Day 7: Evening

Aftern-Evening: 3pm - Midnight

[ IRL Timeframe: January 22 - January 29, 2020. ]

After all of Seven's fights, ending in Luka taking Ten's hand as the other heroes arrive. The knights will be treated to the sight of something entirely unexplainable: Seven is wounded, laying on the asphalt with a bright white crossbow bolt sticking out of their body. They're still pouring black goop off of their body, but they appear to be wrapped in some kind of cloth tarp. Five is kneeling over them, dressed in a skin-covering assassin outfit that only reveals her five eyes peering out. In her hand is a phone, and that's really all that can be seen before she and Seven disappear into a portal in the ground.

Luka, meanwhile, is standing with Ten's hand in his and his crossbow laid on the ground and not in his hand. No matter what the arriving heroes cry out in order to get his attention, it's too late to stop him. Abruptly, the portal opens and both the Princess and Ten disappear into the ground.

Naturally, the hashtag #princessnapped is forged.

That doesn't prove to be the only hashtag to get some heavy use this evening. The #wizardfound and #robotwizard hashtags find a sudden, new reason to actively discuss what's going on.

The remaining heroes: Garrot, Gyre, Haizea, Matilda, Olivia, (and... where's Terrence?) will find that the events from earlier in the day have caught up to them. There's a crack like thunder as both the Wizard and the Protector flicker into existence and both land in the superhero pose in the center of the intersection that Luka just disappeared from.

The Protector, if possible, is looking even worse than before. He's sporting a black eye and numerous cuts on his forehead, cheeks, and arms. It looks like he's been lit on fire at least once, but even so he's holding his rapier out in anticipation of the next strike.

The Wizard, meanwhile, is finally openly visible to everyone after her absence. She looks rough. It's as if the areas where she'd been harmed have been replaced or repaired with robotics. The left side of her face is no longer bandaged, instead revealing that she now has a robotic eye with a glowing yellow ring. The cables that were visible in the video before are very clearly plugged in just behind her ear, trailing down over her shoulder and down her back beneath the robes.

And of course she's still wearing pajamas. But they look like they've seen better days, charred and ripped and shredded at every edge. In her hand, though, is a massive axe. One side of its head is a giant half-circle axe head while the other side is a heavy weight like a hammer. The entire weapon is jet black, but it has a glossy shine.

What's the worst that could happen?

The Weather
Cloudy, breezy.
48°F / 9°C
Brrr.

Prompts:

3:00pm The Garden, Unknown Location: When Luka falls through the portal with Ten, he'll become immediately aware that the monster has slipped himself closer and snuck his feet beneath Luka's to stabilize him. Despite the falling, he seems surprisingly stable in the air.

And then there's the soft crunch of grass beneath his feet and he shifts slightly, waiting for Luka to step back on his own. Wherever they are, the air is filled with the scents of wildflowers and scents that are both beautiful and entrancing in their complexity. It's clear that there are dozens, if not hundreds of flowers and plants in the immediate vicinity. There's the gentle warmth of sunlight on Luka's skin, clearly advertising that they're outside (or in a very clever indoor garden). But most calming is the gentle sounds of moving water. If Luka focuses, he'll be able to pick out that there's a small waterfall, several waterways, and multiple water features with water tumbling down over rocks. And, of course, a pool or a pond with fish gently swimming about beneath the surface.

But he'll be interrupted twice before he can lose himself. The first is Ten.

"We're here." He says, but if Luka's not shaken enough he'll realize that he doesn't hear Seven and his Seven sense isn't going wild. But the second distraction happens as Luka's phone bloops from an unknown sender with a text:

"Welcome to the Garden, Princess." The text reads... with no explanation of who or how they sent him the text. That's totally normal!

3:00pm Street Intersection, Bamborough: With the arrival of the Wizard and the Protector, it's very clear that shit is about to go down. But that absolutely isn't what the Wizard has in mind for this situation. She's the one running this game, and she isn't about to get five heroes wrapped up in her duel with the Protector. Before anyone can take an opportunity to make any attacks, and especially not the Protector, she snaps the fingers of her free hand five times.

And reality fractures. The way that the cracks in midair begin to fold and reflect the area and people around them, it's like the world is folding up into a trick mirror house. It's... actually exactly that. Reality twists and folds, forming reflections and containers out of the air itself until every single hero is enclosed in one. The hero in the middle of their own box, reflected on two opposite walls. But on the opposite two walls, the Wizard is visible beyond in one of them and the Protector is visible beyond in the other room. Uh. This conversation might get awkward. Worse is that they can't get distracted by their Seven senses, because no one can feel them anymore.

