FernStone

Recollections: Magnanimous (Cancelled)

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Oscar was as ready as he was going to be, giving Shane a nod. He used his abstraction to draw the water out of his clothes and phone (unlikely to work anyway), pulling his coat close around him. He was very thankful for his ability to make his clothes good and dry again even if he had to ignore the parched feeling in his throat.

He ended up in the front of the cab, which was fine. It was easy enough to make small talk with the cab driver even if he seemed much more interested in ignoring all of them and ramping up the radio. Which suited just fine for Oscar outside of making it hard to hear what his siblings were saying in the back.

"Anyway, back to the matter. Where would someone like Morgana and her friends go in town? From what little we know, Morgana's boorish and immature, stands to reason her friends aren't much better. Theoretically, Morgana's got a memorable enough name, look and attitude that if we go somewhere communal like a corner store we've got a half decent shot at finding a lead."

Shane

Oscar twisted in his seat so he could look at the two in the back, frowning. “Well, I remember Justin said something about there being a cult in the woods. So it seems that they use that for whatever weird things they’re doing. But forests are large and I think it would be best to try and narrow them down. But there’s only so much of the city that is next to woods, so that narrows it down for finding a corner store to ask at. Which I think is a good idea, she’s certainly memorable. They may have… powers, but they’ll still need to eat. We just need to decide where to check.”

Recollections: Magnanimous (Cancelled)

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As much as witnessing their dad’s ghost piqued Oscar’s supernatural interest, he really didn’t want to stick around for it. Not after what had happened when he last saw the man - an argument he regretted but didn’t want to risk discussing in front of everyone.

But he was also the main contact with the two experts. He didn’t want to just leave them, especially since Ezra had left. He sighed. He really didn’t want to face their father’s ghost, and he didn’t see it going anywhere. The cult seemed more important to him anyway, since they were the most obvious threat right now.

Making up his mind, Oscar followed after Sabrina and Shane.

“I don’t think going after them alone is the brightest idea,” Oscar commented, coming up behind Sabrina. “At least let me come with you, if that’s what you plan to do. I have a bit more… supernatural knowledge if they try to pull anything.”

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"If you want, I could try to summon the old man's ghost from the afterlife for a while, try to get answers. I don't think he'd like to have a conversation with me, though. Not after what happened long ago."

Alexander

Trisha had been following along with what Alexander said up until this point, but she really didn’t agree with this. “What help is summoning him gonna do? He didn’t help us in life, why would he now that he’s dead?”

She then turned to Justin.

"And do we know how many wives or other... lovers he has? It could narrow it down, but honestly we don't have a whole lot of leads."

Justin

“No idea how many wives or lovers he had,” Trisha sneered, rolling her eyes. “Too many to count. Why do you think there’s so many of us? Excluding all our parents there’s probably plenty more we don’t know about.”

So yeah, while she was pretty convinced it was an ex-wife or lover or other sibling they didn’t know about she didn’t have any leads when it came to that. So that wasn’t going anywhere and some of her siblings went off to get changed. She followed with this, because she was cold and still soaked and the house wasn’t exactly protected from the outside temperature anymore. She was tempted to just stay in her room after changing into much warmer clothes, but some twisted interest led her back to the dining room.

Tuyen was freezing and positively miserable when she watched the remaining Vanburens go to get changed. After being hit with water not just once, but twice, her only saving grace was the super thick jacket she’d worn. But even with that she was shivering and her teeth were chattering, so she stayed silent for the whole discussion. In the time waiting for the Vanburen’s to return she moved closer to Justin so she was right next to him, in the hope that he might radiate some heat that would stop her from getting hypothermia.

“I hope we’re going to leave after this, I really need a change of clothes before we do anything else,” she said quietly while watching Alexander summoning his dead father.

The first sight she was hit with was a completely naked, old ghost. Tuyen felt bile rise up in the back of her throat and instantly looked away. Her shivering was now only half from the cold, half from disgust. If she hadn’t been gay before well… She was even less into men now. Gross. She felt like she was going to throw up.

“Fucking hell, wear some clothes!” Trisha hissed, her already low opinion of James only worsening. She absolutely did not need to see <i>that</i>. She turned a glare towards Alexander. “Summoning him was a terrible idea.”

