Estylwen

Recollections: Under The Sycamore Tree Part. 1

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Succession Studios - The Demand of Man

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Alizée Altieri

Location: Veni Vedi Veni, Parking Lot
@Punished GN

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"... I'm gonna bury you alive, and then I'm gonna fuck your corpse!"

A hysterical voice

A tremble shuddered through her bones. She could hear it. Sand scraping the wind. Granules upon granules, building. Surrounded by laughing, demonic faces, she stared up blindly. Slowly, a sliver gave way, as a looming shadow overtook her.

Horror overtook her.

Panic overtook her.

A scream cut out as two massive phantom hands circled around Alizée, just as the mountain of sand came crushing down on her.

Searing pain. The weight was immense. She could feel a terrible weight as sand piled on sand. She lay crumpled on the ground, gasping under her hands that weren't prepared for such an immense weight, only inches of space between her body and the voidly canopy, sand seeping in between the fingers.

She sweated, a strangled, agonizing scream leaving her lips. The hands trembled, losing inches of space, threatening to give in to the mountain that wanted to crush her, body and soul.

If her void hands had bones, they'd be fractured at the least, broken at the worst. Instead, this immense pressure translated to a searing, crushing pain that caused another strangled scream to echo across the sandy coffin - what may very well be her tomb.

If she could see, it wouldn't account for much. It was dark. Pitch black in her sandy grave.

Her phantom hands trembled under the exertion, the seconds ticking by like the lacerations from a whip.

Her breath was shallow, pain causing her to gasp and hyperventilate. Dizziness overtook her mind, and she lost another inch off the roof of her coffin.

Oxygen was suddenly in very, very short supply.

Her mind fluctuated between terror and pain, crying out again against the muffling, suffocating sand.

It was a battle of wills on all sides. The crushing weight over her, the searing pain, and the haunting faces in her vision.

She really wouldn't last long like this.

And Void knew this.

That's why, as Alizée suffered in her sandy coffin, he approached the spiky haired lady from behind, voidly clawed hands raised like a haunter stalking its prey. And in one fell swoop, he tried to grab her torso and snap her spine with a iron grip. At the very least, snap all her ribs. Anything to get her to stop. Anything to save his pet.

”Struggle and die, vermin!” He yelled as he attempted to crush her.

He waited in earnest to hear the crack of her spine snapping.

The Dark Beyond

Hey! I've been a bit busy with the holidays, and will try to respond when I can. It'll probably be a few more days for my response, though. Enjoy the holidays, folks!

(Nice pfp, Lexi!!)

Recollections: Under The Sycamore Tree Part. 1

Yes and yes! xD She'll probably never sleep right again, on account of Clancy.

Edit:

o A o;;

Recollections: Under The Sycamore Tree Part. 1

@AtomicEmperor Thank you! Takes teamwork to make the dream work.

Recollections: Under The Sycamore Tree Part. 1

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MISSIO - Bottom of the Deep Blue Sea

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Alizée Altieri

Location: Veni Vedi Veni, Parking Lot
@Punished GN, @AtomicEmperor, @Atrophy

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"Why did you go into a club protected by the Wolfpack, ask for Judas' favorite girl, and, then cause a ruckus with your magic? Don't you know that's bad for bus-"

The baritone voice

She heard it. The crack of a gunshot. A crumpled body. Sick laughter.

It didn't take a genius to deduce who got shot. She heard the conversation clear as crystal.

The kid... got shot...

Tears pricked her terrified eyes.

And it was her fault.

"You son of a-"

The woosh of wind. A shot of vertigo mixed with adrenaline and cortisol. Her teeth clenched against the g-force as the claws holding her landed again, jarring her senses, and he began running.

It also didn't take a genius to tell who held her. She knew that gait, the shallow breathing, the scent. Who else had the power and desire to save her?

Leon.

The sounds of chaos - Stomry yelling at the bikers, gunshots - drifted away. Stray bullets chasing them. A part of her wanted to leave it at that. To leave it all behind. The painful fire in her throat, the exhaustion beginning to seep into her bones, the horrors screaming in front of her eyes, still effectively blinding her - it was getting too much. She should just lie down, and get taken. There would be food - a way to ease this terrible pain - and no more fighting. She would be safe. That's all that mattered, right? That's all she cared about, right?

The thrum of pounding footsteps down the street, her hands bracing against the grip around her torso.

She was allowed to lean into safety, into ease, right?

Footsteps. Then tires screeching, the crunch of metal.

"What the fuck, you furry piece of shit, you wrecked my fucking car, I swear to god, I'm going to-"

Sounds like Linqian

Alizée's eyes widened, feeling as the running - Leon - hesitated for a brief moment. What was Linqian doing here? She didn't know-

"Don't-!"

Her warning was cut off as Leon took off again. The horrors digging into her eyes were overlayed by horrors in her mind. The kid, Stormy, Sully, Brit - hell, Eve - all dropped, lying in pools of their own blood. Sticking around because they wanted to protect her selfish hide. Dying for nothing.

And it would be her fault.

All of this... was her fault.

A shaky breath was sucked through clenched teeth, and she cried out desperately, "Loup, ils vont mourir! (Wolf, they are going to die!)"

