met a few days ago. "If you'd just get inside, I'll hold them off!"

[jysiri.livejournal.com]

Jysiri deeply regrets not having stayed home, today. He was out shopping, and now he's caught out in the middle of all this mess, and with only a little magic. A ring that produces a happy, whistling song really isn't going to be much of any help, here.

His bird form can fly, and his first plan was to book it on the wing, but peacocks aren't exactly the best long-distance flyers. Instead of hiding in his flat, he is now backed into a corner by a number of disgusting monkeys.

He isn't helpless, though. His bird form grows and wavers a bit, with a blue glow. Then, he's grown to the size of a dog. His fan of long, eyed feathers have diminished and flattened along his back, and an actual tail has grown, rigid and as long again as the rest of his body, with a smaller crest at the tip. Long, clawed fingers poke out from the feathers of his wings, and his head, still feathered, is saurian now, and his mouth is fanged. And the sharp, sickle claws on his feet will help him against his attackers, and maybe give him a chance to run for safety before he's overwhelmed.

He leaves one monkey dead, eviscerated, and leaps over another. He lands badly, one foot twisted, and he squeaks. He can run and leap and fight, but his legs are not good, and he will pay for this, later.

[scorpiontongue.livejournal.com]

Another bird cries overhead - a high, fierce falcon sound - and a third monkey, distracted with chasing after Jysiri, promptly erupts in cracking eldritch fire. Kriv is not far behind: teeth bared, armor bloodied, either half insane or having the time of his life or both. The first swing of the bladed polearm in his hands tears a fourth monkey in half.

Integra Hellsing wants the civilians alive. So be it then, and at least in this instance the directive results in exactly what Kriv would be doing anyway. If the little pests want to attack something, let them attack this!

"Little cousin!" he bellows at the strange saurian thing, feathered but unmistakeably, distantly familiar. Perhaps a hybrid drake of some sort? Though if he's chasing after someone's pet he's going to be ill-tempered...er, more ill-tempered about it. "Are you sentient?"

open; Huntress is kind of terrifying

[indiscreet]

The report of the monsters had come so suddenly, and before Anna was even fully certain of the full extent of what she had just agreed to do she found herself sent towards Brock Marsh district, where the attacks were worst. She isn't sure yet how she feels about an alliance with Hellsing itself, but for now Nuala at least has earned her trust, and furthermore she certainly isn't going to let this city, too, be overtaken by malevolent inhuman...things.

She sprints easily ahead to her destination, already tapping into the Fae part of herself that means she can access this speed without any expenditure of Vitae; she tells herself it is a matter of practicality, preserving the blood to heal herself, but it is so, so easy to want this, to thrill to the possibility of the hunt. Without thinking, she lets the glamour peel away, so that the lightning crackles like streamers through her dark hair, sparks of light show on her skin, and the smell of ozone clings to her like mist.

What greets her at Brock Marsh is beautiful chaos. Many of the civilians have already fled, which is fortunate: it takes a conscious exertion of will to keep herself from hunting down the ones who run by like prey. Instead, she concentrates on what she tells herself will be a far more satisfying chase: the shadowy crows that swarm the sky.

Her arm extends before her, forming a vertical arc that coalesces into a longbow. She pulls an arrow of lightning seemingly from nowhere; aims; fires into the swarm and watches as her arrow shoots through two of the birds, which collapse into pearlescent black beads.

The Huntress laughs with delight.

Re: open; Huntress is kind of terrifying

[wandandsickle]

As she and Mina part ways, Jones is already forming an imago for a spell to scry Anna Demirovna. She has a feeling that it'll be a good idea to find her. (Jones hasn't forgotten that Anna's said that the Huntress isn't completely under her control. And considering she's pretty sure she was talking to the Huntress and not Anna earlier--that's worrying.)

open

[hehaseatenthepancake]

After his adventures with Mabel, Hellboy made a quick trip to the guild hall to check in, drop off more crow pearls, possibly replace his coat again, etc., then went back out into the city. Once he arrives in Brock Marsh again, a wailing sound draws him off onto a street where a giant armadillo lurches along, sending scared civilians running.

"Oh, boy," he mutters to himself. The creature perks up one ear at the ringing metallic sound of Hellboy drawing his sword, but its attention isn't fully drawn until he calls out, "Hey! Ugly!"

Something about either his weapon, his aggression, or possibly even just his size sparks something in what passes for the creature's mind. Its keening picks up into a higher pitch, and it charges Hellboy, rearing up when it reaches him with the intent of crushing him. Hellboy, however, had set himself for the charge, his hooves dug into the street, and thrust Excalibur into the underbelly exposed by the crushing attempt. The beast was heavy, but Hellboy was strong enough, once he brought his large stone Right Hand in to support where the sword went in, to flip it over on its side instead. He drew the sword out, then thrust it in again, at an angle better planned to take out the creature's brain.

