Blizz

Recollections: Under The Sycamore Tree Part. 1

Interactions: Sully @Atrophy, Clancy @Zombiedude101

House on the Hill

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Stormy would’ve been lying if he said he fully understood what was going on. Between the gloomy guy’s absolute dissertation on the Pale Horse, High Priestess and Raven Jones and all the other things he felt the need to compress into one instance, the history professor in him was struggling to keep up. But his attention went fully onto the child who bathed in. Clancy. The kid who had been “killed” the night they all came together again, maimed at Kari’s house and now very clearly not doing so great. He must’ve been an Abscised. Stormy’s jaw tightened at the sight of his ragged flesh and the clamor around him of people trying to help. He didn’t even fully register the fact that Adora had proper Abstraction yet.

That tension only got worse when Luca came up and destroyed the odd crystal plaguing the kid. He fell over, and didn’t get back up. That was when Stormy came over. He ran up to Sully and swiped his hand across the Chalice, enveloping it in a wreath of green sparks. ”Witchveil for magic resistance,” he knelt down next to Luca and pressed a hand up against his chest. Stormy lit up in shade of green smoke, warding off Apparitions and sapping their strength within his immediate area. ”Phantombane for the Rot. Sully, the Chalice will be fine now. Get them both. And hurry. It won’t last long now.” The combination of Phantombane weakening the Rot and Witchveil protecting the Chalice from magic meant that the artifact would barely get a scratch.

”Once you’re taken care of, tell us who did this to you.” He looked over to the Abscised boy, who wouldn’t be affected by either aura. Concern etched itself on Stormy’s face as he wondered if it was the Wolfpack coming back for revenge.

SPIRITUM

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If someone in this group had taken some sort of issue with Morden's decision to treat the princess of Vangar like the credible risk she was, he didn't seem to notice. As far as he was concerned, she could draw on the mist at any time she wanted, and plant one of those glowing arrows in someone's backs when they weren't looking. Morden trusted that his group would to their jobs, and they could trust that he'd do his. Diplomat or not, he wasn't letting his guard down for any reason. Following Veld's leave, Morden walked off to help get the truck back into some semblance of a working condition. He gathered up junk and used his mistbegotten strength to bend things into just the right shape. He hauled the engine out and pieced the damaged, overexerted thing back together with little issue while holding it upright in one hand. He did, of course, have the common sense to do this out of sight, walking around the backside of the truck away from everyone else, but it was easy to fix even for someone who wasn't a proper engineer. While the whole thing didn't need to be rebuilt, Morden was the strong one, so he could just check things easily that way. It made little bits of damage that would take an hour to get to take a minute or two at most.

The strange ship that downed the Palatine was firmly in his thoughts, if the robots were from a third party, who else in the world would possibly oppose Vangar if not Rassvet? Morden's understanding of the was that Rassvet was the last line of defense. If the nation was conquered, then the war was over. Was it dissension in the ranks of the empire? Had someone else fought back and held them off?

"If we stay quiet, and stay moving, we should have no trouble getting there. If this ragged coffin we call a vehicle will stay intact that long," Morden commented as he manually lowered the engine back in and rigged it back up to the truck, after fixing what was damaged. "The noise we make from here on, the better."

X-Men: GenetiX

Ryder wheeled around on the man and glared daggers at him. Who did Xavier think he was, acting like he understood this? The things that went through her head, the secrets she knew, the weight of surviving in a pit where the ghost’s scheme was there she existed for. He was an ant on a mountain, and she was the sun.

”Let me tell you something about weapons, old man.” She stalked up to him, until there was barely enough room for one of them to stick an arm out. ”Weapons are pointed at something, by someone else who pulls the trigger. Weapons don’t have free will, they’re just an extension of someone else’s wants. Weapons don’t take freedom into their own hands by force. I’m whatever the fuck I want to be. I chose to be something else a long, long time ago. And you don’t factor into that. What I am is their fucking reckoning.” She knew what they wanted her to be, and something Xavier failed to account for was the fact that Ryder made her own choices whether others wanted her to or not. The implication that she was too shortsighted to not be different from what Umbra wanted boiled her blood.

”You don’t understand what I am. And you never will until you have to claw your way out of there just for the chance to choose what your life looks like. None of you had to make the choices I did. So stop pretending you get it,” she hissed. ”Stop acting like I need you to come and fix me.”