3:15pm To Everyone: In the middle of the earlier events, every hero in Bamborough receives a text from an unknown sender. The only one who's spared this text is Luka, because he got a text earlier. The text reads: "I can give you one teleport to anywhere today. Tell me when and to where. Don't be unreasonable!"

8:00pm Onward, Everywhere: The day is done, the events are finished. How does your character get home? Do they go home alone? Do they seek the company of their fellow heroes? Do they stay alone, or do they get a room together? Either way, it's a rough night for everyone.

Procedure:

Reply to the appropriate toplevel comments for events below. Indicate if a post is a private conversation with "Private" in the subject otherwise all threads should be open to interaction with others. Plan OOCly how you'd like to toss everyone around.

Activity Check: January 2020

[ IRL Timeframe: January 1st - January 31st, 2020 ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Ten nods in agreement. He'd like everyone to survive, that'd be ideal. But then Luka asks about one of the particularly complex topics and--

"We're in one." He starts with, pausing for a moment before he moves on to the second part of that question.

"I think they're on our side but none of us expected them to be a person." And uh. Them being a person was a whole thing.

"Wait we... are?!" Luka gasps. "It has a lake on it?!"

He'll need a few seconds to collect himself. Everything about his current surroundings felt authentic and natural, certainly not like how he'd imagined the interior of a ship. He swears he felt the sun, even. If this were a ship, it was probably built with some serious Wizard magic ™, he thinks.

"How much more space is there around here? Can this fit the entire population of the planet?" Even if it could, he felt bad suggesting everyone cram into the monster's private space. But it might be the only way to save everyone!

"In it." Ten counters, making sure it's clear that they're in the ship and not on it.

As if to make things even more surreal, a soft breeze blows past both of them.

"They will not fit. We don't know how to get them here." He offers, pausing for a moment before--

"Maybe we don't need to but I don't know how."

"Sxicq told me they're just going to leave... and when they do, our planet's going to be destroyed." He says, gesturing as he speaks, with worry apparent in his tone. "They told me about the ships, as if to suggest we take them, but they didn't know much more about it... either way, it doesn't seem like staying on the planet is a good idea!"

Luka hopes Ten already knows about this problem - he hates feeling like he might be sharing horrible news, and ideally he has a solution for it already, too.

"They're going to the planet that the Wizard and Protector came from, originally. They said they can fix it."

Ten pauses for a little while as he considers what Luka had just said. Talk about a wrench in the plan. But then--

"You can talk to them too?" He follows, curious. He knows that the monsters and companions can, but Luka can?

"They have different goals than us, they didn't make that a secret." He answers, pausing as he turns towards the sound of approaching footsteps.

Two sets of approaching footsteps! Gyre and Five are coming back down this path. He's on a bit of a mission to talk to Twelve, but he slows when he sees the Princess and Ten, glancing out over the lake as he approaches.

"Princess. How are you?" he says, offering Ten a nod in acknowledgement instead of a greeting. His next question is directed to the little monster, something that's been on his mind since yesterday.

"Six told me to ask you how to get here without having to ask Eight."

He had heard the approaching footsteps and thought it might be Five, maybe with another monster - but definitely not Gyre.

"...Gyre?" He interjects, too blindsided for proper etiquette. "I'm... well, I've been better. How did you get here?"

Luka feels like he's bursting at the seams with information he needs to share with the knights. He wants to catch up with Gyre on everything he's learned.

Ten gives Gyre a little wave but waits for Luka to greet him. Five makes a point to fold her arms and not say a damn thing though.

"Text Eight until I can show you." He answers, the voice of microsoft sam coming out from the few small holes on his face from where he'd eaten his phone.

"It's hard to explain."

Gyre glances over his shoulder at Five when she doesn't say anything, wondering if she's really going to be that petulant about it. It's not his business though if she wants to hide from Luka. He certainly isn't going to narc on her.

"Eight offered to bring me here. The Wizard wants me to talk to Twelve while I'm here," he answers, realizing in this moment that Luka probably hasn't actually talked to Eight yet. Not unless he's really gotten around anyway.

"Did you get hurt?" he asks after another beat, wanting very much to fuss over the man but knowing he should keep moving soon.

Then he returns his attention to Ten, saying simply, "Eight is busy, right? I want to learn soon." So the poor monster doesn't have to drag his ass around whenever he requests it. He hates the idea of not being able to get to a place like this of his own volition.

