Zompania Draft - Draftees only, days 1-3.5

[lucetimods]

Who: All Draftees
What: This is your death. Followed by your time-traveling life and desperate bomb hunting.
When: From May 22 to May 20 to early May 23 (days 1-4)
Where: Zompania
Summary: Information post here
Rating: Varies on thread, please mark explicit material.

This post is for the draftee-only portion of the Zompania draft--the day 3 death, time travel to day 1, and then the events until the arrival of the reinforcements. Be sure to use the above info post for any plotting needs you might have. Enjoy!

Please note that there is a specific top-level comment thread for:

• The day 3 arrival of the draftees and the 6 hours that follow until the bomb is dropped
  
• Death--This thread can be treated as REFERENCE ONLY. Responding to it isn't necessary.
  
• Threads prior to departing for Zompania--post resurrection freak outs, arguments over how to proceed, etc.

All other threading, from day 1 until the reinforcements arrive, should be conducted as normal.

Be sure to tag this post appropriately: [canon] character name

Comments

All the days

[deathsdoctor]

[Days 1-2 (sunset): To Zompania. Law is in one of the groups scouting ahead and finding the safest path for the draftees to approach Zompania. He makes the shadows his own and doesn't use any of his abilities save his Haki.

The light from Room is too conspicuous and too dangerous to be risked.

He doesn't speak much unless necessarily - occasionally his expression pinches like he's in pain, but otherwise it remains icily frozen in a sort of calm that looked at too long slices like a razor. Any Third Party members simply get sliced. Sudden, vicious deaths and the pirate doesn't care how bloody they are as long as they're fast.

Once at the walls, the search begins and eventually something is found that looks promising. A breach in the walls, not big enough to squeeze through, but certainly enough to tell if there's anyone around on the other side. If he is covered, it is certainly within his power to make it silently larger.]

[Day 2 (city)- Day 3: It's been a very long time since he's seen so many bodies. Memories well underneath the ice freezing his core but do not surface as he gently pries open one's eyes and looks with clinical detachment. He flips the woman - for the corpse is a woman, pale and with hair long and red and wild like a certain pirate woman; indeed she could be her twin - over and grimaces, not only for the scent of cooked flesh.

There's a hole at the base of her skull and her wings have been stripped down to tendon and bone. And there's something etched on them. Symbols in some strange language under his touch and his head begins to swim the longer he's in contact with the bone.

Disturbing, but he has no time to linger any more than that. Slaughtering any Third Party in his way comes first, and once he reaches the altar, his teeth begin to grind. The next Third Party kill that follows is especially brutal to behold.

In the following hours as they search for the bomb, he marries Gai and Elizabeth, before splitting off for the airships and taking a number of people with him to help neutralize them. It will be an excellent distraction and if they want to get to the bomb, they will need one.

Besides.

If they can't disarm the bomb, then he'll be damned if it makes it out of the city.]

[Day 4 (before reinforcements): Day four finds Law pale, with a small amount of sweat beading along his brow and one hand briefly pressed against his chest. It looks like he could use a rest, and indeed, he's keeping to the shadows again to avoid detection. Once he does get a little, whatever's ailing him passes and he is mysteriously fine again. Well as fine as someone could be in this mess.

Perhaps he overstrained his limits.

Perhaps not.

The reason why is written down in the notebook secured in his coat.]

[Day 2 - Altar]

[whiskytraitorfirefight]

[With an apartment building next to the altar, it's a risky scavenging spot, but also quite fruitful. Ginia has a pack loaded up with cans of food, a few bottles of water, blankets, and a few first aid kits. She makes her way to the top of the building, moving around quietly in case there were cultists inside.

Breaking into an apartment, she moves over to a living room window and peers out to get a look at the area around the altar. Taking out her notepad and pen, she begins making rough drawings of what she can see.]

[Day 2 - Altar]

[deathsdoctor]

[Eyes gleam from the shadows thrown from the buildings around the plaza housing the altar. Patient. Predatory. The pirate's heard the flap of wings and is lurking until he gets sight of all the cultists before he strikes.