“Any ex-lovers that you might have pissed off or other half siblings we don’t know about that might have done this?” Trisha added to what Alexander had said, though he’d already covered most of the bases. “Because it’s really fucking inconvenient.”

Recollections: The Coven [COMPLETED]

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Maya had considered just bailing, but honestly, her life was too much of a mess suddenly to do that. She couldn’t exactly go to university as normal when it had basically stopped running after the city was nearly destroyed. Not to mention all the calls from her mother insisting she return to South Korea - which she absolutely did not want to do. Ever.

Technically she was still a student, so she could stay here.

And she did want to help the coven. She didn’t have much investment in all this shit apart from being pretty pissed at just how many of them had had to die for this to be resolved. And if there was one thing Maya was pretty good at, it was channeling her anger into destroying shit.

She listened to the explanation with a frown. Right, they just sneak in. That would be easy.

“She’s right, there’s no way they don’t know what we look like… Though I doubt every single member does.” Maya commented, nodding towards Penny (assuming she was remembering her name right). She narrowed her eyes at the map as if she’d miraculously gain the ability to plan this kind of thing. “Unless there’s a secret passage we can use? But outside of that, I don’t see how we can easily sneak in. I want to know what the plan to sneak in is too.”

Recollections: Magnanimous (Cancelled)

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"Any idea what the bloody hell that thing is Mr. Magic? You've had to have something to do with it. Anything else we should know about your exploits, before whatever that is kills us all!"

Georgie

Oscar grimaced, looking at the woman (if that was what she was) outside. He had no clue what she was, and it was something that pained him to admit. “I don’t know, whatever this is has nothing to do with what I’ve been doing. I’ve had no contact outside of those two!”

He understood his sister’s annoyance, he really did. But he had a feeling something like this would have happened one way or another no matter what he did. At least he wasn’t sitting on his ass letting the world go by, unable to figure out a way to not turn to stone after leaving Araminta. He was trying to help.

He was relieved when whatever it was disappeared in a dramatic flash of lightning, and everyone started to return to the dining room. He moved of to the side, arms folded to listen to what Justin had to say - but not

Tuyen looked an absolute mess by the time she made her way to the dining room. Her clothes were once again soaked through, dress clinging to her body and her tights laddered beyond use. She was glad for the thicker jacket she had, sodden but not entirely freezing, and her decision to wear darker clothes. It didn’t stop her from shivering. She felt like absolute shit, teeth gritted through the pain as her hands glowed blue to heal the scrapes received from being thrown down a hallway.

She wished this healing abstraction of hers would go a little faster.

Not exactly a great impression, nor had the first one been good anyway. Still, she spoke quietly after Justin introduced himself. “And I’m Tuyen Doan. Also the real one, nice to meet you.”

Then she went back to silence, standing at Justin’s side and trying to listen.

Oscar considered what Justin had to say with a frown. He was sure there were plenty of people out there who might have a grudge on their father that would then pass onto them… But he didn’t have any direct knowledge of them, beyond what Sabrina had already brought up. It was true that it couldn’t be anyone that wanted them dead, the curse seemed focused on bringing them all into one place.

But why?

He pondered it silently, deciding not to speak up for now. He knew that he would be under a lot of fire from the rest of the family considering what had happened… and he’d rather think in peace.

“It could be someone from our family,” Trisha spoke up, disdain clear in her tone. She was already annoyed about all that had gone on, and to still have to go through this meeting? She just wanted shit sorted. “Father had plenty of children we didn’t know about before now,” she glanced at Alexander, “maybe one of them decided to curse us all? Or a vengeful ex-wife? He definitely has plenty of those.”

Not mentioning that her mother was one of those, but Trisha had enough contact with her mother (a single phonecall) recently to know she didn’t have any Extra-normal knowledge.

She rolled her eyes. “Nobody particular comes to mind, but he must have had plenty of enemies.”

Recollections: Magnanimous (Cancelled)

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Tuyen did not appreciate almost getting a fireball to the face, the intense heat causing her to wince as she took steps backwards. Her shadow curled around her legs tauntingly, jabbing at her for being too weak to do anything, just letting them step all over her. What was she supposed to do? She couldn’t take them just by herself.

Even when one took a knife to the chest.

She stumbled as what felt like an earthquake hit the building, hand flinging out against a wall to support herself. What the fuck? Did this part of America have earthquakes? She had a feeling there was something more to it…

"Daniel! Water cannon!"

