Even as tear gas filled the Bottom Barrel and people were beaten down and ziptied, more fought on, erratic Gyfts triggering in response to the military police that came in with gas masks. The intervention of the Del Guarde simply stoked the flames of aggression towards them, and in the messy melee of it all…well, the Del Guarde found out quickly that they were grossly outnumbered.
The theme was ‘Masquerade’. The efficacy of the tear gas was reduced by the masks that everyone wore.
How much of this had been planned by the Order?
Those that picked off rowdier attendants found themselves slammed into by yet more people, their gas masks ripped off in the frenzy. Entrances were swarmed out of, a seething mob united with a singular purpose. No doubt, shots would soon be fired. And no doubt, such an incident would be broadcast ever further throughout the district, to be used as firestarter for the many others in Merryland who had not made it to the event that night but still wanted to catch the ‘festivities’ via livestream.
”They got James and Carla, we need suppressive fire!”
”Copy.”
The Order and its ilk would soon find that violence only led to more violence, and Del Guarde was prepared to cross that line first.
So, shots were fired into the seething crowd, attempting to disperse and neutralize them.
And once those shots were fired, the ultimate result of what happened in the Bottom Barrel no longer mattered. Perhaps those within the venue would be suppressed, or perhaps they would spill out onto the streets. Perhaps those Del Guarde soldiers within would die in the crossfire of their own comrades’ suppression, or perhaps they would make it out to join the firing line. It no longer mattered.
The Del Guarde had chosen violence, had sought victory through the enforcement of military rule, seeking to cow the insurrection into submission. In doing so, they had given the Order exactly what the Lodestar wanted them to obtain: control of the narrative.
Here was the military, storming in to silence the civilian population. They came into the neighbourhood under the guise of the police, but didn’t even care to integrate themselves into the community. They were the ones who threw tear gas in first, who fought first, who fired first, who killed first. The blood that Merryland spilled was their doing! They have removed their mask and revealed exactly what they were! Other police precincts received bonuses for their work arresting criminals, but if the Del Guarde weren’t even aligned with the police, how did they get their money? Why did they still arrest people? What happened to those people?
Merryland had to stand up. Merryland had to RESIST.
All across the district, the people, armed with armaments they owned or were provided to them by the Order, began to mobilize. Some formed large mobs, occupying the streets. Some intercepted cruisers and those Del Guarde still on patrol, eager to get their pound of flesh. Some aimed for infrastructure, whether the prisons or the police department or the dormitories. And all, guided by the narrative of righteous rebellion woven by the Order, saw themselves as heroes.
It was about time, indeed, to start killing some pigs.
The Del Guarde pinned in the Bottom Barrel fired their own shots, diving to the floor to avoid the crossfire. It was a mess. Del guarde retreated with the few rioters they captured, throwing them in a transport van and retreating from the scene. This was quickly getting out of hand, but they still had an ace up their sleeve. A way to cement their control of Merryland.
A call went out over the radio, it was time to call in reinforcements.
Glyde: P -3
And Del Guarde soon flooded Merryland, geared up in Kevlar vests, rifles, tear gas, and small impact grenades. They stemmed the flow of the rioters in the streets, boxing them in front the north and south of the street, and bombarding the crowds with tear gas. They tore at the crowd, separating rioters and arresting as quickly as they could.
They hadn't fired a shot, not yet.
The patrollers stranded in the district, not all made it. But most were given back up by the influx of Del Guarde, and the rioters were driven off long enough to get them to safety.
The streets were filled with a blaring warning. ”Curfew is in effect. If you are on the streets after ten minutes, you will be shot.”
“What curfew?” “Get the fuck outta our district!” “You’ve already started shooting!”
As far as the rioters were concerned, the act of tossing in tear gas, of forming a shield wall to box them in, of simply carrying rifles, was enough to incense them. How much more totalitarian could you get, after all? What more proof did one need?
A canister of tear gas was thrown back by someone who had stolen a gas mask off the face of a Del Guarde goon. Rocks were thrown at the riot shields, some clattering off, others splintering the clear plastic. A few looked to be properly armed, but hadn’t yet pulled together the guts to fire yet. It was a stalemate.
A stalemate that ended with the roar of an engine, a roar of defiance!
Car horn blaring all the while, an SUV drove through the gap left by protesters hurling themselves out of the way, before slamming through the denser lines of police and crashing into a cruiser. It crunched terrifically, engine sparks igniting the gas tank, before both vehicles were set ablaze. The silence was deafening, until the fireworks within shot off, whizzing out and exploding in bursts of color and sound.
The rioters would not let this opportunity slip.
“Get away from the vehicle! Fuck- get back!”
The Del Guarde personnel line broke up a bit, allowing rioters through the first line and to the back up behind. Back up acted fast, bearing down on the runaway rioters with stun batons and brutal riot gear.
Then, it became more like a bloodbath.
Del Guarde began firing into the crowd with rifles and unloading small explosives that shot out shrapnel, ensuring someone could very well lose an eye over this, as well as their life.
