lucetilogs | Mission #13 - Historic Route Six-to-Four

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Mission #13 - Historic Route Six-to-Four

Who: Jack Holden, Silver, Leonhardt, Jack Sparrow, Serah Farron, Shikamaru, Haru Glory, Hyuuga Neji, Albert Silverberg, Helios Sprensonne, Saori, and Kotetsu.
What: Mission #13: Historic Route Six-to-Four
When: February 27th - March 2nd
Where: Along Route Six-to-Four
Summary: A routine transport mission goes awry when the cultists attack and a game of dreams begins.
Rating: Whatever 300 was rated, tbh

Departure

As noted on the mission briefer, this will take over the course of four days. The first two hours of the mission will be loading up the caravan and taking their assigned positions once it hits the road. This segment will be entirely hand waved. If you want to use this thread to establish some brief greets and exchange of names among characters, that’s fine, but the Malnosso will keep the workers too busy to do anything more than exchange pleasantries.

Four hours into their road trip, the caravan will suddenly come to a grinding halt as they pass through a shaded forest. Suddenly the lead vehicle will ring out with an explosion as it goes flying off the road and on fire. Fortunately, none of the volunteers were permitted to be on the lead vehicle, but it does spell trouble from the group. With the sound a war horn, the caravan is suddenly descended on by winged assailants. The security forces equipped to the caravan rush to mount a defense, but the cultists are cleverly able to use the forest to their advantage to launch their attacks. From four points around the caravan, Shifters take up position and block the powers and technology of all present.

And then the General steps onto the battlefield. The battle commences as the MSF draw their blades. The volunteers and other workers enter the fray as well in what looks like a hopeless battle. But before any conclusion can be had for either side, there’s a flash of bright light and everything goes dark.

Please use the plotting post for any questions!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"They gave me the week off--didja' still want to go out to the beach for the weekend?" Kotetsu takes this moment to collapse on the couch, loosen his tie. Too tight lately. When he says they gave him the week off, he mostly means Barnaby coached him into it; it's been busy, working as a hero. Tomoe understands though, and she ushers a pre-teen Kaede to go do her homework and smiles at Kotetsu like she always had and always will.

Her perfume remains the same. Her way of walking, too. He turns over and ushers Kaede to stop, hands clutching the top of the couch and a grin on his face.

"Oi, oi, how about we go shopping first before homework! We can get shovels and those cute little molds for the sand! Like the little octopus one you had that you loved so much, ne? Ne?"

"Dad!! I'm twelve, I don't do that kinda stuff anymore!"

"Aaaah, remember how we made a row of little octopusses all the way to the water? You really loved that."

"Honey, if you embarrass her she'll never want to go out with us..." Tomoe says, though she's clearly approving with her curled little smile; she ropes a scarf around his neck and he loves how she takes initiative before he does, excitable as he is. Kaede promises her mother she'll work hard when they return, and that she needs a cuter bathing suit because hers is at least three years old, and mom, we need sunscreen so we don't turn into lobsters!

(Kotetsu thinks this is how they'd talk to each other now, had Kaede ever gotten to truly grow beside her mother; this is how they'd talk... He doesn't realize it will never happen.)

They leave the house, and kids have Tiger and Barnaby cards and it makes him happy. But not as happy as the way his wife holds one hand and Kaede begrudgingly holds the other. The two girls get sidetracked by a new store, and Kotetsu's okay with letting them go while he sits down on a bench and watches the world around him move (slow motion, but he doesn't realize they're all moving slower than him--slow, slower); hazy images of Hero TV play out on giant screens around Stern Bild City. Barnaby's probably off somewhere, hard at work, huh?

He leans into the backrest and Tomoe waves to him behind from the store window.

He waves back.

From behind the bench, a rift opens up and the General stumbles out. His landing is far less graceful this time and he nearly collapses on the very same bench Kotetsu sits on. He snarls at the inconvenience, but when he notices the face of the man beside him, he quickly grabs the man by shoulder.

"If you value your life, you will do everything I command."

