savetheearth | [plot] Invasion: Day 1

Entry tags:

[plot] Invasion: Day 1

Who: EVERYONE + Returnees
What: Day 1 of the Invasion!
Where: EVERYWHERE
When: ICLy: The 29th! OOCly: April 29th to May 4th
Warnings: Please warn in your subject line if anything that deserves a warning occurs; this includes R-rated things as well as things worthy of a content warning/trigger warning.

The Central info post

Description: A minute after midnight EST, some people around the world who used to be numbered yet have lost their echoes since suddenly have all their pulses returned to them.

At 4pm EST, a child's laughing voice resounds in the air all around the world, remaining for over a minute and staying longer where it gets caught in the echo between buildings, mountains, or other echoing surfaces. Not long after, people in areas where the moon is visible (like those in Europe) will see pink lights on the moon, like a pink aurora borealis from above going all the way around the moon, and then the whole moon changes shape. Literally. It unfolds into a giant serpent that soon can be seen from everywhere around the world as it moves to wrap around the world, tossing and turning head and tail as if trying to hit and bite nasty flies. ...And if someone gets out a telescope, they'll realize that the serpent is doing exactly that: There are tiny spaceships attacking it and trying to pass by it, but for now it is holding up. ....You might maybe rather get to safety than get your telescope out though, because the serpent sometimes smashes down into the earth in its tossing and turning, and while it doesn't hit inhabited areas that still causes tsunamis and earthquakes. Giorgio A. Tsoukalos and Erich von Däniken will announce that it's totally aliens!!! SEE THEY CALLED IT. Ancient astronauts that gave the earth culture are coming back to us!

What this day is for: This day is mostly for reconnecting with returnees and dealing with the last wave of plot echoes. It is also for catastrophe relief efforts for areas that are hit by tsunamis or earthquakes. The only echo boundary that will be devastated in this way are the Galapagos Islands. Characters that can fly or have special swimming abilities are especially invited to help with rescuing people and delivering first aid. (Icly, the talks with the first wave aliens also happen here and they will be wrapped up or dropped after the 4th of May. You are still welcome to jump in and talk to an alien!)

How this works:

- Day 1 does not have any alien encounters past those in this log.
- There will be no toplevels on this post. Please start your own threads freely! Please format the subject line like this: "Location(s)/Network | ota/closed/etc". Please keep in mind that each character may change location twice per day (=a maximum of three different locations) and that the moon/space location is still off limits on the 1st Day.
- This post can be used for both network and action threads.
- Keep in mind that returnee characters must have checked in and must request their echoes if they get any.
- Please direct all questions to this thread on the General Invasion Guide
- For the returnee registration, please go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[A | Las Vegas, in front of Treasure Island; Locke City, in front of her house, then near the library downtown | morning and early afternoon]
[The third day of handing out Miracle Bouquet Lights is going... reasonably well, surprisingly. Winter still has enough left to distribute them in a somewhat limited capacity for... probably the rest of today? It's not a huge number, but she'd thought for sure she'd be out by now. Rikka's world must have had a lot of problems. Or a lot of hands to distribute Miracle Lights, at least.

Her rotating schedule of helpers ensured her friends and partners would all get some screentime while she was out on distribution, but today, she's more or less let whoever wants to come along join the party. So she's out and about in Vegas, seeing who's here and talking up everyone she meets. Are you helping her pass out Lights? Are you someone she knows that saw her yesterday? Or is this, perhaps, a chance meeting with someone that's suddenly a lot more than you remembered her being?

Winter only stays in Las Vegas until a little before 11 AM; that makes it right about 1 PM when she gets back to Locke. A brief trip home to load up on more Lights, and change into something a little warmer, and she brings a folding table from inside the house, setting it up on the walk and putting her smaller Tupperware container of Lights on it, along with a supply of various other things - a few bottles of water, a picture of herself and Lily in a small frame, a sandwich on a paper plate, just little things that help her feel at ease a bit. Mostly, this is one last excuse to hand out Lights to people walking around and leaving the business district, or maybe those heading into town for lunch. But it's also a much-needed break; being everywhere is handy logistically, but it's mentally straining. Being able to stand outside her own house and breathe the calm air is a nice change of pace.

Once she's had what she feels is ample time to relax, which is more or less an hour and a half, she moves downtown, setting up out front of the public library right around 3 o'clock. Mercifully, she misses Badri and the other aliens, setting the table up again and continuing to talk to passers-by and Numbered alike. What she wants to do is hit up Espresso Yourself and visit with Lily for a little bit, but work is work, on both their ends. Still, every so often she'll zone out and stare through buildings in the direction she knows the coffee shop is, before she catches herself, shakes it off, and laughs nervously at anyone that caught her doing it, before getting right back into the swing of things. Here, again, she might not necessarily be alone, if someone wants to join her little mission.]

