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

[vetala]

[Kanti is disturbed by the entirety of this catastrophe, but she is also tired. She is very, very tired. She's been mostly fixed up, but today has really been murder on her psyche. She may not be as null as Octavia right now, but that's only because repressing her emotions is something pretty regular for her.

When she sees the other girl hovering near a dead snake, there's a little panic in her. It's instinctual. It'd be a real killer if Octavia was taken again. Kanti steps over to her carefully and tugs lightly at her wrist.]

You should come down.

[drama8om8]

Yeah.

[ It takes a few seconds after responding for Octavia to realise that she should. Actually get on that. She drops lightly to the ground, folds her wings away and continues staring blankly at the snake. ]

I'm glad you're not dead.

[ What a lovely and tonelessly-delivered conversation starter, golly ]

[vetala]

[Kanti doesn't make a remark on the tonelessness. It's not like she can lecture people on displaying emotion anyway. Instead, she just awkwardly squeezes Tavia's wrist in a motion she hopes comes off as reassuring before letting go.]

I'm glad you're not dead too. [She thinks more people came out alive than dead, but focusing on the small things is what she'd rather do right now.]

I... I'm not going to ask if you're okay. But if you'd like to talk about it, I can listen? [It's a little awkward and painfully blunt, but that's how Kanti works sometimes. Tact and gentleness isn't completely effective in her circle of friends sometimes.]

[drama8om8]

I was dead for a while. Again. Can't beat me in a death-off! I am just the very best there is.

[ She doesn't really want to talk about the Alan thing. Or the killed-some-dudes thing. But... ]

Found out I'm not entirely immortal while I was down. Which is great. I should tell Roxy, she -

[ She pats herself down in search of her cellphone before remembering that it kind of got crushed when she was splattered by a huge fucking giant. ]

- do you have a pen? I have to tell Roxy she can die!

[ Mild panicky flapping setting in? YEP. ]

[vetala]

Not really immortal? [Kanti didn't put too much stock in it before, but the way Tavia's panicking forces her to. She pats herself down for her own cellphone and pulls out a completely mangled device, tossing it aside in a huff.]

I don't have one, but-

[There are plenty of ways to contact someone with the network and Kanti is nothing if not a rational thinker. She squats down near the snake and pools all the dust and dirt on the floor together with her hands then spreads it out into a sufficient enough space before looking up at Tavia and pointing at it.]

Write your number here.

[drama8om8]

[ She calms down as quickly as the panicking started, dropping to her knees and scribbling her own number - followed by Roxy's - in the dirt. A quick "don't die again until you talk to me ok l8r," and she's all done. ]

Okay. Okay, that's. Yeah.

Do you know which of us fought with a sword? Past-us? Somebody had a sword and I don't know who it was.

[ Her thoughts are skipping all over the place without any context even more than they usually do. Which is quite a feat. Sorry, Kanti. ]

[vetala]

[Kanti stays on the ground, shifting into a kneeling position. Sitting down seems like a good idea right now.

She shakes her head, almost a little irritated at how unhelpful she is as far as memories go.]

No. No, I don't. All I remember is a few people who typed a few different ways and the fact that I was apparently some sort of chainsaw wielding psychopaths.

[drama8om8]

I don't remember you being a psycho. I mean you seemed pretty reasonable for somebody who was magically dangling a toilet over my stupid head.

[ She's actually focusing pretty well as she peers over at Kanti. She probably shouldn't be hoping Past Kanti was a psycho, but it's kind of lonely being the only gray alien person who also remembers being a crazy murdering ablist sack of shit. IS THERE ANOTHER??? ]

[vetala]

I maintain you probably deserved that. [She says with a small and bitter laugh.]

I don't know how the other me got from that to... [To chainsawing someone i. Half for god only knows what reason. To being completely okay with killing and accepting it as normal.] Where I remember being.

[drama8om8]

[ She chews the inside of her lip for a few seconds before responding. Even in her shellshocked state, it's kind of awkward bringing this shit up with people you don't want to hate you. ]

So did you kill people, too?

[ That should be neutral enough. ]

[vetala]

[Kanti offers a shrug in response.] I know I killed someone, but I'm not sure if it was ever more than one. I remember fighting a lot of enemies. They were sort of short looking and impish, but I don't think that really counts.

For some reason, whoever I was didn't seem to feel bad about it. [Kanti admits this with a sort of dull resignation. She can't change who she was, only who she is.]

[drama8om8]

Oh - Mac remembers killing imps! Black things? Like. Apparently it was part of the game we played or whatever.

