Something Wicked This Way Comes

[oleaeuropaea]

Who: Vash the Stampede, Kiera, Passenger, Wolfwood, and Zahilya. Plus some others if they want
What: It's time for a homecoming. Too bad the greetings won't be so warm.
When: End of September
Where: Around the Grove
Warnings: Gore. Character Death. Possession. References to holy imagery.

[As September draws to a close, the woods seem eerily silent. It seems almost as if the birds have stopped singing. They hold their breath, fearful of a predator stalking amidst the woods. Through the brush, maybe you’ll see it — feathers that stick up like blades. Once bright white plumage has been tarnished with dirt, debris, and perhaps even blood.

But you’ll have only a second to see it. For just as soon as contact is made at the edge of the woods, the creature bursts out.

Vash the Stampede has returned to Aldric’s Grove.]

Comments

Passenger

[oleaeuropaea]

[Regardless of how things go for Kiera, Vash leaves them before long. Now out in the open, he must be quick if he wants his hunt to be successful. He can hear the whisper of the Forest in his ears, telling him to kill, to destroy. By now, the voice in his own head, the incessant natter trying to convince the Corruption to stand down, has fallen silent.

There’s nothing to stop him as he comes up behind Passenger. There is no attempt to stalk the man. In one second, Vash spots the man. And in the next, he is upon him, jaws snapping as he seeks out tender flesh.]

[forwander]

[On a normal day, Passenger does not expect to be attacked. The monsters are predictable; they come in droves, in patterns. The Forest feels off when it happens. Vash... is not. Vash is someone who, despite Passenger's general quiet, the man considers a friend. Something like it, anyway, in his own twisted definition of it. A friend is someone you sometimes speak to and nothing else, right?

Vash's insanity-addled brain forgets one thing, though: Passenger, for all his supposed weakness and inability to do anything other than war crimes in Sargon, is a trained Rhodes Island Operator. He's far from feeble.

...which means Vash will immediately feel electricity spark around the Liberi with defensive intent as teeth sink deep into his shoulder.]

[oleaeuropaea]

[The electric shock is an immediate deterrent, that much is true. His body tenses, teeth digging in that much further by instinct alone, before loosening and throwing himself off. He spits and snarls, head shaking his way and that. Bits of blood and spittle land in the grass as he adjusts his posture, then locks eyes on Passenger again.

There is no recognition there. There is simply wild anger and hunger. Those eyes dart this way and that before settling on the man once more.

This time, when he charges forward, its with the clawed fingers of his hand aiming for Passenger's throat.]

[forwander]

[Ordinarily, he might've asked if Vash is in there. At least, Little Elliot does, equally injured as Passenger is for obvious reasons. But his brainghost goes ignored for now; Passenger recognizes the look of a man too far gone, and didn't the Guardians agree that people in this state should be put down?

It's a shame, but there's a chance he'll come back, Passenger thinks. He doesn't have his Arts Unit on him, so his casting is severely weakened, his body itself a conduit. That's fine, as long as he can deal with this. As long as he doesn't take a hit.

Passenger extends an arm toward Vash, who at the same time manages to hit him, though a swift dodge makes it so that the claws scrape across his chest instead. At the same time, Vash will have to dodge several bolts of golden lightning from the skies, all hitting the ground in quick succession. If he can just fry him a little...]

[oleaeuropaea]

[THe first misses. Then the second. It's the third that hits him, going colliding with the back of a leg he just can't move quick enough. Electricity runs through him, nerves setting alight as he collapses to the ground. His head spins. He can't see straight.

For a long moment, Vash exists in a heap. His wings flap angrily, but without any kind of coordination. Eventually his spindly limbs try to push himself upward, but they seem to lack the strength.

Nevertheless, the instinct to hunt and kill hasn't been diminished. He fixes Passenger with a truly murderous look, a promise that he will slit the man's throat, just as soon as he returns to his feet.]

