FINALE: Synod & Conclusion

[modormenace]

The Synod should have ended on the 21st, but a blackout traps all the attendees in the facility. The train won't move. The Gates won't reverse. The anomaly outside would eradicate anything attempting to cross the stygian wasteland. All anyone can do is wait.

On the 23rd, a network message informs all imPorts their time has come to an end. Their presence is tearing this world apart, and in order to save it, the Resistance must destroy the Porter. All imPorts depend on it for survival, and will die along with it—

but humanity will triumph.

THE CATALYST TO

THE FINALE

THE

REBELS

ATTACK

A hastily-assembled team of various faction members rushes to the Porter's defense. When they arrive, they find that their extremist opponents are imPorts themselves. Some of them might have once been called friends. Others have remained in the shadows, sleeper forces of the Resistance. While the saboteurs continue their work, fighters leap into battle against all those who've arrived to defend the Porter.

[OOC: Please tag the above top-level if you'd like some mod-run NPC combat! We'll be able to back/tag several PCs for at least 2 weeks from today.]

Not only must enemy combatants be defeated, but a complex series of timed explosive devices threatens to destroy the Porter controls, forcing a desperate call for technical experts and finesse powers.

 

Only partway into the showdown, a minor explosion rips through the crowd and takes out combatants on both sides. An alarm begins to scream. Total annihilation has been averted, but the Porter's shields are crumbling.

ESCAPE THE SYNOD

Though the terrorists are now in custody, there's a bigger problem. The facility is no longer safe. The Gates, echoing the damaged Porter, still haven't reversed polarity. Everyone will have to escape via the Death Train, which isn't equipped for so many imPorts in high concentration. It'll need additional shielding and the reprogramming for multiple trips, which means tech-minded imPorts will have to cooperate to overcome its automated settings.

ImPorts must divide into smaller groups because the destination station at the White City may overload too. Batches of ImPorts pile together for the ride in much more cramped quarters than they're used to. Several are injured from the attack, others are dying, and it'll be a long and harrowing journey before they can reach a hospital for treatment. ImPorts steal moments for hurt and comfort, as well as moments of revelation and intimacy.

Even for those left unscathed, they must swiftly transfer through the White City and travel back to their home factions via conventional means, or risk causing dimensional chaos as more ImPorts arrive behind them.

THE QUIET

Once the Death Train arrives at the White City with the last of the Synod attendees on board, it seems like the worst is over. While anyone wanting to leave the city is free to use conventional means to do so, some choose to remain in Florida to recuperate, strategize or tend to the wounded.

For three days, everything looks like it might be returning to normal.

ImPorts are likely to resume life as usual, continuing with politicking and personal lives alike. After all, there's a year to go until the next Synod-- and despite everything, new ImPorts still arrive through the battered Porter facility.

DEATH DOME EXPANDS

On September 26th, sensors indicate a wave of cosmic radiation moving toward the White City. The reason is obvious enough: damage to the Porter has destabilized the Death Dome and now it's rapidly expanding. If it isn't stopped, it'll swallow the city within days. After that, scientists fear it may tear through the entire planet.

The White Tower immediately puts out a call for aid. Citizens of the city will have to be evacuated en masse. They plead for every imPort who is able to come forward and work to halt the growth of the Dome using whatever means necessary. If they don't work together, no one's getting out of this alive.

Most terrifying of all, the Death Dome's "cosmic radiation" causes permanent death, shredding and scattering energy and matter across the multiverse. Unshielded contact means no resurrection within this world ever again. To those who dream of someday returning to home dimensions, the mysteries of these physics is steeped with terrifying unknowns.

[OOC: Per this OOC plotting question, contact with the Death Dome destroys the AU version of a character permanently, but not their MoM counterpart. See the thread for more details.]

UNTIMELY ARRIVALS

Anyone Porting in during the Death Dome expansion, whether for the first time or resurrecting, finds the Porter facility is horrifically unstable. Heavy strands of permanently lethal entropic energy weave through visible cracks in the walls. They must escape through a Gate as quickly as possible, or risk an untimely death!

