PLOT: WISE SNAKE'S EMERGENCE

[theearth]

Who: OPEN.
When: March 9th, Sunday, daylight hours.
Where: The business district of Locke City.
What: An enormous snake monster is pissed.
Warnings: Violence.

[The alien explodes silently - but it explodes.

First in a small cloud of hot (rose-scented) gas - those there to watch its final moments will want to step back.

A ripple in the air pulses - heavily - from where it once was, with absolutely no sound and color, but penetrating force. Anyone standing within two miles of the point of origin will feel a push, with those closest guaranteed to be knocked off their feet and temporarily dazed. Cars swerve and crash. Staff in the nearest office buildings launch into disarray. There’s no shielding from the blast - it can be felt through walls, through structures, in the air, and underground.

And it is felt underground.

The entire business district starts to shake, abruptly, jarred to a stir by some movement. It rises over the span of a long half-a-minute to the magnitude of December’s earthquake.

Tuning Towers experiences the worst of it - windows are smashing and objects are shaking loose and falling from the upper floors.

It finally ends - with screaming - as the head of an enormous pink snake breaks the lobby floor.

It flows its way quickly out of the hole it’s made, breaks itself another hole ever so politely through the main entrance doors, which were not meant to accommodate a twenty-foot-tall-and-wide exitor, and as it draws the last of its tail out after it, the quaking dies down.

It’s now roaring its way through the streets of Locke City’s business district - all several hundred meters of Wise Snake, emerged in the flesh (or stone?).

No regard for the walls of buildings, streetlamps, civilians, stopped and blindly pulled-over vehicles, anything else on its course - in a frantically-awakened, unrestricted rampage.]



[ OOC: This is part two of the Season 1's finale. The first - the assault on the farmhouse - is here; pertinent plot posts one and two. ]

Comments

THE INTERVIEWS

[theearth]

[We did say news crews.

Who ARE these real, living superheroes (mutants? Monsters? Aliens? Something else?) who turned up at the scene of the attack of some unidentified monstrous creature on the city? A cameraman or microphone-slinger may hazard rushing up to any one of these people they can pick out as such - if they don’t volunteer, themselves!

Bear in mind that appearance on national news carries reasonable risk of identification.

Players are free to NPC interviewers themselves; if you would like to request a mod-played interviewer, please indicate so in the subject line of a comment!]

gosh can i be interviewed? it's not like arthur isn't already blowing HIS cover

[pokebonnet]

[The woman sitting outside the shawarma place is wearing a knee-length dress made of pink and white candy-stripe fabric. There is lace trim on the neckline and hem and it's belted with a candy-apple green sequined belt. Her leggings are also candy-apple green and her sneakers are bright pink. She's got a large purse made out of loud pink lame in her lap. Her hat, which must have been truly impressive at the start of the day, is rather battered by now. Feathers are broken or singed, bows are frayed, and the bunch of grapes is fairly squashed. The bottom of her green and pink sequined and feathered cape is ragged.

Her ankle looks a bit swollen, like she twisted it at some point. It's hard to see her face--she's wearing goggles with one pink lens and one green--but by what's visible of it and the white color of her visible hair, it's very easy to tell that this lady is as old as balls.

Oh, and she has fangs.]

[savethenpcs]

I found one -- hey... hey, I think I found one! Here, this way... [A mic-toting woman waves over one cameraperson and a couple of others go vulturing after her. It's only the one addressed who comments.]

Yeah, I'll say - man, is that a superhero outfit?

Ma'am? Hey - ma'am! What part did you play in the -- events, that unfolded just now?!

[She's ruffled, she sounds ruffled, she's half-shouting over the hubbub all over the street - not to mention not even five feet behind her.]

please bring on the npc interviewer for the Lord of the Bugmen

[chalicejoker]

[Hajime wants no part of these camera crews. He's still in bugmonster form because he thinks the injuries will heal faster that way, covered in smudges of green goo here and there, and generally looking like a cranky bugman who needs a nap. And all this poor bug wants to do is meet Shou and the others for shawarma. Surely he can make it without getting accosted by reporters.]

[savethenpcs]

Holy shit, is that -- ?

Whoa.

C'mon, this way - stand back.

HEY!

Dan, what are you doing -- ?! Shh!

[A man has broken off of a cluster of reporters and has called to the top of his lungs over to... Is that a real one of those so-called bugmen in the sewers? Well, after what they've just seen, no surprise to see truth coming up behind urban legends.

He's held one hand up - and is holding his other out to keep his crew back, in case it's aggressive. In case of the same concern, a couple of said crew are instantly wishing at least one (better yet two or more) of them was armed.]

An NPC dude would be nice. The interview may be cut short, though.

[not_good_not_wicked]

Marisa floated down drunkenly from the sky. She wasn't actually drunk, but she was in a fair amount of pain, and her left leg was hanging down uselessly. She came to ground level and tried gingerly to stand, but almost immediately had to catch her balance on a wall when her leg failed to hold any weight. She hopped a few steps, then gave it up as a bad job and sat down on a piece of rubble to catch her breath. Flying across town in a minute, then doing some stunt flying and two practically back to back master sparks, before finally getting swatted out of the sky by a giant will really take it out of you.

