Blizz

Recollections: Under The Sycamore Tree Part. 1 [Cancelled]

Yeah

He will pull a Rainsinger if he thinks he has too now that you mention it.

Recollections: Under The Sycamore Tree Part. 1 [Cancelled]

Interactions: Everyone

The House on the Hill

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It was no surprise people had gone off and broken away from the conversation. Jack could not deny that he sounded hypocritical, advocating for her in private and then being so cold in public. He wanted to give Layla a chance, but she took that notion of hope and twisted it until it snapped. Blatantly working against them when they were so close to getting their foot in the door. When she left, Jack took in a deep breath and mellowed himself out. This was fine, he thought. This wouldn't spoil everything, Greyson even had a good follow-up question: Why were they necessary. He'd let him do the talking for that.

But then everything took a sharp turn in a direction he didn't think would be possible.

A portal opened, right in front of him. Not the kind Jack recognized, and he recognized a lot of things. Chains and fog, and from out of them came a woman with white hair, taller than Jack himself. She grabbed him, and the chains wrapped around his ankles.

She spoke of the Void Heart... Her mask glared through him with eyes red as blood. There was something angry about her, and Jack was put on edge. Rather than be caught off guard, his body language gave off the impression he was one impulse away from attacking this woman. Could it be that- No...

He wouldn't.

“Tell me what you did. What happened to Vul? Where. Is. The Void Heart?”

“Who the hell are you?” She demanded.

“Alizée. Alizée Vul.”

His heart sank like a rock. Jack glared through the mask, back into those eyes. The expression he wore gave it away plainly, exactly what he felt. It made sense now, as quickly as she appeared. This was not her. Jack knew it. Death claimed all, and he was the arbiter of the gates to the Dark. The real Alizee had died that night. This was what the Hound didn't collect from her remains, given a shape by ambient rage. It was angry, a product of the Void, the very place he walked like it was home.

The Black Star weighed heavy against him, beneath his shirt, mere inches away from this spirit's grip. Jack reached up and grabbed the wrist holding him with his own inhuman hand, in a grip that threatened to snap it in two. The real Alizee was shorter than him, didn't speak with that wretched tone. In his other hand, a scythe appeared. All around them, shadows danced at the edges of everyone's vision, little shapes that stretched longer than they should have, that they could watch move if they just looked faster.

"You are not Alizee, creature of the Void." He rejected that notion on the spot. "The real Alizee knew we had both seen things worse than you. Rahk-las hreshnik yuul." "You do not scare me," in the Voidtounge. Even now, he just couldn't help but grandstand a little.

"Whatever you are, you don't want to do this." The chains wrapped around Stormy, but he was ready. His Phantombane aura had gone out, but he held it in his hand, ready to cast at a moments notice to ward off the Apparition if things got bad. In his other hand was the Stoic Shell, in case it had a ranged ability.

"Go back the way you came, princess. Right the fuck now," Amara warned, leveling a pistol at Alizee Vul's face. There were know phantoms in the room. But the Army was always watching.

Recollections: Under The Sycamore Tree Part. 1 [Cancelled]

She could drag him into the Void (which would be a bad idea considering he's the void guy around here getting dragged in by the void girl) but that just puts him in his element. This is gonna be funky

Recollections: Under The Sycamore Tree Part. 1 [Cancelled]

It also motivates them to fuck right off in a way similar to stormy's fuck off aura but it doesn't hurt. it's like you know you need to fuck off or you might get hurt. puts them on edge, but something as intelligent as Not!Alizee probably recognizes it more like a bad vibe and little else. it doesn't hurt, but it's yikes

Recollections: Under The Sycamore Tree Part. 1 [Cancelled]

<Snipped quote by FernStone>

Yep, very true.

<Snipped quote by Blizz>

@Estylwen

roleplayerguild.com/posts/5528131

Rekt

Recollections: Under The Sycamore Tree Part. 1 [Cancelled]

Wait wait wait if Alizee Vul is a void-based apparition...

