DRAIN YOU OF YOUR SANITY

[fakethulhu.livejournal.com]

WHO: The Emissary and co. versus everybody
WHERE: Off the coast of Battery Park and throughout the City
WHEN: Just before midnight October 31st (technically November 1st)
WARNINGS: Violence and frightening imagery
SUMMARY: Drawn by Illidan’s magic, a demon from beyond reality has come forth to help the Betrayer doom the world. The battle that saves or destroys everything has begun. Happy Halloween, Cityverse!
FORMAT: Paragraph to start, whatever works after.

It came.

The Moon of midnight on All Hallow’s Eve shone wetly on the waters of the City’s Harbour. From beneath the surface a rumbling could be heard, as though emanating far, far below, within abyssal depths and ancient fathoms that could not possibly be there. First there was a ripple, then a wave, then the creature began to arise from the waters. It slid upwards and upwards, rising smoothly and continuously out of the ocean like a living edifice, a vast Thing ancient and immovable, a walking island sunken no longer. The head then the shoulders then the wings then the misshapen body came forth, yet still more of Its bulk remained beneath the waters, with slow thighs beginning to move It towards the City. All around it the sky and the ocean seemed to darken with an almost positive quality, as though jet-black ink was spilling into the universe itself. The Emissary had come.

Water flowed off Its body in torrents, mixing with drool and ichor. An unending series of sickly slopping and slobbering noises came from the twitching forest of tentacles around Its mouth, the product of a ravening hunger. The ocean heaved immensely around the Titan form, waves thrashing from the power of Its body. How to describe such a thing? How to even conceive of such horror, outside of madness or nightmare? That immense octopus head crowning the terrible body, those dragon-bat wings sprouting from Its back, those rubbery, sea-green scales, the mingled and loathsome aspects of the reptile, the mollusc- and the human! For it was on two feet that It moved, and with two arms did the Emissary reach out toward the morsels It slavered for.

An aura of panic and despair announced It, greater than any herald’s trumpet. Merely to look upon that incomprehensible shape and its alien geometry was to gamble with one’s sanity. Its very presence emanated a sense of immeasurable insignificance and absence of meaning, as though all the Earth was plankton in the presence of a whale. It moved with a shambling, unwholesome motion that had nothing to do with clumsiness, gathering speed. A mountain walked or stumbled! Toward the City, toward the Well. Toward the end of the world.

[ooc: goddamndoomchat is open on AIM if anyone's interested! There are some people fighting the Emissary who have not been slotted into threads yet; we will work those out as we go along! The raid against Illidan in Central Park will be posted by Jill later. Have fun everybody!]

Comments

[a_relative_hero]

Houston really hated all those creatures. He'd been running about the City, pulling the civilians that stayed behind out of danger and occasionally dodging close calls with the creatures. His speed has been helping to both avoid the monsters and hurt them. Even the big ones tended to be damaged when hit with a metal baseball bat a few hundred times in the span of a second.

On his way back into the fray after dropping some injured civilians off at the emergency clinic, the sound of gunfire catches Houston's ear. Turning a corner, he rushes towards the source of the sound. Not knowing it's Deadshot, the speedster just thinks someone could use a hand.

[shotyoudeadbang]

Just about everyone could use a hand right about now, but when Houston finds Deadshot, he'll see he's managed to climb onto the back of one of these things, trying to get a proper bead with a sawed-off shotgun on the back of its head, but the tentacles are proving to be distraction enough to be a problem - and problem enough to be a danger, once he's whipped off and slammed into the side of a van.

Puttin' the kevlar to work.

[a_relative_hero]

Houston winces when he sees Deadshot hit the van. Taking one glance at the creature that whipped the man, Houston zips into action. Instead of going after the monster, he heads for Deadshot and tries to grab him so he can yank him out of the path of the creature before it can try to eat him.

[shotyoudeadbang]

Deadshot's a bit limp in his arms at first before he starts to shake it off and grit through the pain.

And he suddenly notices he's being carried by somebody.

"What the hell happened?" he asks, still sounding a little dazed.

[a_relative_hero]

Houston brings them to a stop in an alley about two blocks away from the monster. Setting Deadshot against a dumpster, he glances back out at the street before answering the dazed man.

"You got used to remodel a van," he answers. "Are you hurt?"

[shotyoudeadbang]

"Yeah, but I'll get over it."