Penelope

Tuyen didn’t have time to consider what that could be before a powerful wave was surging towards her. In the split second she had she threw her arms up and behind her head, curling it down towards her chest. She could heal most damage, but didn’t want to risk hitting her head.

And there was nothing to support herself with - she didn’t think even her shadow could manage that (not that it wanted to anyway).

Tuyen gritted her teeth as the water slammed into her, knocking her off her feet and sweeping her down the hallway. She managed to keep her head protected and above the water, breathing ragged and short, even as she was slammed into the wall at the bottom of the hall. Intense pain ran through her body, eyes squeezing shut as she was left unable to move with the water coming relentlessly and keeping her pinned in place.

The pain doubled as a lotus on her wrist glowed bright white, blue light engulfing her hands and back which had taken the brunt of the damage from being thrown against the wall. The combination of the sharp pain from her second abstraction’s healing and the constant wave of water left her essentially unable to do anything for now.

Useless.

Recollections: The Coven [COMPLETED]

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Maya had pretty much managed to avoid all of the action.

For once in her life she’d actually listened to what was essentially an order - unlike the others, Maya knew that she couldn’t help with the whole Anabelle situation. So she drove away when Lyss showed no signs of actually coming over to her. She hoped that they could handle it… and that they wouldn’t lose anyone else. She ignored the guilt she felt at that.

Only, she hadn’t gotten far in her car before being stopped by the many other abandoned cars littering the street. Great. Just great. Having to resort to going on foot was less than ideal.

It was by some miracle she didn’t get eaten, or completely deafened in the process of making sure she didn’t get eaten. And then by another miracle that she bumped into Trevor.

Which was how she ended up where she was now, approaching a fucking helicopter (only government agents had that kind of shit) with him, after almost falling on her ass from some kind of explosion (or earthquake?). She’d been pretty ready to just try book it out of the city but really, she didn’t want to abandon all of the coven in the end… and had no easy way out. A helicopter fixed that!

“Lyss, Madison!” she called out, letting out a sigh of relief upon seeing them still around. Especially after Lyss had decided to try and fight Anabelle (terrible decision in her mind). “Uh, glad to see you’re both alive.” She glanced at Lyss. “You look like shit.”

More quietly, she said, “... I guess I missed a lot.”

Recollections: Magnanimous (Cancelled)

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”Artifacts?” Tuyen repeated thoughtfully, head slightly tilted. “There’s a chance that one of those might be magical, and what they’re looking for. I would appreciate it if you took me there.”

Tuyen held back a frown as she spoke with a false confidence about her abilities that was getting gnawed away by a voice inside her head. She was nowhere near the expert that she was trying to be when it came to this kind of thing, most of her knowledge of apparitions and sealing of them coming from other members of their support group - and there was only so much you could learn from a stupid snapchat group chat. And if there were magical objects that wasn’t that? She had no clue how to even begin identifying that. But she had to pretend, at least.

It didn’t help that it was intimidating, for all her abstraction was powerful when not working against her, to be left with people who were essentially strangers. Especially when one hadn’t approved of Tuyen and Justin from the start.

Well, fake it till you make it, or something.

"The Irish girl used the secret passage. It'll behoove us to do the same, since the witches and their dogs went in the direction of the gallery."

Georgie

Tuyen followed Georgie’s finger to the secret door that someone else had opened, holding back her thoughts about rich people. Because of course they had a secret passage. Nevermind how the girl who pointed it out was talking.

”Let’s go that way then,” Tuyen nodded, not waiting for any confirmation before heading into the passage. She assumed that they would follow and show where the gallery itself was - or not, and she would wander around until she got lost. Thankfully the passage was easy to navigate and lead her out into another hallway.

And was met with the sight of a hellhound tearing down the corridor, towards two girls trying to make their way from one door to another. Fuck. Thankfully they made it to the other room- and she really didn’t want to face down a hellhound without the guarantee of her shadow helping.

But she couldn’t just stand back as she watched one of the girls (witches?) and hellhound went towards the very door the other two had run into. She glared at the shadow beside her, willing it into action - she wasn’t exhausted enough yet, when it had only been out for a short period of time before. What other option did she have but to beg it? Throw herself at them and hope?

