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

[somethinglawful]

Probably!

Come on, Kanaya, you can't just send me back. You're not my lusus!

[omg Kanaya all this fussing is so uncool.]

Besides, if we stay here and hold back the horde then they'll be safe back there! You should focus on that instead.

[glowsferatu]

[ oh my god terezi you don't understand how important it is that she kill herself for you kids, sometimes literally ]

I have, in fact, been focusing on that. It's the main reason I came here personally. But now you are likewise present, and so your safety becomes a topic deserving of my focus, as well!

[somethinglawful]

I'm perfectly capable of taking care of myself! Honestly!

[yeah, because that's definitely worked out well in the past. but she at least doesn't seem to be having any trouble dealing with these particular abominations.]

[glowsferatu]

[ hold on she's just gotta snap this one's neck and use its corpse to beat another one to death ]

I don't intend to place blame on you for prior incidents, but it is worth noting that such a one has necessitated out search for a new hivestem, given the safety levels of the current one.

[somethinglawful]

Low blow, Maryam.

[Terezi takes out her aggressions over that particular subject by literally tearing apart an unfortunate demonspawn and gutting three of its closest friends.]

This is different and you know it.

[glowsferatu]

Again, not to put the blame on you, the matter of safety was already existent, this situation only served to punctuate it.

[ okay now that one's beat to hell, she's gonna lob this carcass at a new one and follow it up with a flying kick to the thing's head ]

Yes, there are notable distinctions between a single opponent who refuses to be killed and an endless stream of far more manageable enemies. However, I would like to stress the "endless" aspect there, as I feel it may be the quality in this situation which makes it most worth considering.

[somethinglawful]

Whatever, Kanaya. It's just like SGRUB, we can handle it!

[all right trollmama, let Terezi be the trollpapa she is meant to be.]

[glowsferatu]

They were allowances and contingencies built into Sgrub that are presently unavailable to us. It is by no means a similar situation!

[ be she is busy being a trollmama-bear and that job doesn't leave so much room for trollpapa except as a target of fussing. apparently. ]

[somethinglawful]

You know, [the pause afforded by that comma is longer than is standard to allow for Terezi to dispatch a few spawn] it's pretty insulting for you to insinuate that you can handle this but I can't! I always thought we made a pretty great team!

[glowsferatu]

My reasoning does not involve my own capability to handle this better than you, as you may believe.

[ hold on gotta slice this one, set up a portal to drop these five through somewhere about a mile in the air, then just gonna rip out this one's throat with her teeth ]

It's merely that I feel it would be more appropriate that any harm resulting from participation in this assault be inflicted on myself rather than you.

[somethinglawful]

As though that's any better!!

[sure is getting violent up in here. demonspawn dropping like flies.]

[glowsferatu]

It is, as a matter of fact. In my scenario you remain safe indefinitely.

[ they are pretty literally dropping, as those guys kanaya tossed up before are starting to rain down on them, and she's ported herself upward to start handling the fliers as well. ]

[somethinglawful]

Yeah, and you don't! Which is what makes it stupid.

[glowsferatu]

Terezi, I'm uncertain how many times it will be necessary for me to repeat to you that my safety is of no consequence before it finally penetrates your think pan in a manner that you finally grasp the concept fully!

My duty is to see to yours and the others, and that overrides any supposition that mine should likewise be paid any concern.

[ yeah, she mad. you do not call her martyr complex into question when she's busy utilizing it, it's what makes such gruesome duties most tolerable, after all! so she's just gonna take out this frustration out on these fliers by clipping all of their wings. all of them. ]

[somethinglawful]

Ugh!! You are being such a crazy bitch!

[yeah so maybe it is not the best idea to have an argument in the middle of fighting off a bunch of extremely persistent enemies. what of it.]

[glowsferatu]

If desiring my friends to remain protected qualifies me as a crazy bitch, than perhaps I should be the craziest bitch paradox space has yet encountered! I will be entirely [ her glow gets gradually brighter as she takes a second to remember that phrase karkat's always using ] shithive maggots if that's what's required of me!

[ she's not bothering to hop between opponents any longer, just pulling portals open and ripping open the abominations they bring her to, then moving into the next portal as soon as her slice is completed, glowing ever brighter and more furiously as she does ]

Perhaps you've forgotten that should Tavros or Nepeta die and not return, there is no future laid before them! [ a portal opens, a monster is bisected ] They are dead with a finality that the dream bubbles serve only to mask. [ a portal opens, a monster is bisected ] A fate that has already befallen Feferi and Equius, might I remind you!