His Haki picks out five. Five Elites. Mmmmmmmm... he doesn't want them flying on him now. He needs this quick before they can alert any others.

... one hand begins to raise as he readies his sword... come now... just a little closer... walk this way...]

[Day 2 - Altar]

[whiskytraitorfirefight]

[Ginia scribbles quickly, trying to get as much information at the place as possible. Buildings, guard positions, patrols, when she runes out of room she picks up on another piece of paper. She keeps an ear out for any noises in the building and an eye for anyone approaching. The flapping of wings makes her pause, draw back slightly and hold her breath.

The Elites keep a steady patrol as they fly over head, almost moving lazily as they survey the area. Other cultists stand guard on the ground, some in permanent fixtures, others patrolling back and forth in designated areas. Back and forth, back and forth.]

[Day 2 - Altar]

[deathsdoctor]

[Wait... wait...

Now.

Law's index finger jerks up as a sphere of blue flashes out to cover the entire area. And with it shrapnel of all sorts begins to rise - broken glass, bits of rebar, splintered wood - and fly. Shriek in all directions, around the boundary and hem in anyone thinking of escaping.

The air is filled with flying death and even if a cultist escapes being killed, it will be hard to escape being injured.

And while the ones outside are occupied, Law's free to teleport in and slay the ones hiding in the buildings. They should be nicely distracted by now.]

[Day 2 - Altar]

[whiskytraitorfirefight]

[As blue covers the area and things begin to rise, Ginia quickly throws herself away from the window before it shatters, glass and frame joining the mix. She takes shelter behind the table, heart pounding in her chest as she tries to process things. From the screams and grunts of pain rising, the target was definitely the Third Party. Someone thankfully on their side.

All the same, now she's trapped inside the building, and hopefully whoever is out there doesn't mistake her for a target.

Ginia draws her gun just in case.]

[Day 2 - Altar]

[deathsdoctor]

[It's stunningly easy to come up behind and slice off wings. Stunningly easy when chaos is your cover and your foes are all confused. Stunningly easy when you can appear without a sound and leave the same way.

Only one cultist manages to see him - a flash of teeth in a smile too sharp and toothy to be anything short of feral - and he loses his head, screaming, before his wings join it on the floor.

There's no creak on Ginia's floor, but one in the hall before a thud. She will find a body, dismembered... yet not a lick of blood on the scene.

Another drops from the roof. Law is perched up there in shadow... watching. Now. Who isn't dead?]

[Day 2 - Altar]

[whiskytraitorfirefight]

[Ginia bides her time, gun drawn. She listens to the sounds, new screams covering new ones. Only when things fall into near silence does she move. She collects her notes - be a pity to lose them after coming all this way - and moves toward the door. Her steps are measured, quiet, and she opens the door with care.

The dismembered body is an interesting sight, the lack of blood even far more. She takes a second or two more than she should to study the work before creeping on toward the stairs.]

[Day 2 - Altar]

[deathsdoctor]

[Ginia will find other dead at the bottom, their injuries a curious mixture of normal bleeding wounds from shrapnel and fatal ones that should be bleeding and do not. They all have their wings sliced off.

Except for one and this one looks to have been electrocuted dead. There's a vase lying nearby. A completely random object at the scene?

Well.

There are bloody footprints on the floor that appear and disappear suddenly. Like the attacker appeared and disappeared into thin air. They end at the vase.]

Day 4

[frost_jewel]

[Day four finds Mia busy; a semblance of organization and more regular chaos almost make a routine, and sticking to a routine keeps her away from thoughts of what happened to them. Of what she's seen, of bodies and souls and struggling to breathe. If nothing else, tending to the injured is familiar and safe.

Her first instinct, when out of the corner of her eye she sees something keeping out of the way in shadow, is to turn with an attack already prepared. If one of the cultists got through-

But no. It's Law skulking there. It takes too many steadying breaths to convince herself to approach, but she does.]

Re: Day 4

[deathsdoctor]

[The pirate watches her steadily, still looking wary and watching. Not of her but of their surroundings. Like a wounded animal, he pulls back slightly into more darkness.