Words only went so far when Leon was in a state such as this. Taking another shaky breath, adrenaline pumping through her veins, she summoned a phantom hand and, as gently as possible, pried open the massive, clawed hand of Leon. It was like bending rebar, but she managed.

She had to. There was more at stake than her own soul. Someone had already paid the price for her mistake. A child.

She wouldn't let that happen twice.

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Enemy

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She dropped to the pavement like a sack of potatoes, rolling and rolling until she came to a stop. She coughed, vision cursing her eyes and causing a strangled whimper to escape her throat. She didn't have time for this! There were more horrors going on in real time here.

She could hear more gunshots. More screams and yelling. More chances of people dying. Maybe Brit was already dead.

Getting to her feet as quickly as possible, she staggered back to the sounds of violence like a crazed maniac. She really was insane to be choosing death over salvation. Choosing the bikers over Leon. But, she was in an optimal position. If her internal map was right, Leon jumped over the bikers and took off. That placed her on the opposite side of the bikers. Opposite to Brit and the rest.

She squinted hard, trying desperately to see. For a brief second, she saw the chaos ahead, and took off at a run.

A screech, and she fell, the horrors of the Void causing her to visibly flinch. "Arrgh...!" She twisted, picking herself up from the ground again, ignoring the stones in her palms now.

She tried to steady her heartbeat, calming herself to loosen the Void's hold. And, slowly but surely, as she approached, she could see through a small little sliver in her vision, unmarred by the screaming faces. The lights of Stormy's shields were lost in a raging sandstorm. Sully took centre stage, pistol glinting in his mouth. Darkness from the south - Eve? Glowing webs and - most shocking of all - a towering scorpion. There were molten cracks in the pavement on the Sycamore Coven side. And from the rooftops, crackling electricity.

She squinted, moving her head furiously to take it all in, peeping through her sliver.

At their back, she had luckily come in unnoticed as the Wolfpack fired shots and continued their assault.

She could do something about this.

A slow breath, trying to widen the sliver, taking another last glance before she pushed it again. Memorizing the locations, trajectories.

With a huff of exertion, she made her move. Two phantom hands appeared, buzzing with desperate energy. Her eyes lit up with power as, effectively, the sliver closed and blinded her once more. But she didn't need it. She didn't need to see. She just had to focus.

Two hands swelled in size, rippling masses closing around the frame of a tossed car. With a quiet screech of metal, it was launched into the air to land directly on top of the scorpion. As long as the thing didn't notice, it would hopefully be crushed into the pavement as brutally as how his ilk killed the child.

She shifted targets, her knees trembling.

One dark hand, smaller in size, flailed through the air as it searched for its target. It came into contact with a slender arm, and trailed up to feel for a gun. Yes, the shape of metal was there. Alizée wanted to save Sully and extract him from his treacherous position as quickly as possible.

Blindly, the phantom hand gripped around the hand holding the pistol, finger sliding under the trigger to prevent it from being fired. And, with the same strength she used to bend steel, she crushed the hand holding the gun, hoping to break as many bones as possible.

The exertion sent another screaming Voidling into her face, and Alizée let out a strangled yelp, half falling behind a tossed-aside car. Quickly, she clamped a hand over her mouth, tears pricking her eyes as she shook with terror.

"Breathe, pet." Void speaking somewhere in the far distance of her mind. She was too numb to comprehend it.

She couldn't do this much longer.

hi hi!! <3

Welcome, Fae!

Iris Ascendis

Congrats, everyone! I think we've recently hit 4 months, too!

Iris Ascendis

Ciara Ventura

Wingram Academy, Classroom 103
@Nanaya, @Sifr

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"I'll kindly ask you to be more careful acting on impulse around demonstrations, Ms. Ventura. In the future, it could be dangerous if you threw unnecessary variables into an otherwise expected - and safe - result. Thank you."

Ciara looked taken aback as Professor Alto's glare caught her. Quietly, she nodded her head, and sank a little in her seat. A part of her desperately wanted to blend into the wood of her desk and disappear. She knew these kinds of glares all too much. It was always like this. People in the orphanage would give her these glares all the time. Instantly associate her with that dreadful term: Umbralism.

Her brows furrowed in distaste, and she pointedly tuned out the rest of the explanations and lecturing until Professor Also clapped his hands.

It was practice time. Already, from the corner of her eye, she could see Davil waving over Otis. She tilted her head, watching. Weighing her options. Otis was obviously the first option. He was proficient in almost anything he set his eyes to, from what she had seen. But something held her back. When they were at the door, and he shut down her vulnerability, she realized something.

She had to be stronger. She couldn't rely on others.

Forming a group with Otis, she would rely on him too much, she knew.

No. She had to forge her own path. She had to choose someone who was as closed off as her. Who, perhaps, had shared a kindness with her.

Ciara's eyes fell on Hildegunde, and she moved to sit behind her. She watched the little stars of white sparkle in her gray aura, but pushed down her Hunger.

A pause. "Wanna practice these barriers with me?"

Recollections: Under The Sycamore Tree Part. 1

@LanaStorm Oh heck ya.

I think we might be almost, possibly, ready for a GM post now, too........ :eyes:

Recollections: Under The Sycamore Tree Part. 1

@AtomicEmperor Thanks for the heads up!

The scene at the parking lot is literal fire right now. :>