Avengers Academy 💥

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

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There was no way in fuck that the real Mai could be knocked out so easily by some twink with a knife. So Leah concluded that this must’ve been a fake Mai programmed to make Leah drop her guard long enough for a cheap shot. Still, it was a good punch. Leah looked around at all the dead cultists, unsure if more were about to show up. "Not bad. So... Anybody have any idea what the fuck we're supposed to be doing next? And what about that thing?" She asked, pointing at the weird crystal Mai was holding.

"Anybody know if that thing is cursed? Or important?"

Recollections: Under The Sycamore Tree Part. 1

Interactions: _{ₜₕₑ Cₒᵥₑₙ}

_{ₜₕₑᵣₑᵢₛₒₙₗywₐᵣₜₕₑᵣₑᵢₛₒₙₗywₐᵣₜₕₑᵣₑᵢₛₒₙₗywₐᵣₜₕₑᵣₑᵢₛ}

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Amara was watching the conversation unfold, a pounding headache tempting her to just turn around and leave. The rhythm of her heartbeat was sounding through the base of her skull, like an axe trying to cut her open. It was a miracle she hadn’t crashed into a tree on her way here, but Amara looked stone-faced. To everyone else, it looked like she was just a little impatient right now. And deep down, she absolutely was. She had an infinite choir of voices in her head telling her no at this very second. Among other things.

Bad fucking day.

”The Pit? Absolutely fucking not. Lynn, did you go insane or something? Nothing good comes out of there,” She interjected, having pieced it all together from listening. ”You go there, you’re gonna see shit like the Stygian Snake left right and center. If you somehow survived, you’d go mad. Fucking insane, psych ward, straight jacket and everything.”

”We could-“

”Shut your discount Eric Draven looking ass up, Hawthorne,” Amara cut him off real fast. Amara looked at Lynn with a noticeably bloodshot look in her eyes. ”Aaron’s right. That just ain’t an option. I mean… Just, how the fuck are you even getting there?”

《 Super H.E.R.O. 》

wat

Recollections: Under The Sycamore Tree Part. 1

@Estylwen

Didn’t know how to conveniently answer your characters but Nora can 100% build the things they requested. Wouldn’t be too difficult.

Recollections: Under The Sycamore Tree Part. 1

The House on the Hill

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Everyone seemed to have a decent plan in mind. Ghosting people in a coordinated way to hide from the Elite and 8th Street served as a way to protect their more vulnerable members and buy them some time. Adora and Luca could talk to the members of 8th Street that could actually be reasoned with. And that would make things easier with the plan that Jack had in mind. He didn’t need to jump on Ken’s ass, either, since the others already did. Good. This seemed promising.

”I don’t agree with using Britney and Lila as “bait,” personally,” he said. ”It is a logical thought. 8th Street is after them. But there is always that risk that they catch their bait. And 8th Street already knows we will protect them. We were lucky they retreated last time.” Even if Jack was able to teleport them out, there was always the risk that someone got to them before he did.

He would’ve kept talking, as he always does, but the door flew open.

Drake Blackmore walked in at last. He was tempted to scare the shit out of the Blackmore Family again to check on the man. To Jack’s bewilderment, he was still in half-decent spirits despite losing Jade. That bugged him, and he wasn’t sure how to really articulate why in a way that wouldn’t agitate Drake. Britney, Aryin and Linqian walked in next, along with… Lynette? She was still alive? Interesting…

”I’d hope you would not lose something so powerful, Britney,” Jack commented. There would be hell to pay if the Noble Vow was lost. Jack would snap his fingers and return it to his hand with a Blackout Shift mark that he made sure to keep on the hilt. And then he’s smack somebody over the head with it. With prejudice.

”All you missed was a tangible plan coming together. Greyson verified something that Luna brought to our attention,” he looked at Drake when he said that. ”We know how to move forward, how to find Kari’s notes.”

Two more people walked in. Stormy, who didn’t say a word as he stood posted up by the door. And Amara, who came in with her arms crossed. ”I put some phantoms outside just in case. Sorry I’m late… Had a thing.”

”I think we have two more things to discuss at the very least. Firstly, the dreams we are having… Regarding the Pale Horse and the High Priestess, I am familiar with them, somewhat. The Pale Horse is a multi-dimensional terror, who murdered billions across the All-Verse. And the High Priestess was once a benevolent entity, before she met the Pale Horse and descended into madness. She became obsessed with “purging the unworthy,” according to what I can access. What that means, I cannot say.”