"Oh, a bit." He holds his palm out to Gyre, the one which had been burnt by contact with Seven's ooze. He doesn't know if it's actually left visible damage, but the pain still lingers. "Seven was rough with me, but I did much worse to it."

Luka turns to Ten when Gyre mentions meeting with Twelve, a look of slight surprise (and maybe a hint of jealousy?) on his face.

"Will Twelve talk to him? I thought she wasn't in the mood."

If anything, Luka's hand is a little red. It looks like he'd grabbed a hot pan or something similar.

But when Luka practically flaunts having injured Seven, Five immediately has her hands balled up into fists. Ten takes a single step to the side, holding up both hands in a pacifying gesture as he answers Luka.

"I don't know who she will talk to." He answers, focusing on defusing Five before she punches Luka somewhere that would start a fight.

Which was anywhere.

He steps closer and takes Luka's hand the second it's offered, trying to be delicate as he splays his fingers out. He takes a moment to compare the light reddening to his own fingers, still faintly stinging from the exact same injury.

And then Luka goes and reveals that bit, and Gyre's throat closes, his hand tightening suddenly around the princess'. He squeezes down on it, not intending to hurt him, but very much going stiff as he tries to internalize the idea of Seven being hurt. Hurt more. Hurt badly? There are these little tremors of effort running through him as he fights every urge in his body to smack this stupid man again.

"What did you do?" he asks, his voice a cold, steel wall. He wants to think the best of Luka at this point, but gods damn him for not listening.

He is taken aback when Gyre's vibe suddenly darkens and he's putting pressure on the wounded hand. Luka bristles, his brow furrowing as he shifts his attention back to Gyre.

"I shot it." He replies, defensively. "With the Protector's crossbow. You know, when it grabbed me out of nowhere through a portal and dumped me in the street? I didn't know it would do so much damage. Someone told me it recovered quickly."

He pulls his hand back, away from Gyre.

Edited 2020-01-25 04:07 (UTC)

He releases him, bringing his hand up to hold his forehead instead and pressing two fingers into his eyes.

"I didn't think..." he begins, and then trails off, growling under his breath. This is impossible!! He had been trying to scare Luka off from fighting, not encouraging him to hit harder. He can't deny he said that though. He can't deny he had thought about killing Seven if it meant keeping the rest of them safe.

"You're right. I hope you both can recover then," he says, still decidedly frustrated as he turns away. "I'm going to talk to Twelve. We should meet up again later. Share what we've learned." And unless Luka or Ten has more to say, he's going to head off again, stewing in sudden guilt and disappointment.

"Yeah..." He starts, trailing off in confusion. Gyre had ultimately agreed with him, but Luka didn't feel satisfied. He felt the weight of Gyre's frustration and disappointment in his words. "I want that too."

He hears Gyre turn away and hurriedly calls after him, not wanting to him to leave on such a sour note.

"I want to meet up, I mean, but also for Seven to recover."

Gyre pauses for a beat, surprised that he'd say a thing like that. It's a pleasant surprise though, and he smiles faintly as he looks back over his shoulder.

"They will. I hope they will," he says, throwing the words out there like a prayer. That's what Luka said to do, right? Gods know he's been doing plenty of this exact thing for awhile now, trying to force some kind of future into the bleak path in front of them. "I'll see you soon, Princess."

And with that, he sets off again, walking slowly until Five joins him on the trail again.

Luka sits on the bench in silence as Gyre and Five (?) make their leave. That was... weird, and Luka's left feeling suitably weird about it as well. As the sound of their footsteps fade into the distance, he returns his attention to Ten.

"I'm sorry about that." He says. "I didn't know he was here. Or, well, that he'd be so mad that I fought back against Seven. You're not mad about it, are you, Ten?"

Luka isn't sure he wants to hear the answer. It would hurt to find out that Ten was angry with him, but if he was, Luka was ready to make his case. Ten felt easier to talk to than Gyre or Five about this. Mostly because Ten had yet to hit him in the face with anything.

Five absolutely leaves with Gyre as he departs. If she stays here, she's gonna have an outburst and probably lift Luka and then punch him backwards into the lake.

Ten has a lot of emotions about the entire situation, and then Luka decides to ask about it, and it's several moments before he responds.

"Not mad." He says, pausing.

"Five is mad. I think you both should stop fighting." He answers, deciding that's the best way to phrase his thoughts on the entire matter. He glances after the others after they've left, hoping that Twelve doesn't just like... twist Gyre's head off.

"That much is obvious." He huffs. "I can't say a word around her without her flipping out. And I promised Gyre I'd ignore her. But..."