"There. That's all for you."

But that wasn't all. With the beast dead, its burden went wild, tearing themselves out of its innards by expanding the hole created by Hellboy's first sword thrust. The first monkey to come out was dressed in a wetsuit, and the absurdity of it froze him for a moment in a stunned flashback to the Bromhead/Guarino case of 1999.

"Hey," Hellboy asked. "What's that in the corner?"

Hellboy's partner, Abe Sapien, asked, "Is that a monkey?"

The monkey came more fully into view, and as he saw what it was carrying, he cried out, "He's got a gun!"

With surprisingly good aim, the monkey let off three shots with its revolver, all hitting Abe, before it threw the gun up and started running.

Behind the first monkey, a couple dozen more boil up out of the tear, and Hellboy only barely has time to utter an aggrieved, "Aw, crap," before they swarm upon him.

Re: open

[wandandsickle]

Jones turns a corner just in time to see a bunch of monkeys... dressed monkeys? swarm out of an armadillo and onto a... large, red guy with a sword.

Okay, well then. More things in heaven and earth, as they say, and she's pretty sure this place is neither. And there's no time to be wasting.

Her hands start moving in familiar patterns, shaping the spell—and it's simple, really. All she needs to do is rearrange some molecules. All the materials she needs are already here. Hydrogen, oxygen, all kinds of wonderfully flammable things. And the Obrimos think they have the monopoly on firepower, haha. "Here we go," she mutters, and lets the spell go with a snap of her fingers in the back of the crowd. There's a satisfying whoosh of sudden flame and a chorus of simian screams as several of them catch.

And then another four turn to look at her. Oops.

Dean and Jo

[yourwonderings.livejournal.com]

Jo has perfect timing. Not really.

She's only recently arrived in Baedal, and she's already looking to be in the middle of things. It helps that it'd require hunting skills, since that's what she's been developing for the past year or so. It's what she's been gearing herself up for her whole life.

Because everything has literally hit the fan, there's no time for real greetings. She tells Dean she's in the city, he briefly gives her the rundown, and they agree to meet so she can be back-up.

An hour later, she's meeting Dean in the nearest train station as promised.

[wearyheadtorest]

He's loading up his shotgun, quietly giving instructions to the half-dozen people gathered there with him. One man in injured, but he can walk, supported by one of the others.

He glances up at movement near the entrance, a faint smile breaking out at the sight of Jo. "Over here," he calls. He snaps the shotgun closed and explains to his charges that this is a friend, she's here to help.

[aconitumferox.livejournal.com]

As new arrivals go, some are better-prepared for the city's current state of chaos than others. Marie-Sixtine is...not really one of them. She understands (tentatively--so tentatively) that she's been taken to another place, but somehow she wasn't warned about what waited for her outside the Inn's doors, and in her dress and high-heeled boots she is an impossibly old-fashioned little thing--not a princess, despite what people at home said about her, she rejects the nickname or title instinctively--not quite on board for combat. She can be brave, but this...this is so outside the realm of her experiences.

But one of the crows lands near her, its eyes too intelligent. It stares at her.

It does not move to attack her as long as she doesn't move, and she is very still, watching it in return. More of its companions join it, assembling in a smudgy unreal-crow flock. They watch her in unison. She doesn't know if this is the norm or not (distinctly not, so distinctly not), but it's not the first time something supernatural has been drawn toward her, even if she only now recognizes it as supernatural.

Why are they just...staring at her?

At some point, Six realizes, she's going to have to leave and escape. She half-hopes something (not a person, she'd never wish that on a person) distracts the crows so she can do so.

[apostatised]

The pounding of hoofbeats announces Martel (and Kalten, whose hooves they are) before he rounds the corner, bloody and irritated and driving ahead of him a gaggle of the diseased primates that shriek their fury as they endeavour to swarm out of the warhorse's path; the sound of their bones cracking and blood splattering isn't significantly more pleasant. He'd come down this way on the assumption (false, apparently, and what sort of fool-) that there'd be no one out on this street, particularly not so close to the Inn.

The word he utters at this point is likely unfamiliar, but the tone of it is unmistakable as Martel alters his course to lean sideways and reach out to Six - his intent is fairly clear, and if she's cooperative, he'll haul her up behind him on the horse. "You shouldn't be out here," he says, half an eye on the birds and trying to gauge his chances of being able to pull this off quickly enough to avoid engaging them.