She approached the four in the corridor as she silently pleaded with her shadow, even as it refused to listen. Fuck. She forced a smile and ignored it’s taunting, the constant whispers in her mind that she wasn’t good enough to be doing anything of this. She stuffed a hand in her coat pockets, pulling out a small notebook she carried around. Before she could second guess herself she threw it at the hellhound in the hopes that it would stop it from ramming into the door (an unlikely hope, but a hope nonetheless).

”Surely you’ve done enough property damage by now?”

She was going with what was likely her worst plan: get their attention on her and hope her shadow manifested to protect her, or just heal any damage if it didn’t.

Recollections: Magnanimous (Cancelled)

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Tuyen automatically recoiled from the massive wall of fire, even as her shadow reached out its claws towards the dog limping away. Before it could get far the intense heat started burning Tuyen’s hand. She bit out a curse, backing away from the fire. With her came the shadow, forced away from the fire and further injuring Tuyen. She could already feel the exhaustion that came with it being active like this but didn’t ask for it to go away - she just needed to get past that fire, and then maybe… she could chase after them.

“Justin, you-” Her eyes widened when Justin leapt into the fire, lips opening to call him an idiot because for all his fire powers he really shouldn’t just leapt into a fucking magical fire wall. She cut herself off before she could get any further because that would be really unprofessional and they were already on thin ice as “experts.”

Thankfully he ended up unharmed, and she let out a sigh of relief when she saw his hand explode into flame on the other side. If he had his abstraction back that meant she could rest a little bit. His was much more reliable than her own. He could handle going after the intruders. She’d do damage control here. She shook her head and shouted over the fire towards him (hoping it would get across), “Justin, I'll stay here and make sure nothing happens, you should go after them.”

She was fairly certain that was his plan anyway but... It was best to make sure.

Wouldn’t you agree, Oscar?”

Ezra

Oscar was shocked out of the static state he’d been in, staring after the hellhounds with a gaze sparked with curiosity. Oh how we wanted to know just how they worked. Where did they come from? But he turned his attention to Ezra and then the raging fire that another brother was ripping up the house to put it out. He gave a somewhat lazy smile.
“I’ve got it.”

Thankfully even with the fire there was still a lot of residual water around, in his siblings clothing and beginning to evaporate in the air. He narrowed his eyes as he drew all the water towards himself, before beginning to splash it on the fire. It was much faster going than the earth slabs being put over it and much less damaging.

While the fire was being put out, Tuyen took a moment to collect herself. The shadow disappeared from everyone else’s view, returning to something closer to normal to her. She wanted to go after the group with Justin now that there was a path, but she was already drained enough.

“Mr Vanburen,” she said as she approached Ezra, who was clearly the one in charge. She smiled politely at him, and then nodded to Alexander. “My, uh, partner should try to go after them. I take it you haven’t seen these,” she paused, trying to come up with the right words, “invaders before? Do you have any idea what they might be after?”

She assumed the answer would be no. She turned her head to where the fire was being put out. They would be able to get through soon enough. Though she was defenceless now that her shadow had gone dormant and wasn’t confident she could convince it to help her again. Thankfully she was good at not letting any of these worries show, her smile that didn’t reach her eyes well practiced.

“Anywhere they might go within this manor?”

Recollections: Magnanimous (Cancelled)

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Before Tuyen even got a chance to step out a door, or respond to Ezra’s comments about proving themselves (which didn’t have her anxiety shoot up at all), a massive beast crashed through the wall.

One minute she was preparing to go deal with whatever it was, the next she was choking on a cloud of debris and narrowly avoiding getting hit by it. The dust that had come off it clung to her wet clothes and hair, which she was seriously regretting not tying back when wet strands hit her face. Fuck.

This situation just kept getting worse.

She didn’t give herself time to think, because thinking alway led her mind down dark paths that had her confidence wavering. The dust cloud obscured her vision, but not enough that she couldn’t make out the massive figure of the hellhound. She doubted there wouldn’t be more- but that was their immediate problem.

She glanced at Justin, who was positioning himself with a chair leg. She didn’t know what the Vanburen’s could do so… she was probably the only one with an abstraction that could at least reach the size of this thing.

We just have to show that thing that we’re scarier than it, yeah?