[forwander]

[Meanwhile: The Liberi is fucking bleeding.

This is not the first, nor the last grevious injury he has or will probably get. That's the thing about Rhodes Island; you trade labour for Oripathy treatment, and Passenger happens to be very good at killing. He's not supposed to be on the front lines, however, and the wounds are deep. He's losing a lot of blood. He's no Enciodes, he's no Mizuki, he's no Flamebringer.

Still, he can cast a little longer, even as the blood pours from his mouth in exhaustion. He'll try again to zap Vash. Perhaps if he takes the wings out, it can buy others time to hide. He imagines Pure Vanilla will be along shortly to heal him and join in the fight... so he doesn't retreat. He has to hold his ground.]

[oleaeuropaea]

[The blood is encouragement if ever there is any. Vash might be down, but it's not for the count. The same can't be said for the ailing Liberi.

Nevertheless, he remains coiled on the ground. The twitching continues, but perhaps Passenger might notice that's more controlled? It's an act, playing on the bleeding hearts Vash had gathered around him. Or perhaps, simply luring Passenger into a false sense of security.

Either way, he plays it up for the space of a few heartbeats, before finally stilling. He lays against the dirt, mentally counting breaths until -

he shifts his legs. His arms dig into the dirt. He positions himself just right to lunge for Passenger.

and then he launches, claws outstretched and aiming for the spaces between his ribs.]

cw this for body horror-

[forwander]

[Well. He is a Caster, there's no way he was going to dodge that, even if the momentary ring of lightning he surrounds himself with was something of an attempt at a deterrent.

Yeah. The attack strikes true alright. Passenger feels the press of claws into his flesh, stinging, twisting... and then nothing, even as he coughs blood directly onto Vash's face and arms and wherever else it might splatter to.

In the end, he manages something of a smile. Of course it would be the hand of a friend that kills him, like he imagines Sesa might one day.

He doesn't have the strength to summon another bolt of lightning. The telltale crack of an Infected's death rings out loudly across the Grove, a sound as though someone felled a tree, a glasslike shattering. As Passenger watches, with blurring vision, his fingers start to crack and dissolve into Originium dust, all he can manage is a brief, barely-whispered:]

Don't... breathe in... the dust.

[oleaeuropaea]

[Even through Vash's addled, corrupted mind, he knows that shattering noise that fills his ears is wrong. He's already scuttling backward, shaking his head to frantically exhale any modicum of particles that may or may not have infiltrated his senses. Time will tell if he got out lucky or not.

For now, though, he quickly turns his attention away from Passenger. The noise will have alerted others, this much he knows. He needs to get out of here, before others arrive. There is still one more thing he must do before he'll be truly satisfied, after all.

He doesn't even cast a backward glance toward Passenger's decaying form, instead making for the distant cabin across the river.]

cw: more body horror just in this whole thread from here pmuch

[sesa]

[It's late. Elliot should have been home by now.

Often, Sesa will walk home with him after his shift at the cafe, enjoying the cool evening air that's just the perfect side of comfortable without being the bone deep chill that Sesa loathes so much. There's...honestly no special reason today he didn't. Sometimes he just doesn't. Maybe he's too deep in a project, or he took a nap, or went to the bathhouse to wash the day's grime from his body.

Sometimes there's just no excuse. You simply weren't there.

With Mizuki, he wasn't there.

With his brother, he wasn't there.

And with Elliot...the flash of lightning just outside the workshop window catches his attention in a bad way, because that is lightning he recognizes. Without even considering what might be the cause, Sesa drops everything and runs outside, hesitating for just a fraction of a second before he decides to grab his grenade launcher and sling it over his back.

What's going on? Where is he? Where did the lightning come from...over there? Just above the trees? His boots hit the dirt, trampling sticks and underbrush in his wake as he rushes through the Grove, oblivious to the destruction Vash has already left behind elsewhere. Unaware that he's still out there, seeking his next and final victim. The Vouivre skids to a stop, ears perked as he tries to figure out where to go.