Across the street, Kaede presses her hand agaist the glass, small smile fading into something hauntingly neutral; Kotetsu doesn't see it, turning to face the man--the man he's unfamiliar with, because he doesn't know Luceti. Doesn't know drafts or the 'enemy' or any of that. He's just Kotetsu T. Kaburagi, AKA Wild Tiger, one of the heroes of this fine city.

He doesn't understand, and his furrowed brow says as much when he bows away from the hand with a confused grunt.

"What--??"

He looks the man up and down. Up and down. Hands on his hips.

"Are you supposed to be... some kinda' new hero or something?"

The look really says as much. He leans back.

"... Never saw wings as a NEXT thing... Who're you supposed to be, exactly?" If he's a villain... ugh, he doesn't want to deal with criminals today. And wouldn't it just be his luck if he had to work...

To the cultists, there was no hero greater than the General. But it was not for vanity's sake he was here. Folding his wings about him, he stood to his full height.

"I am known to many as the General. I command those who will be led for a purpose more glorious than anything you could imagine." He turned his attention to the people across the street. "I am here to liberate you from this fantasy."

"F... Oi, oi, if you're planning on doing something--I'm gonna have to stop you." For the aloofness he showed before, he was suddenly very serious; his daughter and wife were just across the way. If this guy was some nutjob who was planning to 'liberate' qnyone from a fantasy so clearly just life, he was gonna stop him. Without even so much as caring if people saw him do it.

He doesn't take it lightly.

With a step backward, his shoulders tense.

"You're not much of a General here."

"I have no desire to fight you, Wild Tiger. But if you choose to challenge me, I will break you."

But for the moment, the General did not move. He did not fight. If he could reason with this man, then all the better.

"Dad...?"

Kaede is behind him, walking cautiously--what are you doing here, General, get out, get out--but Kotetsu glances back with a worried scowl. "Stay back Kaede!"

It's not safe here... Tomoe is calling to Kaede, the people are all stopping, turning, alerted by this 'invader'. He's got to do something soon. Without another moment to waste, he turns back, clenches his fists, his jaw, and starts his power--

Only it doesn't snap on. There's no blue glow to encase him.

His eyes widen and he looks at his hands, clearly at a loss.

"Why--Wait, how did you know my--" And then his gaze is hardened and trained back on the General; Kaede runs forward and clings to Kotetsu's back like a scared, worried girl, and it scares Kotetsu to know she's so close by. "Kaede, I said to get back--!"

"Y-you gotta get back, dad; you're not a hero! You can't do this!"

Her eyes lock with the General's, dark and, truly, not that of a child's.

Sloppy. Too sloppy. Even if the Shifter were not already a traitor, he would kill it for being so sloppy. But for now, he had to convince this man to turn on what appeared to be his daughter. How annoying.

The General advanced, casually pushing aside the bench like it weighed nothing.

"That child is not yours. You must discard her if you wish to save your own life."

"... You get the hell away from my little girl."

Kotetsu is an emotionally impulsive person; if there's one way to ignite a fire in his eyes, it's being told to throw his own child aside. Kotetsu takes a step back. his hand moving to Kaede's arm. Kaede trembles, looking up at Kotetsu with wide, searching eyes. Eyes that tell Kotetsu don't let him hurt us. The people are scurrying, and he motions her away.

"Kaede, go back inside."

She slowly steps backward. Kotetsu doesn't move from between them. He's not sure how well he can hold his own now, without his NEXT powers, but he's obviously not about to step down and accept the... 'order' the man had told him.

How he hated dealing with these people. It was far easier when he was just trying to kill them. Trying to work with them was a frustrating ordeal for which he had little patience. He growled under his breath, even as he advanced.

"Think of Luceti, Wild Tiger. The experiments. The humiliation. In your mind, you know these things. How you endured being subjected to torments by little men playing with power they do not understand. You are not home, because there is no escape from this world."

The name is familiar, but it's distant, and he doesn't care to remember those kinds of things. He stands strong in his stance; Kaede is standing with her mother, holding her hands, brow furrowed. Kotetsu shakes his head.

"I don't... know what you're talking about."

