In and Around the Woods, Sunday Afternoon

[fh_spareparts]

The shadows didn't want to budge. They liked it here, and they liked their toys, and maybe they would like to reach out, sometime, and bring in more...

Because the island would let them do that, wouldn't it?

It would be oh-so-cosy.

[[ FINALE POST! ocd up. ]]

Comments

The Mayor

[fjordicswagger]

Tamsin stood just outside the woods, her arms crossed, flanked by two troopers.

Her brow was twitching.

"Can't we just go in and set fire to it all?"

[[ for rosa. ]]

Re: The Mayor

[died8yearsago]

Honestly, Rosa sort of wished someone had warned her that the mayor was so hot. It was almost distracting. Almost.

Comments like that didn't help matters, either. Thankfully, she was in full cop-mode when she tracked Tamsin down, with a little anthropomorphic pumpkin...dog...thing squirming under her arm the whole time.

"I think we may have found a possible entry point," she offered, getting straight to it. "We didn't get anything overnight, but this morning, I got to see the little green kid go in at some point. I marked it; there's a few troopers keeping watch, and a few more have gone in, they say. Might be worth checking out."

And Pumpkin, squirming still, let out a little whine and a bark, and Rosa quietly shushed it. If they ever planned to get this thing figure out, the last thing she wanted to tell the little green kid was that, not only did the evil forest shadow eat her, but her weird little gourd pet got lost, too.

Into the Woods...

[fh_spareparts]

The two troopers dragged a large spotlight down to the spot Rosa had indicated. They weren't sure this would work, but they were willing to give it a shot.

They aimed it carefully.

And, on Tamsin's mark, flicked the switch.

The light burned straight through the shadows, making quick work of the thin strip of blackness before it. Something purplish-blue seemed to bleed out of it, as if the shadow itself had been wounded.

"Okay, everyone ready," Tamsin started. Paused. Squinted.

"... Are those massive pepper shakers coming right at us?"

[[ team free-for-all, this is your entry point! go forth, face off with moddable giant evil objects, or face a friend's objects, or poke us below for an npc. ]]

Re: Into the Woods...

[thatwaslucky]

Rey... was suddenly not sure she had the right weapon for this sort of thing? And her initial reaction was confusion?

But whatever. If there was a... teddy bear with sunglasses coming for her, she was going to fight a teddy bear with sunglasses.

It was going to be a weird day, apparently.

Re: Into the Woods...

[not_of_the_nora]

Aloy spun her spear around. "Yep," she said. "Because we just can't have normal around here."

She buried the tip of the spear deep into the wood of the first pepper shaker.

Something Wicked This Way Comes

[fh_spareparts]

The trees part. The ground shakes. Something massive is coming your way. Are you ready? Truly?

Like a thunderclap, the massive, 20-foot-tall thing opened its mouth and bellowed,

"Lɪsᴛᴇɴ ᴀʟʟ ʏ'ᴀʟʟ, ɪᴛ's ᴀ sᴀʙᴏᴛᴀɢᴇ!"

A sweep of his tail cleared away the last trees in its way.

Ladies and gentlemen, we give you: Billy the Bass.

Fight.

[[ WHO IS FREE TO FIGHT FOR ALL. But only one of you will take down the Bass. Whop whop. ]]

Re: Something Wicked This Way Comes

[puppy_fair]

Something had taken Ino.

Something had taken Ino.

SOMETHING HAD TAKEN INO, and there was no way in hell Zack was going into these woods and leaving without her. He had a bright blue mako fury in his eyes as he approached the massive thing coming their way, reaching to his back to draw his sword.

And then pausing.

And squinting.

"Billy, you traitor! We loved you!"

He really never should have equipped the fish with a Regen Materia.

Re: Something Wicked This Way Comes

[intotheout]

"Are you kidding me?!" Tip rolled her eyes heavenward, then raised her zora sword. "Alright. Time to gut a fish."