Better cover. His voice is strained when he speaks.]

Seen any of them?

Day 4

[frost_jewel]

No, I haven't.

[In all the lifting of bomb-based worry and, if she's very honest with her darkest corners, horrific flashbacks, there are a few questions she's left unasked. Here, where she shouldn't have, is one of them.]

You don't- you're not well. What's wrong?

[It's in his voice, and his stance, and something in the way he draws back instead of nothing.]

[deathsdoctor]

... my heart...

[The beat is off... the rhythm is off...

Not enough to put him down completely, but enough to steal the breath from his lungs. Leave him weak and shaking.]

[frost_jewel]

[What?

She thinks maybe it came out with her voice attached, too. Poor control on her part, if so.

Mia's expression sets, concerned but not severe, and she finishes her approach without any trace of apprehension.]

Sit down. [He ought to know better than to, to pirate around or whatever it is he thinks he's doing if there's some kind of problem-

And none of it comes through in her offer of assistance in sitting, one hand already around his arm, or her question.]

What about your heart?

[deathsdoctor]

Arrhythmia. [Irregular heartbeat, but he'd rather use the term that gets the point across better.] It started back at the bodies.

[He slumps down and draws back as far as he can into blacker shadows. Not safe here. He had been trying to get to a place he could hide and recover until it passed. There is darkness here, but it is still too open for his comfort.]

[frost_jewel]

[They are too exposed for her comfort, but if Law collapses or worse while they try to get somewhere secure, they'll end up more helpless.]

Do you have any injuries that might cause it? [She thinks he'd mention it, if he did, except it's harder to talk when your heart's in a footrace. Mia feels her chest ache from thinking about hearts at all, and tries not to let on. They might all start to suffer from this, if that- that vision, or whatever it was, is true.

She also skips some of her usual round of questions; anyone can tell he's exhausted. One hand stops short of resting on his shoulder.] May I?

[deathsdoctor]

[He shakes his head. He's injured, yes, scratches and bruises, they all are bearing at least that by now, but there's nothing that could cause something like this.] No. No history either.

[He nods. Yes, go ahead. Mia knows by now that Law doesn't like uninvited touch by no one who isn't close, but with circumstances as they are, he has no business complaining if anyone needs to do it for whatever reason.]

Day 3

[hollower]

[The battle has become rather taxing on Perona. She's had to, several times, remove herself from her body and hide it away. Thankfully, her assumptions that hiding it among some of the bodies strewn about as just another corpse would be a safe bet was correct. She looked just as cold and lifeless (and dirty) as any of the other bodies around, and no one really gave her a second glance. It wasn't very glamorous, but since when was any war?

So as she roams without much fear, she spots Law and isn't at all bothered by his actions. He is doing as anyone else would, and he has every reason to give in to the forces driving him. She will not interfere, nor will she attempt to stop him - the feeling is mutual.

Kill the bastards.

She approaches him slowly, meaning to just regroup and check their next course of action, but she's stopped momentarily when a rogue cultist rushes her from the side and slams a knife in her stomach. Oops.

...Or, well, he would have were she not untouchable. It was a little shocking, the swiftness of the move, but she just scowls, offended that the fool would even attempt such a dirty trick. Nasty little bug!]

Piece of shit. [She "taps" her hand on the horrified man's head, a small ghost appearing from her palm, and she snaps her fingers with her other hand. The resulting blast leaves a gruesome red splatter on the walls and ground, and the remains of the body hit the ground in a heap, a bit of smoke rising from the neck of the body, where the skin was scorched.

Ah, what was she going to do again?]

[deathsdoctor]

[Perona's way of hiding may become a problem later when other draftees decide to begin mass cremating the corpses, but for now it's the perfect cover indeed. Who cares about the dead? Not the Third Party. They never gave a care for the after and now, with the look on the man's face seeing a spirit about to take her revenge?

Poetic. Deliciously poetic (and more so once both learn what the payload for the bomb was). Something in Law that can still feel finds dark satisfaction at the sight.