Yes you do, think about it--

There are sirens in the distance. Kotetsu hasn't noticed what a large circle of space has surrounded them. Everyone is leaving, quickly. Yeah... he doesn't notice, because he's trying to pretend the General is just crazy.

"You need help; there's something... not right with you."

"Do not presume to tell me what I need. I know exactly what I need."

He looked at the bystanders. Illusions, of course. They wouldn't dare to fight him, because there'd be no hope of victory. No point. They were merely there to sustain the fantasy.

"The girl wishes to trap you here forever. If she does, you will be sacrificed and beyond all help."

"Shut up!!"

They were getting ready to go to the beach. Tomoe and Kaede needed to shop and get what they needed, and then they'd go to the shore for the weekend; Kaede would scowl a lot and call him weird, and Tomoe'd laugh, and they'd end up bone-tired and crash on one of the hotel beds.

It's that simple.

He rushes at the General with a fist drawn back, anger flaring from deep down in the pit of his stomach, because this guy is crazy, he's just some guy he has to get into cuffs, he's dangerous and his family is in danger—

I'll protect them.

The punch isn't anything at all, really. Not without his powers. To someone like the General, it's probably pathetic, and somewhere deep down Kotetsu knows it is. Just like somewhere, somehow, behind a thin sheet of glass separating fiction and reality, Kotetsu is screaming for something to break through.

He can't see it though. He can't see it.

Forgetting is easy. He threw everything behind him, for the sake of his dream. He could just forget, couldn't he? See, he'd already forgotten. None of that exists, because it just never did. How simple, right? Easy as breathing.

The General took the punch to the face. His head turned and he certainly felt the pain. But he did not allow it to register as something to react to. Instead, he immediately moved to seize the man's hand to prevent him from striking again.

"In any other situation, I would kill you where you stand. But fate has conspired that you are more useful alive."

From his belt, he pulled out a knife. He held it by the blade and pointed the hilt towards Kotetsu.

"In your mind, you already know that what I say is true. So take this blade and drive it into the heart of the person you love most. They are a monster who has taken the shape of your loved one as a means to hide away. They deserve nothing less."

"You want me to... stab my daughter?" It's grinded out between a tense a jaw, but there's a pain that flashes across his eyes--little things trickle in. He's starting to remember why those wings are so familiar, and he doesn't want to. Kaede shakes her head.

"Dad, what are you doing...? Why does he want to kill me...?"

"Kotetsu, do something!" Tomoe speaks out, putting her arms protectively around Kaede's shoulders, pulling her away. The hero's feet feel heavy as stone; he can't even move the hand the General has securely in his hand.

A dry swallow.

"I don't... believe you..." But it's so uncertain, and he remembers the mikan orchard first, and then the kitchen--and then the drafts, the look Barnaby gave him as he died, the way he pulled Pao-Lin close in her misery. Sanji carrying him back from the forest. Tony's plan, Grune laughing, a tiny blind girl petting back tiger fur--

He jerks his hand away, eyes wide.

"No..."

"Kotetsu!!" Tomoe is frightened.

He can't break his gaze from the man in front of him, or else he'll just slip again; he knows it. He keeps remembering so many different people that, a moment ago, he would have said he never knew. "Why--?? Why are you doing this?!"

"I am not responsible for your plight. She is the one who plays you for the witless fool." His eyes darted to the little girl. In truth, the General would savor performing this task himself. But that kind of battle of wills would be taxing and he needed to save that strength.

So he pushed the hilt of the blade into Kotetsu's chest, urging him to take the weapon. To use it.

"I can see in your eyes that you remember your true life. No doubt it is a miserable one, with the yoke of the Malnosso firmly tightened around it. But it is your life nonetheless. If you choose to live this fantasy, you will die and all hope of ever truly seeing these people will die with you."

... It was. It was miserable. But this—this would only further sink him into that misery. He takes the hilt, and instantly it feels heavy in his hand. This is too much weight; he'll break under it. He—can't do this.

"... Why would you help me?"

He's remembering.

"You're—Your people just want us all dead. You and malnosso... you both don't give a damn about any of the people there. So why? What's going on...?"