Under pressure, it might be harrowing to choose an ImPort city and faction. No sooner than they do, and step through the Gate, that they find that the world is in uproar, though their new home may well be in denial, strategically or otherwise.

UNITED

FRONT

CHARACTER

(FACTION)

CONTAINMENT

Alison Hargreeves

Krakoa

Anakin Skywalker

Luminary

Jane Foster

Krakoa

Joseph Kavinsky

White Tower

Luke Skywalker

Empire of Light

COMMUNICATIONS

David Alleyne

Krakoa

Kang

Seekers of the New Dawn

Padmé Amidala

Luminary

SUPPORT

Ysanne Poirier

Northwestern Imperium

TRANSPORTATION

Luther Hargreeves

Krakoa

Minimus Ambus

White Tower (R)

MISCELLANY

Rey Palpatine

White Tower

 

Faced with a cosmic anomaly, ImPorts take heroic measures in the ground and air in Florida and beyond to save natives and perhaps even their kind alike.

[OOC: The above character 'sub-rosters' reflect the IC involvement based on this plotting form. We'll attempt to link top-levels here, and further incorporate your RP into a conclusion post on or by October 1. Feel free to top-level, and of course backtag/sandbox indefinitely!]

FINAL OUTCOMES

At the nth hour, on September 30, two ImPorts, Shouta and Tomura of Equality Before Law make it into the Porter and manage, incredibly, to stabilize the damaged Fate technology with use of reality-warping abilities.

As the Death Dome begins to shrink back to its original circumference, it leaves behind a bizarre, scarred landscape, and a fine dusting of eerie crystalline particles of inscrutable chemical makeup. It may take years before the land is arable again, but the day is saved. For now.

OOC Links

• Plotting Post
• Volunteer signup: Resistance Extremists
• Volunteer signup: Porter Defenders
• Plotting form: Finale Roles
• Reminder: 'Hacking the Death Train' does not require signups (unlimited slots), and sharing your finale role is not mandatory.

Comments

PORTER DEFENDERS: MOD-RUN COMBAT

[modormenace]

[OOC: Please put your top-level here if you want to roleplay combat with a mod-run NPC! Only put in your combat top-level, thank you.

Note: We didn't reach RNG here as of the posting of this log, so we don't currently have concerns about mod capacity. We'll reach out to late signups if this becomes a problem.]

Wei Wuxian vs. The Extremists

[chenqing_player]

When everything started, Wei Wuxian was on the side of the resistance. He had been tasked with protecting the ones about to make the announcement. But shortly into their announcement, Wei Wuxian realized he had made a terrible mistake. Dread filled him as he realized the people he was defending were trying to end everything and everyone.

"What are you doing?? You can't just kill everyone!" words that seem strange coming from a man that has killed to get them to this point. Doing anything he could but with the belief he could save the ones he cared about when it was all over. He can't let them die at the hands of these extremists.

He knew he had to do something, even if it meant his time with the resistance would come to an end. Summoning up the spirits in the area he starts to send them towards the extremists. Black clouds with intense resentful energy head towards them, their goal to get them away from anything they might have on them to set everything in motion.

At this point he doesn't care if he dies as long as he can keep hundreds..thousands..of others from dealing with that fate.

David Alleyne vs. Extremists

[helpdesk_hero]

Since coming into this world, David had not been one to actively throw himself into the line of danger. Part of that was hiding his powers. A lot of it was the fact that he didn’t see a reason to hurt himself for others. Maybe he was a bit jaded. But the list of people qualified to disable bombs, defend themselves, and protect the Porter isn’t the greatest. Someone can do all of this? Even shorter.

When other people run away, David runs towards and abandons his final secret, blades made of psychic energy forming in his hands as he leaves others to hit the main group approaching the Porter, David slides into cover beside it. The weapons are his defense, ready to keep himself safe. But his mind is already tuning out, delving into the explosives. He has to shut these down.