Not that he doubts his own brilliance or prowess, of course, but three things at once is a little much when they're monkeys, birds, and someone else's little lost lamb.

[seal_clubs_you]

Once freed from the arrival room -- which, as a watcher of American late-night TV, he will probably always call "the green room" -- Mike quickly sets up shop, augmenting the Valhalla first aid station with his equipment and field surgeon skills. Although he's itching to go out and take the fight to the creatures he's been hearing so much about, he has to maintain his cover. Some visitors to the station are a little surprised by his appearance, because he's still wearing his backpack, body armor, and helmet, his rifle slung over one shoulder and other wicked-looking weaponry on his belt. But this is how you do it when you're doing battlefield triage, and he can reach pretty much everything he needs with a fair degree of ease this way.

Within minutes he's just... completely horrified by some of the injuries he's seeing. People are coming in mangled, many of them sporting wounds he doesn't think they'll survive. All he can do for them is get them as comfortable as possible, and then move on to the people he can actually help.

His ears are still ringing -- just a little -- from the missile explosion that disabled his helicopter back in Afghanistan. Maybe that's why he doesn't hear the crawler at first. Washing his hands after performing an emergency amputation, he just thinks the nausea is the cumulative effect of the sights and smells of triage. He doesn't see the hideous creature hauling itself out of the drain in the other sink basin. Not yet.

[aintwoundright.livejournal.com]

Gabriel appears at the door to the infirmary, carrying a girl he picked up on his way here. The crows got her face, leaving long bleeding welts here and there. He's not sure what got her midsection. She's bleeding pretty badly.

He doesn't announce that they need help, he thinks their arrival should signal that just fine. He sets the girl on a bench with a few words he hopes are comforting and then he straightens up, intending to find someone in charge.

A wave of nausea hits him, hard. His body tries to compensate, his rapid healing trying to make it right but there's nothing physical to heal, no inner ear trouble or digestive difficulty making the nausea manifest. So his ability ratchets it back a few degrees but then it comes rushing back.

He thinks he's going to be sick. He staggers for one of the sinks, beside a man scrubbing his hands, and that's when he sees it. There's some creature coming up out of the drain. The nausea is nearly unbearable now that he's right near it. This thing has to be causing it.

"Move away," he tells the man beside him, grasping his arm and trying to shove him to safety. "I don't know what that is but we need to get away from it."

Dean and Mabel

[wearyheadtorest]

He keeps moving north, headed for the worst of the fray. There are people to save, monsters to kill. He feels more in his element than he has in half a year.

On a side street north of Mog Hill, though, he crumples to his knees. Nausea, sudden and overwhelming. He holds his shotgun against his body, his other hand going to the pavement for balance. He's vaguely aware of something moving nearby, near a sewer grate. He raises the gun with an unsteady hand but he can't focus his eyes well enough to fire, just yet.

It's moving closer. He has to fire. He tries to will his eyes to focus but another wave of disorientation crashes through him.

[returntous.livejournal.com]

Sometime in between being dropped off in the relative (debatable) safety of a medical station and getting bandages slapped on the worse cuts she had (the one on her cheek stuck out like a white flag), Mabel's back on the streets and itching for action. Somehow she'd cobbled up a knife about as long as her forearm

"Get down!" she yells, pushing him to the side to ensure the gun would be in no way pointed at her. The sewer critter gets taken out by her bat; you hit them in just the right place, and they went down with an oozing splat.

She should've been a baseball player. She was keeping this bat forever.

"Hey, there's the gun I was looking for." Keeping her eyes on their surroundings, Mabel crouches to offer him a steady hand. "You doing alright?"

Nazca and Dean or Balthier (or anyone else)

[ironshodboots]

Nazca's been avoiding the birds as best she can. They deeply unnerve her, for more reasons than the obvious.

On the other hand, having a goal, something to fight, is giving her an outlet for some restless anger she didn't know she had. Nazca's found a rhythm, and she's been using a combination of well-placed knives, tactical maneuvering, and retreat when necessary.

[wearyheadtorest]

There's noise, some kind of commotion around the corner of the building Dean's creeping against. He pauses, gun at the ready, and then he rushes around the corner.

He stops short when he sees who it is. "Nazca." The gun's lowered at once, and he takes in the knives, and the dead creature at her feet.

"...Damn. Guess I don't need to ask you if you're holding up okay."

[scorpiontongue.livejournal.com]

Everything else is to be killed on sight, she'd said. I want every last one of these damn things exterminated. And a great joy had thundered in his heart.