Luka pauses for a beat, sighing.

"I want to talk to her about Four." He admits. "I don't know if she wants to listen, though."

"Don't start with that. Talk about something else first." He starts to answer, before he quickly glances to the side as a portal opens up over a nearby patch of grass.

Out of the portal flies Garrot, straight up for a foot, and then the portal vanishes just before he falls right back down for a foot and a half and onto the patch of grass with a soft 'thmp'.

Ten, meanwhile, glances down to where Garrot is now laying on the grass and blinks all ten of his eyes in a circle before announcing--

"Hello Garrot."

Honestly, Garrot was braced for a fight; he wasn't sure what the Protector would do, or how fast he was going to do it. Was he going to fire a gun, like Six's play showed? So he's absolutely relieved to be, uh, not there. The impact helps shake him from his combat focus, but he's still on the ground. So he picks up his head, taking in the beautiful scenery and the sounds of nature for a moment before confirming that yes, that was Ten.

And Luka is there, too. Whoever got him out of there deserved a hug.

"Hey, uh..." Garrot effortlessly does a sit-up, pulling himself up with only muscle before looking back and forth between the two. What he absolutely does not realize is that his hands are shaking, his palms are speckled with four gently bleeding puncture wounds each, and his fingernails are also a little bloody. He must've been gripping two things for dear life!

"Where are we?" The question, delivered with a shaky waver and ending with a shuddering breath, is directed to nobody in particular. Also, tears are streaming down his face.

Edited 2020-01-26 02:16 (UTC)

"G...Garrot?" Luka's turns in his direction, his surprise and slight confusion echoed in his voice. Where is everyone coming from? "Did Eight bring you here, too? Did he bring everyone here?"

It sets in that though the voice he heard was distinctly Garrot's, and Ten had confirmed so, there was something decidedly troubling about how he sounded. Luka rises from the bench, taking a few cautious steps toward the source.

"This is Twelve's garden. But... it's much bigger than you'd expect, isn't it?" He starts, his voice soft. "What happened? Are you okay?"

Garrot doesn't notice at first, but he seems... slower, somehow. Or, well, it's more that everything else seems to be moving in slow motion. Luka's talking so slowly, which gives him more than enough time to note that Eight may have been behind the teleportation, and that the two of them may not be alone here. In Twelve's garden. Twelve. Were this any other time in his life than just moments ago, the realization would have him all teeth and claws and bloodlust like a starving beast. But now?

Maybe it's the garden's similarities to the monastery, where he screamed and wailed and detoxed for years, where he built himself into something good, but he's oddly calm. At least until he registers that Luka, the bound servant of that murdering bastard, is moving towards him, is showing concern, and suddenly his hands are balled into fists, claws digging back into open wounds.

"N-No!" The demand is dire, as much barked order as panicked begging as the towering, proud Monkey Knight reflexively scrambled a few feet backwards like a scared, wounded animal. But... he meant to shout to stay away. Garrot's thoughts are racing, and were it not for the years of zen conditioning coming into play like muscle memory, the crushing weight of his entire world falling apart would have spurred him to violence. Instead, his racing mind brings his widening eyes to his hands as they open and tremble. He sees the tears fall from his face, salt and iron mixing in his palms. He tries to take a deep breath, and his nose is... congested? He closes his eyes for the briefest of moments. The monastery was the only place he felt attuned to his spirit, so he's able to center himself with an uneven, shuddering sigh, and-

"I..." Garrot's eyes open as one hand moves behind him, reaching to dislodge his first-aid kit from his belt. "I'm having a mental breakdown. Give me space." The adrenaline will wear off and his emotions will catch up to him if he doesn't hurry.

Luka recoils, shocked, at Garrot's aggressive response. He backs away, unsure of the scene unfolding in front of him. He nearly backs into Ten, though he finds comfort in knowing Ten was close by and takes position behind the monster.

"What happened?" He repeats himself, though the words slip out more on instinct than an expectation of an answer. Luka had last left Garrot in the cafe parking lot when Seven had thrown him through a portal. And from then on, Seven hadn't encountered any Knights - so what had Garrot seen to lead him to this?

"Ten, is he okay?" He whispers.

Ten, meanwhile, makes sure that Luka doesn't fall as he retreats from the new arrival that is Garrot.

He watches for a moment before attempting to explain to the Princess what he's seeing in front of him:

"Garrot just saw the Protector and the Wizard. He looks like he is about to throw up. I wouldn't call him okay." He decides is the best microsoft sam monotone explanation for what he's seeing in front of him.

The Weather

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