Big words for a girl who'd never used her sword in an actual fight before.

Re: Something Wicked This Way Comes

[what_the_shock]

"Seriously?" Miguel pulled on his mask and shot out webs at the fish. "We gave you telepathy and pumpkin spice, and this is what we get?"

Re: Something Wicked This Way Comes

[misshapen_spark]

"Aw yeah!" Yang was pumped, and she flicked her wrists, activating the the whiring gears of her gauntlets as they ground and clicked into place, the bracelets unfolding into the offensive configuration.

She clenched her fists and pulled them towards herself, rounds loading into their chambers.

"Hey Billy! Wanna light my fire?" she yelled, immediately throwing two punches at him, firing four rounds of high impact explosives into his side.

Re: Something Wicked This Way Comes

[seriesofbaddecisions]

Maybe it wasn't the most noble thing by most people's standards, but Sabine had been looking forward to the first fight in Fandom, because it'd been a while, and people had built it up.

And it was the fish.

Which, by the way, she had sort of defended a couple times, and now had to take back, so, thanks, fish.

So, Sabine facepalmed even with her helmet on, and tried shooting for the eyes.

Re: Something Wicked This Way Comes

[studyingfear]

Rufus had his guns out, and was ready to shoot if need be, but for the moment, he was...

Well, he was mostly watching the others flail helplessly at the giant fish and noting how literally none of the damage they were doing was sticking to it.

Thanks a lot, Zack.

Re: Something Wicked This Way Comes

[in_sidon_we_trust]

Alright! This was it! Sidon was primed and ready, gripping his trident tight, eager to battle whatever it was that was causing all of this and his friends to go missing, ready to do them and the Zora people proud, perfectly convinced that he was ready for anything, because what could be worse or more difficult that facing down an older, larger, stronger version of one's own self?

...he could never in a million years have prepared himself for this, his eyes widening at that all-too-familiar song that he'd come to associate with an endearing and caring feeling all summer long. No...no, it couldn't be...

The Fish!

He gasped, eyes wide, his grip loosening as he lowered his weapon.

No. How...how could this be? This was nearly as much a betrayal as the last one. He...loved that fish! They all...okay, well, maybe if he thought about it a little bit and what everyone else had done to the fish, maybe it started to make sense that this was all just sort of a revenge that they all wrought through various incarnations and mistreatment, but...he had certainly always supported it and spoke well of it and took it swimming and to hang out with other fish friends, and now...now...

Closing his eyes, Sidon regained his grip. "I am so sorry, dear friend," he whispered into the wind before charging forward with a great battle cry, leaping up from the ground and ready to descent, the tips of his trident gleaming like the ends of his fangs, like the shining scales of what he once considered his brother-in-fishness.

Re: Something Wicked This Way Comes

[sith_happened]

"Oh, really?! Really?!" Anakin yelled at the fish, absolutely frustrated. "So you really did turn giant and evil?! I WAS KIDDING ABOUT THAT."

Find Your Friends

[fh_spareparts]

Not here to fight? Hoping to pull someone out through the newly-opened arch?

Chop chop.

Re: Find Your Friends

[raspberryturk]

The woods were dark.

The city was dark. Neither saw light from above, particularly not from under the canopy, the plate, the other half that sat above. There was screaming in those woods, and it mingled with the groan of metal, the sound of explosions in the distance, the pain of his injuries, all as before.

Reno ran. Reno was excellent at running.

A playground slide, short and round with a cat's face and large, twisted bits of rusted metal rammed through the top of it, watched. It witnessed him run, then fall from the platform over, and over, and over again.

From the playground in Sector Six, right where the border of Sector Seven had once sat, it had seen many, many things fall that day.

Reno leapt, and once again, the woods allowed him to plummet. One more falling body among the rest.

Re: Find Your Friends

[hernando_fuentes]

The second they were cleared to enter, Hernando took off like a shot. Years of trail and free running served him well. He juked and wove around people and sometimes over them, frantically looking around. There were giant objects and while he saw them, he wasn't going to pay attention to them right then. He could spend some time gibbering later. He had one focus, and that was to find Kaidan.