[savethenpcs]

[A descent from the sky is an easy thing to home in on, and her landing site is swooped in on by not one, not two, but three cameras at the front of merging gaggles of crew and gaggling whisperers.

Their questions come all at once - ]

What just happened?

Miss - 'scuse me, what are you?

Did you fly down here just now?

[They're inelegant questions - hard to gather up the words for a clean interview after an event like this - but she's free to pick out and answer anything she wants, or, well, speak freely. Anything she can possibly say, they're waiting eagerly to catch.]

Toss me an NPC

[healspec]

[Ravi is ignoring pretty much everything not directly related to his stated goal: find people, heal them into a stable condition, patch up the rest and point them toward the nearest National Guard contingent to get proper medical attention. There are certainly a few people healed back from the brink of death, and he's not making any secret of his magic--because why the fuck should he, the masquerade's pretty thoroughly broken by this point.]

[he's starting to get a headache, and he stops for a minute to down some ibuprofen, which gives any interested reporters a perfect opportunity to catch up and corner him.]

[savethenpcs]

Hello - sir? You have a moment? How close were you to the chaos just now -- and by chaos, I mean giant monster rampage, apparently stopped, by all witness claims, by real-live superhumans!

[A reporter swoops in indeed, talking fast and in a non-headache-friendly volume. Sorry, sir.]

one fbi agent in over his head

[centurian]

[ He wouldn't have done it if he hadn't been getting a constant barrage of messages from his superiors (and his father) asking him what the hell had been going on. No one outside of Locke City knew exactly what was going on, and as the only FBI agent near the centre of it all, he'd been asked to do damage control with the general public until they had more information.

Well, there goes his chance of ever getting to do intense undercover work (not that Gerald was exactly one for being undercover, of course).

He gulps, really not ready for this at all, going through the lines in his head. "Still unconfirmed. Mass hallucination. We are investigating things further." ]

[savethenpcs]

[Unfortunately, he is another to get a deluge of questions and microphones squeezed between microphones - a government agent's word has got to be an especially valuable one in what is (among many, many other things) a sure matter of national - nay, general security!]

Agent Vakarian! Sir, how long have the F.B.I. been looking into strange events in Locke City? Word tells us that this is not the first --

Agt. Vakarian, how long have the F.B.I. been aware of events in Locke City?

Over here, sir, what is being done with the remains of the monster? What is it?

[Among several others, in voices just blending with the rest of the hubbub.]

npcterview, please? 83

[drama8om8]

[ While it's been months since she was on the news, Octavia is pretty sure that she's distinctive-looking enough to still be potentially recognised by cops. Or reporters.

She quite welcomes the latter, but she's aware that volunteering to be interviewed would be incredibly risky. Which is why she's sidling towards the nearest microphone-wielding figure in a very timid and uncertain manner. Part of it is genuine nerves on her part - this could backfire spectacularly - but there's a part of her that's remembering Karl's advice about seeming harmless and un-terrorist-like.

Which hopefully shouldn't be that difficult. What with her being a skinny teenage girl with glittery fairy wings. ]

[savethenpcs]

[It's a few stalled seconds before that reporter turns, gives the girl a "wait".

And then she double-takes, wide eyed, and finally half turns with a "Whoa!" and a hand clapped over her mouth.]

You're -- [She makes a laughing sound, eyes looking between the kid's wings (oh, and her face to, you know - a little), wow, this is so easy - did an interview with one of these... "superhumans" literally just float up to her?

And in the back, as she tries to line up her first question, come murmurs.]

Hey -- that girl.

That fairy?

Isn't that -

The fairy's... I think so - ohh my god!

Requesting an NPC interviewer he can try and blow off?

[hotshots]

[Why yes, that is a giant robot just kneeling down in the middle of a deserted intersection. With a man limping around near the foot of it, whistling and trying to get the attention of any nearby military or FBI personnel.

After all, he's probably a lot less intimidating like this than booming from said giant robot's loud speaker.]

[savethenpcs]

[It's more than one interviewer that comes buzzing over to the stationary robot. One finds its pilot first, however, and withholds grabbing the man's shoulder and starts speaking as the others spot him and start rounding it after him.]

Sir! [He's speaking clearly, and loudly; he's one of the more composed reporters humming around, though his sentences run a bit.]

Is this... Is this your machine? Can you tell us, what is the nature of this thing? Is it a weapon, is it a vehicle? What -- [Gestures up it.] -- what is it?

An interviewer if you'd please. :>

[bronographic]

[Dirk is certainly looking the part of a comic book super hero with the ridiculous outfit he's in. Even still, he isn't exactly seeking out any reporters, he's actually trying to avoid them if he can. He's pretty new to the whole network to even BEGIN with, so he hardly has time or patience on top of this to deal with questions he can't really answer.]