She directed her thoughts towards the Shadow as if it would listen to her, or entirely understand. But she was beginning to get better at… manipulating it as it did her, even if she didn’t have complete control over it.

Can’t have something else scaring me more.

Tuyen stepped forward towards the hellhound that had crashed through the wall as her shadow grew in size until it was the same height, if not a bit taller, as the creature. It took on a monstrous form, crouched over with shadowed spikes running down its back and long claws. Once in reach it swiped at the hellhound, aiming to rake its claws across its face.

Recollections: Magnanimous (Cancelled)

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Everything went to shit a lot faster than Oscar had expected it to. He barely had time to slam his hand up, bookmark glowing red in his pocket to part that water that came directly towards him. He cursed under his breath, even as he watched in something close to awe when the two imposters transformed. He wanted so desperately to know how that worked. His mind was only half on the scene unfolding in front of them as he quickly latched onto considering the new magic.

Tuyen was knocked back by the wave of water, slamming against the wall with a hiss. She’d just bought this dress for the occasion! She wasn’t exactly made out of money like this family was! Her mind quickly moved past this, pushing herself up to her feet. This was not good. Water meant that Justin couldn’t use his abstraction. Which put them in a tight spot, seeing as she had no idea how much help any of the Vanburen’s would be. Or her for that matter.

“There’s more of them down the hall! She let them in with a portal in the bathroom. They must be using some sort of cloaking spell so that I couldn’t see them, but I know they’re here.”

Arabelle

More of them? That was great. Typical. Tuyen tried to push down the anxiety crashing into her mind, the shadows flickering in the corners of her vision. Why could it never go well for them? Nevermind that one of the Vanburen’s themselves was brandishing a knife at all of them and seemed to include Tuyen and Justin in the two he wanted out.

“I don’t think he’s going anywhere,” Oscar commented, eyebrow raised as he witnessed the sheer efficiency with which Alexander wrapped the imposter in chains. Even so he manipulated the water that soaked everything around them, drawing it out so it floated over his hand. “It would be better to speak before I treat you to a taste of what you did to us.”

“Or they could just leave!” Trisha spoke up from where she was pressed against the wall, laptop back hugged to her chest like it was a lifeline and a particularly vicious scowl on her lips. If her laptop, the only thing that let her use her stupid abstraction, was broken because of this? There would be hell to pay. “Ezra said to get out, so we should just throw him out.”

As if she was ever one to follow the orders of their eldest brother unless they benefited them.

Oscar opened his mouth to comment that there were other intruders to worry about- when right on queue a demonic scream ripped through the mansion.

Tuyen shuddered at that. The man they’d caught in here seemed subdued enough but whatever they’d just heard? She was quite certain it was coming for them.

“Justin,” she said quietly, taking a step towards her friend. “You can handle him, right?” She nodded towards the chained man. She continued, loud enough for the rest to hear. “I’ll go towards whatever that was.”

She then glared at her side. To the others, it looked like she was staring down with an empty space. Internally Tuyen was battling with the shadow that slunk around her. She needed it to work with her for once. Even if this was a terrible idea, it would be worse if whatever could sound like that got into a room full of people. She would make this work. She was not going to let her abstraction refuse to do what she wanted it do, after all the times it had before.

Tuyen let out a visible sigh of relief when The Shadow physically manifested, a solid but inky black version of herself coming into view beside her. She took quick steps towards the dining room entrance, shadow clinging to her each step of the way and eerily flickering towards more monstrous (but still small) versions of her. She stopped when she reached Ezra, where he stood with a glowing orange knife.

“If you would let me past. Unless you want whatever that was to come in here.” She spoke with a confidence she very much didn’t feel, but was doing a good job of pretending.

As soon as the demonic cry had been heard, Trisha had pulled out her laptop and knelt down with it. Thankfully the water didn’t seem to have damagic it (probably because of the spirit or whatever inside of it), and it booted just as fast as normal. Which wasn’t as fast as she’d liked. She muttered at it as it finally turned on, pulling up her programs and hurriedly typing away. It wasn’t difficult when she already had the base code written, and what she needed was simple: to look and see what it was. She hit run and after a painful few moments hoping it wouldn’t error out, a single tiny blob like creature appeared beside her. It instantly ran out the door, past Tuyen and under Ezra legs, and out towards where the scream had been heard.