Which of course means he might not notice someone approaching.

[dragony]

Ruka isn't really a fighter. She's not trained for combat. She's never thrown a punch in her life, her brief stint of knife-obsession had been... a rather complicated mess during her teens, and she's never actually killed anyone. She wouldn't be anybody's first pick for something like this.

Which is fine; she doesn't wait around for the counterattack draft. She's impulsive, and she's pissed off, and she refuses to get stranded or annihilated on this godawful Earth, no matter the cost. Ruka doesn't even listen to the whole broadcast before she heads straight for the Porter.

She doesn't have her shields, and she doesn't have her monsters, but she's got enough of the dragon's power in her veins to do something. The moment she arrives at the scene of impending disaster, her eye quickly skims the room, looking for the biggest threat to her way home — and the most immediate threat to herself.

Tony Stark ⧒ OTA & closed

[houseparty]

( Event TLs will be posted here! Feel free to plot with me via PM or backagain. )

Closed prompt

[houseparty]

Escape the Synod - closed to efficacy and timestones

( Even under the oppressive sleep his body is in, Tony's mind wanders. Willed into protecting the complex networks and systems of the Tower, with little idea of how to navigate the powers of this Other!Stark, he drifts aimlessly at first, fearful and pissed about it, flicking away encroaching threats out of sheer, instinctual self-preservation.

The added insult to injury? This would be so cool, if he wasn't forced into it. This would also be easier with a manual, or even a fucking command line...

Left alone in the High Chancellor's suite, he's only tangentially aware of the ensuing battle at the Porter, the explosion manifesting through the strange, digital landscape as a cascade of distant system failures: any technology in the immediate vicinity that has been torn apart, winking out like lights dying across a wide, endless plane. He doesn't- can't -register the building shudder from the shockwave.

He's a sitting duck. )

Allison Hargreeves ⧓ Krakoa

[numberthree]

[ TL's for Allison/(some) Containment Crew pieces.
Come plot with me in the PM's or at wanderlustlover ]

Sept 26th { Containment Crew - Planning Meeting

[numberthree]

The call goes out from The White Tower.

They are looking for anyone with the power to control reality, the Force, metamagic, technology siphoning, anything that might help control the rapidly expanding Death Dome. The facts are saying the city will be gone in days, and the planet not long after it, if something isn't done now.

It's not her meeting (Chancellor Palpatine called them all here), but Allison is one of the first few there and as of the Krakoan Council of Five, she's very used to being in a room of very different people working together, shoulder to shoulder, on impossible situations. Even if none of them were as grave as this new one.

"Ideas?"



[ OOC Note: Anyone signing up to Team Containment at any time can jump in here, too. The more the merrier! ]

Padmé Amidala ⧓ Luminary

[resoluteandunyielding]

[ TL's for Padme/United Front: Communications.
Come plot with me in the DM's or at wanderlustlover ]

OTA | United Front: Refugee Safe Haven

[resoluteandunyielding]

The White Tower puts out its call to action, and Queen Sinivalyana and The Dragon Knight are pulled in twain, two different directions for two different jobs that they are uniquely suited to. He returns to White Tower, as Padmé opens the gates of Luminary to everyone in The White City.

Luminary sits at a far distance, in the Andes Mountains, promising, if not forever, a good foothold to weather the storm before the Death Dome -- if it cannot be stopped there -- will reach them. (A thought she refuses to entertain for more reasons than one.)

Padmé can often be found, even with her guards, helping those who are arriving: her contacts that have been ferrying people to Luminary, inquiring about updates from the White Tower, and those who are coming in for the long haul of this arduous turn of events, handing them blankets, food, and directing them to houses which have been opened to them.


[ Under United Front, feel free to use this space to either tag Padme or have your own sets of characters be together,
in personal threads (without her), experiencing their refugee existence in Luminary. ]

Closed | The Queen and Her Dragon

[resoluteandunyielding]

Padmé wasn't there when he started readying to leave.