Edited 2013-03-04 09:58 (UTC)

"I have designs greater than mere death for you. But for the moment, you are useful to me alive. There is no more reason beyond that."

Impatient. He knew he was making progress, but the longer they waited in this dream, the more time the Shifter had a chance to change tactics.

He's shell-shocked.

And he knows it's true.

Kotetsu may be emotionally charged, but he's not as stupid as some may think—he remembers the mission, being attacked, remembers information on the dream shifters. He remembers the agony he'd endured when they experimented on Pao-lin and messed her up, killed the people he cared for more than his own life. He definitely remembers the draft... god, does he remember.

He comprehends it. He just doesn't know if he has it in him to do this.

Because he knows exactly what this man wants from him, and it makes his hands shake.

"I can't do this. This—is this gonna kill the shifter...?"

Kaede quickly moves to race into the store. The sirens are blaring now.

"I can't kill them. I'm—not like you. I won't kill them."

He's no criminal. He's no murderer... and just the thought of doing that to someone with his daughter's face... He'd kill someone for Kaede. This isn't that scenario. But then... the thought of fading out, not being able to go back to her... He shakes his head. Dammit, he can't turn into this. Why is he even holding this blade? It's not—he could never do something like that—

"O-oi, Do I have to kill them, or is there a way to break out without that? Please, tell me the truth—you'll give me that much, right??"

The General scoffed. "Your fear of death makes you weak, Wild Tiger. All things die. But in this world, they do not stay dead without the craft of the Shamans."

His disdain was clear. That this man would recoil at the thought of killing an enemy was absurd. He'd observed many that refrained from slaying others. In the end, it only made them weak. For a moment, he considered that Kotetsu would only be a burden moving forward.

But he'd already made it this far.

"But if it will ease your mind, then remember you are in the dream. Killing her in the dream is merely symbolic of escaping her power. She will continue to survive, but will be unable to take hold of your mind again."

"All things can die when it's their time." He growls low on his breath, taking a few steps back. This place just ruins the idea, turns it on its head, right? This whole 'being reborn' thing. Kotetsu'd like to believe it'd be good, to be brought back into the world... but he imagines, in a world like this? It just makes people go crazy.

He knows it does.

He turns, starts toward the shop, and his stomach drops with every step.

And then he hesitates in his tracks. He's got one more question, General. It's important.

"... Oi... what exactly are your... greater designs for us?"

"A time and place has been set aside for when you and all the other prized captives of the Malnosso shall be offered to the planet. That appointed hour has not yet past. For now, you are more useful alive and not trapped in this fantasy world." He pointed at the girl. "You know what you need to do."

Even in the midst of having to hurt someone with his daughter's face, he glowers, voice trembling with anger more than pain right now; this bastard, its their fault any of this is happening right now. Kotetsu doesn't give a damn who started it--these guys were just as fucked up as the malnosso. Maybe even worse. "Appointed hour my ass... You're not gonna win. You and the malnosso are both wrong. And we'll stop whatever you got planned."

With that, he clenches the knife in his hand and continues into the store Kaede and Tomoe had fled into.

The rest of the world around them seems frozen, unsure of what to do.

Some things are best left unseen.

There's a stretch of time--a long, unnatural silence in a world that should be all hustle and bustle. And then a man's strangled sob hidden behind a shaking hand; he struggles to find composure, hidden behind the walls of the place. A moment of privacy, a moment for his mind to scream why did you listen to him, because isn't he supposed to be the protector?

Unseen apologies, mumbled, petting a head of brown hair for just a moment before the world cracks as though Kotetsu had smashed his fist into it; everything splinters: the sky, the buildings, the unmoving body, Tomoe's horrified expression--

And then it all breaks apart like a dropped glass.

As the walls of the artificial world fall apart, the General approaches Kotetsu. The Shifter shifted to her true form, a cultist man, terrible to look at, but even he too faded from the dream. Instead of the world they were in, it was now a cave, dark and cold, poorly illuminated, and filled with others.

"You deserve much credit, Wild Tiger. Not many can resist the allure of the Shifted dream. To escape from it is commendable."

Mission #13 - Historic Route Six-to-Four

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