[B | Locke City, shortest route from the library to Espresso Yourself, then out of the business district | 4:00:26 PM]
[It's at about the point where her focus is rapidly approaching shot that it comes. A child... laughing? But there isn't anyone around. It has an... ethereal quality to it, somehow... and once she realizes what has to be happening, her heart sinks, even as every nerve in her body tingles with a need to be a certain, specific somewhere. She'd been in the middle of recording a new voicemail greeting when it came, and the confusion, giving way to panic, is total. Calling Raquel to her, there's a now-familiar bright blue flash in front of the library, and Cure Diamond is off like a rocket, paying minimal heed to people and objects in her way. She's not so much running as she's skirting the ground, and she's going too fast to turn - she lands on walls with a soft touch, bounding off them in the proper direction. If something's in the way, she throws out a hand and springs off the top or side. Nothing else matters, aside from maybe her other friends or maybe the aliens.

No, right now, her most important person is at work, and possibly unaware of what's happening.

When she gets to Espresso Yourself, she takes one look inside, glances at Lazarus apologetically, and then immediately turns on her heel and bolts back toward home on the shortest route - Lily probably had the same idea. Loose paper rustles and kicks up behind her as she runs, and while she's trying not to hit anyone, there's a certain point where she just doesn't care about that very much anymore.]

[C | closed: Lily | Locke City, leaving downtown | immediately after C]
The upside to her rapid transit is that she makes a lot of headway very quickly, and when she finds the shock of electric purple hair, something inside her floods with relief, and she leaps the last of the distance, arms out, shouting, "LILY!" Yes, they'll probably tumble a few dozen feet at the speed she's moving. Yes, she looks insane just now, even through the worry firmly plastered on her face. No, she doesn't care.

[D | network: open | late afternoon]
[It's a grave situation. Things are... going to hell very, very quickly. She'd made that video three days ago expecting something to go wrong, but... seventy-two hours isn't enough time at all. They're not ready. What... will happen to them?

Not that she's letting it show on the outside. No, on the outside, Winter's becoming something akin to the commander that's barking orders and trying to keep her team in one piece. She's not calm, but she's not panicking that she's letting show, either. There's a tempest of emotion that's almost visible even through her laptop's camera.]

It's starting. I don't know what those spaceships are, but they're trying to come here. And the light over the moon, before it unfolded into that thing, suggests that's the last Animal we're getting. It's up to us from here. That's our Enemy, up there, and they want to take this world from us. I don't think I'm very interested in letting that happen, though.

We have very little time and a lot to plan, because sooner or later, the serpent is going to miss one. And that's where we pick up. I need suggestions, avenues of attack, logistics, locations, tactics. We cannot lose this fight, or everything we've fought for these last two years was for nothing! We... we owe too many people too much to let that happen. [Banagher, Annie, Russel, everyone that had been part of the group once, let alone everyone that had died for the cause... all of them deserved justice, too. She can feel tears in her eyes, but it's too late to care about that now. She lets them fall, eyes full of hurt but strong as her tone drops, dark and dangerous.]

Nobody is going to take my home from me. Not now, and not ever. Everyone who can help, this is a call to arms. They may not be here now, but they're coming for us. Let's give them a warm welcome.

[The feed cuts out. Winter checks twice before she slumps over on the couch, silently sobbing. How did it come to this...?]

It's funny in a way, because Lily is rocketing right through the city herself. Flying, actually, with a tiny fairy struggling to keep up the whole way. She notices Cure Diamond a second before the shout comes and she too dices right for her, throwing her arms out to her. "Winter, thank god!" There's things to talk about, aliens and Badri and what the hell they're going to do... but first she has to confirm Winter's presence. After they inevitably pick themselves up because two super strong magical girls colliding with one another in the air is going to have some sort of unfortunate result of another.

Cologne just stops and winces in advance.

Cologne's probably on the right track; when flying object full of worry meets object that pushed off the ground quite hard and also full of worry, the objects collide and then attempt to figure out what direction their remaining worry carries them. In this case, that's into a park as they tumble to a stop in grass.

Winter doesn't even register pain as she makes sure Moonlight is physically in one piece, before holding her tight for a second. "I was so worried... after..." She gasps, before letting the joy at finding her slip from her face, replaced with a serious expression. "Something's happening. It's never... that never happened before. What's going on?"

The crash and tumble happens as expected, and Cologne winces from his spot in the sky. It doesn't matter too terribly much to Lily though, as she clings to Winter for dear life. How scared she was only now fully registers with her, seeing something like what's happening in the sky, seeing what's happening across the world... She had to make damned certain her most important people were okay, and although there's still a few on that list, seeing Cure Diamond is the biggest relief she can imagine.

She picks herself up finally, pulling Winter with her.

"Something... i think something is coming. I ran into Barkley, he... talked like Benwick was trying to actually help us, like he actually wanted to, but it won't do any good. Something is definitely coming, and that..."

She cranes her head up, at the serpent in the sky. "I don't think that's it."

Vegas, Locke, network | mostly open

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