The decisions made, they'd both had to turn their focus very quickly to the only things that made sense for them to do. To put those first contacts out, start lining everything up. It is no small task to open wide a faction land they had so carefully woven close and closed on no noticed.

But a short while later still finds her at the doorway to their chambers, watching him. Almost entirely ready to leave. To return to that city, and the exploding dome that was now destroying it quicker every time news reached them. Her voice is calm and level, even if, perhaps, her eyes aren't entirely.

"Is that almost everything, then?"

David Alleyne ⧓ Krakoa

[helpdesk_hero]

[OOC: Event TLs for David. Hit me up with a dm, Discord: Churby#4290, or churbooseanon]

OTA | Death Train Hacking | CW: Character Injury/Blood

[helpdesk_hero]

Today, frankly, sucks. The whole last year has sucked. Everything sucks, and nothing sucks as more than this moment that finds David limping toward the train station. He isn’t in the same state as he was when he’s gone off to help with the Porter Defense. His clothes are torn and dirty and burned in some manners. But really, the worst part is the burns covering his right arm. Actually, no, it’s the slowly bleeding gash in his side that David’s pushing some discarded cloth to.

Somehow he’s gotten here, gotten back, and the Krakoan leader pushes past the gathering crowds. People part for him. Maybe it’s the injury. Maybe it’s the fact that they recognize a Synod Faction Leader. Or maybe it’s the fact that he’s mumbling technopath coming through.

In the end, he collapses near one of the control panels, broken down and tired. Only then he puts his hand against the panel, using it as a tighter focus for his technopathy, forcing his awareness into the systems.

“Okay,” he says to whoever is near and working on the system. “Where are we on getting this baby to obey our will? I’m diving in. Tell me where my efforts are most needed.”

Once he’s got it working a bit more, stewing in the back of his head, he looks to the milling, worried crowd.

“Any chance we’ve got any doctors here? Other than me? Otherwise, clean cloth would be nice.”

The pain he can push through. Not knowing where the people he loves are he can push through. Survival is what matters right now. And if nothing else, he was a mutant.

They found a way to survive.

OTA | The Last Train Out

[helpdesk_hero]

The thing about trying to perform a complex series of overrides on Fate-Touched technology while highly injured was that it was draining. Draining to the point where doing it from a distance wasn’t even remotely possible. Where once David could easily have touched systems from a world and a half away, he had to stay close, which meant that he was the last one on the last train back.

Which didn’t bother David in the slightest. He was... Tired. Tired but too pained to sleep. He hadn’t bothered yet trying to reach out to his fellows among the Five. He hadn’t bothered trying a lot of things, afraid of who might have been lost in the conflict, in the destabilization. Afraid of who was gone and might never come back.

David took the seat someone else offered him and leaned back against the window. He hadn’t been on the train in years. Seemed like he wasn’t likely to do so again, if the Porter couldn’t be stabilized. They’d all... No, he wasn’t borrowing morbidity.

“Well... ImPorts sure know how to throw a party,” he muses aloud, trying to make light of the situation before his hands come up to his face to rub at his eyes. His glasses are gone, the small computers lost in the unending hours of getting the train running for everyone.

“Next time, let’s pick somewhere with Pina Coladas?”

A Return Home | Open to Refuges, Locals, and New Arrivals | Krakoa

[helpdesk_hero]

Getting to Krakoa without the gates wasn’t exactly the easiest process. But still, there were teleporters, there were other means of transportation, and there was always the will to make sure there was the way. So it was that David returned to the shores of his home.

He made the rounds of the inhabitants that hadn’t gone to the Synod, offering his comfort and reassurances. The fact that not everyone was back didn’t mean they were gone for good, after all. They were just busy. As for David, his part in things could be achieved from here.

And of course there were the others, the refuges and the new arrivals. Those David made sure to set time out for. Each one were approached individually with an extended hand and a soft, tired look.