If Merryland wouldn't comply, they would be silenced.
It was an appropriate amount of chaos now. Explosives everywhere, bullets whizzing left and right, and a proper bloodbath brewing like a heroic saga. Upon the rooftops, a woman with an eyepatch lit a cigarette, watched the embers smoulder into smoke, and then flicked it away
There were enough forces focused here now.
Her gaze turned towards Merryland’s Police Department, the command center, and her hand caressed the hilt of her sword.
“For the New Age,” she intoned, her words whimsical and lilting.
“For the New Age,” the Order repeated, as they stepped into the shadows caused by insurrection and descended upon their main target.
It was true, the headquarters were far less defended, held together by only a skeleton crew managing the radio and keeping tabs on quelling the district. It was the perfect opportunity to strike.
Phade took a break from torturing Matthias to get an update on the situation in Merryland. At the same time, she had tried to learn more about her target.
Outside didn't look good. She sighed, as if she was looking at something as inconvenient as rain on a day meant for picnics. Her eyes glanced over at Matthias, trembling in his seat, deep and long knife wounds bandaged so he wouldn't bleed out, and electrical wires still clamped on him.
”Alright, Matti-poo. I'll stop our little games, if you make a little speech to your people, and to the people of Merryland. Tell ‘em to cease and desist, tell the Order to back off.
“Easy, right?”
If Matthias had teeth, it’d probably be chattering or something, rendering him unable to speak. Then again, if he had teeth, he may have bit his tongue already, so it was a good thing that his head wasn’t really a physical head.
Still, everything hurt. It hurt a lot. Hurt enough that it felt like he had transcended all emotion and was now only persisting off of sensation. Like unconsciousness, stripped from control of his body, but like consciousness, still able to have control of all five of his senses.
He pissed himself a long time ago, but at least the blood masked the smell of urine. All that blood loss though, and he didn’t even get to feel loopy and lightheaded from blood loss.
Fuck.
When the pain stopped, the thoughts began. So there he laid, willfully silent, his heart rate completely out of whack but the smoke that made up his head still continuing to shift and sway as it always did.
Phade tilted her head, grabbing Matthias by his bloodied collar, examining his smoky head this way and that. ”Matti-poo, you realize we're just gonna kill everyone. One district doesn't matter, after all. So. Call them off. And you can go home. You want that, don't you…?’
“…”
Matthias shuddered, rolling his shoulders. His chest inflated and deflated as an inaudible rasp sounded out from him. Was his voice dead? Had he already screamed himself hoarse?
Phade watched him, and an incredulous smile played across her face. ”You still think your people have an advantage, don't you? Don't you realize it's hopeless?”
Hope, was it?
It was hard to tell whether or not Matthias lifted his head up. Harder to tell if his eyes were open and looking at Phade. Hardest to tell whether he was smiling or grimacing. And impossible to tell whether he was making an attempt at speech or not.
It didn’t matter though.
The knock on the door was his response.
There were so many things wrong with a knock at the door. Any Del Guarde would have known this room held the leader of the Order. They would have known not to disturb them, to use the radio. Speaking of which-
”Central, status?” She spoke low into her radio. Her eyes stared at the door longer, before flicking back to Matthias, hand gripping his collar tighter, like she might lose him.
Before her glance shot to the guards in the room, and they took defensive positions on either side at the door, rifles raised.
She called out in a clear voice. ”Kinda busy, who is it?”
What greeted her was not a voice, but an eye.
A round, human eye, as blue as an unobstructed sky, blinking open upon the surface of the door.
The eye narrowed. Closed. And then, three dozen more such delicate, pure eyes, each of differing sizes, blinked open upon the ceiling, an amalgamation of vision. From within the pupils of each blossomed bare, human arms, grotesquely elongated as if the pistil of a flower, surging with nightmarish speed towards Phade and the guards.
And yet, at the same time, they all felt a drop in their stomach. Not figuratively, from the anxiety of this incomprehensible force, but from gravity seizing them, pulling them waist deep into the floor. A moist, warm, soft wetness enveloped them, some thick, heavy mass rolling around their lower body, but it were the white protrusions that caught their attention, the pinkish red lips ringing the mishapen teeth. The floor had grown mouths.
The mouths closed down.
The was a surge of screams and bursting blood as the guards in the room were rend in half. All but Phade, who stared with narrowed, hot eyes, her form translucent. She didn't sink down with the rest, nor was she affected by the teeth. It did, however, cause Matthias’ collar to slip through her ghostly fingers.
”I should have known.”
As Phade remained in place, unaffected even by the pull of gravity, a pedestal of arms spiraled up from beneath Matthias’s chair, lifting him up to the ceiling before teeth sprouted between fingers to saw apart the bindings that kept him down.
He couldn’t move, of course, his injuries having rendered most of his limbs inoperable without treatment, but when it came down to it, what exactly did he inhabit? Was he the smoke that made up his mind, or was he the flesh that the smoke came from? When pain was recognized as a mere sensation, a firing of the neurons within a brain that no longer existed, was pain not just illusory?