Kikoku drips blood as he steps over the body at his own feet. An easy kill - just a common soldier and not worth any energy spent on his Devil Fruit. A stupid soldier as well - he had rushed Law straight on. One simple side step and duck under his guard was all it took - the fool was half the Cultist he used to be. Food for the only birds left in the city - crows.]

They're like roaches. Everywhere.

[An idle comment. Fool as the last one had been, there were plenty more to take his place.]

Have any of the others had any luck getting a lead?

[Searching the city and trying to track where the cultists might be particularly interested was failing. Breaking the cultists was proving difficult even though Law hadn't turned his particular talents to it yet.

It was becoming clear what was needed here.

They needed to buy time. As much as possible. And that meant sabotaging the only known thing about the bomb - the delivery method.]

[hollower]

[That's a bridge she'll cross when ready, but now it's a decent disguise. So long as she keeps herself updated with information and the goings-on of the enclosure and the people therein, then she'll remain somewhat safe. That's all she can count on right now.

Crossing her arms, Peorna passes through the remains of both bodies and gives Law a quick once over, satisfied that he looks in good shape. The bloody sword gets a brief glance, as does his own kill, but she keeps her emotions muted. This isn't a pissing contest, and she knows how strong and capable a fighter Law is - complimenting him can wait for when it matters.

The gruesome title makes her skin crawl - she's had a bad and slightly traumatic experience with roaches, okay - and Perona snorts, looking back at the corpse she left behind. He's right, as much as she doesn't want to think about it. There are so many of them...and they just keep pouring in. Mindless, violent, bloodthirsty fools.]

Not that I could find out... Every lead thus far has lead to a dead end, but I'll keep you updated with information. [She sighs, and closes her eyes, tapping her fingers on her arm.] They aren't making it easy, these worthless brutes. Fighting them is slowing down the searches, but even killing them all isn't proving too much of a turnabout... They're like you said, Mr. Law.

Like cockroaches.

[deathsdoctor]

[Law nods. Not what he wants to hear but what he expected. Not good - the clock was winding down. Time for plan B.]

Then we need to buy ourselves time. We don't know where the bomb is now, but we know where it will be. One of the ships. If the delivery method can be sabotaged, we'll have some breathing room.

[hollower]

[Oh, now that sounds fun. Perona's lips curl into a wicked little smirk and she nods. Take out the means of transport and the fools should hopefully be delayed for some time. They wouldn't detonate the bomb in the city, or at least that's what she's hoping. The loss on both sides would be too great - would they risk that?]

That can be done...shall I send the word out? Though I don't think it wise to call off the search early, either. Anyone with skills for assault should switch sides, those with stealth training should continue searching.

[deathsdoctor]

[Depends on the cultist, but if it doesn't seem hopeless for them, then they'd take the setback in hopes of enacting their plans later than take complete destruction of everything.]

No, that would not be good. Those with stealth must keep it up. Hopefully if they are concerned with their ships, more of them will be drawn away from the areas the rest need to search, and it can be done more quickly.

[He nods, having come to a decision. (And at the same time, through whatever means, the bomb is being located anyway)]

Send the word.

[hollower]

[Tilting her head downward, Perona closes her eyes, concentrating on each and every hollow ghost she has out and about. The Network was one of the largest she's had in a very long time, but thankfully she's experienced enough to not get bombarded with all the sights and sounds she's picking up from each one at different times and places.

In a slightly more hushed voice, she does as she's told, throwing her voice out through her ghosts, some to people directly, and other times in passing, to those that are close enough to hear.]

Everyone, our plans have changed somewhat. Those with preferable destructive force should concentrate your efforts on the airships - don't allow for even one to be able to take off! We'll draw the infestation to us there...and give those with the skills in searching for the bomb to continue their efforts undisturbed.

Repeat, those able to sabotage the airships redirect efforts into doing so - distract the cultist parties to their air hanger and lead them away from the search parties...

Don't fuck up.

[deathsdoctor]

Thank you.

[He watches carefully their surroundings as he waits for the replies. It wouldn't do to get surprised by cultists and have them overhear their plans.

If they did, they would have to make sure to slaughter them completely and without mercy. Word could not afford to get out to the enemy.]