lucetilogs | Zompania Draft - Draftees only, days 1-3.5

Entry tags:

Zompania Draft - Draftees only, days 1-3.5

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

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[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.]

[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.]

[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?]

[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.]

[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.]

[It's a near bloodless massacre as Ginia winds down to the bottom floor, feeling a bit like someone in a horror movie at the moment. While she leaves the body parts where they are, she does stop to pluck an assortment of feathers from the dismembered wings. Maybe someone in the village will want to study them, maybe they'll be good for bartering later. The feathers get wrapped up in some scraps of cloth and tucked into the bottom of her pack.

She stops when she reaches the vase and the electrocuted body. Random object? Unlikely, not in connection with the footprints. Invisibility and/or teleportation. Interesting.

Ginia heads back to the apartment she entered through, pausing by the window to listen for any sounds outside.]

[It's eerily quiet. The Cultists lie scattered on the ground, finished by either the shrapnel or spike like pillars of rock that are slowly melting back into the ground to leave no trace of their presence behind - just bodies that show the obvious signs of being impaled.

Until one cry of rage breaks it. One cultist has still survived and is propping himself up at the altar. Just a common soldier, nothing special. He's not looking behind him. The pain is blinding him just enough.

He should be.

Because appearing behind him is the Surgeon of Death, sword sweeping down for the kill. Law's face is set in ice, blood spattered across his face and over a good deal of his clothes.

And his eyes burn a terrible blue as the man pitches over wingless to die on the altar that had been the site of so many deaths already. Looks Ginia's way...]

[She should move on, not look back, but like a train wreck it's hard to look away. Knowing is all a part of the battle as much as curiosity kills cats.

Ginia slinks around the building to the altar side, movements slow, body kept small and against the wall. The silence is chilling. Too calm, too cold. Her steps join the silence when she rounds the corner.

It's a horrifying massacre, but Ginia regards everything with a level expression. After the bomb and the murder of the civilians, her level of sympathy for the Third Party is gone. The amount of bodies on the ground, it's fascinating one person could take out so many in a matter of minutes. Efficiently too.

Good thing they're on our side.

There's a sound. Ginia's gun is up again, ready to shoot, but she's beat to the kill. When Law looks her way, she raises a hand and slowly puts her gun away. She straightens up, legs shaking slightly; does he recognize her? Hands up and empty, Ginia remains still. What's it going to be?]

I'm not going to kill you. I knew you were here.

[No Kipinn to carry his voice; instead he says it steadily, calmly and trusts she will read his lips if she doesn't hear. Too calmly, too serenely maybe, for all his eyes still burn that inhuman blue.

But in a city full of monsters and terrible inhuman things, perhaps that's the only way to keep some thread of sane humanity; by locking it tightly away until it can safely breathe.

Because while Ginia beholds the Surgeon of Death, she does not behold a man taken quite yet by madness.]

Edited 2014-05-24 00:56 (UTC)

[With mild hearing loss in one ear and their distance, Ginia doesn't catch all of his words, but she reads his lips and catches enough to fill in the blanks. Ah. How kind.

Her hands lower and she glances around before she approaches him, stepping neatly over bodies, boots crunching through glass. In a city full of monsters, one might need to be a monster to survive. Ginia has no illusions she'll walk out unscathed.

She takes out a notepad and pen and writes out a message, holding it up for Law to read once she's closed enough.]

I was going to offer to help but it looked like you had it covered.

[A bad joke and a smile, sometimes it's all you can give. Because what do you really say after seeing a person go on a massacre by himself?]

[A dip of his head.]

Next time. Next time.

[Smiling is right out - the ones he can give only slice like razors or freeze to the bone. He doesn't feel capable of warmth, not after everything - or much emotion at all. He's just capable of calm as he approaches and looks to the nearest piece of shadow that would do the job of concealing them as well as provide quick access to a couple escape routes.

It's too open here. And while this was quick, Room's not exactly invisible either.

The blue energy fades away but he does not sheath his sword.]

Edited 2014-05-26 00:38 (UTC)

[It's a chilling calm surrounding him and Ginia reminds herself that he's an ally. A doctor as much a bringer of death, which came first she wonders.

Ginia considers the escape routes and safe areas behind him then turns to consider the ones behind her. Patrol missing from the sky, things far too still around here, it's a matter of time before something comes down on them.

She draws her machete and nods at Law. Lead the way.]