As for the killing people thing, uh. Vriska too. I think she felt bad when she killed Past Aria! But she killed way more people than that, so, uh.

[vetala]

No. Mine were blue and red, not black. Though I suppose the principle is the same. They aren't really people. [It seems like a cruel thing to say, but if they were part of a game they played, if they were just constructs, then Kanti finds it very hard to care.

There was a time in her life where Kanti would have cringed away from the mention of someone she knew actually truly killing people. She may like horror, but she knows the difference between fiction and reality. Now she doesn't really think that way. There are good reasons to kill people, and an old echo assured her of that, somewhat. So now, Kanti just looks back at Octavia with a look of vague interest.]

Why?

[drama8om8]

We had blue and red teams in the game! I remember that bit. So that must have been the deal there!

[ She pulls a section of her hair over her shoulder and starts braiding it. Stuff like this is easier to be casual about with a distraction. ]

As for the whys, uh. Vriska had to feed her spidermom! And I guess it only ate people. And then she killed a whole bunch of ghosts, but that was to save the universe. And she probably had a good reason for killing Aradia! Even if she felt bad after. And that one doesn't matter anyway because she killed me back! So we are even. Were even? Whatever.

[vetala]

Oh. [She says it with the air of someone who isn't entirely surprised to hear that, but also doesn't know how to react. There are bits and pieces of her that nod along with this, like it's something that makes complete sense. She watches Vriska's idle motions, wishing she had something similar to do, but Kanti has never been good at idling unless tea is involved.]

There's nothing you can really do about that, I suppose. She had to feed her somehow. And as for Aradia... Well, I guess we'll find out the reason when we find it out.

[There is a part of her that wants to shrink away from this, and it's a part she considers irrational. Octavia isn't Vriska, not really and not yet at least, and even so what she did... it doesn't seem to matter.] I guess... I guess I am a little sad about it though. I was hoping we were all good friends.

[drama8om8]

Yeah, well. Almost everybody I remember hated Vriska. Probably because they were jealous of how cool she was! And her hair, if her hair was half as great as mine.

Plus like. If we were all super best pals, we'd have been buddying up with Eri. Eridan. You remember him yet? Fishfaced douchebag? Shitty cape?

[vetala]

[Or it could have been because she killed a bunch of people, apparently. But Kanti doesn't say that. It isn't as if she's got a right to judge. Instead, she says,]

Eridan?

[There's a dull ache in her head just at the mention of the name, then a wall of jade and violet text, most of it irritating.]

Eridan Ampora... [She frowns, then looks at Vriska. She could be about to tell her that Eridan isn't a problem, because if their test is their blood, then she probably murdered him. But that isn't what she says.] I think he called me an Ashen slut once.

[drama8om8]

[ The driest of looks. ]

Wow, any incarnation of dear sweet Eri calling somebody a slut? I can't even imaaaaaaaagine. That is so out of character. Stand by to catch me in case I faint dead away because of how incredibly fucking surprising that is.

[ Signs Octavias are starting to feel better: liberal application of sarcasm. ]

Ashen, though? That some kind of racisl slur bullshit 'cause we were all gray? Because he was gray too. What a fucking hypocrite!

[vetala]

[OH GOD DOES SHE HAVE TO EXPLAIN THIS? SHE DOES. Why have you forsaken her, fate?

At least one of them is feeling better though...]

It's not a racist slur. It's something else. Something in the romance department. I'll have to explain it to everyone later.

[drama8om8]

Whoa whoa whoa. No. No! No. No explanations! When you explain that shit you make sure I am out of the state. Out of the country. Off the planet.

[ If she had a crucifix, she'd be holding it up. BACK, VILE DEMON. BACK. ]

I am done with freaky alien romance deets! That shit is already trying to ruin my life and I ain't learning any more about it ever. No. No.

[vetala]

Oh. Um. It's not a... [Kanti flushes a little in embarrassment and hunches down a bit. It's a feat, considering her recent growth spurts.]

It's not a sex thing...

[drama8om8]

It's not a what?

A sex thing?

[vetala]

Why are you making this into a huge thing? What have I done to you other than be a good friend?

[Look at her precious sad face. How could you, Octavia? YOU MONSTER]

[drama8om8]

I'm helping. By desensitising you to the word so you can say it without flinching and cringing and flushing! Sex sex sex sex sex sex sex sex. Sexy sex. All the sex.

[vetala]

Yeah? Well... Let's see who's going to keep you from having hate boners all over the place without someone to mediate between you and Eri!

[Too far, Kanti. Too far.]