“Welcome. I’m David Alleyne of the Council. I’m sorry to say we can’t really put on our normal raucous greeting for your arrival with how messy things got. But if you have any questions I’m happy to provide. And forgive me if I ask you just what you’re capable of doing and if you’d be willing to help with some things. It’s not normally our way to be this forward, especially since most of our residents are young, but sometimes we work best by working together.”

Longer term residents might also find him, most hours of the day, sitting outside of the Council building in a lounge chair, surrounded by several different electronic devices, distracted in one of his technopathic focus trances. His mind is too deep in the tech to be focusing on usual things. Like sleep. Or food. Or listening when people approach. Which is why he flinches and jumps about a foot in the air when he finally registers footsteps nearby.

“Holy fuck, I did... I didn’t expect you there.”

Closed to Josh | Don't Say Goodbye

[helpdesk_hero]

This has all been so much. Everything in the last month has been a weight. Everything in the last year has been more than he knows how to handle, and David is... breaking. Broken. Add in his near death, Kavinsky sacrificing himself for David, all that was done to Josh...

All of him is weary.

And yet he was quick off the mark once he heard the whispers that Josh was going to the White Tower. To help.

Perhaps Josh already knows what he's going to say when David finds the man. Perhaps not. David still doesn't even know what he's going to say other than 'please don't.'

"Hey."

Joseph Kavinsky ⧒ White Tower

[pillz]

closed to david; (death train repair)

[pillz]

[kavinsky is still kavinsky. well, from his perspective. as opposed to say, high chancellor stark-- who definitely isn't 'himself' lately, but whom kavinsky still cares for enough to have sent his friends after him.

but the porter facility is groaning; the ground seems to tremble. no sooner had the chaos of the resistance saboteurs subsided that they have to deal with this shit as a direct consequence.

kavinsky comes barrelling into the train station. he's wearing a modified iron man suit, white with copper and black accents piped and plated along his frame. he's merely traveling on foot, which makes sense; it'd be bad to accidentally knock people around with the repulsors on his boots.]

Alleyne.

[stopping by the technopath, kavinsky's digitized voice sounds slightly different from his usual, but it's nothing like stark's-- not that alleyne would have made that mistake anyway, considering tony's current state, semi-publically known. and david's seen this armor before, or at least a set like it.] How are we looking?

Billy Kaplan ⋈ Krakoa

[demiurgency]

[9/24: Arrival, OTA (Krakoa)]
[The last few dimensions have been little more than a blur. Teddy's gone, they still can't find that asshole wearing Eli's costume or any sign of Tommy, Mother is still out there--it's all so much, so overwhelming, he's really just been trying to keep moving so he doesn't have to think about it. Follow America through the door, fight bad guys or mayfly monsters or crazy AU versions of themselves, lather, rinse, repeat.

This time, it's different. He follows them through the door, but when he steps through, there's no sign of the others. There's nothing but a hall that looks as though there's been a big fight recently, or an explosion (not that unusual, given the sheer number of post-apocalyptic landscapes they've been running through recently) and silence, broken only occasionally by faint rumbles and a soft rain of dust and debris, and the giant pulsing thing behind him looks nothing like America's usual star-shaped window. Calling their names returns nothing but more junk falling from the ceiling, so opting for the better part of sense, Billy moves on, down the only hallway in sight.

The sight of all the Gates stops him again, as does the seeming advertising for each of them. Factions? Counsels? ImPorts? What the hell kind of dimension is this? At least there's a name he recognizes in there. A few, actually, but he's not getting anywhere near the Scarlet Mom if he can help it, just in case. Instead, he goes through the portal marked Krakoa, and walks into what looks startlingly like a refugee camp if it were put together on a college campus. He feels a little out of place, not because he's still wearing his costume, but more just because everyone here looks like they just came from Hell and flew coach. Looking around, Billy spots someone who looks a little less ragged than everyone else, lifting a hand to wave and then approaching.]

Hey, uh...what's going on here? Did something happen?

[It might not be his home dimension, and for all he knows this person is gonna recognize him as The Great Destroyer or something, but he can't not ask.]