Tender hands within hands within hands cupped his flesh, the palms splitting open to extend tongues that licked the open wounds. The smoke-faced Prophet moved not as his servant tended to his mortal vessel, the electrical wires peeled off and flung back down to that heretic sadist.
Wherein dwelled the voice?
The mouth, teeth, and tongue that modulated the air expelled by his tongue was long gone, so did his vocal cords truly have a purpose?
“We live and we learn.”
The infestation of flesh had consumed the entire room now, stone and steel replaced by skin that pulsated to the beat of a heart that certainly couldn’t be present.
“Now, I believe you’ve done a good enough job, preparing me for my next engagement.” The Lodestar spoke on high, his hazy eyes as if observing all of time, all at once. “So in exchange, I will deign to allow you to leave unharmed.”
Phade was seething at the teeth, but she didn't utter a word. She couldn't.
Instead, her incorporeal hand rose up, and the third finger and thumb brushed together, the facilism of a snap-
And she disappeared.
Matthias: P -5, Glyde: P -10
“That’s enough, Celina.”
The pedestal of arms retracted, bringing him to the ground. The eyes closed too, dissolving into the walls that were once again stone. Blood seeped into the cracks of the floor, no longer any mouths left to slurp it up. Once again, the door was present. And beside Matthias now emerged a trembling woman with clear blue eyes and platinum-blonde hair, hugging herself as if it was only through her own hands that she could keep her form humanoid, distinct.
The Lodestar stood up, shakily. His hand reached up to his head, cupping a stream of smoke and wafting it towards her. Gradually, her tremors ceased, and she let out a deep sigh. “Thank you, Prophet.”
“Did a number on you, mm?” A voice sounded through the door, before a heavy blade sliced through the lock. It swung open without resistance, the woman with an eyepatch stepping through. Blood dried upon her skin and clothes, flaking off with every movement, but she paid it no mind as she bowed in a manner that certainly wasn’t genuine. “Hope it was worth it. Can you even stand?”
“The body is but the puppet of the mind,” was Matthias’s own response. Celina was the crazy sort, but Lenore was the crazier sort. He had to will himself to be stronger. “It’s done?”
“Beat them back, yeah. Less casualties on our side, but that’s just because we got the civilians to absorb most of it.” The one-eyed swordswoman flicked a lighter open and close. “They’re all gathered outside. Need a change of clothes?”
He looked down at his body, then decided that he’d rather not look. “Celina, help me up the steps. I’ll address them alone.”
“Yes, Prophet.”
“And Lenore?”
She pocketed the lighter.
“Rest up. It's gonna get busy.” Day would break soon, but in these scant few hours, the darkness was heavy still. The people were restless, without direction. They had driven back the Del Guarde, but they had made an enemy of the military in response. Next time, the soldiers would be more prepared, more heavily-armed, more merciless. Sure, they could plunder what remained within the police department’s armory, could salvage the gear of the soldiers they beat with bricks, but what of it? The passion of heroism was fading away, and now, there was only uncertainty. The future was d-
A single spotlight turned on, sending a piercing beam of light across the city to illuminate a man with no head, a man standing atop the roof of the police department.
His figure was slight, and his clothes no more than rags. Wounds covered his body in every which direction, from knife marks to electrical burns. It was a tapestry of pain, his injuries even now oozing, and yet, he stood tall, his smoke-head as white as a plume of steam.
“People of Merryland!”
Even without a microphone, his voice carried through. There was no sticky, supernatural Gyft clinging to his words, only a human strength.
“Tonight marks the end of one era, and the beginning of another! You have bled for this, have lost for this!” Because they had. After that riot, after that four hour war, there was not one person who had been sheltered from the loss of friend or family. “They shall be immortalized, not with monuments of stone that fade to time, but with art! And those of you who stand still, despite bearing the full weight of that storm of steel, will live to ensure that what they sacrificed themselves for shall never be for naught!”
He swung his left arm to the side. “It was not the mafias that drove the Del Guarde out.”
He swung his right arm to the side. “It was not the police that freed your district.”
Both arms joined, hands clapping together with the vigor of thunder. “It was you!”
“They will return. We will beat them back. They will hide in their fortresses. We will tear down their walls. They will beg for help. We will rip the wings off their planes and free Nocturnia of these government-funded criminals!”
The crowd shifted, drawn by the fervor of this faceless man, this individual who had known only inhumane torture at the hands of the Del Guarde. Who had not cowered in the face of pain, who had risen above.
“I shall be your guide!”
He raised his fist in defiance of the darkest hours of night, raised it to the single star bright enough to outshine Nocturnia’s neon lights.
“For the Future! For the Enlightenment! FOR THE NEW AGE!”
“It is too much to hope that this… unfortunate tragedy is something other than a cow kicking a bucket into a candle. Do you scent anything else on the wind? Gunpowder?”
The kiddo will immediately get high, drunk, and depressed, in reverse order, off the fumes.
The entire existing setting of the RP will need to be overhauled in order for this to be acceptable. Whether Est is willing to put in the work is up to them.
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