[There's no really safe place in the city to go - not with the bomb still somewhere out there and unfound. All they can do is stay together as they search and scavenge for what they need to stay alive.

Obviously the bomb isn't here. There's no underground tunnels to search and the buildings in this area have failed to turn up anything in that department.

Disappointing. The area around the altar had been a priority. More than one person had been hoping that the Cultists were keeping things relatively together.

He ducks into a shop after tilting his head slightly. It's empty and it exits into a dark side street shaded by trees and housing. A bike lies discarded in the middle of the street, a few trash cans are tipped over, but otherwise it's the picture of suburbia... abet one tipped to the side and stained by the carnage they just left.]

[Zompania wasn't too dissimilar from some of the cities Ginia lived in. It was the type of environment she thrived in and if things were different, a place she would have enjoyed living in. Much more a city person than a county person or a village in the forest person.

And yet if she ended up here, she'd be just another body in a pile.

Ginia follows after Law, steps light and quiet as they move along, always panning the area around them and ahead for signs of other soldiers. When they reach a place of quasi-safety, Ginia swings her pack around and pulls out a bottle of water to offer Law.]

[Hidden from view as they are, Law accepts, nodding, with a quiet:]

Thank you.

[He leans back against the wall of the shelter they've, for the moment, settled in. It's a house's covered patio fenced in by short brick walls with flower pots lining the top. The blooms are still bright and vibrant - pansies and marigolds and lobelia his mind notes - and they look untouched. No smashed terracota on the ground. The grounds are similarly immaculate except for the blood splatted along the walk and smeared along the glass of one open sliding door.

Things happened fast here. Very fast.]

[Amazing how quickly things could change. Ginia glances at the house, tries to picture the people that lived there. A single person? No, the house seemed just a little too big for one person. Two or three, perhaps four if there were kids. A group of people from the same world? Or a family forged through a shared experience?

Didn't matter anymore. They were all dead. Nothing to do for the dead, just focus on the living.

(It still bothers her. Last time she was at a house like this, it was her own and there were shattered windows and bullet holes in the wall.)

Ginia sighs, glances over at Law, then reaches for her notepad.]

dismembered bodies, no blood. How did you do that?

[How did he do that?

A vague sense of discomfort hangs in the air as he considers. He doesn't terribly like talking about his abilities, explaining them. For people like Perona and himself, one of their advantages was that the way their powers operated were cloaked in mystery here. Secrets that they jealously guarded.

Secrets that were being exposed on this draft due to necessity.]

When I'm using my abilities, I have the power to cut... cleanly. Cause no actual harm. [He looks to the side even as the tone is clinical. This explanation is never fun with a villager.] Just cut and separated.

[The wings are the obvious exception to this. Of the dismembered bodies, all had had their wings sliced off, and many it was just the wings.]

[Cut but cause no harm. A brief moment of horror sinks in as Ginia realizes everyone could be dismembered, but still very much alive. Disturbing. But serving the wings would bring a swift and painful death.

Effective. Efficient. Practical.]

I imagine it's useful in surgery too

[Law can just watch her face to see the realization. Yes. That can happen. He does that often back home.

It's better than killing them. What he does can be reversed without physical mark and simply too.

Better to send his enemies back to their families with mental trauma than deprive them of their loved ones altogether. It's a cruel mercy, but it is a mercy nevertheless.]

It is.

[Here, he's far more a killer. Swift. But there's no room for mercy here; not with these enemies.]

[When the draft is over, when she's back in the village and the threat of dying again isn't hanging over her head, Ginia will have time to reflect on how outclassed she is. She'll have time to realize a good portion of the village is deadlier than she could ever imagine.

But as she's still on the battlefield, she can't spend time on those thoughts. He's an ally and right now they need power to get through.]

Glad I'm on your good side. I'll keep that in mind if I need something removed.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Zompania Draft - Draftees only, days 1-3.5

[Day 2 - Altar]

[Day 2 - Altar]

[Day 2 - Altar]

[Day 2 - Altar]

[Day 2 - Altar]

[Day 2 - Altar]

[Day 2 - Altar]

[Day 2 - Altar]

[Day 2 - Altar]

[Day 2 - Altar]

[Day 2 - Altar]

[Day 2 - Altar]

[Day 2 - Altar]

[Day 2 - Altar]

[Day 2 - Altar]

[Day 2 - Altar]

[Day 2 - Altar]

[Day 2 - Altar]

[Day 2 - Altar]

[Day 2 - Altar]