[9/26: Answering the Call, OTA (Network)]

[It's really hard not to make the LotR reference. Really, really hard. Stress always makes him more flippant, the jokes and unfunny fatalistic quips the only release he had from the sheer vibrating anxiety and fear of it all. But who would get it, here? And it's not the right time or place.

So he resists. Instead, he keeps it simple.]

This is Wiccan. I'm a reality-warper. Basically a magic user. I can make energy shields, manipulate electricity, lift heavy objects, fly, and teleport--though tbh I'm not really sure how well any of that works here. I just got here. Full disclosure and all.

But I want to help. What can I do?

[9/27-29ish, White City outskirts]

[The charmingly-named Death Dome has been expanding for days now, and is finally close enough that you can see it on the outskirts of the city, like a stormcloud made of nightmares. Even Billy, who's seen some pretty unbelievable things, can't help but stand there and stare, probably a little too close to the fringes of things, a little too far from the slight safety of the buildings. He's still far enough away that he isn't gonna get hit, and he's at least reasonably confident he's got enough power for a shield and a single teleport, if nothing else, and...well, it's just something to see. All that sheer power.]

It's beautiful.

[He doesn't mean to say the words out loud. Honestly, it's probably super inappropriate right now, all things considered; people have died, and more are going to die, and this reality is being eaten away by something out of HP Lovecraft's nightmares--but it's still the truth. So he's gonna keep standing there, just a little longer, until someone comes to call him an idiot or get him to help with their work trying to shield the city.]

((ooc: Billy comes from issue 10 of the 2013 YA run, for those canon-familiar. I'm happy to match format/switch between brackets and prose, whatever you're most comfortable with, and also write custom starters or chat; please feel free to reach out on Discord at amurderofbees#8035 or PM me!))

arrival

[goldtoxicity]

[ the healing field has been disabled since he was returned from his kidnapping and he's never been more thankful for it - he isn't sure he'd have been able to handle the strain. the boost to the island's population is a nightmare in of itself, and many of them had come wounded.

after what happened to stark - he's not risking death just resetting the injuries. which means he's working triple duty. ]

Have you been living under a rock or something?

[ he doesn't mean to snap. he's overtired, overworked, and under prepared to handle something of this magnitude. josh turns to give his full attention to the speaker and -

and he knows this guy. tangentially, at least. vic was a big supporter of the young avengers. david had run with them for a while. and josh "i make great decisions" foley had even rubbed elbows with their grandfather in that last port out he had. ]

Oh shit. [ he sets the clipboard aside. ] I'm sorry. Shit, I didn't think -

[ he extends a hand. ]

Sorry, I - I'm Josh. Josh Foley... I didn't think people were still porting in... You're just in time for the apocalypse.

Wen Ning ⋈ House of M

[deadwenwalking]

i. Wen Ning vs The World (closed to Lan Xichen)

It's been a while since Wen Ning has let himself get so consumed by negative emotions that the only sounds he can release are angered growls. Dark energy swirls from the base of his robes to his shoulders, and the black veins that usually only reach up his neck have crawled up his cheeks to his forehead.

The source of his anger can be seen clutched in one hand - a bloodied Chenqing has stained the fingers of that hand red. Though he's in control of himself just enough that he doesn't grip it hard enough to break it, he won't be wanting to put it down any time soon.

He doesn't see civilians or enemies anymore. Everyone is the latter and everyone is in his way. As he runs out a nearby room, an armored extremist member held above his head, he doesn't care who he throws the still flailing figure at.

ii. aftermath

Wen Ning stands to leave room for others on the train while he grabs anything worth holding onto to so he doesn't fall over himself. Usually he would be more proactive in helping the other passengers, but right now he can only stare vacantly out the window, looking exhausted.

There's a black flute with a red tassel tucked into his waist sash, and the only time he moves is to cover it up if someone gets too close to him. That's the only sign that he's even paying attention to his surroundings.