Jack didn’t let it show, but the idea of having to face not one, but two threats of that level again made his soul ache. ”And then there is the matter of Raven Jones. Some of you may not know the woman she is related to in these dreams, but her name is Sunshine Jones. Just like the Pale Horse and High Priestess, she was feared throughout the All-Verse,” Jack continued. ”She is a green Adept who dedicated her life to horrific experiments on unwilling test subjects, created monstrosities capable of destroying worlds, and was banished to the Pit long ago. I do not know who is expecting us to deal with these Apparitons, but we cannot stand up to them. So we do not need to concern ourselves with them for the moment.”

Jack paused and let everyone take that in. In their current state, there was no way the Sycamore could put up a fight against monsters like them. They were barely able to keep each other safe on a good day, they were in no position to wage another war.

”Second… We need power and resources. We’ve made good strides in that sense, but there is always room for more. Kenshiro and I have been planning to travel into other worlds to find artifacts. Ones that we can use to our advantages to make up for the fact that we are struggling compared to the other forces in this city,” he explained. ”When we are not needed, the two of us plan to enter a world known as Gloom to retrieve an artifact known as the Brass Needle. It is known to sever the bond between Apparitions and their hosts, including those sealed within a human being.”

He looked to Lila and Luca, both of which have been struggling lately. ”We can use it to give you two a chance at moving on from the Rot and the Maiden, if you wish. And we can use it against other Adjoined who oppose us. We’ll likely look for other artifacts in the future. We have also built a pocket reality to store them, and just recently, I finished organizing it. We can use it for meetings from now on, if we need.”

”Finally, if anyone would like to join Kenshiro and I when we leave to recover the Needle, let us know. We intend to be back within twenty four hours, and will leave when we know we won’t be needed here.”

”Holy shit, you yap a lot.”

《 Super H.E.R.O. 》

Wiseman dove away from the exploding knife, seeing the bits of electronics strapped to it. He was safe behind Terraformer's reactive defenses, and quickly popped out to give Lady Blade one more stasis shot to the chest just for good measure. He looked over at Oracle's wound. "Two minutes and thirty seconds, then it will arrive," He answered, mentally counting down how long it usually took for Angel-5 to get from his lab to this part of Castleburg. "You'll be fine. If HERO One is under attack, then this is just a red herring. They may need backup over there once we've finished here, keep that in mind when we rejoin the fight."

Wiseman pulled up a map of the convention center on his Lexicon, looking for vantage points. "If we get to higher ground, we stand a better chance against Albino. That will help us stay out of the fight long enough for Angel-5 to meet us, without the risk of Lady Blade's partners from finding us here. Once Oracle is tended to, we can decide our next course of action. Terraformer, can you restrain her before she wakes up?"

Many heroes quickly descended on the scene, stopping Albino and Jellyfish from getting out easily with the Vice Director. Eva started attacking, Fallout was ready to annihilate them both. Crane was being Crane about this. But little did the two members of the Fiendish Five know that there was still one more surprise in store for them. Mire had already dissolved into the earth minutes ago, but their body could approximate a sense of touch. Many species of fungi could retract or release a cloud of spores in response to physical contact with something, often to ward off something that would eat them. But for Mire, this meant that they knew exactly what was happening above ground. Many pairs of footsteps running to one location, one of the humans hitting the ground. It was vaguely possible to distinguish them based on the way they walked. Crane's footsteps were, unsurprisingly, absurdly heavy against the ground.

So when people started moving, Mire could just tell, in their unraveled state, that Albino and Jellyfish weren't supposed to be here. In response to this, the ground next to Albino split open. Dirt and rocks flew up and outwards as a long and gaunt arm shot out like zombie. It grabbed his leg with a grip that threatened to break it, while dripping wet with some strange, murky fluid that spilled to the ground as if it were leaking from a sieve. That would be the enzymes of countless fungal species, mixed together into a ghastly substance that had no trouble dissolving metals, much less Albino's flesh.

Veins of pale hyphae curled up out of the hole opened by the arm. Mire's voice came through the ground as if the very soil that Albino stood on was a mouthpiece for the Leftover.

"I'm having a bad day, so I think I'll take it out on you."

Recollections: Under The Sycamore Tree Part. 1

You thought I wouldn’t

But I did