His shoulders roll as he tries to shake it off, rubbing his head clear of cobwebs.

"Who are you?"

[a_relative_hero]

"If you're sure," Houston replied. He glanced out at the street again, keeping an eye out for more of those creatures.

"I'm Houston."

[shotyoudeadbang]

That doesn't really register as a name with him, but he goes with it, standing up and starting to pull a heavier gun off of the holster on his back.

"And I'm Dallas. I got a monster to finish killin'."

[a_relative_hero]

"No, that's one of the things Catwoman calls me" Houston rolls his eyes behind his goggles. He looks at the gun and then back out at the monster.

"Think that'll be enough to do it? That one looks tougher than some of the others."

[shotyoudeadbang]

Figures - the hero crowd tends to have a monopoly on crap jokes like that.

"I'm San Antonio, then, who gives a damn? I'll lay odds that this one'll do it, but I'm not gonna bother gettin' up close and personal with it this time."

With that, he heads over and starts climbing up a fire escape.

[a_relative_hero]

"Sorry, I'm not so good at the banter thing," Houston replies. "Good idea," he adds, agreeing that staying away from the creature is a good idea.

The goggle-wearing speedster waits a moment before starting to follow after Deadshot. He doesn't want one of the creatures sneaking up on the guy while he's shooting.

[shotyoudeadbang]

Shortly, his bag of guns is set down and he starts setting up a sniper rifle again, before noticing the kid's followed him up.

"Let me guess, some kinda speedster, right? You faster than one of these bullets?"

[a_relative_hero]

"Time manipulation actually," Houston replied. "Close enough to superspeed though. And yeah, I'm faster than bullets."

[shotyoudeadbang]

"Time manipulation?" he blurts out, distracted enough from setting up his shot at that idea.

"Hell, can you rewind us back to before this crap started so I can leave town?"

[a_relative_hero]

"Doesn't work that way," Joel replies quickly. "I can just change the flow of time relative to myself. If I could time travel, I would have done it by now."

[shotyoudeadbang]

"Relative to yourself? ... doesn't that mean you can send yourself back in time, at least? Then you can find me and tell me to leave town instead."

Of course, this kid's not gonna do it. Probably has some 'preserve the timestream' holier-than-thou crap to spout about it, too. So he gets back to steadying his gun to get ready to explode some more heads.

[a_relative_hero]

"I wish," Houston replied. "Tried already and it didn't work. It just lets me simulate super speed but I can't do all the stuff the Flash can," he explained, watching the sky a moment to make sure nothing came swooping down at them. "How many of these things are there..."

[shotyoudeadbang]

"Sounds like you need to sit down with the Old Flash, the one with the colander on his head, to get him to teach you some zen speed tricks or whatever."

Gunshot. Two more. Followed quickly by goo splatter on the street below.

"It's the end of the world, kid. Probably more of these than we'll ever count."

[a_relative_hero]

"From the Justice Society?" Houston blinked. "That would be great but he's not here and I don't have powers back home."

He watched the gun get fired, quickly looking away from the splatter. He'd be sick enough later without seeing that.

"Great. Then I guess we just keep fighting them until we win."

[shotyoudeadbang]

His head lifts up again at that, to look at the kid.

"You're tellin' me this Porter thing is also yankin' random yahoos off the street to drop here, too? I figured it was at least tryin' to stick to people in the game."

[a_relative_hero]

"I was in the game, I just didn't have powers back home. Not everyone does," Houston frowned. "But the Porter does grab random people too."

[shotyoudeadbang]

"Damn porter gets worse every day."

Another peppering of shots, and another one falls out of the sky. Nice tag, if he does think so himself.

"So what, you were tryin' to be Batman? Or you have some kinda fancy suit that did tricks?"

[a_relative_hero]

"It gets worse than that too."

He blurs out of sight a moment, knocking a few creatures off the side of the building as they start climbing. He nods once he comes to a stop back on the roof.

"Yeah...Batman. Was part of a team of people who had powers though."

[shotyoudeadbang]

Kid's good at cover, at least.

"Any team I mighta heard of?"

KRAKKK KRAKKK! A couple more gooey explosions.

[a_relative_hero]

"We didn't have a real name or anything. Not like we were the Titans or Young Justice. Just...the Weingbergs."

He looks around, scowling down the street. "We should get off this roof. More of the fliers are headed this way."