Approach at your own risk.

iii. the quiet

(NETWORK - un: qionglin)

If anyone has seen Wei Wuxian recently

please let him know that dinner is ready.

[He was told that he'd be back. That death isn't permanent here. If that's the case, then he's going to be waiting at the house the man had been kind enough to share with him - keeping the place clean and having a meal ready in the refrigerator to set out at a moment's notice.]

iv. wildcard

Anything else! I can be reached at laverinth for plotting purposes, or you can PM this journal.

i.

[ze_uwu_jun]

While Liebing could not stop Wen Qionglin and Baxia combined, this is a very different situation. Xichen doesn't take the xiao out until he knows what the reason for the rampage is - but there does not seem to be external resentment, and the dizi stained in blood is answer enough.

So Xichen does not try to contain, or stop, though the music does sometimes shift people away from Wen Qionglin's immediate reach.

Instead, he uses it a little to calm, and a little to persuade. Listen. Listen.

But he will not stop to speak until there seems to be an opening.

LAURIE COLLINS ⧓ KRAKOA

[fridgeflower]

[[ OOC: Top-Levels as needed below. Feel free to PM or hit me up at amyorama for plotting purposes. ]]

Closed to Josh Foley | Back to the White City

[fridgeflower]

[ Mass evacuations mean mass panic and inevitable injuries, higher fatalities, and being able to put a lid on that makes certain imPorts invaluable assists in this situation. So they're hardly on Krakoa again before they decide to return stateside, alongside many of their fellows, to hopefully prevent an out-and-out apocalypse.

Laurie figures she should check in here and there before they throw themselves into things once more, diving towards a situation that seems particularly perilous. Everything's gone by in such a whirlwind since Josh returned. She just wants to establish some kind of footing before it's likely too late, to find out where they stand at the end of the world. They've spent time together, but they've been bypassing anything difficult in favor of what's simple.

So she packs her bag and turns up at Josh's. They're supposed to leave in two hours. She's antsy, nervous for what's ahead and them and what they're leaving on Krakoa. It is what it is, though. ]

Hey. Open up. It's just me.

SHOUTA AIZAWA ⧓ EBL

[passfail]

[9/26, locked to Tomura Shigaraki]

The announcement and the ensuing chaos are the chance they've been waiting for: the last change they'll have, it looks like, and the last chance for everyone. No one is looking to head TO the Porter just yet, everyone's focused on evacuation and putting together a plan.

Moving away from the triage tent where he's been helping treat the injured, Shouta pulls his phone from his pocket and texts his partner:

Now or never. Meet me by the station, one hour.

[9/26, locked to Hizashi Yamada]

[Hizashi he finds in person. No texts, here. Text isn't going to be enough for what he has to say. When he finds the other man, he takes just a moment, watches him before he makes his presence known. He's going to miss this. For all the heartache, for all the loss, there's been plenty found, too.

Finally, he clears his throat, approaching Hizashi and standing close but not quite touching him.]

Got a minute to talk? Outside?

you know which one.

[vociferates]

[It's been a very weird, complicated and revealing month. Hizashi has found himself settled whole ass into the role his other self has handled, which is why in this crisis he's so focused on trying to figure out what to do next that he doesn't notice Shouta walk up behind him. He almost jumps out of his skin, but instead, he winds up settling with a strained laugh. There's nothing funny about everything going on.]

Outside? Yeah. [he's cautious when he answers, moving to head towards the door. Before getting far though, he reaches out to touch Shouta's arm lightly.]

You know, I've known you since we were 15, this is going to be serious, isn't it?

Mariner | OTA + prompt

[onepip]

FOR MANGO

[onepip]

[The Death Dome is expanding. That's great. Really, just GREAT, and it's taking a lot for Mariner to not just curse and grumble her way through this whole thing. She'll have to do that once it's over. Along with some drinking. Lots of drinking.