He saw the familiar figure in cargo pants and a tshirt sitting at a table with his backpack on the ground next to him. When he drew near, he slowed until he stumbled his way to a walk. Kaidan was watching something - himself, younger. "Kaidan?" Hernando reached a hand for his friend's shoulder, "Kaidan!"

Re: Find Your Friends

[deaddadsclub]

Cristina was still screaming.

She was also beating on the objects haunting her with the largest branch she could find, though, so she was still doing mostly okay. . . .

Re: Find Your Friends

[geniuswithasmartphone]

"We gotta get outta here," Hardison muttered to himself again, making another look around the trees as if this time, he'd be able to find a way out. But there was nothing to hack, no one to con; all his skills were useless here.

That's what he was. Useless. Completely useless. He'd been useless to Raven, worse than useless to Nana, useless all his life. Hell, he couldn't even scare up a proper ghost to haunt him because what had he done?

Hidden behind a computer screen his whole life and watched it all go by without him. But now, maybe he could do something, help somehow, find a way out.

Re: Find Your Friends

[furnaceface]

Jonothon had given up fighting it a hundred repeats before. He'd fought at first, thrown himself at the images of Neverland, wishing he could scream for it to stop.

Wishing he could do anything to make it stop at all.

But the battle on the outside had given way to a losing battle within, an echo of the monster committing horrors before him sitting in the back of his mind, waiting for a chance to escape.

Jonothon sat, and Jonothon watched, bodies on bodies, death and suffering at his own hand, and inside his own mind, Jonothon clawed himself apart.

Re: Find Your Friends

[throughaphase]

Kitty was... somewhere. She'd actually made it decently close to a part of the wall, though she hadn't had any way of knowing that. So right now it was mostly wandering, with a little break in being yelled at about things being her fault, and mostly she was ready to threaten anything with a stick.

Re: Find Your Friends

[thatsweirdright]

Jason... Jason was still crumpled on the ground, watching the image of his best friend drop down in to the water over and over and over again.

Re: Find Your Friends

[talentforlying]

John Constantine was down to the last half pack of his smokes, and only a shot or two left in his flask, and was just... sitting. Looking at the line-up of gleaming objects that was surrounding him.

your mother your brother asta ellie gary chas your sister brendan emma alec linda tefe --

The litany of the lives he'd ruined went on and on and on, occasionally breaking out into a vision of the incident in question.

Currently, John was watching himself confront the Trinity of Hell, watching himself die, again, and then the three of them take him apart and put him back together.

Somehow, he'd ended up in Hell, and hadn't even needed to die to do it.

Re: Find Your Friends

[intraspective]

Like a lot of the others, Ino was tired, frazzled, and looking somewhat the worse for wear--this suit was never going to be the same again--but unlike nearly everyone else...

She wasn't particularly traumatized.

Okay, sure, she got what the creepy shadows were trying to do. Revenge for all the shit she'd done and all. But, the thing was, Ino had never really felt like shit over any of her jobs. There'd been a few qualms over her first assassination, sure, but no matter how many times the woods made her relive that, she was over it. Which probably said a lot about her moral compass, but hey, Ino liked herself, so whatever, woods.

As a car trundled towards her--she wasn't even sure which carjacking/assassination this one had been from--she rummaged around in her pockets, not sure what she had left at this point and... came out with a dragon scale.

"Okay," she said, bemused. "I'll try it."

She doubted aqualung would really do a ton of damage to the car but... but it was satisfying to throw it at it as she got out of the way.

OOC

[fh_spareparts]

Let us know down here if you want an NPC! And anybody in the Billy the Bass thread is going to get a few pings, promise.

Re: OOC

[era_two_triangle]

I WAS HOPING IN MY HEART OF HEARTS THAT THIS WOULD BE.