Oh she's fucked

Recollections: Under The Sycamore Tree Part. 1 [Cancelled]

Well

shit

《 Super H.E.R.O. 》

Wiseman had been immersed in his work, despite the fact that he was minutes away from his turn in the evaluation. He didn’t seem to be nervous about it, though it wasn’t easy to tell when he was fully armed and had a somewhat villainous aesthetic going on. Holographic screens in front of him quietly relayed the events of the estate mission to him, thanks to the bug he planted earlier. Barring Jake’s ineptitude in recognizing his own teammates and the sudden change in Samuel Peterson’s demeanor, things had mostly gone fine without a hitch. That was, of course, until “Peterson” pulled a gun on Alchemist. Immediately, he had an idea.

He trusted Alchemist’s capabilities, so he pulled up a screen and quickly searched through the phone logs that went through the area, narrowed them down to the estate, and then found the most recent one by triangulating signals from nearby towers. “Peterson’s” phone would start ringing again, showing a call coming in from one of his more demanding business partners- The kind he couldn’t just ignore easily, even at this hour. It was a small chance he’d be distracted, but it was the best he could do without making something noticeable happen.

A quick glance at the other team through the camera showed things were going… Less than great. There were more Leftovers than the team could reasonably be expected to handle. This was why they should’ve sent other heroes in who could spy and scout secretly before this. Heroes like Oracle who didn’t even need to be present to get a sense of the danger.

They’d need reinforcements, most likely. But they weren’t in a position to wait. Wiseman knew about the bombing that these “Azure Skulls” could trace their legacy to. He had responded to it. He was there. Someone got away, and there weren’t many who could elude a man like him.

Unfortunately, they’d have to sort this out themselves, now that they had kicked the nest.

Oracle came out of the room, and sat down next to him. She didn’t look very happy after talking with a psychologist. It was understandable, ICOSA had a tendency to play dirty when they wanted something out of people, after all.

"Austin, have you heard of Sudden Onset Metahuman Psychosis?"

Oracle

Ah.

"The doctor thinks I'm at risk for it. And she's probably right -- that's her specialty, after all."

Oracle

”We both are,” Wiseman answered, patiently. ”Knowing the things we know, our ability to gather information that others could not. It is natural.” It was just a logical conclusion that superheroes who knew too much were more likely to lose themselves when they went too far. They saw things they shouldn’t, had to carry secrets that they wished they could share. The little things added up. They mattered.

"I don't want to go crazy. But what kind of person has no attachments?!"

Oracle

”The kind that doesn’t face reality.”

"And even if I did quit being a hero, I'd still be at high risk. Just having family and friends is a risk! What the hell am I supposed to do?"

Oracle

Wiseman closed out all of his screens again and looked at Oracle. His visor offered no emotion, nothing to show on the face beneath. "Psychosis is a mental disorder, and Sudden Onset Metahuman Psychosis is known to be similar. Except it is a trauma response, rather than something that develops inherently. You will not be put in that position simply because you have friends and family." Wiseman's voice became firm, as if to suggest he wasn't pleased with the way the doctor handled her interview, despite not actually knowing what happened in there.

"And if you truly are guaranteed to suffer and irreversible psychotic episode, you would not be an active hero. Anymore than I would be. ICOSA would override the Director's authority and place you under watch until such a time they thought you were stable enough. That is the worst possible outcome, it is an extreme, not a likelihood. Do as you've always done," He suggested. "It is a known fact that one is less likely to suffer metahuman psychosis when they are supported by the same people that Dr. Reninger clearly suggested were a hazard to you. Isolating yourself, even as a metahuman, can be much worse."

Reninger could've told her this too, surely. "This changes next to nothing. If you are at risk now, then you were always at risk, and therefore it is unnecessary for you to make major changes to your life. At best, consider it a reminder to tend to yourself after an intense mission."