But right now she's got to help evacuate people from White City because those absolute lunkheads from the other cells decided that destroying a huge chunk of the world was perfectly acceptable so long as it brought down the White Tower. So here she is with a bunch of tech that she's working on to do anti-radiation things while trying to keep away from scared, angry people. And-or crabby extremists who would still like to have a go...

and one particular looming silhouette grabs her attention.

it's been a long time. so Mariner has her phaser in one hand first.]

Hey! Burnsides! Is that you over there?

For Askeladd

[emeraldhanded]

[well. things were going to go sour eventually. but fuu was expecting something more like an outbreak of war between factions, not a massive interdimensional rift opening in Florida.

So it's time to save the Edenites, at least, that's what Eden wants, as Fuu well knows by Askeladd's presence beside her. But you know, there are plenty of people trying to get out of White City. And it's all so confusing. Mistakes are bound to be made regarding who should and shouldn't be here.]

All right, Sir Askeladd--please stand back.

[she crosses her arms over her chest. a pair of wings appear from her back, briefly, as she cries CYNOS!

and then he appears--an enormous bird with emerald-green plumage and a flowing crest. Given the need for carrying capacity, it's better for Windam to take this form, rather than his mechanoid one. Already on his back, Fuu extends a hand to Askeladd to help him up.]

[afallon]

[He has practice in not appearing surprised. He's gotten even more practice in that over the last half year, and yet more in the past few weeks. He's particularly grateful for that at this moment.

It's not, really, more shocking than people having dragons. But it is much more sudden.

Askeladd takes the offered hand and looks around with the advantage of added height.]

How many in one trip, do you think?

Closed to 622 - CW Death - During the attack

[dun_moch]

Count Dooku strides through the now-deserted halls of the Synod banquet area, footsteps echoing off a cavernous ceiling, stepping daintily around spilled drinks and dropped plates. The space is a testament to bedlam now, all the carefully arranged tables and chairs and lights and decorations upended in the mad scramble for safety that took place when the alert sounded. Noises of combat still reverberate through the structure, competing with the shrieking alarm that warns that the Porter has been compromised

Considering the chaos and shambles that is left of the Synod that he and the other White Tower elite had put so much effort into arranging, and the threat of universal destruction from the Porter's damage, the Count is in high spirits. The Resistance rabble responsible for today's madness couldn't have done him a greater favour if he had personally hired them. After today, the next time kooky old Count Dooku starts talking about imPorts uniting to destroy the Resistance, more ears will listen.

With that in mind, the Count turns his head to command his obedient, reliable bodyguard, trailing behind him. "Be on the alert," he orders, keeping an eye out for danger as he speaks, not fully paying attention to 622. "More of them could still be on the loose. Those who have been captured will be convinced to reveal them soon enough."

Dooku is looking forward to the convincing.

[loyal_soldier]

As soon as the alarms went off, his armor blinked into existence on his body, and his rifle into his hands. Finally. He wasn't going to relish much of today, but finally, the waiting was over.

Now everything descended into the confusion of combat, immediately sweeping him along in his wake. Despite his true loyalties, he was a deep cover agent. He was on the hit list for a few Resistance fighters out there. Especially because he was standing at the side of Count bloody Dooku.

But at least he had his armor on. He'd adjusted the fit as he aged, but it still felt natural to wear it. Far better than those useless Tower guard uniforms. It wasn't as strong as some armor other imPorts wore. It wasn't even as strong as the skin on some of them. But it still protected him in more than just a physical sense.

The armor acted as a filter between him and the world. The loudest sounds and brightest lights were dulled down to something tamed once they passed through the helmet. His thoughts got clearer too, focusing down to what was really important in that moment.

And it filtered him out of other people's thoughts too. They always seemed to need a face to see a person, if they would've bothered in the first place.

"Yes sir. We'll have them mopped up." He had two immediate goals: Watch for threats, and keep an eye on the Count. And he had a job to do today. It had taken a lot of preparation, but it was work he was made for. One some might say was in his DNA.

That wasn't how DNA bloody worked, but it was comforting to think it anyway.