The rest of you are by no means promised the return you would depend on should you fall in battle here! [ portal opens, a monster bisected ] You have just as sure chances to return to a moment where there is hardly a scrap of hope remaining, where Sollux is now more convinced of his impending doom than ever before, and may have reason for it! [ portal opens, a monster bisected ] Where Rose is speeding to her second death as a result of the machinations of an interdimensional con artist! [ portal opens, monster bisected ] Where Jade and the others are moments from being engulfed in a Scratch that will put them out of contact with us and the consequences of which could potentially tear paradox space itself asunder! [ portal opens, monster bisected ] Where even we are left adrift at the whims of a plan that has no guarantee of success!

And you, even you, are vulnerable in ways that I can no longer consider myself, [ portal, monster, bisection ] and only recently found yourself facing death's door to be potentially never seen again!

IF FOR JUST THIS ONCE, [ slice ] IN THIS ONE SINGLE INSTANCE, [ slice ] EVERYONE COULD DISPLAY ENOUGH COURTESY [ slice ] TO NOT DIE OR BE GRAVELY INJURED, [ slice ] EVERY SACRIFICE [ slice ] I COULD [ slice ] CONCEIVE TO MAKE [ slice ] WOULD BE A [ slice ] JUST TRANSACTION!!

[ and then there are no monsters in the immediate area, just a wide radius of their corpses scattered so far throughout that those beyond it have enough sense to direct their path of destruction elsewhere for the moment. and there in the middle of it, blazing like a miniature sun, enough that toward the edges of her far-casting shine it might in fact resemble daylight, is kanaya, on her knees, face cast downward and stained with blood and tears. her voice barely comes out louder than a whisper ]

...I-i-i-if preventing it could be in my c-c-c-ca-capabilites, I wo-would suffer what...would to another r-r-result in a m-million deaths. E-e-e-even a f-f-final death for...myself, should it be n-necessary.

[somethinglawful]

[there's not much for Terezi to do after that display, is there? she stands in front of Kanaya, nose burning from the sharpness of her glow, cane sword hanging useless in one hand. It's not like she has anything to use it on, after all, at least not at the moment.

She is beginning to think that she has been seriously underestimating Kanaya's issues. it's worrying.]

Kanaya...

[elsewhere on the impromptu battlefield, well within Terezi's hearing range and anyone else's sight range, others are fighting the good fight as well. The two troll girls sit in a little pocket of calm in the midst of what is basically a raging storm.]

Maybe...we should stop.

[she says each word carefully, like she thinks she's a step away from picking the wrong ones and seriously fucking things up. if there's one thing that Terezi is good at it's reading people, reading situations, and she knows now that she went into this one with an attitude that was too blase.

how the hell did she miss this?]

[glowsferatu]

[ welp, here she was. she's lost her composure entirely now, stammering like a stupid baby and crying for everyone to see. though the only living thing in about a thirty yard radius is terezi. even so, this should be terribly embarrassing, but kanaya just can't summon up the energy for it right now. it just doesn't seem worth it for what little she has to spare at the moment. ]

M-m-maybe...

[ she clears her throat, her voice still a little weak, perhaps a bit hoarse, but with more volume to it at least ] For just a moment, at least.

[ there's a deep pause as she considers how much she wants to admit this next part, but she supposes it's already out in the air already, so she might as well. she glances over her shoulder to where the other girl was standing ]

I'm so...I-i'm so tired, Terezi.

[somethinglawful]

[Terezi...really just doesn't know what to do in this situation. She's going to have to wing it.

She steps closer to Kanaya, cautious; at least there's no risk of bumping into her on accident. The glow is impossible to miss.]

Probably because you work yourself too hard, Kanaya.

[that almost sounded...pitying.]

You've accomplished enough today, right?

[glowsferatu]

But there's--

[ she looks out onto the scene beyond her little area of calm desolation, at the still swarming horde of spawn. and beyond that still, the emissary out in the distance, climbing through the park toward its ultimate goal.

she chokes on her words as the tears start up again. ]

There's still so much yet to be done!

[somethinglawful]

Let someone else do it. Do you think any of us want to see you hurt? Pushing yourself like this is only going to end in you dead. Again.

[Terezi is being firm on this one. Time to throw in the towel, Maryam.]

[glowsferatu]

[ and kanaya's just gonna turn that glance into a hard glare ]

I'm incapable of dying. That's the very reason it should be me rather than them, there are fewer risks to be faced. Any harm otherwise I'll simply need to endure as necessary.

[somethinglawful]

[kanaya why are you making this so difficult]

Ugh, are you really going to make me repeat myself like a drooling wriggler? It's not worth it if you get hurt too, Maryam!

[glowsferatu]

I'm unafraid of being hurt. Such harm is only temporary, I'm built to withstand it, and, as has been already stated, I find it preferable that I suffer it than others, if someone must.

[ come on terezi this is so obvious why do you keep fighting her on it ]

[somethinglawful]

[BECAUSE IT'S STUPID also Terezi is about to make this about a thousand times worse]

Why are you being so selfish??