Crack.

It's a sickening sound that anyone living on Terra in this day and age would be grimly familiar with. Especially those like Sesa, who have been on an active battlefield with infected injured and dying. He feels his throat flex as he remembers it from the "memory" shared with Flamebringer, as he comforted a fascimile of his loved ones while he died slowly in a hospital bed. And when he finally catches up on the scene...well. Vash is lucky he's long gone, because Sesa would not have hesitated to shoot at him now.

He sees Elliot's crumpled, crumbling form laid bare in the grass, and Sesa can't even find his voice to speak his name. He just...screams, a broken, horrified sound as he hurries to close the gap, all but abandoning his gun behind him as he collapses to his knees at Elliot's side. He is, in his panic, completely blind to the originium fragments that are flaking off his body as he quickly pushes his arms up underneath his back- still intact and not breaking apart as of yet- to try and support and lift the Liberi up a little from the ground.

His jaw works in soundless, muted despair as he lifts him closer, using one hand to support the back of his head against his chest. It takes him a few heaving, gulping breaths to finally ask, the words bitter and bleeding:]

Who. Who did this to you!?

[forwander]

[Sesa is lucky that he reached Elliot when the man can still speak. He can't properly breathe, blood in his lungs alongside the fact they've been torn open, and though he tries to wriggle away from Sesa so as not to infect him... it's futile. He can barely move, and his legs buckle when he tries.

All he wants is not to become a ticking time bomb. There's Active Originium dust in the air, a small amount of it, but growing every second they dawdle. For those sensitive to Oripathy and already on stage 2 like Flamebringer, walking outside now would be a death sentence. For people who aren't sick, it's a death sentence. For those with only a tier 1 infection like Pure Vanilla... well, the same thing applies.

Words don't form easily on his lips. But he manages them, flicking a headwing off to the area where Vash ran.]

V...ash...

...get... away...

[Cover your mouth and nose, drop him in the river where Sinann and the Seaborn are immune to the infection, something.]

[sesa]

[Sesa, for all of his usual denial and delusions about basically everything he has trauma about, is well aware of the process now taking place. Elliot, now actively dying, has become a vector for new infections. It's the whole reason the planet back home is in the state it's in. You can't root out this infection simply by killing the infected. That's how it spreads, insidious and all consuming.

It is a death sentence, yet...Sesa is a man who has worked with it directly for a long while, to the point where even the staff at Rhodes who have checked him are baffled as to how he's not yet infected. Perhaps it's something to do with his constitution as a Vouivre, or maybe he's just gotten lucky up to this point...either way, it doesn't matter to him right now. It's not something he's even thinking much about as he gathers Elliot up in his arms more securely, lifting him up off the ground so he can stiffly rise to his feet.]

...I'm sorry.

[He finally mutters to him, low and grave. He has...untold amounts of seething rage boiling under his skin right now towards Vash, but it's kept in check thanks to how much broader the grief he's feeling is. Once again, he's moments too late...and now his beloved is being taken from him. It doesn't matter that it isn't forever. It doesn't.

He glances briefly over his shoulder, just to ensure no one is outside to potentially become concerned and follow him, before he sets off into the woods. He walks in a direction opposite Vash's home, opposite the Grove, as far away from everything and everyone as he can go so that once Elliot's body fully decays, the infection won't be able to spread. Maybe. One wonders how this could affect the wildlife in the area, but he imagines the corruption has already seen to it that many won't survive anyway.

He walks a death march into the forest, keeping Elliot cradled to his body like precious cargo despite the fact he's literally fragmenting in his arms. He's likely breathing in enough originium dust right now to kill hundreds, yet somehow he's still standing. He can feel the rocks tear into his wrappings and cut into his arms, but he's still standing.

Even if this kills him, ultimately, he has to do this. There is no alternative, save dooming the entire Grove to an early demise.]