[Which means he should totally be bombarded am I right?]

[savethenpcs]

[YEP.]

Look at those clothes - hey, do you think he's one of them, guys?

[An edge of hysterical humor, ends with a bit of a laugh:] How many of them prepared for this?

Hey, son - "sir" [Rapid, flapping wave only a short way up the block.] Hey, can we speak with you!

[That punctuation's not an error, and the reporter is gradually starting to shuffle down and over - with a handful more waiting to match the pace, three to twenty steps behind.]

npc please

[elegantsoldier]

[Sailor Neptune is scrapped up from her fight with the snakes, but her head is still head high.

All the short skirted soldier wants to do is slip away to try to sort out what had happened that day but that's not going to prove so easy as she makes her way away from the fight. That's not to say she'll play nice, there is a dark look in her eyes. She wants answers and she doubts the press will be able to provide them.]

[savethenpcs]

[Funny enough, the first reporter who attempts to grab her shoulder does not do it because he has a clue who or what she is when he does it, and asks an insistent:] Ma'am -- how much did you see, and could you please describe for us what happened here as you saw it?

[It is then that the greenness of her hair strikes him as something. And his brain sucks it in with a hit that has his brows lifting - has he just caught one?]

NPC, if you could?

[peacefulwinter]

[At the last, the snake disappearing into nothing, Winter... isn't sure what to feel. She doesn't know if she wants to cheer, or sob into something, or laugh at the insanity of today, or just kick back and take a nap for a few days. She isn't sure if her team's behind her anymore, or of anyone's status but her own. All she knows, as she staggers toward home, still in Cure form and holding her bum arm so it doesn't shift too much (which it still definitely does), is that it's over. The snake was gone, and the threat to the city was gone with it... she hoped.

And then she noticed the news crews flitting around, looking for the next big scoop... and she had a vague sense, given her obvious injuries - the side of her head had started to bleed a little again, various scratches and scrapes and clothing damage of all sizes aside - that she was going to be it. And she gives a small smile to herself, knowing that maybe it was time. Maybe the world would learn about the Precure after all. And she wasn't so sure she minded that.]

[savethenpcs]

[The injury sure does make her look to a good number of reporters like someone to pounce on, as opposed to someone to leave alone - there's a young woman who was definitely close to the action.

They're a little les aggressive and hasty than they might have been to some others, but damned if they don't want to get her attention!

They're jogging after her, calling out "Hey"s, and "Ma'am, do you have a second"s and variants thereof. Keeping a slower pace is allowing them to visibly build up with relative ease. There is definitely a crowd coming after her, all fixed and intent.]

npc please

[testsonseashells]

[Mordin, much like Ravi, is focusing fairly intensely on medical care, but he's making liberal use of his omnitool. The glowing orange device can do almost anything medically related, from scanning to antibiotic administration to medi-gel application, and Mordin has made no secret of it.

Occasionally, he pauses to coordinate with another member of his medical team, discussing something on the radio. A small white device appears on his waist - the compressed version of his Scorpion pistol.

Reports may recognize Mordin - he's given interviews before, achieving moderate fame for his work on viral transmission as a method of gene therapy.]

[savethenpcs]

[The first reporter and cameraperson to catch a hold of him fail to recognize him, and they come on the scene with the camerawoman stepping ahead of the reporter and zooming in.

The reporter asks:] Sir, can you explain what you're doing?

[As the camerawoman adjusts her angle, with a less-than-steady hold.]

npc please

[espigeonage]

[Julien makes friends easily. Some of them have found him now and decided to stick around for a bit, mostly college students and people who've graduated within the past few hours. Like him, like loads of people, they're dirty and on the shell-shocked side. A couple are still staring at him. Talking amongst themselves, the name 'Godzilla' has come up a few times, but somehow the conversation has turned to that series of movies.]

No... c'mon, you said yourself. You've never seen the versus-King-Kong one. Can't say anything about its merits.

[At the center, screened-ish from casual view, Julien is all feathers and improbably long legs, sitting exhausted on an intact stretch of sidewalk. A teenaged girl is standing over him hefting the three-foot fire-blackened tube of an artillery launcher he'd got, repeating again and again that it's 'so light.']

harper will be tagging in, then toss us an npc please!

[decelerate]

[ off to the side, there's one cool kid (with wings) who doesn't look all that bothered by what just went down. on the outside, at least. sure, the adrenaline might be to blame for that, and it's not like he had any time to really worry about anything else (he feels bad, he still can't stop thinking about aria and how he let her die), but now that it's all over... the exhaustion is creeping in.

that doesn't seem to stop him from getting interested at the media crew that started to gather, eyes flicking over to where his twin sister is before gesturing that maybe they should go over there. ]

Yo, Harper! We should say hi or something.

[ without even waiting for harper to say anything, he's already making his way closer. he's not even thinking about what a bad idea this really is. ]