Avengers Academy: Junior Year 💥

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Location: Who the Fuck is Baldur
Skills:
WHAT. THE. FUCK.

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From Mai's unconscious body, they picked up a rock that Percy the Murdertwink said was called an Astral Prism. It had a piece of Zari in it, but Leah didn't get a chance to ask what that actually meant in practice. Pain overtook her, some of the worst she had felt lately. Every inch of her body was on fire all of a sudden, white hot and cutting through her down to what made her the person she was. It felt like Leah was being unmade.

She had felt horrible pain many times. Her dad had broken most, if not all of the bones in her body at some point or another. She had been surgically put back together a time or two at worst. This was up there, but she was used to this sort of thing. Death had made itself known not so long ago, that feeling of standing on a cliff, and then falling forever. Weightlessness creeping in. It wouldn’t startle her twice.

She leaned against her axe, grimaced and let out a sound like something between a growl and a groan. What was happening? Was this part of the game?

”What… The fuck is happening?”

《 Super H.E.R.O. 》

The ugly looking human calling itself Freakshow laid out a plan that Mire thought was at least reasonable. Some of them going in, others staying out as bait. It made sense, even if she talked too much. Mire would've actually gone through with it, had the gunshot not happened. They knew what those loud noises meant, humanity used them to scare things off and kill to eat. That much was clear, so it stood to reason that the sniper had shot one of the Terrazards. At that point, things stopped being so complicated. People starting rushing in, the ground started splitting wide open. The fungal monster was smart enough that they could make their own plan at this point.

"Now they know we're here. That plan means nothing at this point. I'm going in, and I'm making them all do the hard work for us," Mire said, to the remaining heroes who hadn't sprung into action yet. They flicked their arms out, and small particulates of spores drifted downwind. "Don't follow me."

And then they calmly started walking forward, trudging across concrete and metal wire fences while the others did their work. Mire's body pulsed and contorted, like something was writhing under the surface of all that mycelium. Bulbous growths start poking through like septic boils, which sprouted new fungus that sloughed off to the ground. It took root, and Mire just kept marching forward towards the hole that the Terrazards were coming through.

"YOU EAT HUMANS, DON'T YOU?! COME AND TAKE A BITE FROM ME, THEN!" Mire's awful voice boomed across the ruins of the plant, alerting swathes of Terrazards to their exact location. It might've been stupid, but that was what they wanted to happen. Their hypae structures stretched out, making Mire seem taller than they actually were as their limbs grew more and more gaunt by the second. The eyes of Terrazards nearby turned and glared at the strange, vaguely humanoid looking entity just beckoning to be eaten alive. They were intelligent, but many of them saw this and took it to be a sign of absolutely stupidity. And so, an entire herd of the beasts descended on their fellow Leftover. Like a swarm of starving piranhas they bit, chewed, clawed and tore into what they thought would be a warm and bloody snack. But instead, their teeth bit down into saturated sludge. Mire didn't fight back, they wanted the creatures to get as much of a mouthful as possible, so chunk after chunk of their body fell away in a feeding frenzy.

And then, the flood came.

Every Terrazard that bit into a piece of Mire had its mouth, throat and stomach filled with enzymes as Mire's body exploded. It was like a giant water balloon, splashing everything around the living colony. In an instant, the feast became a mass grave as the Terrazards melted like warm wax, right before the eyes of everyone who thought to observe. They howled and writhed in agony, but their bones and their flesh leaked to the ground. Limbs decayed in seconds, bones and blood mingled into a slurry. And in the runoff, there sat Mire. Tattered and practically swimming through a puddle of half-decomposed gore. Even the ground they stood on was slowly dissolving.

A few were still alive, but their bodies were in such bad shape that it was just cruel not to kill them. Mire sloshed through the pit of rotting guts and enzymes, subsuming the survivors into what parts of their body still squirmed. The Terrazards didn't even fight back.

As effective as it was, the move Mire made was filling the area with a ghastly stench.

"That was easy."