It isn't like Kriv really needs an excuse to vent his bad mood on every hostile lifeform he can find, but even the faintest air of proper well-ordered military violence appeals to his sensibilities far more than simply tearing apart anything that bleeds.

He hardly stops to sleep or eat for days, the old ritual boasts still ringing proudly in his ears - the blood of Io may live on battle alone! - and true enough to the ancient words he hardly feels himself tire. Later, perhaps, but that is later. Now he is here, exploding from thin air in a rush of smoke and fire, scattering a cloud of crows from their bloody victim; now he is there, brawling with an armor-beast like he was born to do it, glaive alight with eldritch fire. The crows eventually start to scatter at the sound of his falcon's hunting cry, though Kriv only curses them for cowards and openly dares them to come back. (It does make saving people easier, but what the hell good is an easy battle anyway.)

True to his word he is very, very thorough: wounded beasts are pursued for a dozen city blocks if necessary to finish the job. If a few windows get broken or bloodied in the process...well, such is the nature of battle.

[ofminastirith.livejournal.com]

Boromir is another cohort member that can be found busily battling the creatures around Brock Marsh. Mostly stalkers, their parasites and large piles of pipe-crawlers that cry out to the other, bigger creatures and cause nausea for himself and any remaining citizens. For the most part he has left the crows to their own devices (little does he know that his cloak contains a little more than the best of elven knitting patterns) -perhaps incorrectly, he believes them to be spies, since that is the closest approximation they have in his own world.

Upon sighting Kriv from a short distance away, he raises his sword in a defensive stance, half-expecting the creature in front of him to attack. Kriv certainly looks like something out of Mordor -scales, battle-crazed, fire and ruin in his wake.

But just, just when Boromir thinks about charging to attack, he realises that whatever it is seems to be fighting the same creatures that are attacking the city.

This is definitely the pinnacle of the strange situation he has found himself in today.

( sobek croix. )

[satrinah.livejournal.com]

The forests of Sobek Croix are a natural nesting ground for those great, horrible crows. The monkeys even like the densely wooded areas--it's not the jungle climate they should be in, but at least it provides opportunity to hide, and it allows them to pick off pedestrians. The crows like to hide in the trees and wait until someone walks or runs by, and then descend, attacking eyes and soft flesh with fervor.

Lyla sits on the lawn of someone else's little cottage, cross-legged. Her palms are bleeding. Up above, the trees begin to rustle, but it's not because of the crows.

She can feel them (hear their hearts beating, magical though they may be), and she knows where they are. The trees' branches begin to shift and crack, and one by one, there are indignant squawks of crows being crushed to death by the magical influence Lyla demonstrates over the plants and trees. Their bodies drop in twos and threes on the lawn, several yards in front of Lyla, and disintegrate into Baedalite.

Lyla smokes a blood-stained cigarette, and feels a little sorry for them.

[manipulativni.livejournal.com]

Katherine's grown weary of the chaos happening back in town and has decided to slip away from the violence and bloodshed to explore the outskirts of the city. She's come across several of the crows, but has managed to outrun them or duck into hiding when they've gotten too close (she hasn't spent 535 years on the run without learning a few tricks). The monkeys have been easier, they don't take long to kill, but she's simply not in the mood for it. She's looking for someplace peaceful, just to escape for an hour or two.

That is not what she finds in the center of these woods. Instead, she sees a girl sitting near a little cottage, can smell the blood coming from her palms (for a split second her mind flashes back to finding her family slaughtered, faces frozen in twisted expressions of fear, blood everywhere, but she forces the memory back, almost violently), and then she hears the rustling and glances up from where she stands, currently hidden behind a tree.

The branches strain and crack off, birds fall to the ground and disintegrate into pearls, and Katherine's eyebrows go up in surprise as she watches. The corners of her lips turn upward in a subtly impressed smile. This is someone interesting, that much is very clear, but she doesn't want to make her presence known quite yet. She waits to see if there's more to the show.

Brock Marsh (OPEN)

[defenestration]

It's not necessary for Adrian to do much more than step outside his front door to enter into the fight, although in an attempt to keep his identity hidden at least for now, he leaves the building in secret and makes his way through the neighborhood. He has no weapons, has never picked one up and doesn't intend to now, but speed and strength have always served him well. The costume he's wearing can withstand the force of a bullet, making him at least well-protected in that regard (he'll just have to be wary of protecting his head and face), and that comes in handy when he encounters a group of things that look disturbingly like primates, and that attack with a ferocity that almost makes him wish for the Comedian and his ridiculous flame-thrower.

[ooc: Please for the sake of secret identity preservation, let's pretend that the typical superhero trope of "an eyemask is an awesome disguise" holds true here?]